“Go in, then, poor fellow, and lie down,” said the same individual, who acted as spokesman; “we know how you must feel, wid the hell-hounds of the law affcher you: here, Jack, hould the candle for him, and help him to move over poor Lanty to make room for him; and Mrs. Cassidy,” he called m a louder voice, “bring us another bottle.”
“Faith, to tell you the truth,” replied Jack, “I'd rather not; I don't like to go near a dead body.”
“Here,” said the person called Dick, “give me the candle: poor fellow! it is rest you want, and God forbid we wouldn't do everything in our power for you.”
They then entered the apartment, and M'Carthy was about to lay himself beside the corpse, when his companion tapped him significantly on the shoulder, and, his finger on his lips pointed to the window and immediately whispered in his ear: “I will leave the windy so that it will open at wanst: three of us knows you, Mr. M'Carthy I will sing a song when I go in again, which they will chorus; fly then, for it's hard to say what might happen: the day is now breakin' and you might be known—in that case I needn't tell you what your fate would be.”
He then returned to his companion having carefully closed the door after him so as to prevent, as much as possible the motions of M'Carthy from being seen or heard. On rejoining them he observed “well, if ever a poor boy was fairly broken down, and he is—throth he was no sooner, on the bed than he was off; an' among ourselves, the sleep must be heavy on him when he could close his eyes an' a dead man in the bed wid him.”
CHAPTER XIII.—Strange Faces—Dare-Devil O'Driscol Aroused
We have already stated that the proctors daughters had relieved their mother from the duty which, that kind-hearted woman had been in the habit of imposing on herself we mean that of attending and relieving the sick and indigent in her immediate neighborhood. On the morning in question Juli Purcel, who, together with her sister, for some time past been attending the bed of an interesting young female, to one of her father's workmen, had got up at an early hour to visit her—scarcely with a hope, it is true, that she would find the poor invalid alive. Much to her satisfaction, however, she found her better, and with some dawning prospects of ultimate recovery. She left with her mother the means of procuring such comforts as she considered might be suitable to her in the alternative of her convalescence, and had got more than home when she felt startled for a by the appearance of a person who seemed to have been engaged in some of these nightly outrages that were then so numerous in the country. The person in question had just leaped from an open breach in the hedge which bounded the right-hand side of the road exactly opposite where she was passing. The stranger's appearance was certainly calculated to excite terror, especially in a female; for although he did not wear the shirt over his clothes, his face was so deeply blackened that a single shade of his complexion could not be recognized. We need not again assure our readers that Julia Purcel possessed the characteristic firmness and courage of her family, but notwithstanding this she felt somewhat alarmed at the appearance of a lawless Whiteboy, who was at that moment most probably on his return from the perpetration of some midnight atrocity. This alarm was increased on seeing that the person in question approached her, as if with some deliberate intent.
