CHAPTER XIV

Thomas Antony Kinsella sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the

quay. Beneath him lay his boat. The tide was flowing, but it had not yet

floated her. She was supported on an even keel by the mooring ropes made

fast from her bow and stern to bollards on the quay. Her sails and

gear lay in confusion on her thwarts. She was still half full of gravel

although some of her cargo had been shovelled out and lay in a heap

behind Kinsella. He was apparently disinclined to shovel out the rest,

an excusable laziness, for the day was very hot.

With the point of a knife Kinsella scraped the charred ash from the bowl

of his pipe. Then he cut several thin slices from a plug of black twist

tobacco, rolled them slowly between the palm of one hand and the thumb

of the other; spat thoughtfully over the side of the quay into his boat,

charged his pipe and put it into his mouth. There he held it for some

minutes while he stared glassily at the top of his boat’s mast. He spat

again and then drew a match from his waistcoat pocket.

Sergeant Rafferty of the Royal Irish Constabulary strolled quietly along

the quay. It was his duty to stroll somewhere every day in order

to intimidate malefactors. He found the quay on the whole a more

interesting place than any of the country roads round the town, so he

often chose it for the scene of what his official regulations described

as a “patrol.” When he reached Kinsella he stopped.

“Good day to you,” he said.

Kinsella, without looking round, struck his match on a stone beside him

and lit his pipe. He sucked in three draughts of smoke, spat again and

then acknowledged the sergeant’s greeting.

“It’s a fine day,” said the sergeant

“It is,” said Kinsella, “thanks be to God.”

The sergeant stirred the pile of gravel on the quay thoughtfully with

his foot. Then, peering over Kinsella’s shoulder, he took a look at the

gravel which still remained in the boat.

“Tell me this, now, Joseph Antony,” he said. “Who might that gravel

be for? It’s the third day you’re after bringing in a load and there’s

ne’er a cart’s been down for it yet?”

“I couldn’t say who it might be for.”

“Do you tell me that now? And who’s to pay you for it?”

“Sweeny ‘ll pay for it,” said Kinsella. “It was him ordered it.”

The sergeant stirred the gravel again with his foot Timothy Sweeny was a

publican who kept a small shop in one of the back streets of Rosnacree.

He was known to the sergeant, but was not regarded with favour. There

is a way into Sweeny’s house through a back-yard which is reached by

climbing a wall. Sweeny’s front door was always shut on Sundays and

his shutters were put up during those hours when the law regards the

consumption of alcohol as undesirable. But the sergeant had good reason

to suppose that many thirsty people found their way to the refreshment

they craved through the back-yard. Sweeny was an object of suspicion

and dislike to the sergeant. Therefore he stirred the gravel on the

quay again and again looked at the gravel in the boat. There is no law

against buying gravel; but it seemed to the sergeant very difficult

to believe that Sweeny had bought four boatloads of it. Joseph Antony

Kinsella felt that some explanation was due to the sergeant.

“It’s a gentleman up the country,” he said, “that Sweeny’s buying the

gravel for. I did hear that he’s to send it by rail when I have the

whole of it landed.”

He watched the sergeant out of the corners of his eyes to see how he

would receive this statement. The sergeant did not seem to be altogether

satisfied.

“What are you getting for it?” he asked.

“Five shillings a load.”

“You’re doing well,” said the sergeant.

“It’s good gravel, so it is, the best.”

“It may be good gravel,” said the sergeant, “but the gentleman that’s

buying it will buy it dear if you take the half of every load you bring

in home in the evening and fetch it here again the next morning along

with a little more.”

The sergeant stared at the gravel in the boat as he spoke. His face had

cleared, and the look of suspicion had left his eyes. Sweeny, so his

instinct told him, must be engaged in some kind of wrongdoing.

Now he understood what it was. The gentleman up the country was to be

defrauded of half the gravel he paid for. Curiously enough, considering

that his wrongdoing had been detected, the look of anxiety left

Kinsella’s face. He sucked at his pipe, found that it had gone out, and

slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.

