“Leave the room—close the door,” said Curtis, with an air of caution. “I saw the signal you gave the innkeeper a moment ago, MacNaghten,” said he, in the same low and guarded tone. “I read its meaning perfectly. You would imply: The old fellow is not right—a crack in the upper story—humor him a bit. Don't deny it, man; you acted for the best; you thought, as many think, that my misfortunes had affected my intellect and sapped my understanding; and so they had done this many a day,” added he, fiercely, “but for one thing. I had one grand security against madness, Dan; one great barrier, my boy: shall I tell it you? It was this, then: that if my head wandered sometimes, my heart never did—never! I hated the English and their party in this country with a hate that never slept, never relaxed! I knew well that I was the only man in Ireland that they could not put down. Some they bought—some they ruined—some they intimidated—some they destroyed by calumny. They tried all these with me, and at last were driven to a false accusation, and had me up for a murder! and that failed them, too! Here I stand, their opponent, just as I did fifty-two years ago, and the only man in all Ireland that dares to brave and defy them. They 'd make me a peer to-morrow, Dan; they 'd give me a colonial government; they 'd take me into the Cabinet; there is not a demand of mine they 'd say 'No' to, if I 'd join them; but my answer is, 'Never! never!' Go down to your grave, Joe Curtis, ruined, ragged, half-famished, mayhap. Let men call you a fool, and worse! but the time will come, and the people will say: There was once a man in Ireland that never truckled to the Castle, nor fawned on the Viceroy; and that when he stood in the dock, with his life on the venture, told them that he despised their vengeance, though he knew that they were covering it with all the solemnity of a law-court; and that man his contemporaries—ay, even his friends—were pleased to call Mad!”
“Come, come, Curtis, you know well this is not my impression of you; you only say so jestingly.”
“It's a sorry theme to crack jokes upon,” said the other, sadly. He paused, and seemed to reflect deeply for some minutes, and then, in a voice of peculiar meaning, and with a look of intense cunning in his small gray eyes, said, “We heard the name he mentioned,—Raper, Fagan's man of business. Let 's have him in, MacNaghten; the fellow is a half simpleton in many things. Let's talk to him.”
“Would you ask Mr. Raper to join our breakfast?” asked Dan of the innkeeper.
“He has just finished his own, sir; some bread and watercresses, with a cup of milk, are all that he takes.”
“Poor fellow!” said Dan, “I see him yonder in the summer-house; he appears to be in hard study, for he has not raised his head since we entered the room. I 'll go and ask him how he is.”
MacNaghten had not only time to approach the little table where Raper was seated unobserved, but even to look over the object of his study, before his presence was recognized.
“German, Mr. Raper; reading German?” cried MacNaghten. “I know the characters, at least.”
“Yes, sir, it is German; an odd volume of Richter that I picked up a few days ago. A difficult author at first, somewhat involved and intricate in construction: here, for instance is a passage—”
“My dear friend, it is all a Greek chorus to me, or anything else you can fancy equally unintelligible.”