on't you be makin' love to my ol' woman."

He flicked his thumb and finger at the woman with an ugly jocularity:
then went, with the tramp's shambling trot, out of the stable-yard the
way he had come, down the back avenue which opened on to the road to
Killesky.

CHAPTER III

A TEA PARTY

"I've seen that man of yours before," said Patsy, turning round and
gazing at the woman.

He felt the most extraordinary pity for her. She must have been a
pretty girl once, he thought, noticing the small pure outlines of the
face. The child was like her, not like the ruffian who had just set
off in the direction of Conneely's Hotel. A pretty boy, with soft,
pale silken hair and blue eyes that looked scared. Patsy remembered
his own childhood with the terrible old grandfather, and his heart was
soft with compassion.

"I don't think so, sir," said the woman. She was English by her voice.
"He hasn't been in these parts before."

Patsy noticed with the same sharp pity which seemed to hurt him, that
she trembled. She was tired and hungry, perhaps; not cold, surely, in
this glorious June sunshine.

"Sit down," he said, "sit down." He indicated a stone seat by the open
door of the house. "You are tired, my poor girl. I've put the kettle
on. It'll be boilin' by this time. I'll wet the cup of tay and it'll
do you good."

There was no one in the stable-yard to observe the strange sight of the
stud-groom giving a meal to the tramping woman and her child. He
brought out a little cloth and spread it on the stone seat. Then he
fetched the cups and saucers, one by one.

"Let me help you, sir," said the woman. "I was a servant in a good
house before I had the misfortune to marry."

There had been some strange delicacy in Patsy's mind which had induced
him to have the outdoor tea rather than a less troublesome arrangement
within doors. Perhaps he had an instinctive knowledge of what the
woman's husband might be capable of in the way of thought or speech.

"Sit down there, Georgie," said the woman to the child, with a kind of
passionate tenderness. "He's too little, so he is," she addressed
Patsy Kenny, "for the load o' cans and pots he has to carry. His bones
are but soft yet."

"Cans and pots?"

"There, beyond the gate. We sell them as we go along. When they're
sold we buy more. We had a donkey-cart, but ... we had to sell it. We
only take now what Georgie and me can carry."

"And your husband?"

"He