“Oh, there’s Jerry,” said Kate to her companion—“Mr. Higgins, I mane—wan of my trustees. I’ll inthroduce you to him.”
Jerry’s demeanor, as the group approached him, bore momentary traces of embarrassment. He looked at the man beside him, and then cast a backward glance at the ditch, as if wishing that they were both safely hidden behind its mask of stone wall and furze. But this was clearly impossible; and the two stood up at an obvious suggestion from Jerry and put as good a face upon their presence as possible.
“This is a relation of moine from Ameriky, too,” said Jerry, after some words had passed, indicating the tall, thin, shambling, spectacled figure beside him, “Mr. Joseph Higgins, of—of—of—”
“Of Boston,” said the other, after an awkward pause.
He seemed ill at ease in his badly fitting clothes, and looked furtively from one to another of the faces before him.
“An’ what d’ ye think, Miss Katie?” hurriedly continued Jerry. “Egor! Be all the miracles of Moses, he’s possessed of more learnin’ about the O’Mahonys than anny other man alive, Cormac O’Daly ’d be a fool to him. An’, egor, he used to know our O’Mahony whin he was in Ameriky, before ever he came over to us!”
“Ye’re wrong, Jerry,” said Mr. Joseph Higgins, with cautious hesitation, “I didn’t say I knew him. I said I knew of him. I was employed to search for him, whin he was heir to the estate, unbeknownst to himself, an’ I wint to the town where he’d kept a cobbler’s shop—Tecumsy was the name of it—an’ I made inquiries for Hugh O’Mahony, but—”
“What’s that you say! Hugh O’Mahony—a shoemaker in Tecumseh, New York?” broke in young Bernard, with sharp, almost excited emphasis.
“’T is what I said,” responded the other, his pale face flushing nervously, “only—only he’d gone to the war.”
“An’ that was our O’Mahony,” explained Jerry.