“If neither Sweeny nor the gentleman is making any complaint,” he said,

“it would suit you to keep your mouth shut.”

“I’m not blaming you,” said the sergeant “Sure, anybody’d do the same if

they got the chance.”

“If there’s people in the world,” said Kinsella, “that hasn’t sense

enough to see that they get what they pay for, oughtn’t we to be

thankful for it?”

“You’re right there,” said the sergeant

Kinsella took out his pipe and lit it again. Sergeant Rafferty after

examining the sea with attentive scrutiny for some minutes, strolled

back towards his barracks.

Peter Walsh slid off the window sill of Brannigan’s shop and took a long

look at the sky. Having satisfied himself that its appearance was

very much what he expected he walked down the quay to the place where

Kinsella was sitting.

“It’s a fine evening,” he said.

“It is,” said Kinsella, “as fine an evening as you’d see, thanks be to

God.”

Peter Walsh sat down beside his friend and spat into the boat beneath

him.

“I seen the sergeant talking to you,” he said.

“That same sergeant has mighty little to do,” said Kinsella.

“It’ll be as well for us if he hasn’t more one of these days.”

“What do you mean by that, Peter Walsh?”

“What might he have been talking to you about?”

“Gravel, no less.”

“Asking who it might be for or the like? Would you say, now, Joseph

Antony, that he was anyways uneasy in his mind?”

“He was uneasy,” said Kinsella, “but he’s easy now.”

“Did you tell him who the gravel was for?”

“Is it likely I’d tell him when I didn’t know myself? What I told him

was that Timothy Sweeny had the gravel bought off me at five shillings a

load and that it was likely he’d be sending it by rail to some gentleman

up the country that would have it ordered from him.”

“And what did he say to that?”

“What he as good as said was that Timothy Sweeny and myself would have

the gentleman cheated out of half the gravel he’d paid for by the time

he’d got the other half. There was a smile on his face like there might

be on a man, and him after a long drink, when he found out the way we

were getting the better of the gentleman up the country. Believe you me,

Peter Walsh, he wouldn’t have rested easy in his bed until he did find

out, either that or some other thing.”

“That sergeant is as cute as a pet fox,” said Peter Walsh. “You’d be

hard set to keep anything from him that he wanted to know.”

Kinsella sat for some minutes without speaking. Then he took a match

from his pocket and lit his pipe for the third time.

“I’d be glad,” he said, “if you’d tell me what it was you had in your

mind when you said a minute ago that the sergeant might maybe have more

to do than he’d care for one of these days.”

Peter Walsh looked carefully round him in every direction and satisfied

himself that there was no one within earshot.

“Was I telling you,” he said, “about the gentleman, and the lady along

with him that came in on the train today?”

“You were not.”

“Well, he came, and I’m thinking that he’s a high-up man.”

“What about him?”

“The sergeant was sent for up to the big house,” said Peter Walsh, “soon

after the strange gentleman came. I don’t know rightly what they wanted

with him. Sweeny was asking Constable Maloney after; but sure the boy

knew no more than I did myself.”

“It’s a curious thing,” said Kinsella, “so it is, damned curious.”

“Damned,” said Peter Walsh.

“I wouldn’t be sorry if the whole lot of them was drownded one of these

days.”

“I wouldn’t like anything would happen to the young lady.”

“Is it Priscilla? I wasn’t meaning her. But any way, Peter Walsh, you

know well the sea wouldn’t drown that one.”

“It would not, surely. Why would it?”

“What I had in my mind,” said Kinsella, “was the rest of them.”

He looked sadly at the sky and then out across the sea, which was

perfectly calm.

“But there’ll be no drowning,” he added with a sigh, “while the weather

holds the way it is.”

“There’s a feel in the air,” said Peter Walsh hopefully, “like as if

there might be thunder.”

A small boat, rowed by a boy, stole past them up the harbour. Neither of

the two men spoke until she reached the slip at the end of the quay.

“I’d be sorry,” said Kinsella, “if anything would happen to them two

that does be going about in Flanagan’s old boat. There’s no harm in them

barring the want of sense.”

