And as Kearney said this to himself, he was cautious in the use of his verb, and never said ‘could,’ but always ‘would’ do; and oh dear! is it not in this fashion that so many of us keep up our courage in life, and attribute to the want of will what we well know lies in the want of power.
Last of all he bethought himself of this man Donogan, a dangerous fellow in a certain way, and one whose companionship must be got rid of at any price. Plotting over in his mind how this should be done in the morning, he at last fell fast asleep.
So overcome was he by slumber, that he never awoke when that venerable institution called the college woman—the hag whom the virtue of unerring dons insists o imposing as a servant on resident students—entered, made up the fire, swept up the room, and arranged the breakfast-table. It was only as she jogged his arm to ask him for an additional penny to buy more milk, that he awoke and remembered where he was.
‘Will I get yer honour a bit of bacon?’ asked she, in a tone intended to be insinuating.
‘Whatever you like,’ said he drowsily.
‘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?’
‘Hush! don’t talk so loud,’ cried Dick 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.