“Arrah, maybe you would, sir?” said Larry.
“Maybe I will, after we nibble some rashers—will you take share?”
“Musha, long life to you,” said Larry, always willing to get whatever he could. A repast was now made, more resembling a feast of savages round their war-fire than any civilised meal; slices of bacon broiled in the fire, and eggs roasted in the turf-ashes. The viands were not objectionable; but the cooking! Oh!—there was neither gridiron nor frying-pan, fork nor spoon; a couple of clasp-knives served the whole party. Nevertheless, they satisfied their hunger and then sent the bottle on its exhilarating round. Soon after that, many a story of burglary, robbery, swindling, petty larceny, and every conceivable crime, was related for the amusement of the circle; and the plots and counterplots of thieves and thief-takers raised the wonder of the peasants. Larry Hogan was especially delighted; more particularly when some trick of either villany or cunning came out.
“Now women are troublesome cattle to deal with mostly,” said Goggins. “They are remarkably 'cute first, and then they are spiteful after; and for circumventin' either way are sharp hands. You see they do it quieter than men; a man will make a noise about it, but a woman does it all on the sly. There was Bill Morgan—and a sharp fellow he was, too—and he had set his heart on some silver spoons he used to see down in a kitchen windy, but the servant-maid, somehow or other, suspected there was designs about the place, and was on the watch. Well, one night, when she was all alone, she heard a noise outside the windy, so she kept as quiet as a mouse. By-and-by the sash was attempted to be riz from the outside, so she laid hold of a kittle of boiling wather and stood hid behind the shutter. The windy was now riz a little, and a hand and arm thrust in to throw up the sash altogether, when the girl poured the boiling wather down the sleeve of Bill's coat. Bill roared with the pain, when the girl said to him, laughing, through the windy, 'I thought you came for something.'”
“That was a 'cute girl,” said Larry, chuckling.
“Well, now, that's an instance of a woman's cleverness in preventing. I'll teach you one of her determination to discover and prosecute to conviction; and in this case, what makes it curious is, that Jack Tate had done the bowldest thing, and run the greatest risks, 'the eminent deadly,' as the poet says, when he was done up at last by a feather-bed.”
“A feather-bed,” repeated Larry, wondering how a feather-bed could influence the fate of a bold burglar, while Goggins mistook his exclamation of surprise to signify the paltriness of the prize, and therefore chimed in with him.
“Quite true—no wonder you wonder—quite below a man of his pluck; but the fact was, a sweetheart of his was longing for a feather-bed, and Jack determined to get it. Well, he marched into a house, the door of which he found open, and went up-stairs, and took the best feather-bed in the house, tied it up in the best quilt, crammed some caps and ribbons he saw lying about into the bundle, and marched down-stairs again; but you see, in carrying off even the small thing of a feather-bed, Jack showed the skill of a high practitioner, for he descendhered the stairs backwards.”
“Backwards!” said Larry, “what was that for?”
“You'll see by-and-by,” said Goggins; “he descendhered backwards when suddenly he heard a door opening, and a faymale voice exclaim, 'Where are you going with that bed?'