Matters, as they now seemed to progress, and he watched them close, were daggers to Tom Murdock's heart. He had seen Winny Cavana, on more than one evening, leave the house and take the turn toward Kate Mulvey's. On these occasions he had the meanness and want of spirit to watch her movements; and although he could not satisfy himself that young Lennon came to meet her, he was not quite satisfied that he did not.
Winny invariably turned into Kate Mulvey's, and remained for a long visit. Might not "that hound" be there?--Tom sometimes varied his epithets--might it not be a place of assignation? This was but the suspicion of a low, mean mind like Tom Murdock's.
The fact is, since Tom's threat about "winning the trick" he had been rather idle. His game was not one which could be played out by correspondence--he was too cunning for that--and the means which he would be obliged to adopt were not exactly ready at his hand. He saw that matters were not pressing in another quarter yet, if ever they should press, and he would "ride a waiting race," and win unexpectedly. Thus the simile of Tom's thoughts still took their tone from the race-course, and he would "hold hard" for another bit. Circumstances, however, soon occurred which made him "push forward toward the front" if he had any hope "to come in first."
Edward Lennon having finished his "landscape gardening" at Mr. D----s, and the overseership being held over for the present, had got another rather long job, on the far part of Ned Cavana's farm, in laying out and cutting drains, where the land required reclaiming. He had shown so much taste and intelligence, in both planning and performing, that old Ned was quite delighted with him, and began to regret "that he had not known his value as an agricultural laborer long before." There was one other at least--if not two--who sympathized in that regret. At all events, there he was now every day up to his hips in dirty red clay, scooping it up from the bottom of little drains more than three feet deep, in a long iron scoop with a crooked handle. This job was at the far end of Ned's farm, and, in coming to his work, Lennon need hardly come within sight of the house, for the work lay in the direction of Shanvilla. Emon did not "quit work" until it was late; he was then in anything but visiting trim, if such a thing were even possible. He, therefore, saw no more of Winny on account of the job than if he had been at work on the Giant's Causeway. But a grand object had been attained, nevertheless--he was working for Ned Cavana, and had given him more than satisfaction in the performance of the job, and on one occasion old Ned had called him "Emon-a-wochal," a term of great familiarity. This was a great change for the better. If young Lennon had been as well acquainted with racing phraseology as Tom Murdock, he also would have thought that he would "make a waiting race of it." But the expression of _his_ thoughts was that he "would bide his time."