“I knew it!” cried Nancy. “That's what she hurried me out for. Aw, dear! Aw, dear! What for did you lave her with that man this morning?”
“Do you hear me, woman?” said Pete; “say nothing to nobody. My heart's lying heavy enough already. Open your lips, and you'll kill me straight.”
Then he went out of the house, staggering, stumbling, bent almost double. His hat lay on the floor; he had gone bareheaded.
He turned towards Sulby. “She's there,” he thought “Where else should she be? The poor, wandering lamb wants home.”
XVII.
The bar-room of “The Manx Fairy” was full of gossips 'that night, and the puffing of many pipes was suspended at a story that Mr. Jelly was telling.
“Strange enough, I'm thinking. 'Deed, but it's mortal strange. Talk about tale-books—there's nothing in the 'Pilgrim's Progress' itself to equal it. The son of one son coming home Dempster, with processions and bands of music, at the very minute the son of the other son is getting kicked out of the house same as a dog.”
“Strange uncommon,” said John the Widow, and other voices echoed him.
Jonaique looked round the room, expecting some one to question him. As nobody did so, except with looks of inquiry, he said, “My ould man heard it all. He's been tailor at the big house since the time of Iron Christian himself.”