“How came you by this?” the Fiscal demanded.
“Shall I tell ye in bits, sorr?” said Boyd, “or will ye have her from the beginning?”
“From the beginning,” said the Fiscal, “only with as few digressions as possible.”
“Sure,” said Boyd innocently, “I got none o’ them about me. Your honour can saarch me if ye like!”
“The Fiscal means,” said the Doctor, “that you are to tell him the story as straightly and as briefly as possible.”
“Straightly, aye, that I will,” said Boyd, “there was never a crooked word came out of my mouth; but briefly, that’s beyond any Irishman’s power—least of all if he comes from County Donegal!”
“Go on!” cried the Fiscal impatiently.
“As all things do in our house, it began with Bridget,” said Boyd Connoway; “ye see, sorr, she took in a man with a wound—powerful sick he was. The night after the ‘dust-up’ at the Big House was the time, and she nursed him and she cured him, the craitur. But, whatever the better Bridget was, all that I got for it was that I had to go to Portowarren at dead of night, and that letter flung at me like a bone to a dog, when I told him that I might be called in question for the matter of my wife.”
“‘Aye, put it on your wife,’ says he, ‘they will let you off. You have not the pluck of a half-drowned flea!’
“But when I insisted that I should have wherewith to clear me and Bridget also, he cast the letter down, dibbling it into the pebbles and sand with his heel just as he was going aboard.