“Will you come and hear what the man's saying?”
“What's he saying?”
“Will you hear for yourself?”
Pete looked hard at Cæsar, looked again, then caught up his cap and went out at the door.
VI.
With two of his cronies the man had spent the day in a room overlooking the harbour, drinking hard and playing billiards. Early in the afternoon a messenger had come from Ballawhaine, saying, “Your father is ill—come home immediately.” “By-and-bye,” he had said, and gone on with the game.
Later in the afternoon the messenger had come again, saying, “Your father has had a stroke of paralysis, and he is calling for you.” “Let me finish the break first,” he had replied.
In the evening the messenger had come a third time, saying, “Your father is unconscious.” “Where's the hurry, then?” he had answered, and he sang a stave of the “Miller's Daughter”—
“They married me against my will,
When I was daughter at the mill.”