"Your Riverence must then know, that I was cut down by my friends, and through their means restored to life, after having, to all appearance, fallen a forfeit to the law."
"As how—as how? Mr. Phelim O'Neale! explain."
"By means of hemlock juice infused by well intentioned friends into my throat and lungs. Oh, but too well I remember that, and but too well they succeeded; for after the means they used for sussicitation I recovered; but the pains which I endured were beyond those upon the fatal tree, the punishment I had endured, and the shame I had borne, for my family were indeed respectable. Upon my restoration to life, my friends disguised me in female attire, and hurried me off in a merchant vessel then in the bay, ready to slip her cables, and bound for Virginia. So away I went in the same vessel. Och, may be it was not without a sad and sorrowing heart that I left my mountain shores; for, sweet Ireland, still, with all thy faults, art thou dear to me; and with all my own too, with filial love yet do I adore thee, mavourneen, my early loved, my dear natal isle!"
Phelim O'Neale continued: "Your Riverence knows the rest of my story. A cannon shot of Marshal Rantzau's squadron soon compelled the vessel in which I was bound for Virginia[19] immediately to strike her flag; and the result of the Marshal's attack upon Ostind you are in full possession of already. Here then my story ends, but not my gratitude to you, of which, before we part, I shall endeavour to convince you of with sincerity, marked by more than mere words."
"Why, Mr. Phelim O'Neale, you have really become eloquent, and have astonished me quite by your display of words."
"No, no, Riverend Sir, they only burst forth from the heart with a full tide of over-flowing gratitude to you, and with deep contrition to myself, for all the past!"
"This my friend, my honest friend, (for such I now must call you, Phelim, for the restitution which you have made by words as well as in deeds, and I needs now must prize thee,) yes, this promises good; and sooth to say, I am pleased withal right well. There, take my hand, and along with it my best benison on you, your wife, and children."
Phelim knelt down, kissed his hand, and prayed that heaven might shower down its choicest blessings upon his reverend head.
Three entire days subsequent to this confession soon passed over, and were occupied only at intervals, in order to obviate detection, in sawing per diem a bar. Each bar was cut slanting, or diagonally, so as to be readily re-adjusted as if it had not been severed; and then the entire bar, when replaced, was covered over by means of paper, which was neatly pasted thereon, as if no undermining operations had been sapping the grated barriers of their prison-house.—Meanwhile the Reverend Chaplain was on the alert, scraping his old Cremona, and the colonel's servant thundering forth the bass tones of his clarionet, to serve as masqued batteries to drown the more subtle operations of the saw and file of the son of Mars.