“It would be as well for them to be kept off Inishbawn for all that.”

“They never offered to set foot on the island,” said Kinsella, “since

the day I told them that herself and the childer had the fever. The way

it is with them, they wouldn’t care where they’d be, one place being the

same to them as another, if they’d be let alone.”

“That’s what they will not be, then.”

“On account of Priscilla?”

“Her and the young fellow she has with her. They’re out hunting them two

that has Flanagan’s old boat the same as it might be some of the boys at

a coursing match and the hare in front of them. Such chasing you never

seen! It was up out of their beds they were this morning at six o’clock,

when you’d think the likes of them would be asleep.”

“I seen them,” said Kinsella.

“And the one of them is as bad as the other. You’d be hard put to it to

say whether it was Priscilla has put the comether on the young fellow or

him that had her druv’ on to be doing what it would be better for her to

leave alone.”

“Tell me this now, Peter Walsh, that young fellow is by the way of

having a sore leg on him, so they tell me. Would you say now but

that might be a trick the way it would put us off from suspecting any

mischief he might be up to?”

“I was thinking myself,” said Peter, “that he might be imposing on us;

but it’s my opinion now that the leg’s genuine. I followed them up last

night, unbeknown to them, to see would he get out of the perambulator

when he was clear of the town and nobody to notice him. But he kept in

it and she wheeled him up to the big house every step of the way.”

The evidence was conclusive and carried complete conviction to

Kinsella’s mind.

“What would be your own opinion,” said Peter Walsh, “about that one that

does be going about the bay in your own boat along with Jimmy?”

“I wouldn’t say there’d be much harm in her. Jimmy says it’s hard to

tell what she’d be after. He did think at the first go off that it might

be cockles; but it’s not, for he took her to Carribee strand, where

there’s plenty of them, and the devil a one she’d pick up. Nor it’s

not periwinkles. Nor dilishk, though they do say that the dilishk is

reckoned to be a cure for consumption, and you’d think it might be that.

But Jimmy says it’s not, for he offered her a bit yesterday and she

wouldn’t look at it.”

“I don’t know what else it could be,” said Peter Walsh.

“Nor I don’t know. But Jimmy says she doesn’t speak like one that would

be any ways in with the police.”

“She was in Brannigan’s last night, buying peppermint drops and every

kind of foolishness, the same as she might be a little girleen that was

given a penny and her just out of school.”

“If she hasn’t more sense at her time of life,” said Kinsella, “she

never will.”

“Seeing it’s that sort she is, I wouldn’t say we’d any need to be caring

where she goes so long as it isn’t to Inishbawn.”

“She’ll not go there,” said Kinsella, “for if she does I’ll flay the

skin of Jimmy’s back with the handle of a hay-rake, and well he knows

it.”

“If I was easy in my mind about the strange gentleman that’s up at the

big house----”

“It’s a curious thing, so it is, him sending for the sergeant the minute

he came.”

“Bedamn,” said Peter Walsh, “but it is.”

The extreme oddness of the strange gentleman’s conduct affected both

men profoundly. For fully five minutes they sat staring at the sea,

motionless, save when one or the other of them thrust his head forward

a little in order to spit. Kinsella at last got out his pipe, probed the

tobacco a little with the point of his knife so as to loosen it, pressed

it together again with his thumb, and then lit it.

“I wouldn’t mind the sergeant,” he said, “cute and all as he thinks

himself, I wouldn’t mind him. It’s the strange gentleman I’m thinking

of.”

The Tortoise stole round the end of the quay while he spoke. Kinsella

eyed her. He noticed at once that Priscilla was steering with an oar. In

his acutely suspicious mood every trifle was a matter for investigation.

“What’s wrong with her,” he said, “that she wouldn’t steer with the

rudder when she has one?”

“It might be,” said Peter Walsh, “that she’s lost it. You couldn’t tell

what the likes of her would do.”

“She was in trouble this morning when I seen her,” said Kinsella, “but

she had the rudder then.”

Priscilla hailed them from the boat

“Hullo, Peter!” she shouted. “Go down to the slip and be ready to take

the boat. Have you the bath chair ready?”

