‘One of the constabulary?’
‘Yes, sir; a dirty, mean chap, that was looking after a poor boy that set fire to Mr. Hagin’s ricks, and that was over a year ago.’
‘And naturally forgotten by this time?’
‘By coorse it was forgotten. Ould Mat Hagin got a presentment for the damage out of the grand-jury, and nobody was the worse for it at all.’
‘And so the club is smashed, eh?’
‘As good as smashed, sir; for whenever any of them comes now of an evening, he just goes into the bar and takes his glass there.’
He sighed heavily as he said this, and seemed overcome with sadness.
‘I’m trying to remember why the name is so familiar to me. I know I have heard of Lord Kilgobbin before,’ said Walpole.
‘Maybe so,’ said the landlord respectfully. ‘You may have read in books how it was at Kilgobbin Castle King James came to stop after the Boyne; that he held a “coort” there in the big drawing-room—they call it the “throne-room” ever since—and slept two nights at the castle afterwards?’
‘That’s something to see, Walpole,’ said Lockwood.