The Tithe-Proctor Part 9

"Begad, sir, and I'm afeard you'll be forced to put up wid my logic this time, too. You can't take more from the cat than her skin, you know."

There was an atrocious and sneering spirit, not only in this ruffian's manner, but in the tones of his voice, that was calculated to overcome human patience.

"Darby, we have let you run a long time, but I now tell you, there's an end of our forbearance so far as you are concerned. If you were not able to pay I could feel for you, put we know, and all the world knows, that you are one of the most comfortable and independent men in the parish.

Darby, you in short are a d--d rogue, and what is worse, a treacherous and mischief-makin scoundrel. I am aware of the language you use against our whole family, whom you blacken whenever you have an opportunity of doing so. You are not only dishonest but ungrateful, sirrah."

"No man has a betther right to be a judge, and a good judge of dishonesty, than your father's son," replied Hourigan. "Why didn't you call me an oppressor of the poor, and a blood-sucker?--why didn't you say I was a hard-hearted beggarly upstart, that rose from maneness and cheatery, and am now tyrannizin' over hundreds that's a thousand times betther than myself? Why don't you say that I'd sell my church and my religion to their worst enemies, and that for the sake of filthy lucre and blackguard upstart pride? I now come to tell you what we all think of you in this country, and what I believe some of us has tould you already--that you may go to h.e.l.l for your t.i.the, and make the divil your paymaster, what he'll be yet. We will pay you none, and we set you and your upstart ould rogue of a father, with the law, the polis, and the army, all at defiance. I don't choose to say more, but I could if I liked."

Purcell's hunting-whip accidentally lay on the table at which he sat, but he did not take it up immediately after Hourigan had concluded. He quickly rose, however, and having closed the door and locked it, he let down the windows, and deliberately drew the blinds.

"Now, you scoundrel," he replied, taking up the whip, and commencing to flog Hourigan with all his strength, which was very great, "I will give you, by way of foretaste, a specimen of what a ruffian like you deserves when he is insolent."

With such singular energy, good will, and admirable effect did he lace Mr. Hourigan, that the latter worthy, after cutting some very antic capers, and exhibiting in a good many other respects several proofs of his agility that could scarcely be expected from his heavy and ungainly figure, was at last fairly obliged to sing out,--"Oh, Misther John, Misther John! you will--Misther John, darlin', what do you mane, you murdh--oh, oh, d--n your soul--dear, what do you mane, Mr. John, dear?

I say, what are you at? What do you baste me this way for--oh, may the divil--the Lord bless you, an' don't--here I am--here, Misther John, I ax your pardon--h.e.l.l pursue--Misther John, darlin', I go down on my knees to you, an' axes your pardon--here now you see, I'm down.--Och murdher, am I to have the very sowl welted out o' me this way?"

Mr. John, having now satisfied himself, and left very visible marks of his attachment and good will to Hourigan, upon that individual's face and person, desired him to get up.

"Now, my good fellow," he exclaimed, "I trust I have taught you a lesson that you won't forget."

"No, Misther John," he replied, rising and rubbing himself in different parts of the body, as if to mitigate the pain which he felt; "no, I won't forget it--I won't by it's a lesson I'll remember, and so will you."

"What do you mean, you cowardly villain?" asked Purcel, once more raising his whip. "You are threatening, are you."

"No, Misther John, not a bit o' that--divil a threat--me! I wouldn't threaten you if there wasn't niver another man in Europe. Let me out, if you plaise--let me out, and may the div--the Lord lov you!"

"Now," said the other, raising the blinds and afterwards opening the door, "you may go about your business, and mark me, Mr Hourigan--"

"I do, sir," replied the other, bolting out "oh, G.o.d knows I do--you have marked me, Misther Purcel, and I will mark you, sir--for--" he added muttering in a low voice to those who stood about him--"one good turn desarves another, anyhow."

We shall not now dwell upon the comments which young Purcel's violence drew from the defaulters on their way home. Our reader, however, may easily imagine them, and form for themselves a presentiment of the length to which "the t.i.the insurrection," as they termed it, was likely to proceed throughout the country at large, with the exception only of the northern provinces.

CHAPTER V.--A Hang-Choice Shot--The "Garrison" on Short Commons.

When our merry friend the pedlar left the proctor's parlor, he proceeded at a brisk pace in the direction of the highway, which, however, was not less than three-quarters of a mile from Longshot Lodge, which was the name Purcel had given to his residence. He had only got clear of the offices, however, and was pa.s.sing the garden wall, which ran between him and the proctor's whole premises, when he was arrested by Mogue Moylan.

"Ah! merry Mogue," exclaimed the pedlar, ironically, "I was missin' you.

Where were you, my cherub?"

"I was in the barn 'ithin," replied Mogue, "just offerin' up a little pathernavy for the protection o' this house and place, and of the daicent, kind-hearted peeople that's in it."

"An', as a joint prayer, they say, is worth ten single ones, I suppose,"

returned the pedlar,--laying his fingers on his lips and winking--"you had--ahem--you understand?"

