As he turned a corner of a street, a jaunting-car, around which some travellers stood, stopped the way, and he heard the words of the driver.
“There's another place to spare.”
“Where for?” asked Cashel.
“Limerick, sir,” said the man.
“Drive on, b———t you,” cried a deep voice from the other side of the vehicle; and the fellow's whip descended with a heavy slash, and the beast struck out into a gallop, and speedily was out of sight.
“Did n't you see who it was?” muttered the speaker to the man beside him.
“No.”
“It was Cashel himself,—I knew him at once; and I tell you, Jones, he would have known me, too, for all this disguise, when a gleam of day came to shine.”
As for Cashel, he stood gazing after the departing vehicle, with a strange chaos of thought working within.
“Am I then infamous?” said he at last, “that these men will not travel in my company? Is it to this the mere accusation of crime has brought me!” And, slight as the incident was, it told upon him as some acrid substance would irritate and corrode an open wound,—festering the tender surface.