‘Will you not come in and sit down?’ said Kearney, as he cordially shook Flood’s hand.
‘I have only five minutes to stay, and with your leave, Mr. Kearney, we’ll pass it here’; and taking the other’s arm, he proceeded to walk up and down before the door of the inn.
‘You know Ireland well—few men better, I am told—and you have no need, therefore, to be told how the rumoured dislikes of party, the reported jealousies and rancours of this set to that, influence the world here. It will be a fine thing, therefore, to show these people here that the Liberal, Mr. Kearney, and that bigoted old Tory, Tom Flood, were to be seen walking together, and in close confab. It will show them, at all events, that neither of us wants to make party capital out of this scrimmage, and that he who wants to affront one of us, cannot, on that ground, at least, count upon the other. Just look at the crowd that is watching us already! There ‘a a fellow neglecting the sale of his pig to stare at us, and that young woman has stopped gartering her stocking for the last two minutes in sheer curiosity about us.’
Kearney laughed heartily as he nodded assent.
‘You follow me, don’t you?’ asked Flood. ‘Well, then, grant me the favour I’m about to ask, and it will show me that you see all these things as I do. This row may turn out more seriously than we thought for. That scoundrel Gill is in a high fever to-day—I would not say that just out of spite the fellow would not die. Who knows if it may not become a great case at the assizes; and if so, Kearney, let us have public opinion with us. There are scores of men who will wait to hear what you and I say of this business. There are hundreds more who will expect us to disagree. Let us prove to them that this is no feud between Orange and Green, this is nothing of dispute between Whig and Tory, or Protestant and Papist; but a free fight, where, more shame to them, fifty fell upon one. Now what you must grant me is leave to send this boy back to Kilgobbin in my own carriage, and with my own liveries. There is not a peasant cutting turf on the bog will not reason out his own conclusions when he sees it. Don’t refuse me, for I have set my heart on it.’
‘I’m not thinking of refusing. I was only wondering to myself what my daughter Kitty will say when she sees me sitting behind the blue and orange liveries.’
‘You may send me back with the green flag over me the next day I dine with you,’ cried Flood, and the compact was ratified.
‘It is more than half-past already,’ said Flood. ‘We are to have a full bench at three; so be ready to give your bail, and I’ll have the carriage at the corner of the street, and you shall set off with the boy at once.’