"No, thin," replied Mogue, brightening up with excessive vanity, "may I be happy if I do!"

"Why, our fair friend, Letty Lenehan--begad, Mogue, she's a purty girl that--says she to herself," proceeded the pedlar; "for I don't think she knew or thought I heard her--'If I thought he would like these rib-bons, I'd buy them for myself.' 'Who do you mane, acushla?' says I, whisperin'

to her. 'Who,' says she, 'but--but Mogue himself--only honor bright, Mr.

Magrath' says she, 'sure you wouldn't betray me?' 'Honor bright again,'

says I, 'I'm not the stuff a traitor's made of;' and so you see we both laughed heartily, bekaise we understood one another. Mogue," proceeded the other, "will you answer me the truth in one thing?"

"If I can I will, Misther Magrath.

"I know ye will, bekaise you can," replied, the pedlar; "how do you come round the girls at all? how do you make them fond o' you? I want you to tell me that, if it's not a family saicret."

Mogue gravely drew his fingers and thumb down his thin yellow jaws, until they met under his chin, and replied--

"It can't be tould, Misther Magrath; some men the women's naturally fond of, and some men they can't bear--throth it's like a freemason's saicret, if you wor a man that the women wor naturally fond of you'd know it yoa.r.s.elf, but not bein' that, Mr. Magrath, you could not understand it. It's born wid one, an' troth, a troublesome gift it is--for it is a gift--at least, I find it so. There's no keep in' the crathurs oft o' you."

"Begad, you must be a happy man, Mogue. I wish I was like you--but whisper, man alive, why don't you look higher.

"How is that?" asked the other, now apparently awakened to a new interest.

"Mogue," said the pedlar, with something like solemnity of manner, "you and I are both embarked in the same s.h.i.+p, you know--we know how things are to go. I'm now provin' to you that I'm your friend. Listen, you pa.s.sed through the back-yard to-day while I was in the parlor wid the family sellin' my goods as well as I could. Well, Miss Julia had a beautiful shawl about her purty shoulders, and as she seen you pa.s.sin, she started, kept her eyes fixed upon you till you disappeared, and then, afther thinkin 'or some time, she sighed deeply. Whisper, the thing flashed upon me--that's that, thought I, at any rate--and devil a doubt of it, you're safe there, or my name's not Andy Magrath, better known as the Cannie Soogah-Hurra, Mogue, more power!"

A richer comic study than Mogue's face ould not possibly be depicted.

His thin craggy jaws--for cheeks he had none--were winkled and puckered into such a multiplicity of villanous folds and crevices, as could scarcely be paralleled on a human countenance; and what added to the ludicrous impression made, was the fact that he endeavored to look--and, in fact, did so successfully--more like a man who felt that a secret long known to himself had been discovered, than a person to whom the intelligence had come for the first time.

"An' Misther Magrath," he replied, once more repeating the survey of his puckered laws; "is it by way of information that you tould me that? That I mayn't sin, but you should be ever and always employed in carryin'

coals to, Newcastle. Troth, since you have broachedthe thing, I've known it this good while, and no one could tell you more about it, if I liked. Honor bright, however, as poor Letty said, troth, I pity that girl--but what can I do? no--no--honor bright, for ever!"

"Well, anyhow, now that we've thrown light upon what I noticed a while ago, let us talk about other matters. The house is still well armed and guarded, you say?"

"That I may die in grace, but it 'ud take me half an hour to reckon all the guns, pistols, and blunderbushes they have freshly loaded in the house every night."

"Well, couldn't you a.s.sist us, you in the house?"

"No--for I'm not in the house; they wouldn't allow any servant to sleep in the house for fear o' traichery, and they say so. If they'd let me sleep in the house, it 'ud be another thing; I might wet the powdher, and make their fire-arms useless; but sure they have lots of swords and bagnets, and daggers, and other instruments o' that kind that 'ud skiver one like a rabbit."

"Well, but you know all the outs and ins of the house, the rooms and pa.s.sages, and everything that way so thoroughly, that one could depend upon your account of them."

"Depend upon them--ay, as well as you might upon the Gospel itself;--she was fond of M'Carthy, they say, and they think she is still; but, _be dhu husth_, (* Hold your tongue.) there's one that knows betther. You don't like M'Carthy?"

"To be sure I do, as the devil does holy wather."

"Well," proceeded Mogue, "I've a thing in my head about him--but sure he's in the black list as it is."

"Well, what is it you have in your head about him?"

Mogue shook it, but added, "Never mind, I'll think it over again, and when I'm made up on it, maybe I'll tell you. Don't we meet on this day week?"

"Sartainly, will you come?"

"I intend it, for the truth is, Misther Magrath, that the Millstone must be broke; that I may die in pace, but it must, an' any one that stands in the way of it must suffer. May I be happy, but they must."

The pedlar looked cautiously about him, and seeing that the coast was clear and no person visible, he thrust a letter into his hand, adding, "you may lave it in some place where the ould chap, or either of the sons, will be sure to find it. Maybe it'll tache them a little more civility to their neighbors."