After a stay of some time he left the "Blue Anchor" with nothing added to his store of facts or surmises. During the time he had sat there and smoked his cigar, he had heard much of what he knew repeated over and over again, with the wearying garrulity of those into whose lives few events of varied interest enter.
The storm was raging still abroad, although the violence of the wind had considerably abated. The sky was now strewn with shattered, rugged clouds, wreckage of the gale. Here and there groups of pale stars shone out in the dull sky. The night was not dark. No moon shone, but a pale blue radiance filled the clefts and chasms between the clouds, and fringed their rugged edges with hues of dull steel.
By this time the tide was falling. The sea, even in the bay, had been lashed into fury, and was breaking in sheets over the Storm Wall, under the partial shelter of which O'Brien walked towards the "Strand Hotel."
He kept his head bent low, in order to avoid the flying spray. On his right was the Storm Wall, with the bay beyond. On the left the village, with its few scattered lights. Kilcash Bay made an irregular shallow bow on the innermost side, and along this bow from one end to the other of it the village was built. As became a house of such importance as the "Blue Anchor," it stood near the middle of the bow, not on the main road, but on a little narrow road running at right angles to the Storm Wall, and on which were very few houses. At the end of this by-road, and to the right facing the sea, lay the cottages of the village. These were owned chiefly by fishermen, and were let to visitors in the summer, while the families of the fishermen retired to some other shelter, situate visitors never knew exactly where. To the left stood the more ambitious half of the village. Here were the few shops and two-storey houses it contained. At the further end of this left-hand half stood the "Strand Hotel," the most imposing-looking house in the place, and the point towards which Jerry O'Brien was now making his way in the lee of the wave-beaten wall.
O'Brien did not look at his watch before leaving the "Blue Anchor," but he knew it was about nine o'clock. At such an hour, in such a season of the year, the village was usually plunged in darkness, except for the lights in the one hotel and the one public-house. The few shops were never in the winter open after seven, and not ten in a hundred of the inhabitants were out of bed at nine o'clock. But owing to the story which Jim Phelan had brought back from the downs that day, this was not considered an ordinary night, and there were more lights than usual twinkling in the houses still.
But as O'Brien forged his way laboriously forward, under the protection afforded by the wall, he became aware that one of the shops was not only open, but doing business too, at this advanced hour of night.
Between O'Brien and the shop were a broad road and a little garden--for all the houses and cottages, including those with shops, had gardens in front.
O'Brien's mind was not busy at the moment, and out of idleness, rather than curiosity, he kept his eyes on the open door of the shop as he drew near and passed it.
Before he had gone beyond the point at which he could command a view of it without turning his head back inconveniently, some one came out of the shop, the door closed, and all was dark.
Here a severe gust of wind almost carried off O'Brien's hat, and he paused a moment to pull it down over his brows, and wait until the spray of a wave, which had just climbed the wall and sprung over it, fell on the road in front. Partly to shield his face from the wind, and partly out of a desire to try and make out what kind of being had the daring to come with custom to M'Grath's at such an unusual hour, he kept his face turned inland, and looked at the figure which had emerged from the shop. The form was that of a man--a man of the average, or perhaps slightly over the average height--bulky, or, rather, bulged--no, not bulky, but bulged--irregular--stooped, stooped as though he carried a bundle, or was very old, or was a hunchback. The man was going on at a quick pace in the direction of the hotel.