“I'm not partic'lar at all,” said the fisherman cheerily. “The mack'rel's been doing middling this season, anyway.”
And then in his simple way he went on to paint home, and the joy of coming back to it, with the new baby, and the mother in child-bed, and the grandmother as housekeeper, and the other children waiting for new frocks and new jackets out of the earnings of the fishing, and himself going round to pay the grocer what had been put on “strap” while he was at Kin-sale, till Pete was melted, and could listen no longer.
“I'm persuaded still she wasn't well when she went away,” he whispered, turning his shoulder to the men and his face to Philip. He talked in a low voice, just above the rumble of the wheels, trying to extenuate Kate's fault and to excuse her to Philip.
“It's no use thinking hard of anybody, is it, sir?” he said. “We can't crawl into another person's soul, as the saying is.”
After that he asked many questions—about Kate's illness, about the doctor, about the funeral, about everything except the man—of him he asked nothing. Philip was compelled to answer. He was like a prisoner chained at the galleys—he was forced to go on. They crossed the bridge over the top of Ballaglass, which goes down to the mill at Cornaa.
“There's the glen, sir,” said Pete. “Aw, the dear ould days! Wading in the water, leaping over the stones, clambering on the trunks—aw, dear! aw, dear! Bareheaded and barefooted in those times, sir; but smart extraordinary, and a terble notion of being dressy, too. Twisting ferns about her lil neck for lace, sticking a mountain thistle, sparkling with dew, on her breast for a diamond, twining a trail of fuchsia round her head for a crown—aw, dear! aw, dear! And now—well, well, to think! to think!”
There was laughter on the other side of the coach.
“What do you say, Capt'n Pete?” shouted Crow.
“What's that?” asked Pete.
The fisherman had treated the driver and the farmer at the Hibernian, and was being rewarded with robustious chaff.