“I really cannot say, Cannie; Dr. Turbot and I were walking in the garden, when some damnable villain discharged a pistol from the gate here, and the bullet of it whistled right between us both.”
“Whistled, did it!—hell resave it for one bullet, it was fond of mirth it was; and you can't say which o' you it was whistling for?”
“No, how could I?—it was equally near us both.”
“Bad cess for ever saize him for a murdherin' villain, whoever he was. You have no notion, Masther Purcel, darlin', where he went to?”
“Not the slightest, Cannie; the villain wouldn't have got off so easily, only that he had the diabolical cunning to lock the gate outside and conceal the key: so that whilst I was coming round to the place, he escaped. Did you meet or see nobody yourself?”
The peddler shut his right hand, slapped it quickly into the palm of his left. “By the Lomenty tarry,” he exclaimed, “I seen the villain! By the high horicks, I seen the very man, if I have an eye in my head! A big, able-bodied villain, wid a pair of thumpin' black whiskers that you might steal my own out of—and I don't think I can complain myself. He was comin' up the road from the Carr, and he was turnin' over towards the bridge there below, so that I only got a short glimpse of him; and faix, sure enough, as he passed the bridge, I seen him throw something over the wall of it into the river, which I'd lay my head against the three kingdoms was the kay o' the gate.”
The proctor paused a little, and then observed, “Ay, faith! I'm sure you're right, Cannie; I've heard of that villain, and know him from your description. He is the cowardly ruffian who's said to be at the head or bottom of these secret combinations that are disgracing and destroying the country. Yes, I've heard of him.”
“And what did you hear, Misther Purcel?” asked the pedlar, with undisguised curiosity—.
“No matter now, Cannie; I haven't time to bestow upon the murdering ruffian: I have my eye on him, however, and so have others. Indeed, I'm rather inclined to think the hemp has already grown that will hang him. What dress had he on?”
“Why, sir, he had on a whitish frieze coat, wid big brown buttons; but there could be no mistakin' the size of his murderin' red whiskers.”