"I 'm Sweeny, Jane's father."
"Indeed? How do you do, Mr. Sweeny?" politely inquired the girl's admirer.
"I 'll be better when I 've pounded you to a pulp," growled the old Irishman, taking a new and firmer grip on the club he held.
"Then why delay, friends? Let us have it over with at once," suggested the hunted gentleman, smiling as pleasantly as though he were inviting divers acquaintances to partake of biscuits and tea.
"Bli' me, hif 'ee ain't a well-plucked cove," said the lad with the bottle.
A murmur of admiring assent ran through the crowd. It would be much greater sport to beat so valiant a gentleman to death than to thrash a low-spirited coward such as they had anticipated encountering. These worthy and unworthy denizens of poverty-stricken dwellings, for in the assemblage there were both honest and dishonest, like most of their rank in society, were firm believers in the theory that fine clothes and a high-bred manner were reliable indications of a cowardly spirit and physical weakness. To so suddenly have their ideas on this subject proved incorrect was a surprise more startling than would be at first imagined.
Sweeny felt that his followers were wavering in their allegiance, and fearing lest further delay might result in a behavior on their part unsatisfactory to him personally, he gave a growl of wrath and rushed fiercely up the steps waving his cudgel. The gentleman calmly and skilfully kicked him in the mouth and sent him hurling backward down on the heads of his friends, bloodstained and well nigh insensible. This bit of battle decided the action of the mob, and, excited by the sight of their leader's blood, they pressed resolutely up the steps. It was quite impossible for the hunted gallant to beat back such a force as was now attacking him, and, fully realizing this, he made no such attempt. Instead, he tore his cloak from about his shoulders and threw it over the heads of the foremost of his opponents, leaped quickly on the railing of the steps and sprang wildly and hopelessly towards the parallel flight which led to the front door of the adjacent house. He reached the rail with his hands, but his weight was too much for him when coupled with the terrible force with which his body struck the side of the steps, so, with a groan of despair, he fell in the areaway. He tumbled feet first on a grating leading to the cellar of the house, which gave way and precipitated him into the depths below, as his pursuers, mad with the excitement of the chase, rushed down the stairs from which he had made his daring leap. It looked as though it might go hard with the unknown gentleman, valiant and resourceful though he had proven himself.
Chapter Twenty-Six
TOM MOORE'S SERVANT PROVES A FRIEND IN NEED
Buster ate a hearty supper and fed Lord Castlereagh with the scraps. This done, he was about to proceed with the dish-washing, a kind of toil for which he had a more than ordinary contempt and dislike, when the sound of shouting in the street attracted his attention.