"Are you aware, my young champion, that if you set the dog at the deceased you would be guilty of manslaughter at least, if not murder?"
"Of murdher, is id? Oh, tare anages, what's this for? Begorra, af that be law it isn't justice. Didn't they tie th' ould masther neck an' heels? Didn't they tie Miss Winny and carry her off to murdher her, or maybe worse? Didn't they tie Biddy Murtagh? and wouldn't they ha' tied me af they could get hoult of me? an' would you want Bully-dhu to sit on his boss, lookin' on at all that, your honor?"
"That may be all true, Jamesy, but I do not think the law would exonerate you, for all that, if you set the dog at the deceased man."
"Well, begorra, I pointed at the man, your honor; but I tell you Bully-dhu wanted no settin' at him at all; af he did I'd have given it to him; and I think the law would onerate me for that same. See here now, your honor. Af th' ould masther had a double-barrel gun, an' shot the two men as dead as mutton that was goin' to tie him up, wouldn't the law be well plaised wid him? and if I had a pistol, an' shot every man iv 'em, wouldn't your honor make a chief iv me at least, instead of sending me to jail? and why wouldn't Bully-dhu, who had on'y a pair of double-barrel tusks, do his part an' help us? I'm feedin' an' taichin' that dog, your honor, since he was a whelp, an' he never disappointed me yet--there now!"
There was certainly natural logic in all this, which the magistrate, with all his experience of the law, found it difficult to contradict. A notion had come into his head at one time that if Jamesy Doyle had set the dog at John Fahy, he might be guilty of his death, notwithstanding the said John Fahy had been committing a felony at the time. But there was no proof that he had set the dog at the man beyond his own admission, and the question had not been raised. Jamesy was willing to avow his responsibility, as far as it went, in the most open and candid manner, and not only that, but to justify it, which he had indeed done in a most extraordinary, clever manner. Then what had been his conduct all through? Had it not been that of a courageous, faithful boy, who had risked his own life in obstructing the escape of the murderer? and was he not the most material witness they had--the only one who had never lost sight of the man who had shot Edward Lennon, until he himself had secured him for the police? "No, no," reflected the magistrate; "it would be absurd to hold Jamesy Doyle liable for anything, but the most qualified approbation of his conduct from first to last."
"Well, Jamesy," said he, out of these thoughts, "we will take your own opinion in favor of yourself for the present. There is no doubt of your being forthcoming at the next assizes?"
"Begorra, your honor, I'll stick to the ould masther and Miss Winny, an' I don't think they're likely to lave this."
"That will do, Jamesy. Come, Mr.----, I think we have taken up almost enough of these poor people's time. We may be going."
A word or two about old Mick Murdock ere we close this chapter, as the reader, not having seen or heard of him for some days, will no doubt be curious to know what he had been doing, and how he comported himself during so trying and exciting a scene.
During the period which Tom had spent in the obscure little public-house [{257}] upon the mountain road in the county Cavan, his own report that, he had gone to the north had done him no service; for the addition which he had tacked to it, about "going to get married to a rich young lady," was not believed by a single person for whose deception it had been spread abroad. That sort of thing had been so often repeated without fulfilment that people reversed the cry of the wolf upon the subject.