"But it will, Miss," said one of the loafers, leaning over to speak to her.

Another and then another of them took up the words. With absolute unanimity they assured her that sailing next day would be totally impossible.

"Unless you're wanting to drown yourselves," said Patsy the smith sullenly.

"The glass has gone down," said Timothy Sweeny, coming forward.

"Help the gentleman ashore," said Priscilla, "and don't croak about the weather."

"The master was saying today," said Peter Walsh, "that he'd take the Tortoise out tomorrow, and the gentleman that's up at the house along with him. I'd be glad now, Miss, if you'd tell him it'll be no use him wasting his time coming down to the quay on account of the weather being broke and the wind going round to the southeast."

"And the glass going down," said Sweeny.

"It'll be better for him to amuse himself some other way tomorrow," said Patsy the smith.

"I'll tell him," said Priscilla.

"And if the young gentleman that's with you," said Peter Walsh, "would say the same I'd be glad. We wouldn't like anything would happen to the master, for he's well liked."

"It would be a disgrace to the whole of us," said Patsy the smith, "if the strange gentleman was to be drownded."

"They'd have it on the papers if anything happened him," said Sweeny, "and the place would be getting a bad name, which is what I wouldn't like on account of being a magistrate."

Priscilla began to wheel the bath-chair away from the quay. Having gone a few steps she turned and winked impressively at Peter Walsh. Then she went on. The party on the quay watched her out of sight.

"Now what," said Sweeny, "might she mean by that kind of behaviour?"

"It's as much as to say," said Peter Walsh, "that she knows damn well where it is the master and the other gentleman will be wanting to go."

"She's mighty cute," said Sweeny.

"And what's more," said Peter Walsh, "she'll stop him if she's able. For she doesn't want them out on Inishbawn, no more than we do."

"Are you sure now that she meant that?" said Sweeny.

"I'm as sure as if she said it, and surer."

"She's a fine girl, so she is," said Patsy the smith.

"Devil the finer you'd see," said one of the loafers, "if you was to search from this to America."

This, though a spacious, was a thin compliment.

There are never, even at the height of the transatlantic tourist season, very many girls between Rosnacree and America.

"Anyway," said Sweeny hopefully, "it could be that the wind will go round to the southeast before morning. The glass didn't rise any since the thunder."

"It might," said Peter Walsh.

A southeast wind is dreaded, with good reason, in Rosnacree Bay. It descends from the mountains in vicious squalls. It catches rushing tides at baffling angles and lashes them into white-lipped fury. Sturdy island boats of the larger size, boats with bluff bows and bulging sides, brave it under their smallest lugs. But lesser boats, and especially light pleasure crafts like the Tortoise do well to lie snug at their moorings till the southeasterly wind has spent its strength.



CHAPTER XX

Timothy Sweeny, J. P., as suited a man of portly figure and civic dignity, was accustomed to lie long in his bed of a morning. On weekdays he rose, in a bad temper, at nine o'clock. On Sundays, when he washed and shaved, he was half an hour later and his temper was worse. An apprentice took down the shutters of the shop on weekdays at half past nine. By that time Sweeny, having breakfasted, sworn at his wife and abused his children, was ready to enter upon the duties of his calling.

On the morning after the thunderstorm he was wakened at the outrageous hour of half past seven by the rattle of a shower of pebbles against his window. The room he slept in looked out on the back-yard through which his Sunday customers were accustomed to make their way to the bar. Sweeny turned over in his bed and cursed. The window panes rattled again under another shower of gravel. Sweeny shook his wife into consciousness. He bade her get up and see who was in the back-yard. Mrs. Sweeny, a lean harassed woman with grey hair, fastened a dingy pink nightdress round her throat with a pin and obeyed her master.

"It's Peter Walsh," she said, after peering out of the window.

"Tell him to go to hell out of that," said Sweeny.

Mrs. Sweeny wrapped a shawl round her shoulders, opened the bottom of the window and translated her husband's message.

"Himself's asleep in his bed," she said, "but if you'll step into the shop at ten o'clock he'll be glad to see you."

"I'll be obliged to you, ma'am," said Peter Walsh, "if you'll wake him, for what I'm wanting to say to him is particular and he'll be sorry after if there's any delay about hearing it."

"Will you shut that window and have done talking," said Sweeny from the bed. "There's a draught coming in this minute that would lift the feathers from a goose."

Mrs. Sweeny, though an oppressed woman, was not wanting in spirit. She gave Peter Walsh's message in a way calculated to rouse and irritate her husband.

"He says that if you don't get up out of that mighty quick there'll be them here that will make you."

"Hell to your soul!" said Sweeny, "what way's that of talking? Ask him now is the wind in the southeast or is it not?"

"I can tell you that myself," said Mrs. Sweeny. "It is not; for if it was it would be in on this window and my hair would be blew off my head."

"Ask him," said Sweeny, "what boats is in the harbor, and then shut down the window."

Mrs. Sweeny put her head and shoulders out of the window.

"Himself wants to know," she said, "what boats is at the quay. You needn't be looking at me like that, Peter Walsh. He's sober enough. Hard for him to be anything else for he's been in his bed the whole of the night."

"Will you tell him, ma'am," said Peter Walsh, "that there's no boats in it only the Tortoise, and that one itself won't be there for long for the wind's easterly and it's a fair run out to Inishbawn."

