‘What name are we to insert in the bond?’ ‘Tiernay, sir.’
‘That’s the prisoner’s name, but we want yours.’ ‘Mine’s Tiernay, too, sir; Pat Tiernay of the Black Pits.’
Before I could recover from my surprise at this announcement he had left the court, which in a few minutes afterwards broke up, a clerk alone remaining to fill up the necessary documents and complete the bail-bond.
The colonel, as well as two others of his officers, pressed me to join them at breakfast, but I declined, resolving to wait for my namesake’s return, and partake of no other hospitality than his.
It was near one o’clock when he returned, almost worn out with fatigue, since he had been in pursuit of Mr. Murphy for several hours, and only came upon him by chance at last. His business, however, he had fully accomplished; the bail-bond was duly drawn out and signed, and I left the barrack in a state of mind very different from the feeling with which I had entered it that day.
CHAPTER XXXI. A BRIEF CHANGE OF LIFE AND COUNTRY
My new acquaintance never ceased to congratulate himself on what he called the lucky accident that had led him to the barracks that morning, and thus brought about our meeting. ‘Little as you think of me, my dear,’ said he, ‘I’m one of the Tiernays of Timmahoo myself; faix, until I saw you, I thought I was the last of them! There are eight generations of us in the churchyard at Kells, and I was looking to the time when they’d lay my bones there as the last of the race, but I see there’s better fortune before us.’
‘But you have a family, I hope?’
‘Sorrow one belonging to me. I might have married when I was young, but there was a pride in me to look for something higher than I had any right—except from blood I mean, for a better stock than our own isn’t to be found; and that’s the way years went over and I lost the opportunity, and here I am now an old bachelor, without one to stand to me, barrin’ it be yourself.’