An admirable specimen he is of a most admirable body of men. He is as thoroughly Celtic in aspect as he is by name—a dark Celt, with a quiet resolute face, and a wiry well-built frame.
Nothing could be better than his manner and bearing, at once respectful and self-respectful: that manner of a natural gentleman one so often sees in the Irish peasant. He is a devout Catholic, but no admirer of Father M‘Fadden.
As to his evidence, he explains very clearly that he was not sent to report Father M‘Fadden’s speech at all, but to note and take down and report language used in the speech of a sort to excite the people against the law. He was selected for this duty for three reasons: he is a Donegal man who has lived at Gweedore for sixteen years; he is a fair stenographer; and he speaks Irish, in which language Father M‘Fadden made his speech.
“I speak Irish quite as well as he does,” said the Sergeant quietly, “and he knows I do. What I did was to put down in English words what I heard said in Irish. This I had to do because I have no stenographic signs for the Irish words.” He tells me he taught himself stenography.
“As for Father M‘Fadden,” he said, “he told the people that’ he was the law in Gweedore, and they should heed no other.’ He spoke the truth, too, for he makes himself the law in Gweedore. He dislikes me because I am a living proof that he is not the only law in Gweedore!” Of the business shrewdness and ability of Father M‘Fadden, Sergeant Mahony expressed a very high opinion, though hardly in terms which would have gratified such an ecclesiastic as the late Cardinal Barnabo. Possibly Cardinal Cullen might have relished them no better. “Certainly he has the finest house in Gweedore, sir, and what’s more he made it the finest himself.”
“Do you mean that he built it?”
“He did, indeed; and did you not notice the beautiful stone fences he is putting up all about it, and the four farms he has?”
“Then he is certainly a man of substance?”
“And of good substance, sir! The Government, they gave him a hundred pounds towards the house. But it was the flood that was the blessed thing for him and made a great man of him!”
“The flood?” I asked, with some natural astonishment; “the flood? What flood?”