Mrs. Sweeny repeated this message. Sweeny, roused to activity at last, flung off the bedclothes.

"Get out of the room with you," he said to his wife, "and shut the door. It's down to the kitchen you'll go and let me hear you doing it."

Mrs. Sweeny was too wise to disobey or argue. She snatched a petticoat from a chair near the door and left the room hurriedly. Sweeny went to the window.

"What the hell work's this, Peter Walsh?" he said. "Can't you let me sleep quiet in my bed without raising the devil's own delight in my back-yard. If I did right I'd set the police at you."

"I'll not be the only one the police will be at," said Peter, "if that's the way of it. So there you have it plain and straight."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is this. The young lady is off in her own boat. She and the young fellow with the sore leg along with her, and she says the master and the strange gentleman will be down for the Tortoise as soon, as ever they have their breakfast ate. That's what I mean and I hope it's to your liking."

"Can you not go out and knock a hole in the bottom of the damned boat?" said Sweeny, "or run the blade of a knife through the halyards, or smash the rudder iron with the wipe of a stone? What good are you if you can't do the like of that? Sure there's fifty ways of stopping a man from going out in a boat when there's only one boat for him to go in?"

"There may be fifty ways and there may be more; but I'd be glad if you'd tell me which of them is any use when there's a young police constable sitting on the side of the quay that hasn't lifted his eye off the boat since five o'clock this morning?"

"Is there that?"

"There is. The sergeant was up at the big house late last night. I saw him go myself. What they said to him I don't know, but he had the constable out sitting opposite the boat since five this morning the way nobody'd go near her."

"Peter Walsh," said Sweeny, and this time he spoke in a subdued and serious tone, "let you go in through the kitchen and ask herself to give you the bottle of whisky that's standing on the shelf under the bar. When you have it, come up here for I want to speak to you."

"Peter Walsh did as he was told. When he reached the bedroom he found Sweeny sitting on a chair with a deep frown on his face. He was thinking profoundly. Without speaking he held out his hand. Peter gave him the whisky. He swallowed two large gulps, drinking from the bottle. Then he set it down on the floor beside him. Peter waited Sweeny's eyes, narrowed to mere slits, were fixed on a portrait of a plump ecclesiastic which hung in a handsome gold frame over the chimney piece. His hands strayed towards the whisky bottle again. He took another gulp. Then, looking round at his visitor, he spoke.

"Listen to me now, Peter Walsh. Is there any wind?"

"There is surely, a nice breeze from the east and there's a look about it that I wouldn't be surprised if it went to the southeast before full tide."

"Is there what would upset a boat?"

"There's no wind to upset any boat that's handled right. And you know well, Mr. Sweeny, that the master can steer a boat as well as any man about the bay."

"Is there wind so that a boat might be upset if so be there happened to be some kind of mistake and her jibing?"

"There will be that much wind," said Peter Walsh, "at the top of the tide. But what's the use? Don't I tell you, and don't you know yourself that the master isn't one to be making mistakes in a boat?"

"How would it be now if you was in her, you and the strange gentleman, and the master on shore, and you steering? Would she upset then, do you think?"

"It could be done, of course, but——"

"Nigh hand to one of the islands," said Sweeny, "in about four foot of water or maybe less. I'd be sorry if anything would happen the gentleman."

"I'd be sorry anything would happen myself. But it's easy talking. How am I to go in the boat when the master has sent down word that he's going himself?"

Sweeny took another gulp of whisky and again thought deeply. At the end of five minutes he handed the bottle to Peter Walsh.

"Take a sup yourself," he said.

Peter Walsh took a "sup," a very large "sup," with a sigh of appreciation. It had been very trying for him to watch Sweeny drinking whisky while he remained dry-lipped.

"Let you go down to the kitchen," said Sweeny, "and borrow the loan of my shot gun. There's cartridges in the drawer of the table beyond in the room. You can take two of them."

"If it's to shoot the master," said Peter Walsh, "I'll not do it. I've a respect for him ever since——"

"Talk sense. Do you think I want to have you hanged?"

"Hanged or drowned. The way you're talking it'll be both before I'm through with this work."

"When you have the gun," said Sweeny, "and the cartridges in it, you'll go round to the back yard where you were this minute and you'll fire two shots through this window, and mind what you're at, Peter Walsh, for I won't have every pane of glass in the back of the house broke, and I won't have the missus' hens killed. Do you think now you can hit this window from where you were standing in the yard?"

"Hit it! Barring the shot scatters terrible I'll put every grain of it into some part of you if you stay where you are this minute."

"I'll not be in this chair at the time," said Sweeny. "I'll be in the bed, and what shots come into the room will go over me with the way you'll be shooting. But any way I'll have the mattress and the blankets rolled up between me and harm. It'll be all the better if there's a few grains in the mattress."

"I don't know," said Peter Walsh, "that I'll be much nearer drowning the strange gentleman after I've shot you. But sure I'll do it if you like."

"When you have that done," said Sweeny, "and you'd better be quick about it—you'll go down to the barrack and tell Sergeant Rafferty that he's to come round here as quick as he can. The missus'll meet him at the door of the shop and she'll tell him what's happened."

"I suppose then you'll offer bail for me," said Peter Walsh, "for if you don't, no other one will, and it'll be hard for me to go out upsetting boats if they have me in gaol for murdering you."

