Mrs. Sweeny, though an oppressed woman, was not wanting in spirit. She gave Peter Walsh’s message in a way calculated to rouse and irritate her husband.
“He says that if you don’t get up out of that mighty quick there’ll be them here that will make you.”
“Hell to your soul!” said Sweeny, “what way’s that of talking? Ask him now is the wind in the southeast or is it not?”
“I can tell you that myself,” said Mrs. Sweeny. “It is not; for if it was it would be in on this window and my hair would be blew off my head.”
“Ask him,” said Sweeny, “what boats is in the harbor, and then shut down the window.”
Mrs. Sweeny put her head and shoulders out of the window.
“Himself wants to know,” she said, “what boats is at the quay. You needn’t be looking at me like that, Peter Walsh. He’s sober enough. Hard for him to be anything else for he’s been in his bed the whole of the night.”
“Will you tell him, ma’am,” said Peter Walsh, “that there’s no boats in it only the Tortoise, and that one itself won’t be there for long for the wind’s easterly and it’s a fair run out to Inishbawn.”
Mrs. Sweeny repeated this message. Sweeny, roused to activity at last, flung off the bedclothes.
“Get out of the room with you,” he said to his wife, “and shut the door. It’s down to the kitchen you’ll go and let me hear you doing it.”
Mrs. Sweeny was too wise to disobey or argue. She snatched a petticoat from a chair near the door and left the room hurriedly. Sweeny went to the window.
“What the hell work’s this, Peter Walsh?” he said. “Can’t you let me sleep quiet in my bed without raising the devil’s own delight in my back-yard. If I did right I’d set the police at you.”
“I’ll not be the only one the police will be at,” said Peter, “if that’s the way of it. So there you have it plain and straight.”
“What I mean is this. The young lady is off in her own boat. She and the young fellow with the sore leg along with her, and she says the master and the strange gentleman will be down for the Tortoise as soon, as ever they have their breakfast ate. That’s what I mean and I hope it’s to your liking.”
“Can you not go out and knock a hole in the bottom of the damned boat?” said Sweeny, “or run the blade of a knife through the halyards, or smash the rudder iron with the wipe of a stone? What good are you if you can’t do the like of that? Sure there’s fifty ways of stopping a man from going out in a boat when there’s only one boat for him to go in?”