“'T was little time you had either to run with the one or drink the other, Dan,” said he; “for you were snug in Kilmainham the whole of the winter.”
“Otium cum dignitate,” said Dan. “I spent my evenings in drawing up a bill for the better recovery of small debts.”
“How so, Dan?”
“Lending enough more, to bring the debtor into the superior courts,—trying him for murder instead of manslaughter.”
“Faith, you'd do either if you were put to it,” said French, who merely heard the words, without understanding the context.
Dan MacNaghten was now included in my father's invitation to Castle Carew; and, after a few other allusions to past events and absent friends, they all took their leave, and my father hastened to join his bride.
“You thought them very noisy, my dear,” said my father, in reply to a remark of hers. “They, I have no doubt, were perfectly astonished at their excessive quietness,—an air of decorum only assumed because they heard you were in the next room.”
“They were not afraid of me, I trust,” said she, smiling. “Not exactly afraid,” said my father, with a very peculiar smile.