the quay
today there'll be the devil and all if not worse."

"If that's the way of it I will go back; but I'd be glad, so I would, if
I knew what Sweeny means by it. It's a poor thing to be breaking my back
rowing a boatload of gravel all the way from Inishbawn and then to be
told to turn round and go back; and just now too, when the wind has
dropped and it's beginning to look mighty black over to the eastward."

"You're to go back," said Patsy, "because the strange gentleman that's
up at the big house is wanting your boat."

"Let him want!"

"He'll get it, if so be that you go in to the quay, and when he has it
the first thing he'll do is to go out to Inishbawn. It's there he wants
to be and it's yourself knows best what he'd find if he got there. Go
back, I tell you."

"If you'll take my advice," said Kinsella, "you will go back yourself.
There's thunder beyond there coming up, and there'll be a breeze setting
towards it from the west before another ten minutes is over our heads.
I don't know will you care for that in the state you're in this minute,
with that old punt and only one oar. The tide'll be running strong
against the breeze and there'll be a kick-up at the stone perch."

Patsy the smith saw the wisdom of this advice. Tired as he was he seized
his one oar and began sculling home. Kinsella watched him go and then
did a peculiar thing. He took the shovel which lay amidships in his
boat and began to heave his cargo of gravel into the sea. As he worked
a faint breeze from the west rose, fanned him and died away. Another
succeeded it and then another. Kinsella looked round him. The four boats
which had drifted out from the quay before the easterly breeze of the
morning, had hauled in their sheets. They were awaiting a wind from
the west. The heavy purple thunder cloud was rapidly climbing the sky.
Kinsella shovelled hard at his gravel. His boat, lightened of her load,
rose in the water, showing inch by inch more free board. A steady breeze
from the west succeeded the light occasional puffs. It increased in
strength. The four boats inside him stooped to it. They sped across
and across the channel towards the stone perch in short tacks. Kinsella
hoisted his sail and took the tiller. The boat swung up into the wind
and coursed away to the south west, close hauled to a stiff west wind.
The thunder cloud burst over Rosnacree.

Sir Lucius and Lord Torrington drove into the town and pulled up in
front of Brannig