1 Nonsense.
"If I said so, I forgot," answered the publican, his suspicions of Shamus at an end. "But it is about twenty years, indeed, since I left Ireland."
"And by your speech, sir, and your dacency, I'll engage you were in a good way in the poor place, afore you left it?"
"You guess correctly, friend." (The publican gave way to vanity.) "Before misfortunes came over me, I possessed, along with a good hundred acres besides, the very ground that the old ruin I saw in the foolish dream I told you stands upon."
"An' so did my curse-o'-God's uncle," thought Shamus, his heart's blood beginning to boil, though, with a great effort he kept himself seemingly cool. "And this is the man fornent me, if he answers another word I'll ax him. Faix, sir, and sure that makes your dhrame quarer than ever; and the ground the ould abbey is on, sir, and the good acres round it, did you say they lay somewhere in the poor county myself came from?"
"What county is that, friend?" demanded the publican, again with a studious frown.
"The ould County Monaghan, sure, sir," replied Shamus, very deliberately.
"No, but the county of Clare," answered his companion.
"Was it?" screamed Shamus, again springing up. The cherished hatred of twenty years imprudently bursting out, his uncle lay stretched at his feet, after a renewed flourish of his cudgel. "And do you know who you are telling it to this morning? Did you ever hear that the sisther you kilt left a bit of a gorsoon behind her, that one day or other might overhear you? Ay," he continued, keeping down the struggling man, "it is poor Shamus Dempsey that's kneeling by you; ay, and that has more to tell you. The shed built over the old friar's tombstone was built by the hands you feel on your throttle, and that tombstone is his hearthstone; and," continued Shamus, beginning to bind the prostrate man with a rope, snatched from a bench near them, "while you lie here awhile, an' no one to help you, in the cool of the morning, I'll just take a start of you on the road home, to lift the flag and get the threasure; and follow me if you dare! You know there's good money bid for your head in Ireland,—so here goes. Yes, faith and wid this—this to help me on the way!" He snatched up a heavy purse which had fallen from his uncle's pocket in the struggle. "And sure, there's neither hurt nor harm in getting back a little of a body's own from you. A bright good-morning, uncle dear!"
Shamus dragged his manacled relative into the shop, quickly shut to and locked the door, flung the key over the house into the Thames, and the next instant was running at headlong speed.