XII
“Jim Barlow was diddled, and though he was game,
He saw Ephraim's pistol so deadly in aim,
That he gave up the gold, and he took to his scrapers;
And when the whole story got into the papers,
They said that 'the thieves were no match for the quakers.'
Heigho! yea thee and nay thee.”
“Well, it's a quare thing you should be singin' a song here,” said Larry Hogan, “about Jim Barlow, and it's not over half a mile out of this very place he was hanged.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed all the men at once, looking with great interest at Larry.
“It's truth I'm telling you. He made a very bowld robbery up by the long hill there, on two gintlemen, for he was mighty stout.”
“Pluck to the back-bone,” said Goggins.
“Well, he tuk the purses aff both o' them; and just as he was goin' on afther doin' the same, what should appear on the road before him, but two other travellers coming up forninst him. With that the men that was robbed cried out, 'Stop thief!' and so Jim, seein' himself hemmed in betune the four o' them, faced his horse to the ditch and took across the counthry; but the thravellers was well mounted as well as himself, and powdhered afther him like mad. Well, it was equal to a steeple chase a'most; and Jim, seein' he could not shake them off, thought the best thing he could do was to cut out some troublesome work for them; so he led off where he knew there was the divil's own leap to take, and he intended to 'pound [Footnote: Impound] them there, and be off in the mane time; but as ill luck would have it, his own horse, that was as bowld as himself, and would jump at the moon if he was faced to it, missed his foot in takin' off, and fell short o' the leap and slipped his shouldher, and Jim himself had a bad fall of it too, and, av coorse, it was all over wid him—and up came the four gintlemen. Well, Jim had his pistols yet, and he pulled them out, and swore he'd shoot the first man that attempted to take him; but the gintlemen had pistols as well as he, and were so hot on the chase they determined to have him, and closed on him. Jim fired and killed one o' them; but he got a ball in the shouldher himself, from another, and he was taken. Jim sthruv to shoot himself with his second pistol, but it missed fire. 'The curse o' the road is on me,' said Jim; 'my pistol missed fire, and my horse slipped his shouldher, and now I'll be scragged,' says he, 'but it's not for nothing—I've killed one o' ye,' says he.”
“He was all pluck,” said Goggins.
“Desperate bowld,” said Larry. “Well, he was thried and condimned av coorse, and was hanged, as I tell you, half a mile out o' this very place, where we are sittin', and his appearance walks, they say, ever since.”
“You don't say so!” said Goggins.