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More than two hours later Mrs. Hugh Lennon came hurrying in at the Mackay’s back-door. By this time it was dark night outside, and she found only Mrs. Mackay in the kitchen, for himself and the children had gone to bed.
“Where in the world have you been all the evening?” Mrs. Mackay inquired, with some indignation. “Leaving me with nobody to give me a hand with the childer or anything, and keeping me now waiting up till every hour of the night.”
“Quin’s rick’s burnt down,” burst out Mrs. Hugh, who evidently had not heard a word of her sister’s remonstrance. She looked excited and exultant; her hair was roughened by the wind, and her skirts were bedraggled with a heavy dew brushed off tussocks and furze bushes. Mrs. Mackay eyed her with a start of vague suspicion.
“And who did you get that news from,” she said, “supposing it’s true?”
“Amn’t I after seeing it with me own eyes?” triumphed Mrs. Hugh. “Watching it blazing this long while down below there by Connolly’s fence. First of all I thought it was only the old moon rising, that would do us no good; but sure not at all, glory be! Burnt down to the ground it is, every grain of it; and serve them very right.”
“What took you trapesing off down there, might I ask?” inquired Mrs. Mackay, her scrutiny of her sister growing more mistrustful.
“Is it what took me?” said Mrs. Hugh. “I dunno rightly. Och, let me see; about getting some mushrooms I was, I believe, and blackberries.”
“A likely time of night it was to be looking for such things,” said Mrs. Mackay, “and a dale of them you got.”
“There isn’t a one in it; all of them’s as red as coals of fire yet, or else as green as grass—sure, what matter?” said Mrs. Hugh. “Anyway, I was took up with watching the baste of an old rick flaring itself into flitters; and a rale good job.”