The Ghost Girl Part 7

"Well, sor, it's this way; the masther was never very shtrict about the grazin'; we puts some of the horses out to gra.s.s, ourselves, and we lets poor folk have a bit of grazin' now and then for their cattle, though master was never after makin' money from the estate--"

"Just so. Have you the receipted bills for the fodder during the last six months?"

"Yes, sor. The master always sent me wid the money to pay the bills."

"You have got the receipts?"

"The which, sor?"

"The bills receipted."

"Bills, sure, what's the good of keepin' bills, sor, when the money's paid. I b'lave they're somewhere in an ould crock in the stable, at laste that's where I saw thim last."

"Well," said Pinckney, "you can fetch them for me to-morrow morning, and now let's talk about the garden."

Rafferty, not knowing what Pinckney might discover and so being unable to lie with confidence, had a very bad quarter of an hour over the garden.

Pinckney was not a man to press another unduly, nor was he a man to haggle about halfpence or worry servants over small peccadillos. He knew quite well that grooms are grooms, and will be so as long as men are men. He would never have bothered about little details had Rafferty been an ordinary servant. He recognised in Rafferty, not a servant to be dismissed or corrected, but an antagonist to be fought. It was the case of the dog and badger. Rafferty was Graft and all it implies, Pinckney was Straight Dealing. And Straight Dealing knew quite well that the only way to get Graft by the throat is to ferret out details, no matter how small.

So Rafferty was taken over details. He had to admit that he had "given away" some of the stuff from the garden and sold "a bit," sending it up to Dublin for that purpose; but he was not to be caught.

"And the profits," said Pinckney. "I suppose you handed them over to Mr.

Berknowles?"

"No, sor; the master always tould me to keep any bit of money I might draa from anything I planted extra for me perkisites, that was the understandin' I had with him."

"And over the farmyard, I suppose anything you could make by selling any extra animals you planted was your perquisite?"

"Yes, sor."

"Very well, Rafferty, that will do for to-night; get me those receipted bills to-morrow morning. Come here at ten o'clock and we will have another talk."

Rafferty went off, feeling more comfortable in his mind.

The word Perquisites might be made to cover a mult.i.tude of sins, but he would not have been so easy if he had known that Mrs. Driscoll had been called up immediately after his departure. Mrs. Driscoll was one of those terrible people who say nothing yet see everything; for the last year and a half she had been watching Rafferty; knowing it to be quite useless to report what she knew to her easy-going master, she had, none the less, kept on watching. As a result, she was now able to bring up a hard fact, a small hard fact more valuable than worlds of ductile evidence. Rafferty had "nicked"--it was the lady's expression--a brand-new lawn mower.

"I declare to G.o.d, sir, I don't know what he _has_ took, for me eyes can't be everywhere, but I do know he's took the mower."

"Why did you not tell Miss Phyl?"

"I did, sir, and she only said, 'Oh, there must be a mistake--what would he be doin' with it,' says she. 'Sellin' it,' says I. 'Nonsense,' says she. You see, sir, Rafferty and she has always been hand in glove, what with the fishin' and shootin', and the horses and such like, and she won't hear a word against him."

Mrs. Driscoll had called Rafferty a sly devil--he was.

At eleven o'clock next morning, Phyl, crossing the stable yard with some sugar for the horses, met Rafferty. He was crying.

"Why, what on earth's the matter, Rafferty?" asked the girl.

"I've got the shove, miss," replied Rafferty, "after all me years of service, I'm put out to end me days in a ditch."

"You mean you're discharged!" she cried. "Was it Mr. Pinckney?"

"That's him," replied Rafferty. "Says he's the masther of us all. 'Out you get,' says he, 'or it's I that'll be callin' a p'leeceman to put you,'

says he. Flung it in me face that I'd stolen a laan mower. Me that's ben on the estate man and boy for forty year. A laan mower! Sure, Miss Phyl, what would I be doin' with a laan mower?"

Phyl turned from him and ran to the house. Pinckney and Hennessey were seated in the library when the door burst open and in came Phyl. Her eyes were bright and her lips were pale.

"You told me you would keep all the servants," said she. "Rafferty tells me you have dismissed him."

"I should think I had," said Pinckney lightly, and not gauging the mad disturbance of the other, "and it's lucky for him I haven't put him in prison."

The word prison was all that was wanted to fire the mine. Pinckney stood for a moment aghast at the change in the girl.

"I _hate_ you," she cried, coming a step closer to him. "I loathe you--master of us all, are you? Dare to touch any one here and I'll burn the house down with my own hands--you--you--"

She paused for want of breath, her chest heaving and her hands clenched.

Then Pinckney exploded.

The good old fiery Pinckney blood was up. Oh, without any manner of doubt our ancestors are still able to speak, and it was old Roderick Pinckney--"Pepper Pinckney" was his nickname--that blazed out now. It was also the fire of youth answering the fire of youth.

"d.a.m.n it!" he cried. "I've come here to do my best--I don't care--keep who you want--be robbed if you like it--I'm off--" He caught up all the sheets of paper he had been covering with figures and tore them across.

"Beast!" cried Phyl.

She rushed from the room and upstairs like a mad creature. The bang of her bedroom door closed the incident.

"Now don't be taking on so," said Hennessey. "You've both of you lost your temper."

"Lost my temper--maybe. I'm going all the same. Right back to the States.

I'm off to Dublin by the next train and you'd better come and finish the business there. You'd better have her to stay with you in Dublin. I don't want to see her again. Anyhow, we'll settle all that later."

"Maybe that's the best," said Hennessey. "My wife will look after her till she's ready to go to the States--if she wants to."

"Please G.o.d she doesn't," replied the other.

Phyl did not see Pinckney again. He went off to Dublin by the two-ten train with Hennessey, the latter promising to be back on the morrow to arrange things.

CHAPTER VIII

Dublin can never have been a cheerful city. Even in the days when the butchers joined in street fights and hung their antagonists when caught on steel hooks--like legs of mutton--the gaiety of Dublin one may fancy to have been more a matter of spirits than of spirit.

Echoes from the days when the Parliament sat in Stephen's Green come down to us through the works of Charles Lever, but the riotous gaiety of the old days when Barrington was a judge of the Admiralty Court, the h.e.l.l Fire Club an inst.i.tution, and Count Considine a figure in society, must be taken with a grain of salt.

Mangan shows you the old Dublin as it was in those glorious times, and in the new Dublin of to-day the shade of Mangan seems still to walk arm in arm with the shade of Mathurin. Gloomy ghosts addicted to melancholy, noting with satisfaction that the streets are as dirty as ever, the old Public Houses still standing, that, despite the tramways--those extraordinary new modern inventions--the tide of life runs pretty much the same as of old. The ghosts of Mangan and Mathurin have never seen a taxi cab.