“I have, Miss. It’s there standing beside the slip where you left it

this morning. Who’d touch the like? What’s happened the rudder?”

“Iron’s broken,” said Priscilla, “and it must be mended tonight. I say,

Kinsella, Jimmy’s leg isn’t near as bad as you’d think it would be,

after having the horn of a wild bull run through it.”

“It wasn’t a bull at all, Miss, but a heifer.”

“I don’t see that it makes much difference which it was,” said

Priscilla.

“Do you hear that now?” said Kinsella to his friend in a whisper.

“Believe you me, Peter Walsh, it’s as good for the whole of us that

she’s not in the police.”

“What’s that you’re saying?” said Priscilla.

The boat, though the wind had almost left her sails, drifted up on

the rising tide and was already past the spot where the two men were

sitting. Peter Walsh got up and shouted his answer after her.

“Joseph Antony Kinsella,” he said, “is just after telling me that it’s

his belief that you’d make a grand sergeant of police.”

“It’s a good job for him that I’m not,” said Priscilla. “For the first

thing I’d do if I was would be to go out and see what it is he has going

on on Inishbawn.”

Peter Walsh, without unduly hurrying himself, arrived at the slip before

the Tortoise. Priscilla stepped ashore and handed him the rudder.

“Take that to the smith,” she said, “and tell him to put a new iron on

it this evening. We’ll want it again tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll tell him, Miss; but I wouldn’t say he’d do it for you.”

“He’d jolly well better,” said Priscilla.

“That same Patsy the smith,” said Peter Walsh, “has a terrible strong

hate in him for doing anything in a hurry whether it’s little or big.”

“Just you tell him from me,” said Priscilla, “that if I don’t get that

rudder properly settled when I want it tomorrow morning, I’ll go out to

Inishbawn, in spite of your rats and your heifers.”

Peter Walsh’s face remained perfectly impassive. Not even in his eyes

was there the smallest expression of surprise or uneasiness.

“What would be the good of saying the like of that to him?” he said.

“It’s laughing at me he’d be, for he wouldn’t understand what I’d mean.”

“Don’t tell me,” said Priscilla. “Whatever villainy there is going on

between you and Joseph Antony Kinsella, Patsy the smith will be in it

along with you.”

Peter Walsh helped Frank into the bath-chair. Priscilla, her face

wearing a most determined expression, wheeled him away.

“That rudder will be ready all right,” she said.

“But what do you think is going on on the island?” asked Frank.

“I don’t know.”

“Could they be smuggling?”

“They might be smuggling, only I don’t see where they’d get anything to

smuggle. Anyway, it’s no business of ours so long as we get the rudder.

I don’t think it’s at all a good plan, Cousin Frank, to be always poking

our noses into other people’s secrets, when we don’t absolutely have

to.”

It occurred to Frank that Priscilla had shown some eagerness in probing

the private affairs of the young couple who had hired Flanagan’s boat.

He did not, however, feel it necessary to make this obvious retort.

Peter Walsh, the rudder under his arm, went back to Joseph Antony

Kinsella, who was still sitting on the edge of the quay.

“She says,” he said, “that without there’s a new iron on that rudder

tomorrow morning, she’ll go out to Inishbawn and the young fellow along

with her.”

“Let Patsy the smith put it on for her, then.”

“Sure he can’t.”

“And what’s to hinder him?”

“He was drunk an hour ago,” said Peter Walsh, “and he’ll be drunker

now.”

“Bedamn then, but you’d better take him down and dip him in the tide,

for I’ll not have that young fellow with the sore leg on Inishbawn. If

it was only herself I wouldn’t care.”

“I’d be afeard to do it,” said Peter Walsh.

“Afeard of what?”

“Afeard of Patsy the smith. Sure it’s a madman he is when his temper’s

riz.”

“Let you come along with me,” said Kinsella, “and I’ll wake him up if

it takes the brand of a hot iron to do it. He can be as mad as he likes

after, but he’ll put an iron on that rudder before ever he gets leave to

kill you or any other man.”