The other nodded mechanically, still incomplete mystification.
“An’ you all the time besachin’ to go out an’ take yer chances, an’ me forever tellin’ ye ’twould be the ruin of the whole thund’rin’ Brotherhood if ye were caught?” Jerry continued, the smile ripening as he went on.
Again Linsky’s answer was a puzzled nod of acquiescence.
“Well, thin, there’s no Brotherhood left at all, an’ ’t is manny years since the poliss in these parts had so much as a drame of you or of anny Fenian under the sun.”
“But why,” stammered Linsky, at last finding voice—“why—thin—”
“Why are ye here?” Jerry amiably asked the question for him. “Only a small matther of discipline, as his reverence w’u’d say, when he ordered peas in our boots. To be open an’ above-board wid ye, man, ye were caught attimptin’ to hand over the lot of us to the sojers, that day we tried to take the fort. ’T is the gallus we might ’a’ got by rayson of your informin’. Do ye deny that same?” Linsky made no answer, but he looked now at the floor instead of at Jerry. In truth, he had been so long immured, confronted daily with the pretense that he was being hidden beyond the reach of the castle’s myrmidons, that this sudden resurrection of the truth about his connection with Fenianism seemed almost to refer to somebody else.
“Well, thin,” pursued Jerry, taking instant advantage of the other’s confusion, “egor, ’t was as a traitor ye were tried an’ condimned an’ sintenced, while ye lay, sinseless wid that whack on the head. There wor thim that w’u’d—uv—uv—well, not seen ye wake this side of purgatory, or wherever else ye had yer ticket for. But there was wan man that saved yer life from the rest—and he said: ‘No, don’t kill him, an’ don’t bate him or lay a finger to him, an’ I’ll be at the expinse of keepin’ him in a fine, grand place by himsilf, wid food of the best, an’ whishky aich day, an’ books an’ writin’s to improve his learnin’, an’ no work to do, an’ maybe, be the grace o’ God, he’ll come to think rightly about it all, an’ be ashamed of himsilf an’ his dirty doin’s, an be fit ag’in to come out an’ hold up his head amongst honest min.’ That’s the m’anin’ of what he said, an’ I’m the man he said it to—an’ that’s why I’m here now, callin’ ye by yer right name, an’ tellin’ ye the thruth.”
Linsky hesitated for a minute or two, with downcast gaze and fingers fidgeting at the ends of his waist-cord. Then he lifted his face, which more than ever seemed all brow and eyes, and looked frankly at Jerry.
“What ye say is a surprise to me,” he began, choosing his words as he went. “Ye never let on what your thoughts were concernin’ me, an’ I grew to forget how it was I came. But now you spake of it, sure ’tis the same to me as if I’d niver been thinkin’ of anything else. Oh, thin, tell that man who spoke up for me, whoever he may be, that I’ve no word but praise for him. ’T was a poor divil of a wake fool he saved the life of.”
“Wid a mixin’ of rogue as well,” put in Jerry, by way of conscientious parenthesis.