He laid some coins for the meal on the table, nodded at her, and walked out of the pub. Caitlyn chewed her lip as she watched him go. A job-he was offering her a job? She'd never had a job as such before. And, he'd said, a safe berth. A loud burst of laughter from the bar distracted her from her thoughts. She was an Irishman in a bloody Sassenach pub, which was not at all a good thing to be.
As she got to her feet her eyes chanced to fall on the table. Hesitating, she looked around to find herself unobserved. Then with a lightning movement she scooped the coins he had left from the table and into her pocket and swaggered out the door.
III
O'Malley! And here was I thinkin' you were hanged for certain sure!" Willie stood up to greet Caitlyn as she ducked into the tumbledown shanty that served as home to a fluid group of eight or so lads. Made by their own hands of discarded lumber and tin, it leaned against the back wall of the Royal Hospital. Dozens of such tiny structures had been erected along the stone walls of the building. They were regularly torn down by dragoons and just as regularly built up again by the residents. It was a way of life.
"Ah, you know I've the luck of the Irish, Willie." Caitlyn basked in Willie's amazement at her escape as she crouched to warm herself at the tiny peat fire. The smoke the fire gave off was malodorous, but she scarcely noticed. From birth she had been exposed to the awful stink of Dublin's slums. Sewage ran raw in the gutters, at least in the Irish quarters. Garbage rotted in the streets, breeding enormous rats and cockroaches the size of fat mice. After a pair of hours spent in the Protestant sections of the city, Caitlyn felt even more keenly than usual what the interlopers were robbing them of.