"Here, your reverence," said one of the Shanvilla men to Father Farrell,—"here's where the man that was hurt is lying; poor Emon-a-knock, your reverence."
Father Farrell turned for a moment and whispered to his companion, "I'll see about the hurt man, and do you try and keep the boys quiet. I can see that Shanvilla is ready for a fight. Tell them that I'll be with them in a very few minutes, if the man is not badly hurt. If he is, my friend, I'm afraid we shall have a hard task to keep Shanvilla quiet. Could you not send your men home at once?"
"I'll do what I can; but you can do more with your own men than I can. Rathcash will not strike a blow, I know, until the very last moment."
They then separated, Father Farrell dismounting and going over to where Emon-a-knock still lay in M'Dermott's arms; and Father Roche up toward the Rathcash men.
"Boys," said he, addressing them, "this is a sad ending to the day's sport; but, thank God, from what I hear, the man is not much hurt. Be steady, at all events. Indeed, you had better go home at once, every man of you. Won't you take your priest's advice?"
"An' why not, your reverence? to be sure we will, if it comes to that; but, plaise God, it won't. At worst it was only an accident, an' we're tould it won't signify. We'll stan' our ground another while, your reverence, until we hear how the boy is. Sure, there's two barrels of beer an' a dance to the fore, by-an'-by."
"Well, lads, be very steady, and keep yourselves quiet. I'll visit the first man of you that strikes a blow with condign—"
"We'll strike no blow, your reverence, if we bant struck first. Let Father Farrell look to that."
"And so he will, you may depend upon it," said Father Roche.
The Shanvilla men had great confidence in Father Farrell in every respect, and there was not a man in the parish who would not almost die at his bidding from pure love of the man, apart from his religious influence. They knew him to be a good physician in a literal, as well as a moral, point of view; and he had been proving himself the good Samaritan for the last seventeen years to every one in the parish, whether they fell among thieves or not. He had commenced life as a medical student, but had (prudently, perhaps) preferred the Church. [{703}] In memory, however, of his early predilections, he kept a sort of little private dispensary behind his kitchen; and so numerous were the cures which nature had effected under his mild advice and harmless prescriptions, that he had established a reputation for infallibility almost equal to that subsequently attained by Holloway or Morrison. Never, however, was his medical knowledge of more use as well as value than on the present occasion.