"Well, woman, what does scandal say?" asked Thorkell; and his voice had a curious lilt, and his mouth wore a strange smile.
"It says—I'm afraid, Thorkell, the poor girl is no better than she ought to be."
Thorkell snorted, and then laughed in his throat like a frisky gelding.
"I thought she looked like a lively young puffin," he said, and then trotted on in front, his head rolling between his shoulders, and his eyes down. After going a few yards further he slackened speed again.
"Lives near Peeltown, you say—a net-maker—Mally—is it Mally Kerruish?"
Thorkell's wife answered with a nod of the head, and then her husband faced about, and troubled her with no further conversation until he drew up at the church door, and said, "Quick, woman, quick, and mind you shut the pew door after you."
But "God remembered Rachel and hearkened to her," and then, for the first time, the wife of Thorkell Mylrea began to show a cheerful countenance. Thorkell's own elevation of spirits was yet more noticeable. He had heretofore showed no discontent with the old homestead that had housed his people for six generations, but he now began to build another and much larger house on the rising ground at the foot of Slieu Dhoo. His habits underwent some swift and various changes. He gave away no gray blankets that winter, the itinerant poor who were "on the houses" often went empty from his door, and—most appalling change of all—he promptly stopped his tithe. When the parson's cart drove up to Ballamona, Thorkell turned the horse's head, and gave the flank a sharp cut with his whip. The parson came in white with wrath.
"Let every pig dig for herself," said Thorkell. "I'll daub grease on the rump of your fat pig no more."
Thorkell's new homestead rose rapidly, and when the walls were ready for the roof the masons and carpenters went up to Ballamona for the customary feast of cowree and jough and binjean.
"What! Is it true, then, as the saying is," Thorkell exclaimed at the sight of them, "that when the sport is the merriest it is time to give up?"