“Well, but what is your business, then? What have you to say to him? He's engaged, I tell you.”
Tom, apprehensive that he might not get an opportunity of communicating with Reilly, bolted in, and as the parlor door stood open, he saw him standing near the large chimney-piece.
“Willy Reilly!” he exclaimed in a voice that trembled with earnestness, “Willy Reilly, dere's news for you—for de squire too—bad news—God's sake come wid Tom—you tall too, Willy Reilly, but not tall as Tom is.”
“What is the matter, Tom?” asked Reilly; “you look alarmed.”
“God's sake, here, Willy Reilly,” replied the kind-hearted fool, “come wid Tom. Bad news.”
“Hallo!” exclaimed the squire, “what is the matter? Is this Tom Steeple? Go to the kitchen, Tom, and get one of your 'bully dinners'—my poor fellow—off with you—and a pot of beer, Tom.”
An expression of distress, probably heightened by his vague and unconscious sense of the squire's kindness, was depicted strongly on his countenance, and ended in a burst of tears.
“Ha!” exclaimed Reilly, “poor Tom, sir, was with us to-night on our duck-shooting excursion, and, now that I remember, remained behind us in the old ruin—and then he is in tears. What can this mean? I will go with you, Tom—excuse me, sir, for a few minutes—there can be no harm in hearing what he has to say.”
He accompanied the fool, with whom he remained for about six or eight minutes, after which he re-entered the parlor with a face which strove in vain to maintain its previous expression of ease and serenity.
“Well, Willy?” said the squire—“you see, by the way, I make an old acquaintance of you—”