“Good-day,” answered the man without lifting his head or looking at the speaker.
“Will ye take the waggon nearer the boat, or will we carry up the bundles to here?” asked Jim, blowing a puff of white smoke into the air.
“Carry them up, of course,” said the farmer, still busy with his clasp-knife.
Jim set his squad to work, and soon the waggon was loaded with bundles of clothes, frying-pans, tea-caddies, tins, bowls, and other articles necessary for the workers during the coming months. In addition to the stores taken from Ireland by the potato-diggers the merchant supplied them with blankets, an open stove, and a pot for boiling potatoes. It was now raining heavily; the drops splashed loudly on the streets, ran down the faces and soaked through the clothes of the workers. The rain struck heavily against the waggon; a hot steam rose from the withers of the cart-horse; the pier was almost deserted and everything looked lonesome and gloomy.
So far the farmer had taken very little notice of anybody; but now, having observed Norah Ryan, he shouted: “Ye have a fine leg, lassie!” and afterwards, while the cart was being loaded, he kept repeating this phrase and chuckling deep down in his throat. Whenever he made the remark he looked at the girl, and Norah felt uncomfortable and blushed every time he spoke.
Dermod Flynn, who had taken a sudden dislike to the man with the bulbous nose, now felt sorry for Norah and angry with the man. At last, unable to restrain his passion any longer, he stepped up to the side of the waggon and looked straight in the face of the farmer, who was packing the blankets in one corner of the vehicle, and shouted: “Here, Red Nose, don’t try and make fun of yer betters!” The farmer straightened himself up, rested his thumb on his jaw and pulled a long black finger through his beard.
“All right,” he said at last, and did not speak another word to anybody else that day.
Dermod, who had looked for an outburst, felt frightened when the farmer became silent.
“Jim, what’s wrong with that man?” he asked his ganger when the cart started on its journey home with the farmer sitting in front, waving his whip vigorously, but refraining from hitting the horse.
“He’s mad,” said Jim in a whisper.