‘Means o’ livelihood,’ repeated Peebles. ‘You’re doited, man alive! What has this question to do wi’ your means of livelihood?’
‘Just the blackmail that Dick Conseltine has paid me to hold my tongue,’ replied Blake with a beautiful candour.
‘That’s all o’er now,’ said Peebles. ‘He kens that Moya’s alive, and he kens that _I_ ken it. Eh, Patrick Blake,’ he continued, shaking his head reproachfully at the burly figure opposite him, ‘ye’ve been a sad scoun’rel in your time, I doubt. But ye helped to save that puir lass’s life, and I’ll no be hard on ye. What can be done for ye in reason shall be done. Maybe the wages o’ honesty won’t amount to as much as the wages o’ sin, but ye’ll hae a clearer conscience to mak’ up the balance. I can promise naething, but I’ll speak to Desmond and my lord. I’m thinking ye’d be best oot o’ the country. Some hundred pounds and a passage to America would suit ye fine.’
‘Emigration!’ said Blake. ‘’Twas that Dick Conseltine was advising the other day. Faix, ye’re all in a mighty hurry to get rid o’ poor old Pat Blake. Well, Peebles, I’ll trust ye. I’ve always found ye square and honest, and I like the boy. I’d rather see him with the title than that ape cub o’ Dick Conseltine’s, any day of the year. As for the help I can give ye, well, there’s me licence to preach, marry, and bury, signed by the Bishop, and granted at Maynooth College. I’ve got it at home at Blake’s Hall to this day, and faith, if that’s not enough, I can find a score o’ people at my old cure who’ll remember me and swear to my identity.’
At this moment he was interrupted by a rap at the pantry door, and a servant announced that Peebles was needed in my lord’s chamber.
‘Wait here,’ said the old man to Blake. ‘I’ll no’ be long.’
Peebles mounted the stairs, and found Kilpatrick seated at the open window of his room. He gave some commonplace instructions which could quite easily have been fulfilled by any other servant in the house. Peebles, who knew his master’s mind as though he had made him, obeyed the orders, and stood at his elbow silently.
‘Well, Peebles? well?’ asked Kilpatrick. ‘Well, my lord?’ said Peebles,
Kilpatrick sat twisting his fingers in a nervous silence for a second or two, and then abruptly asked: