The magistrate set his ear with the air of a man who had experience in discriminating such sounds. “Hartigan,” said he, “you'll condescend to kiss the book, sir, if you please: there's a hollowness in that smack, my good fellow, that can't escape me.”
“Not kiss it, your honor? why, by this staff in my hand, if ever a man kissed”—
“Silence! you impostor,” said the curate; “I watched you closely, and am confident your lips never touched the book.”
“My lips never touched the book!—Why, you know I'd be sarry to conthradict either o' yez; but I was jist goin' to obsarve, wid simmission, that my own lips ought to know best; an' don't you hear them tellin' you that they did kiss it?” and he grinned with confidence in their faces.
“You double-dealing reprobate!” said the parish priest, “I'll lay my whip across your jaws. I saw you, too, an' you did not kiss the book.”
“By dad, an' maybe I did not, sure enough,” he replied: “any man may make a mistake unknownst to himself; but I'd give my oath, an' be the five crasses, I kissed it as sure as—however, a good thing's never the worse o' bein' twice done, gintlemen; so here goes, jist to satisfy yez;” and, placing the book near, his mouth, and altering his position a little, he appeared to comply, though, on the contrary, he touched neither it nor his thumb. “It's the same thing to me,” he continued, laying down the book with an air of confident assurance; “it's the same thing to me if I kissed it fifty times over, which I'm ready to do if that doesn't satisfy yez.”
As every man acquitted himself of the charges brought against him, the curate immediately took down his name. Indeed, before the clearing commenced, he requested that such as were to swear would stand together within the ring, that, after having sworn, he might hand each of them a certificate of the fact, which they appeared to think might be serviceable to them, should they happen to be subsequently indicted for the same crime in a court of justice. This, however, was only a plan to keep them together for what was soon to take place.
The detections of thumb kissing were received by those who had already sworn, and by several in the outward crowd, with much mirth. It is but justice, however, to the majority of those assembled to state, that they appeared to entertain a serious opinion of the nature of the ceremony, and no small degree of abhorrence against those who seemed to trifle with the solemnity of an oath.
Standing on the edge of the circle, in the innermost row, were Meehan and his brother. The former eyed, with all the hardness of a stoic, the successive individuals as they passed up to the table. His accomplices had gone forward, and to the surprise of many who strongly suspected them in the most indifferent manner “cleared” themselves in the trying words of the oath, of all knowledge of, and participation in, the thefts that had taken place.
The grim visage of the elder Meehan was marked by a dark smile, scarcely perceptible; but his brother, whose nerves were not so firm, appeared somewhat confused and distracted by the imperturbable villany of the perjurers.