“Tremenjous grand the ould man's house is—you wouldn't believe. A reg'lar Dempster's palace. The grandeur on it is a show and a pattern. Plenty to ate, plenty to drink, and a boy at the door with white buttons dotting on his brown coat, bless you like—like a turnip-field in winter. Then the man himself; goodness me, the happy that man is—Happy Joe they're calling him. Wouldn't trust but he'll be taking Kate to a theaytre. Well, and why not, if a person's down a bit? A merry touch and go—where's the harm at all? Fact is, Grannie, that's why we couldn't tell you Kate was going. Cæsar would have been objecting. He's fit enough for it—ha, ha, ha!”
Grannie looked up at Pete as he laughed, and the broad rose withered on his face.
“H'm! h'm!” he said, clearing his throat; “I'm bad dreadful wanting a smook.” And past the dinner-table, now smoking and ready, he slithered out of the house.
Cæsar was Pete's next visitor. He said nothing of Kate, and neither did Pete mention Uncle Joe. The interview was a brief and grim one. It was a lie that Ross Christian had been sent by his father to ask for a loan, but it was true that Peter Christian was in urgent need of money. He wanted six thousand pounds as mortgage on Ballawhaine. Had Pete got so much to lend? No need for personal intercourse; Cæsar would act as intermediary.
Pete took only a moment for consideration. Yes, he had got the money, and he would lend it. Cæsar looked at Pete; Pete looked at Cæsar. “He's talking all this rubbish,” thought Cæsar, “but he knows where the girl has gone to. He knows who's taken her; he manes to kick the rascal out of his own house neck and crop; and right enough, too, and the Lord's own vengeance.”
But Pete's thoughts were another matter. “The ould man won't live to redeem it, and the young one will never try—it'll do for Philip some day.”
II.
For three days Pete bore himself according to his wont, thinking to silence the evil tongues of the little world about him, and keep sweet and alive the dear name which they were waiting to befoul and destroy. By Tuesday morning the strain had become unbearable. On pretences of business, of pleasure, of God knows what folly and nonsense, he began to scour the island. He visited every parish on the north, passed through every village, climbed every glen, found his way into every out-of-the-way hut, and scraped acquaintance with every old woman living alone. Sometimes he was up in the vague fore-dawn, creeping through the quiet streets like a thief, going silently, stealthily, warily, until he came to the roads, or the fields, or the open Curragh, and could give swing to his step, and breath to his lungs, and voice to the cries that hurst from him.
Two long weeks he spent in this wild quest, and meanwhile he was as happy as a boy to all outward seeming—whistling, laughing, chaffing, bawling, talking nonsense, any nonsense, and kicking up his heels like a kid. But wheresoever he went, and howsoever early he started on his errands, he never failed to be back at home at seven o'clock in the evening—washed, combed, in his slippers and shirt-sleeves, smoking a long clay over the garden gate as the postman went by with the letters.