Come along.’ “Well, he followed me like a spaniel—in we goes to the room—and in a moment I spied the black oak chest. ‘Where’s the key of this?’ says I. ‘God sees it’s lost since the fair of Ballyhain, and that’s a fortnight come Saturday,’ said the ould miser. ‘Bad luck to the liars,’ says I. ‘Wouldn’t it be a quare thing, now, if I could find it?’ With that I gives his waistcoat a rug, and out drops the key danglin’ to a bit of twine. The moment I put it in the chest, Maley roared ‘Murder!’ an’ threw himself across the lid. I lifted him by the neck as ye would lift a cur—flung him on the bed—tied him hand an’ foot with a hank of yarn—and stuffed an ould stockin’ in his mouth. ‘Lie quiet there,’ says I. ‘I’ll not detain ye long; for all I want here is a blue bag, an’ a striped one.’ The ould divil struv to shout, but the stockin’ smothered his voice, an’ the noise he made was so droll, that I couldn’t help laughin’ till I was tired again. Well, sure enough there were the bags, just as Mary Connor had tould me. I put them in the pockets of my cota more *—took another hank, tied Maley to the bedpost—bid him a tinder good night—desired the women on peril of their lives to lie still till mornin’—walked quietly out of the house, and locked the door after me.
“Well, off I goes straight to Croneeinbeg—steps into the dance-house, an’ salutes the company with a ‘God save all here.’ Divil a merrier set ye iver looked at, but two—an’ they were sittin’ in the corner. It was poor Grady an’ his wife—an’, pon my soul! there was such sorrow on their pale faces, that an enemy would have pitied them.
“‘I want ye, Pat, says I.’ Up he gets, an’ we stept out together, and walked five or six perches from the house. ‘Pat, what’s the matter with ye, man?’ ‘Ohone, copteeine; ye know I’m ruined,’ says he. I wouldn’t mind it for myself, but—my poor Mary’—an’ he fairly began to cry. ‘Arrah!’ says I, ‘have done, man. De ye remember the night before Garlick Sunday?’ ‘No,’ says he. ‘Then, Pat Grady, I do. Ye hid me, when the highlanmen had run me to a stan’-still—and, with an hundred pound upon my head, saved me when I thought none but God could deliver me from certain death. In that bag you’ll find some money—your debt to Maley is paid—and there’s a trifle to begin the world with. Go off. Hide it ‘till ye want it; burn the bag; an’ now, you and I, Pat, have cleared scores; an’ if ten pound will do it, the cake shall be Mary Connor’s.’ ‘Oh! copteeine, jewel, let me but whisper to Mary our good luck;’ and in the poor fellow run, to spake comfort to the prettiest girl in the province.
“In a few minutes I returned to the dance. I looked at Mary Connor. The rose had come back again to her cheek, and at her bright black eye ye could have lighted a dhudeeine. ‘The floor!’ says I—and in a minute it was clear. I flung a dollar to the fiddler. ‘Now, bad luck to ye, play yir best, an’ up with—Apples for ladies and ladin’ out Mary Connor, the divil a better jig was danced for a month of Sundays.
* Cota more—Anglicè, great coat.
** The name of a favourite contredanse, exceedingly
fashionable in Connemara.
“‘Mary,’ says I, as I pressed her hand at partin, ‘didn’t I tell truth, my darlin’, when I said, that light as yir foot might be, the heart should be lighter still?’ The tears—but they were tears of joy—came stramin’ down her cheeks. I kissed them away—took up my gun—bid the company good night—and before morning dawned, or the ould miser was unbound, I was across the Killeries and into Connemara; an’ the best of it is, that, to this blessed day, that robbery is left on Johnny Gibbons. And now, Mark, I ask you, upon the nick of yir conscience, was there any harm in returnin’ the blue-bag to the right owner, and keepin’ the stripped one myself?’
“Under such circumstances, Shemus Rhua,” replied the fosterer, “I’m ready to turn robber when you like it. But here we are at the Four Alls; and, faith, I hope, like a singed cat, it will prove better than it looks.”
Indeed, in its external appearance, the village inn had nothing to excite the expectations of a traveller. The windows were mostly without glass; the earthen floor broken into ruts, all of which appeared recipients for dirty water; while the ceiling was blackened with soot, and the walls curtained with cobwebs. The landlord, looked a sot—his helpmate, the epitome of every thing unclean. The ratcatcher pronounced it “a place not fit to lodge a dacent dog in,” while Mark Antony, remembering that hostelrie, where he had found “the warmest welcome,” drew a mental contrast between both, and thought with a sigh upon his rejected innamorata—the lady of the Cock and Punchbowl.
