Freney nodded, and went on: “He's a poor laboring man, with four acres of wet bog for a farm, and a young woman, in the ague, for a wife, and if it was n't for myself he 'd be starving; and would you believe it, now, he 'd not take to the road for one night—just one single night—to be as rich as the Duke of Leinster; and here am I”—and, as he spoke, his chest expanded, and his dark eyes flashed wildly—“here am I, that would rather be on my black mare's back, with my holsters at the saddle, watching the sounds of wheels on a lonely road, than I 'd be any gentleman in the land, barring your own self.”
“And why me?” said Daly, in a voice whose melancholy cadence made it solemn as a death-bell.
“Just because you 're the only man I ever heard tell of that was fond of danger for the fun of it. Did n't I see the leap you took at the Black Lough, just to show the English Lord-Lieutenant how an Irish gentleman rides, with the rein in your mouth, and your hands behind your back? Isn't that true?”
Daly nodded, and muttered, “I have the old horse still.”
“By the good day! I 'd spend a week in Newgate to see you on his back.”
“Well, Freney,” said Daly, who seemed not disposed to encourage a conversation so personal in its allusions, “where have you been lately?—in the South?”
“No, sir; I spent the last fortnight watching an old fox that doubled on me at last,—old Hickman, of Loughrea, that used to be.”
“Old Hickman!—what of him?” cried Daly, whose interest became at once excited by the mention of the name.
“I found out, sir, that he was to be down here at Kildare to receive his rents,—for he owns a fine estate here,—and that, besides, Tom Gleeson, the great agent from Dublin, was to meet him, as some said, to pay him a large sum of money for the Knight of Gwynne,—some heavy debt, I believe, owing for many a year.”
“Yes, go on. What then?”