CHAPTER XLII
THE PLACE OF DREAMS
The key of the mystery was brought us by one who seemed the most unlikely person in the world, Boyd Connoway.
“And her to come of decent folk down there by Killibegs,” he exclaimed in opening the matter; “no rapparees out of Connemara—but O’Neil’s blood to a man, both Bridget and all her kindred before her!”
“What’s the matter now?” said the Fiscal, who with much secret satisfaction had come to have that made plain which had troubled him so sorely before. So Boyd and Jerry brought Bridget Connoway in to the outhouse where the dead man lay.
“Tis all my fault—my fault,” wailed Bridget, “yet ’twas because him that’s me husband gave me no help with the arning of money to bring up the childer. So I was tempted and took in this man after the Black Smugglers had tried to burn the great house of Marnhoul.
“Well might I think so, indeed, your honours. For wounded the man was right sore, and I nursed him for the sake of the goold he gave me. Lashin’s of goold, and the like had never been seen in our house since before Boyd Connoway there, that now has the face to call himself a convarted man, was the head of it.”
“What did this man call himself?” the Fiscal demanded.
“Sure, he called himself Wringham Pollixfen Poole, my lord, and it was not for me to be disbelievin’ him.”