Making the face of Muirisc to be glad!
’T is the devil’s job to believe one’s eyes—‘”
“Well, thin, don’t be trying!” brusquely interrupted Mrs. Fergus. As the poet paused and strove to cow his spouse with a sufficiently indignant glance, she leaned over the table and addressed him in a stage whisper, almost audible to the deaf old nuns themselves.
“Sit down, me man!” she adjured him. “’T is laughing at ye they are! Sure, doesn’t his honor know how different a chune ye raised while he was away! ’T is your part to sing small, now, an’ keep the ditch betwixt you an’ observation.”
Cormac sat down at once, and submissively put the paper back in his pocket. It was a humble and wistful glance which he bent through his spectacles at the chieftain, as that worthy resumed his remarks.
The O’Mahony did not pretend to have missed the adjuration of Mrs. Fergus.
“That started off well enough, O’Daly,” he said; “but you’re getting too old to have to hustle around and turn out poetry to order, as you used to. I’ve decided to allow you to retire—to sort of knock off your shoes and let you run in the pasture. You can move into one of the smaller houses and just take things easy.”
“But, sir—me secretarial juties—” put in O’Daly, with quavering voice.
“There’ll be no manner of trouble about that,” said the O’Mahony, reassuringly. “My friend, here, Joseph Higgins, of Boston, he will look out for that. I don’t know that you’re aware of it, but I took a good deal of interest in him many years ago—before I went away—and I foresaw a future for him. It hasn’t turned out jest as I expected, but I’m satisfied, all the same. Before I left, I arranged that he should pursue his studies during my absence.” A grimly quizzical smile played around the white corners of his mustache as he added: “I understand that he jest stuck to them studies night and day—never left ’em once for so much as to go out and take a walk for the whole twelve years.”
“Surely, sir,” interposed Father Jago, “that’s most remarkable! I never heard tell of such studiosity in Maynooth itself!”