"It's not that she'll tell him, but a kind of a distracted story. She'll have very little on her at the time. She has no more than an old night dress and a petticoat this minute. I'm sorry now she has the petticoat itself. If I'd known what would have to be I'd have kept it from her. It doesn't be natural for a woman to be dressed up grand when a lot of murdering ruffians from behind the bog has been shooting her husband half the night."

"Bedam," said Peter Walsh, "is that the way it is?"

"It is that way. And I wouldn't wonder but there'll be questions asked about it in Parliament after."

"You'll be wanting the doctor," said Peter Walsh, "to be picking the shot out of you."

"As soon as ever you've got the sergeant," said Sweeny, "you'll go round for the doctor."

"And what'll he say when there's no shot in you?"

"Say! He'll say what I bid him? Ain't I Chairman of the Board of Guardians, and doesn't he owe me ten pounds and more this minute, shop debts. What would he say?

"He's a gentleman that likes a drop of whisky," said Peter Walsh.

"I'll waste no whisky on him. Where's the use when I can get what I want without?"

Peter Walsh meditated on the situation for a minute or two. Then the full splendour of the plan began to dawn on him.

"The master," he said, "will be taking down the depositions that you'll be making in the presence of the sergeant."

"He will," said Sweeny, "for there's no other magistrate in the place only myself and him, and its against the law for a magistrate to take down his own depositions and him maybe dying at the time."

"There'll be only myself then to take the strange gentleman to Inishbawn in the boat."

"And who's better fit to do it? Haven't you known the bay since you were a small slip of a boy?"

"I have surely."

"Is there a rock or a tide in it that isn't familiar to you?"

"There is not."

"And is there a man in Rosnacree that's your equal in the handling of a small boat?"

"Sorra the one."

"Then be off with you and get the gun the way I told you."

At half-past ten Sir Lucius and Lord Torrington drove into the town and pulled up opposite Brannigan's shop. The Tortoise lay at her moorings, a sight which gratified Sir Lucius. After his experience the day before he was afraid that Peter Walsh might have beached the boat in order to execute some absolutely necessary repairs. He congratulated himself on having suggested to Sergeant Rafferty that one of the constables should keep an eye on her.

"There's the boat, Torrington," he said. "She's small, and there's a fresh breeze. But if you don't mind getting a bit wet she'll take us round the islands in the course of the day. If your daughter is anywhere about we'll see her."

Lord Torrington eyed the Tortoise. He would have preferred a larger boat, but he was a man of determination and courage.

"I don't care how wet I get," he said, "so long as I have the chance of speaking my mind to the scoundrel who has abducted my daughter."

"We'll take oilskins with us," said Sir Lucius, getting out of the trap as he spoke.

The police sergeant approached him.

"Well, Rafferty," said Sir Lucius, "what's the matter with you?"

"Have you any fresh news of my daughter?" said Lord Torrington.

"I have not, my Lord. Barring what Professor Wilder told me I know no more. There was a lady belonging to his party out on the bay looking out for sponges and she came across——"

"You told us all that yesterday," said Sir Lucius. "What's the matter with you now?"

"What they say," said the sergeant cautiously, "is that it's murder."

"Murder! Good heavens! Who's dead?"

"Timothy Sweeny," said the sergeant

"It might be worse," said Sir Lucius. "If the people of this district have had the sense to kill Sweeny I'll have a higher opinion of them in the future than I used to have. Who did it?"

"It's not known yet who did it," said the sergeant, "but there was two shots fired into the house last night. There's eleven panes of glass broken and the wall at the far side of the room is peppered with shot, and I picked ten grains of it out of the mattress myself and four out of the pillow, without counting what might be in Timothy Sweeny, which the doctor is attending to. Number 5 shot it was and Sweeny is moaning terrible. You'd hear him now if you was to step up a bit in the direction of the house."

It would, of course, have been highly gratifying to Sir Lucius to hear Timothy Sweeny groan, but, remembering that Lord Torrington was anxious about his daughter, he denied himself the pleasure.

"If he's groaning as loud as you say," he said, "he can't be quite dead. I don't believe half a charge of No. 5 shot would kill a man like Sweeny anyway."

"If he's not dead," said the sergeant, "he's mighty near it, according to what the doctor is just after telling me. It's likely enough that shot would prey on a man that's as stout as Sweeny more than it might on a spare man like you honour or me. The way the shot must have been fired to get Sweeny after the fashion they did is from the top of the wall in the back yard opposite the bedroom window. By the grace of God there's footmarks on the far side of it and a stone loosened like as if some one had climbed up it."

"Well," said Sir Lucius, "I'm sorry for Sweeny, but I don't see that I can do anything to help you now. If you make out a case against any one come up to me in the evening and I'll sign a warrant for his arrest."

"I was thinking," said the sergeant, "that if it was pleasing to your honour, you might take Sweeny's depositions before you go out in the boat; just for fear he might take it into his head to die on us before evening; which would be a pity."

"Is he able to make a deposition?" said Sir Lucius.

"He's willing to try," said the sergeant, "but it's badly able to talk he is this minute."

Sir Lucius turned to Lord Torrington.

"This is a confounded nuisance, Torrington," he said. "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to wait till I've taken down whatever lies this fellow Sweeny chooses to swear to. I won't be long."

But Lord Torrington had a proper respect for the forms of law.

"You can't hurry over a job of that sort," he said.

"If the man's been shot at—— Can't I go by myself? I know something about boats. You'll be here for hours."

