'“Faix, you do,” says I, “and ten shillings to the back of it for Lanty Cassan's mare that I hired to bring you home when you staked the horse; you never paid it since.” And then there was another laugh; but the end of all was, he writ a bit of a note where he was on horseback, with a pencil, and here it is.'
So saying, he produced a small crumpled piece of paper, in which I could with some difficulty trace the following lines:—
'Dear Jack,—If the fool who bears this ever arrives with it, come back at once. Your friends in England have been worrying the duke to command your return to duty; and there are stories afloat about your western doings that your presence here can alone contradict.—Yours, J. Horton.'
It needed not a second for me to make up my mind as to my future course, and I said—
'How can I reach Limerick the shortest way?' 'I know a short cut,' said Joe, 'and if we could get a pony I'd bring you over the mountain before to-morrow evening.'
'And you,' said I—'how are you to go?' 'On my feet, to be sure; how else would I go?' Despatching Joe, in company with Patsey, in search of a pony to carry me over the mountain, I walked into the little parlour which I was now about to take my leave of for ever.
It was only then when I threw myself upon a seat, alone and in solitude, that I felt the full force of all my sorrow—the blight that had fallen on my dearest hopes, and the blank, bleak prospect of life before me. Sir Simon Bellew's letter I read over once more; but now the mystery it contained had lost all interest for me, and I had only thoughts for my own affliction. Suddenly, a deep burning spot glowed on my cheek as I remembered my interview with Ulick Burke, and I sprang to my legs, and for a second or two felt undecided whether I would not give him the opportunity he so longed for. It was but a second, and my better reason came back, and I blushed even deeper with shame than I had done with passion.
Calming myself with a mighty effort, I endeavoured to pen a few lines to my worthy and kind friend, Father Loftus. I dared not tell him the real cause of my departure, though indeed I guessed from his absence that he had accompanied the Bellews, and but simply spoke of my return to duty as imperative, and my regret that after such proofs of his friendship I could not shake his hand at parting. The continued flurry of my feelings doubtless made this a very confused and inexplicit document; but I could do no better. In fact, the conviction I had long been labouring under, but never could thoroughly appreciate, broke on me at the moment. It was this: the sudden vicissitudes of everyday life in Ireland are sadly unsuited to our English natures and habits of thought and action. These changes from grave to gay, these outbreaks of high-souled enthusiasm followed by dark, reflective traits of brooding thought, these noble impulses of good, these events of more than tragic horror, demand a changeful, even a forgetful temperament to bear them; and while the Irishman rises or falls with every emergency of his fate, with us impressions are eating deeper and deeper into our hearts, and we become sad and thoughtful, and prematurely old. Thus at least did I feel, and it seemed to me as though very many years had passed over me since I left my father's house.
The tramp of feet and the sounds of speaking and laughter outside interrupted my musings, and I heard my friend Joe carolling at the top of his voice—
'Sir Pat bestrode a high-bred steed,
And the huntsman one that was broken-kneed,
And Father Pitz had a wiry weed
With his tally-high-ho in the morning.'