"Ye're not doubtin' that I have the change?" pleaded Bennet, digging his hands deeply into his pocket, as if to prove his statement.
"More's the pity, then, fer it should be at home with yer wife, who'd know how to keep it."
"Ye're very hard on me," he whined, edging up the steps.
"Ye may thank yer stars I'm no harder," threatened the unyielding Nancy.
"I tell ye, Mrs. McVeigh, I'm burnin' with thirst, and I'm goin' to have only one."
"Ye're not, sor."
"I will, ye old shrew! Out o' my way!" he exclaimed, with an ugly showing of temper, and moved as if to force an entrance. But Nancy McVeigh had learned life from the standpoint of a man, and, reaching forward, she sent him tottering from the verandah. Nor did she hesitate to follow up her advantage. With masculine swiftness and strength she seized him by the collar, and in a trice had him head downwards in the horse-trough.
"Now will ye go home, ye vagabond?" she exclaimed, with grim certainty of her power. The man spluttered and wriggled ineffectually for a few minutes, and then called "Enough!"
"Off with ye," she said, releasing him, but with a menace in her tones which suggested that to disobey would mean a second ducking. The drunken coward climbed into his buggy, muttering imprecations on the head of the obdurate hostess of the tavern as he did so. But he had no stomach for further resistance. Mr. Conors and Mr. O'Hagan had been interested spectators, and now came forward to untie their own horses, laughing loudly at the discomfiture of Bennet as they did so.
In the quiet of the early evening, when the modest list of boarders had eaten of the fare which the tavern provided, with small consideration of the profits to be made, Mrs. McVeigh put on her widow's bonnet, and a shawl over her gaunt shoulders, and, leaving a parting injunction to old Donald to tend to the bar during her absence, she set off down the road to the Bennets'. The night was setting in darkly and suggestive of rain, and the way was lonely enough to strike fear into the heart, but the old tavern-keeper apparently had no nerves or imagination, so confidently did she pursue her intention to see how fared the sick wife of her troublesome customer of the afternoon.