"You may know boats," said Sir Lucius, "but you don't know this bay."

"Couldn't I work it with a chart? You have a chart, I suppose?"

"No man living could work it with a chart. The rocks in the bay are as thick as currants in a pudding and half of them aren't charted. Besides the tides are——"

"Isn't there some man about the place I could take with me?" said Lord Torrington.

Peter Walsh was hovering in the background with his eyes fixed anxiously on Sir Lucius and the police sergeant. Sir Lucius looking around caught sight of him.

"I'll tell you what I'll do if you like," said Sir Lucius. "I'll send Peter Walsh with you. He's an unmitigated blackguard, but he knows the bay like the palm of his hand and he can sail the boat Come here, Peter."

Peter Walsh stepped forward, touching his hat and smiling respectfully.

"Peter," said Sir Lucius, "Lord Torrington wants to take a sail round the islands in the bay. I can't go with him myself, so you must. Have you taken any drink this morning?"

"I have not," said Peter. "Is it likely I would with Sweeny's shop shut on account of the accident that's after happening to him?"

"Don't you give him a drop, Torrington, while you're on the sea with him. You can fill him up with whisky when you get home if you like."

"I wouldn't be for going very far today," said Peter Walsh. "It looks to me as if it might come on to blow from the southeast."

"You'll go out to Inishbawn first of all," said Sir Lucius. "After that you can work home in and out, visiting every island that's big enough to have people on it. The weather won't hurt you."

"Sure if his lordship's contented," said Peter, "it isn't for me to be making objections."

"Very well," said Sir Lucius. "Get the sails on the boat You can tie down a reef if you like."

"There's no need," said Peter. "She'll go better under the whole sail."

"Now, sergeant," said Sir Lucius, "I'll just see them start, and then I'll go back and listen to whatever story Sweeny wants to tell."

Peter Walsh huddled himself into an ancient oilskin coat, ferried out to the Tortoise and hoisted the sails. He laid her long side the slip with a neatness and precision which proved his ability to sail a small boat. Lord Torrington stepped carefully on board and settled himself crouched into a position undignified for a member of the Cabinet, on the side of the centreboard case recommended by Peter Walsh.

"Got your sandwiches all right?" said Sir Lucius, "and the flask? Good. Then off you go. Now, Peter, Inishbawn first and after that wherever you're told to go. If you get wet, Torrington, don't blame me. Now, sergeant, I'm ready."

The Tortoise, a stiff breeze filling her sails, darted out to mid-channel. Peter Walsh paid out his main sheet and set her running dead before the wind.

"It'll come round to the southeast," he said, "before we're half an hour out."

Sir Lucius waved his hand. Then he turned and followed the sergeant into Sweeny's house.



CHAPTER XXI

The Blue Wanderer, with her little lug, sailed slowly even when there was a fresh wind right behind her. It was half-past ten when Priscilla and Frank ran her aground on Inishbawn. Joseph Antony Kinsella had seen them coming and was standing on the shore ready to greet them.

"You're too venturesome, Miss, to be coming out all this way in that little boat," he said.

"We came safe enough," said Priscilla, "didn't ship a drop the whole way out."

"You came safe," said Kinsella, "but will you tell me how you're going to get home again? The wind's freshening and what's more it's drawing round to the southeast."

"Let it. If we can't get home, we can't, that's all, I suppose Mrs. Kinsella will bake us a loaf of bread for breakfast tomorrow. Cousin Frank, you'll have to make Barnabas take you into his tent. He can't very well refuse on account of being a clergyman and so more or less pledged to deeds of charity. I'll curl up in a corner of Lady Isabel's pavilion. By the way, Joseph Antony, how are the young people getting on?"

"I had my own trouble with them after you left," said Kinsella.

"I'm sorry to hear that and I wouldn't have thought it. Barnabas seemed to me a nice peaceable kind of curate. Why didn't you hit him on the head with an oar? That would have quieted him."

"I might, of course; and I would; but it was the lady that was giving me the trouble more than him. Nothing would do her right or wrong but she'd have her tent set up on the south end of the island; and that's what wouldn't suit me at all."

Priscilla glanced at the smaller of the two hills which make up the island of Inishbawn. It stood remote from the Kinsellas' homestead and the patches of cultivated land, separated from them by a rough causeway of grey boulders. From a hollow in it a thin column of smoke arose, and was blown in torn wreaths along the slope.

"It would not suit you a bit," said Priscilla.

"What made her want to go there?" said Frank.

The bare southern hill of Inishbawn seemed to him a singularly unattractive camping ground. It was a windswept, desolate spot.

"She took a notion into her head," said Kinsella, "that his Reverence might catch the fever if he stopped on this end of the island."

"Good gracious!" said Frank, "how can any one catch fever here?"

"On account of Mrs. Kinsella and the children having come out all over large yellow spots," said Priscilla. "I hope that will be a lesson to you, Joseph Antony."

"What I said was for the best," said Kinsella.

"How was I to know she'd be here at the latter end?"

"You couldn't know, of course. Nobody ever can; which is one of the reasons why it's just as well to tell the truth at the start whenever possible. If you make things up you generally forget afterwards what they are, and then there's trouble. Besides the things you make up very often turn against you in ways you'd never expect. It was just the same with a mouse-trap that Sylvia Courtney once bought, when she thought there was a mouse in our room, though there wasn't really and it wouldn't have done her any harm if there had been. No matter how careful she was about tying the string down it used to bound up again and nip her fingers. But Sylvia Courtney never was any good at things like mouse-traps. What she likes is English Literature."

