“Doin’! You ax me that question, and you standin’ before me all over buttons and stripes. Doin! Cleanin’ dishes and knives is what you’ve been doin’, and you a Rooney, and me a Cogan; going into sarvice, that’s what you’ve been doin’——”
Mr Cogan’s anger suddenly blazed forth, and he made a stretch over the window-sill and tried to land his nephew a “skelp” with the famous blackthorn stick, and fortunately failed.
His anger was not in the least simulated. The Cogans and the Rooneys had always held their heads very high, some of them as high as the gibbet arm of Tullagh, but whatever their history had been it showed no record of menial service. Patsy’s father, by accepting the post of gamekeeper at the Big House, had lowered the family prestige somewhat; but he was forgiven, for a gamekeeper, though he works for his living as a servant, does not wear livery; besides, he is a useful enough sort of relative, when your own living is half gained by poaching.
Con having failed to reach his nephew drew back his stick, smothered his wrath, and resumed his attitude, leaning with his arms crossed on the window-ledge.
He had come to fetch his nephew out of the house for a purpose we will presently see; but if you were to imagine Con doing anything he set about in a straightforward and business-like manner, you would be imagining the impossible.
In the old days, when he had the blacksmith’s shop in Castle Knock, it would take him three times as long to make a horse-shoe or shoe a horse as it would take any other blacksmith in the country.
He would lean on his hammer and discourse on the colour of the horse, on the state of the weather, on anything at all so long as he could hold you in talk, and stave off for a moment doing the work he had before him. He was, like most idle and useless people, as inquisitive as a magpie.
He leaned now on the window-ledge, looking leisurely about him, whilst Patsy, who had skipped into the furthest corner of the room, stood looking at his uncle and shivering, and wishing he would go.
“What’s in them chest of drawers?” said Con, nodding at the old deal chest of drawers on which the candle was burning.
“Nothing,” replied Patsy; “only me ould clothes and a shirt or two Mrs Kinsella has given me.”