Part 25 (1/2)

In fact, the intended meeting, and the object of it, were already notorious; and much conversation was held upon its probable result, and the measures which might be taken against those who should refuse to swear. Of the latter, description there was but one opinion, which was that their refusal in such a case would be tantamount to guilt. The innocent were anxious to vindicate themselves from suspicion: and, as the suspected did not amount to more than a dozen, of course, the whole body of the people, including the thieves themselves, who applauded it as loudly as the other, all expressed their satisfaction at the measures about to be adopted. A day was therefore appointed, on which the inhabitants of the neighborhood, particularly the suspected persons, should come to a.s.semble at Ca.s.sidy's house, in order to have the characters of the innocent cleared up, and the guilty, if possible, made known.

On the evening before this took place, were a.s.sembled in Meehan's cottage, the elder Meehan, and the rest of the gang, including Denis, who had absconded, on the night of the theft.

”Well, well, Denny,” said Anthony, who forced his rugged nature into an appearance of better temper, that he might strengthen the timid spirit of his brother against the scrutiny about to take place on the morrow--perhaps, too, he dreaded him--”Well, well. Denny, I thought, sure enough, that it was some new piece of cowardice came over you. Just think of him,” he added, ”shabbin' off, only because he made, with a bit of a rod, three strokes in the ashes that he thought resembled a coffin!--ha, ha, ha!”

This produced a peal of derision at Denis's pusillanimous terror.

”Ay!” said the Big Mower, ”he was makin' a coffin, was he? I wondher it wasn't a rope you drew, Denny. If any one dies in the coil, it will be the greatest coward, an' that's yourself.”

”You may all laugh,” replied Denis, ”but I know such things to have a manin'. When my mother died, didn't my father, the heavens be his bed!

see a black coach about a week before it? an' sure from the first day she tuck ill, the dead-watch was heard in the house every night: and what was more nor that, she kept warm until she went into her grave; *

an' accordingly, didn't my sisther s.h.i.+bby die within a year afther?”

* It is supposed in Ireland, when a corpse retains, for a longer s.p.a.ce of time than usual, any thing like animal heat, that some person belonging to the family of the deceased will die within a year.

”It's no matther about thim things,” replied Anthony; ”it's thruth about the dead-watch, my mother keepin' warm, an' s.h.i.+bby's death, any way, But on the night we tuck Ca.s.sidy's horse, I thought you were goin' to betray us: I was surely in a murdherin' pa.s.sion, an' would have done harm, only things turned out as they did.”

”Why,” said Denis, ”the truth is, I was afeard some of us would be shot, an' that the lot would fall on myself; for the coffin, thinks I, was sent as a warnin'. How-and-ever, I spied about Ca.s.sidy's stable, till I seen that the coast was clear; so whin I heard the low cry of the patrich that Anthony and I agreed on, I joined yez.”

”Well, about to-morrow,” observed Kenny--”ha, ha, ha!--there'll be lots o' swearin'--Why the whole parish is to switch the primer; many a thumb and coat-cuff will be kissed in spite of priest or magistrate. I remimber once, when I was swearin' an alibi for long Paddy Murray, that suffered for the M'Gees, I kissed my thumb, I thought, so smoothly, that no one would notice it; but I had a keen one to dale with, so says he, 'You know for the matther o' that, my good fellow, that you have your thumb to kiss every day in the week,' says he, 'but you might salute the book out o' dacency and good manners; not,' says he, 'that you an' it are strangers aither; for, if I don't mistake, you're an ould hand at swearin' alibis.'

”At all evints, I had to smack the book itself, and it's I, and Barney Green, and Tim Ca.s.serly, that did swear stiffly for Paddy, but the thing was too clear agin him. So he suffered, poor fellow, an' died right game, for he said over his dhrop--ha, ha, ha!--that he was as innocent o' the murder as a child unborn: an' so he was in one sinse, bein'

afther gettin' absolution.”

”As to thumb-kissin',” observed the elder Meehan; ”let there be none of it among us to-morrow; if we're caught at it 'twould be as bad as stayin' away altogether; for my part, I'll give it a smack like a pistol-shot--ha, ha, ha!”

”I hope they won't bring the priest's book,” said Denis. ”I haven't the laste objection agin payin' my respects to the magistrate's paper, but somehow I don't like tastin' the priest's in a falsity.”

”Don't you know,” said the Big Mower, ”that with a magistrate's present, it's ever an' always only the Tistament by law that's used. I myself wouldn't kiss the ma.s.s-book in a falsity.”

”There's none of us sayin' we'd do it in a lie,” said the elder Meehan; ”an' it's well for thousands that the law doesn't use the priest's book; though, after all, aren't there books that say religion's all a sham? I think myself it is; for if what they talk about justice an' Providence is thrue, would Tom Dillon be transported for the robbery we committed at Bantry? Tom, it's true, was an ould offender; but he was innocent of that, any way. The world's all chance; boys, as Sargint Eustace used to say, and whin we die there's no more about us; so that I don't see why a man mightn't as well switch the priest's book as any other, only that, somehow, a body can't shake the terror of it off o' them.”

”I dunna, Anthony, but you and I ought to curse that sargint; only for him we mightn't be as we are, sore in our conscience, an' afeard of every fut we hear pa.s.sin',” observed Denis.

”Spake for your own cowardly heart, man alive,” replied Anthony; ”for my part, I'm afeared o' nothin'. Put round the gla.s.s, and don't be nursin'

it there all night. Sure we're not so bad as the rot among the sheep, nor the black leg among the bullocks, nor the staggers among the horses, any how; an' yet they'd hang us up only for bein' fond of a bit o'

mate--ha, ha, ha!”

”Thrue enough,” said the Big Mower, philosophizing--”G.o.d made the beef and the mutton, and the gra.s.s to feed it; but it was man made the ditches: now we're only bringin' things back to the right way that Providence made them in, when ould times were in it, manin' before ditches war invinted--ha, ha, ha!”

”'Tis a good argument,” observed Kenny, ”only that judge and jury would be a little delicate in actin' up to it; an' the more's the pity.

Howsomever, as Providence made the mutton, sure it's not harm for us to take what he sends.”

”Ay; but,” said Denis,

”'G.o.d made man, an' man made money; G.o.d made bees, and bees made honey; G.o.d made Satan, an' Satan made sin; An' G.o.d made a h.e.l.l to put Satan in.'

Let n.o.body say there's not a h.e.l.l; isn't there it plain from Scripthur?”