“Sartinly, Captain, and will have an eye about me, into the bargain. How is Captain Phil, sir, before I go?”
M'Clutchy made a motion of indignation, but could not, in the meantime, altogether repress a smile; and Darby, taking his hat with a kind of shrewd and confidential grin, ran out of the office.
Our narrative now passes to the house of Poll Doolin, which was situated in a row of cottages towards the north side of Castle Cumber. Her son Raymond and she were its only inmates, and the former was in the act of replacing a hat among the tria juncta in uno, which he always wore.
“Raymond,” said his mother, “now that you've got your supper, you must keep house till I come back.”
“Must I indeed?—-why must I? answer me that, there now, that's one.”
“Becase I'm goin' out on business.”
“What business?—where to?—what brought Phil M'Clutchy here yestherday?—tell me that—eh?”
“Oh, I couldn't tell you that, Raymond.”
“Don't do anything for Phil, he's Val's son, that keeps the blood-hounds. Ah, poor Brian, and his white head—no', he'll never waken—never waken—an' what has she now to look at! Mother, I'd give all the cocks I ever had to see him and his white head in his mother's arms again—God's curse on Val! God's curse on him! I hate him—I hate Phil—I hate all of them—don't mother; do nothing for them.”
“You foolish boy, what do you know about it?—keep the house till I come back, and I'll bring you a pennyworth of tobaccy?”