Part 36 (1/2)

'It's himself there likes a rasher--when he can get it,' said she, with a leer, and a motion of her thumb towards the adjoining room.

'Whom do you mean?' asked he, half to learn what and how much she knew of his neighbour.

'Oh! don't I know him well?--Dan Donogan,' replied she, with a grin.

'Didn't I see him in the dock with Smith O'Brien in '48, and wasn't he in trouble again after he got his pardon; and won't he always be in trouble?'

'Hus.h.!.+ don't talk so loud,' cried d.i.c.k warningly.

'He'd not hear me now if I was screechin'; it's the only time he sleeps hard; for he gets up about three or half-past--before it's day--and he squeezes through the bars of the window, and gets out into the park, and he takes his exercise there for two hours, most of the time running full speed and keeping himself in fine wind. Do you know what he said to me the other day? ”Molly,” says he, ”when I know I can get between those bars there, and run round the college park in three minutes and twelve seconds, I feel that there's not many a gaol in Ireland can howld, and the divil a policeman in the island could catch, me.”' And she had to lean over the back of a chair to steady herself while she laughed at the conceit.

'I think, after all,' said Kearney, 'I'd rather keep out of the sc.r.a.pe than trust to that way of escaping it.'

'_He_ wouldn't,' said she. 'He'd rather be seducin' soldiers in Barrack Street, or swearing in a new Fenian, or nailing a death-warnin' on a hall door, than he'd be lord mayor! If he wasn't in mischief he'd like to be in his grave.'

'And what comes of it all?' said Kearney, scarcely giving any exact meaning to his words.

'That's what I do be saying myself,' cried the hag. 'When they can transport you for singing a ballad, and send you to pick oak.u.m for a green cravat, it's time to take to some other trade than patriotism!' And with this reflection she shuffled away, to procure the materials for breakfast.

The fresh rolls, the watercress, a couple of red herrings devilled as those ancient damsels are expert in doing, and a smoking dish of rashers and eggs, flanked by a hissing tea-kettle, soon made their appearance, the hag a.s.suring Kearney that a stout knock with the poker on the back of the grate would summon Mr. Donogan almost instantaneously--so rapidly, indeed, and with such indifference as to raiment, that, as she modestly declared, 'I have to take to my heels the moment I call him,' and the modest avowal was confirmed by her hasty departure.

The a.s.surance was so far correct, that scarcely had Kearney replaced the poker, when the door opened, and one of the strangest figures he had ever beheld presented itself in the room. He was a short, thick-set man with a profusion of yellowish hair, which, divided in the middle of the head, hung down on either side to his neck--beard and moustache of the same hue, left little of the face to be seen but a pair of l.u.s.trous blue eyes, deep-sunken in their orbits, and a short wide-nostrilled nose, which bore the closest resemblance to a lion's. Indeed, a most absurd likeness to the king of beasts was the impression produced on Kearney as this wild-looking fellow bounded forward, and stood there amazed at finding a stranger to confront him.

His dress was a flannel-s.h.i.+rt and trousers, and a pair of old slippers which had once been Kearney's own.

'I was told by the college woman how I was to summon you, Mr. Donogan,'

said Kearney good-naturedly. 'You are not offended with the liberty?'

'Are you d.i.c.k?' asked the other, coming forward.

'Yes. I think most of my friends know me by that name.'

'And the old devil has told you mine?' asked he quickly.

'No, I believe I discovered that for myself. I tumbled over some of your things last night, and saw a letter addressed to you.'

'You didn't read it?'

'Certainly not. It fell out of your pocket-book, and I put it back there.'

'So the old hag didn't blab on me? I'm anxious about this, because it's got out somehow that I'm back again. I landed at Kenmare in a fis.h.i.+ng-boat from the New York packet, the _Osprey_, on Tuesday fortnight, and three of the newspapers had it before I was a week on sh.o.r.e.'

'Our breakfast is getting cold; sit down here and let me help you. Will you begin with a rasher?'

Not replying to the invitation, Donogan covered his plate with bacon, and leaning his arm on the table, stared fixedly at Kearney.

'I'm as glad as fifty pounds of it,' muttered he slowly to himself.

'Glad of what?'

'Glad that you're not a swell, Mr. Kearney,' said he gravely. '”The Honourable Richard Kearney,” whenever I repeated that to myself, it gave me a cold sweat. I thought of velvet collars and a cravat with a grand pin in it, and a stuck-up creature behind both, that wouldn't condescend to sit down with me.'