"How did you stop her going to the far end of the island?" said Frank, "if she thought there was an infectious fever for Mr. Pennefather to catch——"

"I dare say you mentioned the wild heifer," said Priscilla.

"I did not then. What I said was rats."

"Rather mean of you that," said Priscilla. "The rats were Peter Walsh's originally. You shouldn't have taken them. That's what's called—What is it called, Cousin Frank? Something to do with plagues, I know. Is there such a word as plague-ism? Anyhow it's what poets do when they lift other poets' rhymes and it's considered mean."

"It was me told Peter Walsh about the rats," said Kinsella, repelling an unjust accusation. "The way they came swimming in on the tide would surprise you, and the gulls picking the eyes out of the biggest of them as they came swimming along. But that wouldn't stop them."

"I'll just run up and have a word with Barnabas," said Priscilla. "It'll be as well for him to know that father and Lord Torrington are out after him today in the Tortoise."

"Do you tell me that?" said Kinsella.

"It'll be all right," said Priscilla. "They'll never get here. But of course Barnabas may want to make his will in case of accidents. Just you help the young gentleman ashore, Kinsella. He can't get along very well by himself on account of the way Lord Torrington treated him. Then you'd better haul the boat up a bit. It's rather beginning to blow and I see the wind really has got round to the southeast I hardly thought it would, but it has. Winds so seldom do what everybody says they're going to. I'm sure you've noticed that."

She walked up the rough stony beach. A fierce gust, spray-laden and eloquent with promise of rain, swept past her.

"If I'd known," said Kinsella sulkily, "that half the country would be out after them ones, I'd have drownded them in the sea and their tents along with them before I let them set foot on Inishbawn."

"Lord Torrington won't do you any harm," said Frank. "He's only trying to get back his daughter."

"I don't know," said Kinsella, still in a very bad temper, "what anybody'd want with the likes of that girl. You'd think a man would be glad to get rid of her and thankful to anybody that was fool enough to take her off his hands. She's no sense. Miss Priscilla has little enough, but she's young and it'll maybe come to her later. But that other one—The Lord saves us."

He helped Frank on shore as he talked. Then he called Jimmy from the cottage. Between them they hauled the Blue Wanderer above high-tide mark.

"There she'll stay," said Kinsella vindictively, "for the next twenty-four hours anyway. Do you feel that now?"

Frank felt a sudden gust of wind and a heavy splash of rain. The sky looked singularly dark and heavy over the southeastern shore of the bay. Ragged scuds of clouds, low flying, were tearing across overhead. The sea was almost black and very angry; short waves were getting up, curling rapidly over and breaking in yellow foam. With the aid of Jimmy Kinsella's arm Frank climbed the beach, passed the Kinsella's cottage and made his way to the place where the two tents were pitched. Priscilla was sitting on a camp stool at the entrance of Lady Isabel's tent. The Reverend Barnabas Pennefather, looking cold and miserable, was crouching at her feet in a waterproof coat. Lady Isabel was going round the tents with a hammer in her hand driving the pegs deeper into the ground.

"I'm just explaining to Barnabas," said Priscilla, "that he's pretty safe here so far as Lord Torrington is concerned. He doesn't seem as pleased as I should have expected."

"It's blowing very hard," said Mr. Pennefather, "and it's beginning to rain. I'm sure our tents will come down and we shall get very wet Won't you sit down, Mr.—Mr——?"

"Mannix," said Priscilla. "I thought you were introduced yesterday. Hullo! What's that?"

She was gazing across the sea when she spoke. She rose from her camp stool and pointed eastwards with her finger. A small triangular patch of white was visible far off between Inishrua and Knockilaun. Frank and Mr. Pennefather stared at it eagerly.

"It looks to me," said Priscilla, "very like the Tortoise. There isn't another boat in the bay with a sail that peaks up like that. If I'm right, Barnabas—But I can't believe that Peter Walsh and Patsy the smith and all the rest of them would have been such fools as to let them start."

A rain squall blotted the sail from view.

"Perhaps they couldn't help it," said Frank. "Perhaps Uncle Lucius——"

"Lady Isabel," shouted Priscilla, "come here at once. She won't come," she said to Frank, "if she can possibly help it, because she's furiously angry with me for asking her why on earth she married Barnabas. Rather a natural question, I thought Barnabas, go and get her."

Mr. Pennefather, who seemed cowed into a state of profound submissiveness, huddled his waterproof round him and went to Lady Isabel. She was hammering an extra peg through the loop of one of the guy lines of the further tent.

"Why do you suppose she did it?" said Priscilla. "I couldn't find that out. It's very hard to imagine why anybody marries anybody else. I often sit and wonder for hours. But it's totally impossible in this case——"

"Perhaps he preaches very well," said Frank. "That might have attracted her."

"Couldn't possibly," said Priscilla. "No girl—at the same time, of course, she has, which shows there must have been some reason. I say, Cousin Frank, she must be absolutely mad with me. She's dragged Barnabas into the other tent. Rather a poor lookout for me, considering that I shall have to sleep with her. There's the Tortoise again. It is the Tortoise. There's no mistake about it this time."

