On reaching the door he was met by his own men, who said that three men had tried to escape that way, and that they had shot two, the third escaping.
They then searched the building, and found Bridget lying in a kind of coal-cellar, half-dead from fright and exposure, and, wrapping her in a policeman’s greatcoat, took her back to the lodging-house, leaving a guard there for the rest of the night.
The next day Bridget fled to England, to return to America from Southampton. Nothing in this world would have induced her to spend another night in Ireland.
She left the sale of her farms in the hands of the auctioneer, who, to his great surprise, some time afterwards found a buyer at a low figure in a man who came from the north.
The police saw the northerner into his new home, and left him there. The following morning the man staggered into the Ballybor Barracks, and when he had sufficiently recovered, he told Blake that soon after he had gone to sleep he was awakened by volumes of smoke, and on getting out of bed found that the house was on fire. Seizing his clothes, he just managed to get out before the blazing roof fell in.
Outside he was met by a roaring crowd, who beat him nearly to death with sticks, and while he lay on the ground he could hear the screams of his horses and cattle being burnt to death in the blazing outbuildings. The crowd then left him for dead, well pleased with their night’s work. After some hours he recovered and managed to crawl into Ballybor.
XVI.
FATHER JOHN.
The tiny village of Annagh lies on the eastern slope of the Slievenamoe Mountains, about fifteen miles due east of Ballybor, and consists of one dirty street with, roughly, forty-nine miserable tumble-down hovels and one grand slated two-storied house, as usual the shop and abode of the village gombeen man, who also kept the Post Office—not because he was the most honest man in the village, but because there was nobody else able to do so.
A good many years ago, on a bitter winter’s night, a tinker, answering to the name of Bernie M’Andrew, drove his ass-cart into the village of Annagh, and called at the only shop to know if there were any kettles or cans to be mended. The night was so cold and wet that the old shopkeeper, in the kindness of his heart, bade the shivering tinker put up his ass and spend the night. The tinker stayed and never left.
M’Andrew’s stock-in-trade, when he arrived at Annagh on that winter’s night, consisted of half a barrel of salt herrings, a kettle, the usual tinker’s soldering outfit, a policeman’s discarded tunic, and the rags he stood up in. Within a year M’Andrew had buried the old shopkeeper, who had lived alone for years and was beloved by all, and reigned in his place.