While Mr. Jones and his friends were thus engaged in the large, parlour upstairs, in a small back room behind the bar of “the George,” two other personages were comfortably located. One was the jolly hostess, whom nothing but “rum and true religion” could have upholden, seeing that, in the brief space of ten years, she had been thrice a mourner. Finding, however, that in marital luck there is no faith “in odd numbers,” she had judiciously concluded on risking the fortune of an even one; and, at the moment when Mr. Morley was bargaining with his amiable companions above stairs, the widow of “the George” was endeavouring to ascertain whether a matrimonial arrangement was likely to “come off” below.
“A mighty cold place these cross roads must be in the winter; and I don’t wonder, Mrs. Tomkins, that you’re uncommon lonely—and especially in the long nights. How short the days are gettin’!”
“Ah, Mister Magavarel—”
“Macgreal, if you please, Mrs. Tomkins.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the lady; “but, as I was saying, I’ll never get over Christmas as I am. Though I look stout and hearty, I am but a timidious sort of woman after all;—a fight in the kitchen knocks me of a heap, and noises after night put me totally from sleeping afterwards.”
“All! then I pity ye, Mrs. Tomkins,” returned the suitor; “after sodding three dacent husbands, no wonder that a fourth would be in ye’r way, now that the could weather’s comin’ on. It was only yesterday I was sayin’ to Mister Dominik, the black gentleman at the park, “Dominik,” says I. “What?” says he. “If ever,” says I, “I’d venture to go before the priest in company wid a woman, it’s Mistress Tomkins, of the George, would be my choice.”
“And isn’t it strange, Mister Macgreal, that you never took a wife?”
“‘I was over bashful when a boy, and feaks! my modesty never quitted me afterwards,” returned Shemas Rhua, looking as innocently in the smiling face of the landlady of the George, as if he had never crooked a knee before Father Peter Fogarty at the altar of hymen.
Shame on ye for a deceiver! If the honest woman who owns you in Connemara were but at your elbow, and overheard your insidious attempts upon the too-tender hearted Widow Tomkins, I would not be in your coat, Shemas Rhua, for all the rats and rabbits you’ll kill this side of Christmas!
To what lengths Captain Macgreal might have urged his treacherous suit, it would be difficult to fancy, but the sudden entrance of Mrs. Tomkins’s attendant, fortunately for her lady’s peace of mind, interrupted the further oratory of the false ratcatcher. She delivered some trifling message.