“Who told ye that?” he almost shrieked.
“Never mind,” said Charlie, following up the advantage, and softly stepping out of his corner. “It’s two years since you left, isn’t it?”
Patrick was “dumfoundered.” This man must be in league, surely, with the powers of darkness!
“Now do you know why I want that watch?” said Charlie sternly, at the same time quietly picking up the dropped rifle. The tables were fairly turned now. The wretched Patrick, whose conscience had more than once smitten him about the way in which he had become possessed of me, looked the picture of terror—not at the bayonet, but at the man who held it.
He drew me from his pocket with trembling hands, and holding me out at arm’s length, cried,—
“Arrah, arrah! take him, gineral, take him. How was I to know you was the gentleman dropped him there? Who’d have—”
By this time Charlie had seized me and taken me to the light. In an instant he stripped me of my coat, and there, with bounding heart, read his own initials, scratched years ago with his own boyish hand, in the dormitory of Randlebury.
“It is it!” he shouted; “my old watch! Who would have thought it possible!”
Then turning to the trembling Paddy, he said, in a voice almost unsteady in its eagerness,—
“My man, what will you sell me this watch for?”