"Why, yes, Malachi, I suppose I have."
"Have you got a cat at your home?"
"Yes, my stepmother has a cat."
"Well, you watch it the next time it dozes, then you'll learn once and forever how a cat sleeps, with one eye half open, never more, never less. Well that eye is on, we'll call it the alert, for mice or birds or any kind of prey. I was lying like the cat, with my one eye open, when I saw you come along. Soon, from being half opened, it was whole opened, and the other eye was opened, too, and I saw ye sticking in the pins. So ye can't get out of it, Tilly Raynes from England. Very badly ye did your job, very badly, entirely, but when ye left the stables, I crept out all choking with laughter and I thought I'd punish ye after all. I took out nine of the pins altogether, for one properly managed could do the job better than your ten, anyhow. Then I palavered ye a bit and got ye to ride on Starlight. I meant it as a punishment and the punishment will end when ye have confessed the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to The Desmond and made him a present of the ten pins. You thought you'd kill his pushkeen because you were mad with jealousy. Well, now you have just got to do what I say and no bones about it whatsomdever!"
"Oh, Malachi, oh, Malachi, I can't."
"But I say ye can! I'll keep the pins till the minute arrives, and as ye won't mount Starlight, I must walk the two horses home. We are a good bit out and we'd best start at once. You keep in front of me, for I'm not going to lose sight of ye, not for a moment. Now, then, Till Raynes of England, march is the word!"
It was a very miserable, draggled little girl, with a white face considerably scratched from her fall, who arrived at Desmondstown just as the stable clock struck one. Malachi gave the horses over to his own special groom and followed Tilly to her bedroom.
"I'll be standing outside the door waiting for you," he said. "Go in and take off the habit and wash that scratch off your face, for it ain't pretty, to say the least of it."
"Oh, but please, I don't want any lunch," said Tilly.