CHAPTER LI.
HOW CHARLES NUTTER'S TEA, PIPE, AND TOBACCO-BOX WERE ALL SET OUT FOR HIM IN THE SMALL PARLOUR AT THE MILLS; AND HOW THAT NIGHT WAS PASSED IN THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH-YARD.
Mrs.Nutter and Mrs.Sturk, the wives of the two men who most hated one another within the vicinage of Chapelizod--natural enemies, holding aloof one from another, and each regarding the other in a puzzled way, with a sort of apprehension and horror, as the familiar of that worst and most formidable of men--her husband--were this night stricken with a common fear and sorrow.
Darkness descended on the Mills and the river--a darkness deepened by the umbrageous trees that grouped about the old gray house in which poor Mrs.Nutter lay so ill at ease.

Moggy carried the jingling tray of tea-things into Nutter's little study, and lighted his candles, and set the silver snuffers in the dish, and thought she heard him coming, and ran back again, and returned with the singing 'tea-kitchen,' and then away again, for the thin buttered toast under its china cover, which our ancestors loved.
Then she listened--but 'twas a mistake--it was the Widow Macan's step, who carried the ten pailfuls of water up from the river to fill the butt in the backyard every Tuesday and Friday, for a shilling a week, and 'a cup o' tay with the girls in the kitchen.' Then Moggy lighted the fire with the stump of a candle, for the night was a little chill, and she set the small round table beside it, and laid her master's pipe and tobacco-box on it, and listened, and began to wonder what detained him.
So she went out into the sharp still air, and stood on the hall-door step, and listened again.

Presently she heard the Widow Macan walking up from the garden with the last pail on her head, who stopped when she saw her, and set down the vessel upon the corner of the clumsy little balustrade by the door-step.

So Moggy declared her uneasiness, which waxed greater when Mrs.Macan told her that 'the masther, God bless him, wasn't in the garden.' She had seen him standing at the river's edge, while she passed and repassed.

He did not move a finger, or seem to notice her, and was looking down into the water.