CHAPTER XXXVI
While the foregoing scene of sadness took place in the lone churchyard, unholy watch was kept over the second coffin by the myrmidons of the law. The usurer who made the seizure had brought down from Dublin three of the most determined bailiffs from amongst the tribe, and to their care was committed the keeping of the supposed body in the old barn. Associated with these worthies were a couple of ill-conditioned country blackguards, who, for the sake of a bottle of whisky, would keep company with Old Nick himself, and who expected, moreover, to hear “a power o' news” from the “gentlemen” from Dublin, who, in their turn did not object to have their guard strengthened, as their notions of a rescue in the country parts of Ireland were anything but agreeable. The night was cold, so, clearing away from one end of the barn the sheaves of corn with which it was stored, they made a turf fire, stretched themselves on a good shake-down of straw before the cheering blaze, and circulated among them the whisky, of which they had a good store. A tap at the door announced a new-comer; but the Dublin bailiffs, fearing a surprise, hesitated to open to the knock until their country allies assured them it was a friend whose voice they recognised. The door was opened, and in walked Larry Hogan, to pick up his share of what was going, whatever it might be, saying—
“I thought you wor for keeping me out altogether.”
“The gintlemin from Dublin was afeard of what they call a riskya” (rescue), said the peasant, “till I told them 't was a friend.”
“Divil a riskya will come near you to-night,” said Larry, “you may make your minds aisy about that, for the people doesn't care enough about his bones to get their own broke in savin' him, and no wondher. It's a lantherumswash bully he always was, quiet as he is now. And there you are, my bold squire,” said he, apostrophising the coffin which had been thrown on a heap of sheaves. “Faix, it's a good kitchen you kep', anyhow, whenever you had it to spind; and indeed when you hadn't you spint it all the same, for the divil a much you cared how you got it; but death has made you pay the reckoning at last—that thing that filly-officers call the debt o' nature must be paid, whatever else you may owe.”
“Why, it's as good as a sarmon to hear you,” said one of the bailiffs. “O Larry, sir, discourses iligant,” said a peasant.
“Tut, tut, tut,” said Larry, with affected modesty: “it's not what I say, but I can tell you a thing that Docthor Growlin' put out on him more nor a year ago, which was mighty 'cute. Scholars calls it an 'epithet of dissipation,' which means getting a man's tombstone ready for him before he dies; and divil a more cutting thing was ever cut on a tombstone than the doctor's rhyme; this is it—
'Here lies O'Grady, that cantankerous creature,
Who paid, as all must pay, the debt of nature;
But, keeping to his general maxim still,
Paid it—like other debts—against his will.'”
[Footnote: These bitter lines on a “bad pay” were written by a Dublin medical wit of high repute, of whom Dr. Growling is a prototype.]