Page:Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories (1915).djvu/125

 fresh cigarette. Matty Hynes approached the door cautiously. A long speech uttered in a shrill, quavering shriek greeted him.

"What's that?" said Lieutenant Eckersley. "It sounds to me like a woman's voice."

"She's talking Irish," said Mr. Benson. "What's she saying, Matty?"

"So far as she's got up to now," said Matty, "she's done nothing but curse, but I'm just after asking her where they have the cattle hid."

"Who is she?" said Mr. Benson.

"She's Thomas Geraghty's mother," said Matty, "that's been bedridden these ten years, and hasn't the right use of her legs."

She had, apparently, the full use of her tongue. Lieutenant Eckersley, who was standing near the door, ventured the opinion that she was still cursing.

"She is not," said Matty, "but she's telling me that every beast on the island was took ashore last night and left in Peter Reilly's field, the way I wouldn't be able to get at them."

"I wouldn't be surprised," said Mr. Benson, "if she was telling you the truth."

"Ask her," said Lieutenant Eckersley, "if it was the fishing-boats from Ballymore that landed the cattle for them last night."

"If it was," said Matty Hynes, "she'd have more sense than to tell me."

"In any case," said Mr. Benson, "we may as well be going home."