“Is n't there poor everywhere? If the world was all gould and silver, what would be the precious metals—tell me that? Is it because there's a little cripple like myself here, that them mountains yonder is n't of copper and iron and cobalt? Come over with me after I lave the bags at the office, and I 'll show you bits of every one I speak of.”
“I'd rather you'd show me a doctor, my worthy fellow,” said Craggs, sighing.
“I'm the nearest thing to that same going,” replied Billy. “I can breathe a vein against any man in the barony. I can't say, that for any articular congestion of the aortic valves, or for a sero-pulmonic diathesis—d'ye mind?—that there isn't as good as me; but for the ould school of physic, the humoral diagnostic touch, who can beat me?”
“Will you come with me across the lough, and see my lord, then?” said Craggs, who was glad even of such aid in his emergency.
“And why not, when I lave the bags?” said Billy, touching the leather sack as he spoke.
If the Corporal was not without his misgivings as to the skill and competence of his companion, there was something in the fluent volubility of the little fellow that overawed and impressed him, while his words were uttered in a rich mellow voice, that gave them a sort of solemn persuasiveness.
“Were you always on the road?” asked the Corporal, curious to learn some particulars of his history.
“No, sir; I was twenty things before I took to the bags. I was a poor scholar for four years; I kept school in Erris; I was 'on' the ferry in Dublin with my fiddle for eighteen months; and I was a bear in Liverpool for part of a winter.”
“A bear!” exclaimed Craggs. “Yes, sir. It was an Italian—one Pipo Chiassi by name—that lost his beast at Manchester, and persuaded me, as I was about the same stature, to don the sable, and perform in his place. After that I took to writin' for the papers—'The Skibbereen Celt'—and supported myself very well till it broke. But here we are at the office, so I 'll step in, and get my fiddle, too, if you 've no objection.”
The Corporal's meditations scarcely were of a kind to reassure him, as he thought over the versatile character of his new friend; but the case offered no alternative—it was Billy or nothing—since to reach Clifden on foot would be the labor of many hours, and in the interval his master should be left utterly alone. While he was thus musing, Billy reappeared, with a violin under one arm and a much-worn quarto under the other.