So the days went on until at last the time drew near for the next cattle-boat to pass over to Chester, and Quin was busily engaged in making arrangements for me to go in it when there befel so strange a thing that I must write it down in full.
Quin came home one night--and, ah! what a bitter December night it was! I remember it now many, many years afterwards, and how the frost stood upon the window panes of the garret and the cold air stole in through those panes so that I was forced to throw on all the fuel he could afford to keep myself from freezing. Well, I say, Quin came home on this night in a different humour from any I had ever seen him in before, laughing, chattering to himself, chuckling as he removed the heavy frieze surtout he wore, and even snapping his fingers as again and again he would burst out into his laughs. And he produced from that surtout a bottle of nantz but three parts full, and, seizing the kettle, filled it with water and placed it on the fire, saying that ere we went to bed we would drink confusion to all the rascals harbouring in Dublin that night. After which he again laughed and grimaced.
"What ails thee, Oliver?" I asked, "or rather, what has given thee such satisfaction to-night?"
He went on laughing for some time longer until I thought that I was to be debarred from hearing what it was that amused him so much, but at last he said: "I am rejoicing at the chance that has arisen of playing a knave, or rather two knaves, ay, or even three, a trick. And such a grand trick, too; a trick that shall make thy uncle curse the day he ever heard the name of Oliver Quin."
"My uncle!" I exclaimed. "My uncle! Why, what have he and you to do together, Oliver?"
"Listen," he said, and by this time the kettle was boiling and he was making the hypsy, "listen. I have seen O'Rourke to-night and--and I have promised, for the sum of one hundred guineas, to deliver thee into his hands for transportation to the colonies, to Virginia. To Virginia, my lad, thou art bound, so that thou shalt plague thy uncle no more. To Virginia. Ha, ha, ha!" and he burst into so loud a laugh that the rafters of the garret shook with it.
To be sure I understood that Oliver was but joking me--if I had not known his honest nature, his equally honest laugh would have told me so--yet I wondered what this strange discourse should mean! He had, I think, been drinking ere he entered, though not more than enough to excite him and make him merry, but still it was evident to see that, over and above any potations he might have had, something had happened. So I said:
"Go on, Oliver, and tell me about O'Rourke and the plantations, and when I am to be sold into slavery."
"I met O'Rourke this evening," he said, "as I happened into a hipping-hawd[[1]] on my way home. There the villain was, seated on a cask and dressed as fine as fivepence. On his pate was a great ramilie wig, so please you! clapped a-top of it, and with an evil cock to one side of it, a gold laced hat. He wore a red plush coat--though I doubt me if the fashioner ever made it for him! with, underneath, a blue satin waistcoat embroidered; he had a solitaire stuck into his shirt, gold garters to the knees of his breeches, and, in fine, looked for all the world as if he had come into a fortune and had been spending part of it in buying the cast-off wardrobe of a nobleman."
"But the Virginia plantations, Oliver!" I said; "the plantations!"