The rain squall had blown over. The Tortoise, now plainly visible, was tearing across the foam-flecked stretch of water between Inishrua and Knockilaun. Priscilla ran to the other tent.

"Lady Isabel," she said, "if you want to see your father drowned you'd better come out."

Lady Isabel scrambled to the door of her tent and stood, her hair and clothes blown violently, gazing wildly round her. Mr. Pennefather, looking abjectly miserable, crawled after her and remained on his hands and knees at her side.

"Where's father?" she said.

"In that boat," said Priscilla, "but he won't be drowned. I only said he would so as to get you out of your tent."

The Tortoise stooped forwards and swept along, the water foaming at her bow and leaping angrily at her weather quarter. A fiercer squall than usual rushed at her from the western corner of Inishrua as she cleared the island. She swerved to windward, her boom stretched far out to the starboard side dipped suddenly and dragged through the water. She paid off again before the wind in obedience to a strong pull on the tiller. Priscilla grew excited in watching the progress of the boat.

"Barnabas," she said, "give me your glasses, quick. I know you have a pair, for I saw you watching us through them that day on Inishark."

Mr. Pennefather had the glasses slung across his shoulder in the leather case. He handed them to Priscilla. The squall increased in violence. The whole sea grew white with foam. A sudden drift of fine spray, blown off the face of the water, swept over Inishbawn, stinging and soaking the watchers at the tents.

"Lord Torrington is on board all right," said Priscilla, "but it's not father who's steering. It's Peter Walsh."

The Tortoise flew forward, dipping her bow so that once or twice the water lipped over it. She looked pitiful, like a frightened creature from whose swift flight all joy had departed. She reached the narrow passage between Ardilaun and Inishlean. Before her lay the broad water of Inishbawn Roads, lashed into white fury. But the worst of the squall was over. The showers of spray ceased for a moment. It was still blowing strongly, but the fierceness had gone out of the wind.

"She's all right now," said Priscilla, "and anyway there are two life buoys on board."

Then Peter Walsh did an unexpected thing. He put the tiller down and began to haul in his main-sheet. The boat rounded up into the wind, headed straight northwards for the shore of Inishlean. She listed heavily, lay over till it seemed as if the sail would touch the water. For an instant she paused, half righted, moved sluggishly towards the shore. Then, very slowly as it seemed, she leaned down again till her sail lay flat in the water.

At the moment when she righted, before the final heel over, a man flung himself across the gunwale into the sea. In his hands he grasped one of the life buoys.

"It's father," shouted Lady Isabel. "Oh, save him!"

"If he'd stuck to the boat," said Priscilla, "he'd have been all right. She's ashore this minute on the point of Inishlean. Unless Peter Walsh has gone suddenly mad I can't imagine why he tried to round up the boat there and why he hauled in the main-sheet. He was absolutely bound to go over."

"Perhaps he wanted to land there," said Frank.

"Well," said Priscilla, "he has landed, but he's upset the boat. I never thought before that Peter Walsh could be such an absolute idiot."

The condemnation was entirely unjust Peter Walsh had, in fact, performed the neatest feat of seamanship of his whole life. Never in the course of forty years and more spent in or about small boats had he handled one with such supreme skill and accuracy. Driven desperately by a squally and uncertain southeast wind, with a welter of short waves knocking his boat's head about in the most incalculable way, he had succeeded in upsetting her about six yards from the shore of an island on to the point of which she was certain to drift, with no more than four feet of water under her at the critical moment The Tortoise, having no ballast in her and depending entirely for stability on her fin-like centreboard was not, as Peter Walsh knew very well, in the smallest danger of sinking. He climbed quietly on her gunwale as she finally lay down and sat there, stride-legs, not even wet below the waist, until she grounded on the curved point of the island. The performance was a triumphant demonstration of Peter Walsh's unmatched skill.

In one matter only did he miscalculate. Lord Torrington knew something about boats, possessed that little knowledge which is in all great arts, theology, medicine and boat-sailing, a dangerous thing. He knew, after the first immersion of the gunwale, when the water flowed in, that the boat was sure to upset. He knew that the greatest risk on such occasions lies in being entangled in some rope and perhaps pinned under the sail. He seized the moment when the Tortoise righted after her first plunge, grasped a life buoy and flung himself overboard. He was just too soon. A moment later and he would have drifted ashore as the boat did on the point of Inishlean. If he had let go his life buoy and struck out at once he might have reached it. But the sudden immersion in cold water bewildered him. He clung to the life buoy and was drifted past the point.

Then he regained his self-possession and looked round him. As a young man he had been a fine swimmer and even at the age of fifty-five, with the cares of an imperial War Office weighing heavily on him, he had enough presence of mind to realise his situation. A few desperate strokes convinced him of the impossibility of swimming back to Inishlean against the wind and tide. In front of him lay a quarter of a mile of broken water. Beyond that was Inishbawn. It was a long swim, too long for a fully dressed man with no support. But Lord Torrington had a life buoy, guaranteed by its maker to keep two men safely afloat. He had a strong wind behind him and a tide drifting him down towards the island. The water was not cold. He realised that all that was absolutely necessary was to cling to the life buoy, but that he might, if he liked, slightly accelerate his progress by kicking. He kicked hard.

