"Certainly, sir; we shall endeavour to do so."
"You will urge them to abstain from fighting and killing each other, from administering unlawful oaths, serving threatening notices, burning houses, houghing cattle, or plundering firearms, and even from excessive drinking."
"Assuredly, sir, it will be our duty to do so."
"So you come to me, to persuade me to cut the ground from under my own feet, by subscribing to further your acknowledged intentions. I am a prosecuting counsel on this circuit, and on the table before you I have a profitable assortment of murders, conspiracies, and attempts to murder, abductions, threatening notices, and faction-fights. You would render my vocation worthless by inculcating the observance of law and order, quietude, and temperance. It would be much more reasonable that I should be asked to subscribe to a society for the distribution of blunderbusses and pistols."
"Oh!" exclaimed the astonished priest, "may heaven grant that I shall never again hear such expressions from human lips."
"Well," said I, "suppose we effect a compromise. You expected to get a pound from me. Will you let the poor Crown prosecutor off for half-a-sovereign?"
"Mr. Porter," said he, "I now feel convinced that you were jesting; for, if you really felt as you spoke, you would not give me a farthing."
I gave him the half-sovereign. We walked together to "The Ormond," where we had some biscuits and wine, and parted on most friendly terms.
For a considerable time previous to my retirement from the Leinster Bar we had a junior member of that body whose name it is unnecessary to mention fully. He had been the adjunct or drudge of an attorney-general, and was consequently known amongst us by the designation of "Tom the Devil." I have heard that in his earlier years he had been a midshipman on board the "Orwell," a splendid ship belonging to the East India Company, and that for some special service which he undertook and accomplished under most dangerous circumstances, the Directors had allotted him a reward of one thousand guineas, on the acquirement of which he returned home to Ireland, and applied himself to the legal profession. He was greatly liked amongst us, and none relished his society more than I did. He frequently became my chum on circuit, and on one occasion, at Clonmel, he asked me to convey, in reference to a personal quarrel, the most liberal offer perhaps ever made to an adversary. There was an individual whose conduct and character were by no means questionable, as they were fully ascertained to be thoroughly disreputable, and he came to our lodgings whilst I was ordering breakfast. He was accompanied by another person who had been concerned, as a second, in a recent hostile meeting, and he stated that he wished to have an interview with Mr. ——, meaning my chum, "Tom the Devil," who was still in bed in a small adjoining room. I went to the door and said, "Tom, here is Mr. ——, who wants to see you." He jumped up, and without adding any other garment to his night-shirt, put his feet in his slippers and entered the sitting-room; then turning to the applicant he said, "What do you want with me?"