“For Mary Draper and Co., I thank you,” said Maurice. “Quill drinks to Dennis,” added he, in a grave tone, as he nodded to O’Shaughnessy. “Yes, Shaugh, few men better than ourselves know these matters; and few have had more experience of the three perils of Irishmen,—love, liquor, and the law of arrest.”
“It’s little the latter has ever troubled my father’s son,” replied O’Shaughnessy. “Our family have been writ proof for centuries, and he’d have been a bold man who would have ventured with an original or a true copy within the precincts of Killinahoula.”
“Your father had a touch of Larry M’Hale in him,” said I, “apparently.”
“Exactly so,” replied Dennis; “not but they caught him at last, and a scurvy trick it was and well worthy of him who did it! Yes,” said he, with a sigh, “it is only another among the many instances where the better features of our nationality have been used by our enemies as instruments for our destruction; and should we seek for the causes of unhappiness in our wretched country, we should find them rather in our virtues than in our vices, and in the bright rather than in the darker phases of our character.”
“Metaphysics, by Jove!” cried Quill; “but all true at the same time. There was a mess-mate of mine in the ‘Roscommon’ who never paid car-hire in his life. ‘Head or harp, Paddy!’ he would cry. ‘Two tenpennies or nothing.’ ‘Harp, for the honor of ould Ireland!’ was the invariable response, and my friend was equally sure to make head come uppermost; and, upon my soul, they seem to know the trick at the Home Office.”
“That must have been the same fellow that took my father,” cried O’Shaughnessy, with energy.
“Let us hear the story, Dennis,” said I.
“Yes,” said Maurice, “for the benefit of self and fellows, let us hear the stratagem!”
“The way of it was this,” resumed O’Shaughnessy. “My father, who for reasons registered in the King’s Bench spent a great many years of his life in that part of Ireland geographically known as lying west of the law, was obliged, for certain reasons of family, to come up to Dublin. This he proceeded to do with due caution. Two trusty servants formed an advance guard, and patrolled the country for at least five miles in advance; after them came a skirmishing body of a few tenants, who, for the consideration of never paying rent, would have charged the whole Court of Chancery, if needful. My father himself, in an old chaise victualled like a fortress, brought up the rear; and as I said before, he were a bold man who would have attempted to have laid siege to him. As the column advanced into the enemy’s country, they assumed a closer order, the patrol and the picket falling back upon the main body; and in this way they reached that most interesting city called Kilbeggan. What a fortunate thing it is for us in Ireland that we can see so much of the world without foreign travel, and that any gentleman for six-and-eightpence can leave Dublin in the morning, and visit Timbuctoo against dinner-time. Don’t stare! it’s truth I’m telling; for dirt, misery, smoke, unaffected behavior, and black faces, I’ll back Kilbeggan against all Africa. Free-and-easy, pleasant people ye are, with a skin, as begrimed and as rugged as your own potatoes! But, to resume. The sun was just rising in a delicious morning of June, when my father,—whose loyal antipathies I have mentioned made him also an early riser,—was preparing for the road. A stout escort of his followers were as usual under arms to see him safe in the chaise, the passage to and from which every day being the critical moment of my father’s life.
“‘It’s all right, your honor,’ said his own man, as, armed with a blunderbuss, he opened the bed-room door.