Joseph Antony Kinsella wanted no more visitors on Inishbawn. Least of all did he want one whom he knew to be a "high-up gentleman" and suspected of being a government official of the most dangerous and venomous kind, but Joseph Antony Kinsella was not the man to see a fellow creature drift across Inishbawn Roads without making an effort to help him ashore. With the aid of Jimmy he launched the stout, broad-beamed boat from which Miss Rutherford had fished for sponges. Priscilla raced down from the tents and sprang on board just as Jimmy, knee deep in foaming water, was pushing off. She shipped the rudder. Joseph Antony and Jimmy pulled hard. They forced their way to windward through clouds of spray and before Lord Torrington was half way across the bay Joseph Antony hauled him dripping into the boat.

Peter Walsh, standing in the water beside the stranded Tortoise, saw with blank amazement that Kinsella turned the boat's head and rowed back again to Inishbawn.

"Bedamn," he said, "but if I'd known that was to be the way it was to be I might as well have put him ashore there myself and not have wetted him."

On the beach at Inishbawn when the boat grounded, were Lady Isabel, Mrs. Kinsella with her baby, the three small Kinsella boys, Frank Mannix, who, to the further injury of his ankle, had hobbled down the hill, and in the far background, the Reverend Barnabas Pennefather.

Lady Isabel rushed upon her father, flung her arms round his neck and kissed him passionately with tears in her eyes. Lord Torrington did not seem particularly pleased to see her.

"Hang it all, Isabel," he said, "I'm surely wet enough. Don't make me worse by slobbering over me. There's nothing to cry about and no necessity for kissing."

"Mrs. Kinsella," said Priscilla, "go you straight up to the house and get out your husband's Sunday clothes. If he hasn't any Sunday clothes, get blankets and throw a couple of sods of turf on the fire."

"Glory be to God!" said Mrs. Kinsella.

Priscilla took Joseph Antony by the arm and led him a little apart from the group on the beach.

"Get some whisky," she said, "as quick as you can."

"Whisky!" said Kinsella blankly.

"Yes, whisky. Bring it in a tin can or anything else that comes handy."

"Is it a tin can full of whisky? Sure, where could I get the like? Or for the matter of that where would I get a thimble full? Is it likely now that there'd be a tin can full of whisky on Inishbawn?"

Priscilla stamped her foot.

"You've got quarts," she said, "and gallons."

"Arrah, talk sense," said Kinsella.

"Very well," said Priscilla. "I don't want to give you away, but rather than see Lord Torrington sink into his grave with rheumatic fever for want of a drop of whisky I'll expose you publicly. Cousin Frank, come here."

"Whist, Miss, whist! Sure if I had the whisky I'd give it to you."

Lord Torrington, with Lady Isabel weeping beside him, was on his way up to the Kinsellas' cottage. Frank was speaking earnestly to Mr. Pennefather, who seemed disinclined to follow his father-in-law. When he heard Priscilla calling to him he hobbled towards her.

"Cousin Frank," she said, "here's a man who grudges poor Lord Torrington a drop of whisky to save his life, although for weeks past he has been—what is it you do when you make whisky? I forget the word. It isn't brew."

Frank, vaguely recollecting the advertisements which appear in our papers, suggested that the word was required "pot".

Priscilla pointed an accusing finger at Kinsella.

"Here's a man," she said, "who for the last fortnight has been potting whisky—what a fool you are, Cousin Frank! Distil is the word. Joseph Antony Kinsella has been distilling whisky on this island for the last month as hard as ever he could. He's been shipping barrels full of it underneath loads of gravel into Rosnacree, and now he's trying to pretend he hasn't got any. Did you ever hear such utter rot in your life? I'm not telling Lord Torrington yet, Joseph Antony; but in a minute or two I will unless you go and get a good can full."

"For the love of God, Miss," said Kinsella, "say no more. I'll try if I can find a sup somewhere for the gentleman. But as for what you're after saying about distilling——"

"Hurry up," said Priscilla threateningly.

Kinsella went off at a sharp trot towards the south end of the island.

"Of course," said Priscilla in a calmer tone, "he really may not have any more. That might have been the last barrel which I saw under the gravel the day before yesterday when our anchor rope got foul of the centreboard. I don't expect it was quite the last, but it may have been. It's very hard to be sure about things like that. However, if it was the last he'll just have to turn to and distil some more. I don't suppose it takes very long, and there was a fire burning on the south end of the island this morning. I saw it."

Half an hour later Lord Torrington, wrapped in two blankets and a patchwork quilt, clothing which he had chosen in preference to Joseph Antony's Sunday suit, was sitting in front of a blazing fire in the Kinsellas' kitchen. He held in his hand a mug full of raw spirit and hot water, mixed in equal proportions. Each time he sipped at it he coughed. Priscilla sat beside him with a bottle from which she offered to replenish the mug after each sip. Lady Isabel, looking frightened but obstinate, stood opposite him, holding the Reverend Barnabas Pennefather by the hand.



CHAPTER XXII

"To Miss Martha Rutherford, Sponge Department, British Museum, London.

