She pushed it away peevishly. “What's the use of a thing like that?” she said.
Pete haunted the house day and night. There was no bed for him there, and he was supposed to go home to sleep. But he wandered away in the darkness over the Curragh to the shore, and in the grey of morning he was at the door again, bringing the cold breath of the dawn into the house with the long whisper round the door ajar. “How's she going on now?”
The women bundled him out bodily, and then he hung about the roads like a dog disowned. If he heard a sigh from the dairy loft, he sat down against the gable and groaned. Grannie tried to comfort him. “Don't be taking on so, boy. It'll be all joy soon,” said she, “and you'll be having the child to shew for it.”
But Pete was bitter and rebellious. “Who's wanting the child anyway?” said he. “It's only herself I'm wanting; and she's laving me; O Lord, she's laving me. God forgive me!” he muttered. “O good God, forgive me!” he groaned: “It isn't fair, though. Lord knows it isn't fair,” he mumbled hoarsely.
At last Nancy Joe came out and took him in hand in earnest.
“Look here, Pete,” she said. “If you're wanting to kill the woman, and middling quick too, you'll go on the way you're going. But if you don't, you'll be taking to the road, and you won't be coming back till you're wanted.”
This settled Pete's restlessness. The fishing had begun early that season, and he went off for a night to the herrings.
Kate waited long, and the women watched her with trembling. “It's a week or two early,” said one. “The weather's warm,” said another. “The boghee millish! She's a bit soon,” said Grannie.
There was less of fear in Kate's own feelings.
“Do women often die?” she asked.