"My dear Miss Rutherford—Having promised to write you the denouement, I do, of course; though the delay is longer than I expected when promising. It was most exciting. Peter Walsh upset the Tortoise—on purpose I now think—but no one else has said so yet—and Lord Torrington swam for his life while his lovely daughter wrung her lily hands in shrill despair, this being the exact opposite of what was the case with Lord Ullin's daughter. Joseph Antony Kinsella and Jimmy and I rescued the drowning mariner in your boat. Frank would have done so too, for he says he never rescued any one from a watery grave—though he won a prize for life-saving in his swimming bath at school and I think he wanted to get a medal—but none of us have as yet, nor won't—but he couldn't get down the hill quick enough on account of his sprained ankle, so we were off without him. I jolly well ballyragged Joseph Antony Kinsella until he opened his last cask of illicit whisky. 'Illicit' is what both father and Lord Torrington called it and at first I didn't know what that meant, but I looked it out in the dict. and now do know, also how to spell it, which I shouldn't otherwise. Then we had a most frightful scene in Joseph Antony Kinsella's cottage. Lady Isabel was splendid. I never knew any one could be in love so much, especially with Barnabas. The salt sea was frozen on her cheeks (it had been raining hard), and the salt tears in her eyes. Sylvia Courtney told me that that poem was most affecting, so I read it Have you? Lord Torrington was frightfully stony-hearted at first and finished two mugs of illicit whisky (with hot water), coughing and swearing the whole time. Barnabas crawled. Then Mrs. Kinsella made tea and hot pancakes in spite of the baby, which screamed; and all was gay, though there was no butter. Peter Walsh came in while we were at tea, having righted the Tortoise and bailed her out, but he and Joseph Antony Kinsella went off together, which was just as well, for there weren't too many pancakes, and Lord Torrington, when he began to soften down a bit, turned out to be hungry. In the end we all went home together in Joseph Antony Kinsella's big boat, Lord Torrington having put on his clothes again and father's oilskins, which were providentially saved from the wreck. Lady Isabel and Barnabas held each other's hands the whole time in a way that I thought rather disgusting, though Cousin Frank says it is common enough among those in that state. I hope I never shall be; but of course I may. One can't be really sure beforehand. Anyhow I shan't like it if I am. Lady Isabel did, which made it worse. Father met us at the quay and said he didn't believe there was a single grain of shot in the whole of Timothy Sweeny's fat body and that the entire thing was a plant I didn't understand this at the time, though now I do; but it's too long to write; though it would interest you if written.

"For days and days Lady Torrington was more obdurate than the winter wind and the serpent's tooth. She said those two things often and often, and the one about the winter wind shows that she has read 'As You Like It.' I don't know the one about the serpent's tooth. It may be in Shakespeare, but is not in Wordsworth's 'Excursion.' I think she meant Lady Isabel, not herself. Barnabas slept in the Geraghtys' gate lodge, a bed being made up for him and food sent down, though he was let in to lunch with us after a time. There were terrific consultations which I did not hear, being of course regarded as a child. Nor did Cousin Frank, which was rather insulting to him, considering that he can behave quite like a grown up when he tries. But all came right in the end. We think that Lord Torrington has promised to make Barnabas a bishop in the army, which Cousin Frank says he can do quite easily if he likes, being the head of the War Office. Father kept harping on, especially at luncheon, when Barnabas was there, to find out why they fled to Rosnacree. Rose, the under housemaid, told me that it came out in the end that Lady Isabel simply went to the man at Euston station and asked for a ticket to the furthest off place he sold tickets to. This, may be true. Rose heard it from Mrs. Geraghty, who came up every day to hook Lady Torrington's back. But I doubt it myself. There must be further off places than Rosnacree, though, of course, not many. At one time there threatened to be rather a row about our not giving up the fugitives to justice, and Aunt Juliet tried to say nasty things about aiding and abetting (whatever they mean). But I said that wouldn't have happened because we didn't particularly care for Lady Isabel and simply loathed Barnabas, if it hadn't been for the dastardly way Lord Torrington sprained Frank's ankle, so that they had no one to blame but themselves. Lord Torrington, who isn't really a bad sort at times, quite saw this and said he wouldn't have sprained Frank's ankle if he hadn't been upset at the time on account of Lady Isabel's having eluded his vigilance and escaped. This just shows how careful we ought to be about our lightest and most innocent actions. No one would expect any dire results to come of simply spraining a young man's ankle on a steamer; but they did; which is the way many disasters occur and often we don't find out why even afterwards, though in this case Lord Torrington did, thanks to me.

"Joseph Antony Kinsella and Peter Walsh and Timothy Sweeny and Patsy the smith came up one day on a deputation with a donkey load of turf for father and Lord Torrington, which seemed curious, but wasn't, really because there were bottles and bottles of illicit whisky under the turf. Lord Torrington made a speech to them and said that all would be forgiven and forgotten and that he would leave the whisky in his will to his grandson, who might drink it perhaps; which shows, we think, that he is taking Barnabas to his heart, or else he would hardly be saving up the whisky in the way he said he would. So, as Shakespeare says, 'All's well that ends well.'

"Your affect, friend,

"Priscilla Lentaigne."

"P. S.—I couldn't write while they were here on account of the thunderous condition of the atmosphere and not knowing exactly how things would turn out, which is the cause of your not getting this letter sooner. Since they left, Barnabas and all, Aunt Juliet has dropped being a suffragette in disgust (you can't wonder after the way Lady Isabel turned out to have deceived her) and has taken up appendicitis warmly. She says it's far more important really than uric acid or fresh air, and is thinking of going up to Dublin next week for an operation. Father says it was bound to be either that or spiritualism because they are the only two things left which she hadn't tried. It's rather unlucky, I think, for Aunt Juliet, being so very intellectual. I'm glad I'm not."

THE END