While the foregoing scene of sadness took place in the lone churchyard, unholy watch was kept over the second coffin by the myrmidons of the law. The usurer who made the seizure had brought down from Dublin three of the most determined bailiffs from amongst the tribe, and to their care was committed the keeping of the supposed body in the old barn. Associated with these worthies were a couple of ill-conditioned country blackguards, who, for the sake of a bottle of whisky, would keep company with Old Nick himself, and who expected, moreover, to hear “a power o' news” from the “gentlemen” from Dublin, who, in their turn did not object to have their guard strengthened, as their notions of a rescue in the country parts of Ireland were anything but agreeable. The night was cold, so, clearing away from one end of the barn the sheaves of corn with which it was stored, they made a turf fire, stretched themselves on a good shake-down of straw before the cheering blaze, and circulated among them the whisky, of which they had a good store. A tap at the door announced a new-comer; but the Dublin bailiffs, fearing a surprise, hesitated to open to the knock until their country allies assured them it was a friend whose voice they recognised. The door was opened, and in walked Larry Hogan, to pick up his share of what was going, whatever it might be, saying—

“I thought you wor for keeping me out altogether.”

“The gintlemin from Dublin was afeard of what they call a riskya” (rescue), said the peasant, “till I told them 't was a friend.”

“Divil a riskya will come near you to-night,” said Larry, “you may make your minds aisy about that, for the people doesn't care enough about his bones to get their own broke in savin' him, and no wondher. It's a lantherumswash bully he always was, quiet as he is now. And there you are, my bold squire,” said he, apostrophising the coffin which had been thrown on a heap of sheaves. “Faix, it's a good kitchen you kep', anyhow, whenever you had it to spind; and indeed when you hadn't you spint it all the same, for the divil a much you cared how you got it; but death has made you pay the reckoning at last—that thing that filly-officers call the debt o' nature must be paid, whatever else you may owe.”

“Why, it's as good as a sarmon to hear you,” said one of the bailiffs. “O Larry, sir, discourses iligant,” said a peasant.

“Tut, tut, tut,” said Larry, with affected modesty: “it's not what I say, but I can tell you a thing that Docthor Growlin' put out on him more nor a year ago, which was mighty 'cute. Scholars calls it an 'epithet of dissipation,' which means getting a man's tombstone ready for him before he dies; and divil a more cutting thing was ever cut on a tombstone than the doctor's rhyme; this is it—

[Footnote: These bitter lines on a “bad pay” were written by a Dublin medical wit of high repute, of whom Dr. Growling is a prototype.]

“What do you think o' that, Goggins?” inquired one bailiff from the other; “you're a judge o' po'thry.”

“It's sevare,” answered Goggins, authoritatively, “but coorse, I wish you'd brile the rashers; I begin to feel the calls o' nature, as the poet says.”

This Mister Goggins was a character in his way. He had the greatest longing to be thought a poet, put execrable couplets together sometimes, and always talked as fine as he could; and his mixture of sentimentality, with a large stock of blackguardism, produced a strange jumble.

“The people here thought it nate, sir,” said Larry.

“Oh, very well for the country!” said Goggins; “but 't wouldn't do for town.”

“Misther Coggings knows best,” said the bailiff who first spoke, “for he's a pote himself, and writes in the newspapers.”

“Oh, indeed!” said Larry.

“Yes,” said Goggins, “sometimes I throw off little things for the newspapers. There's a friend of mine you see, a gentleman connected with the press, who is often in defficulties, and I give him a hint to keep out o' the way when he's in trouble, and he swears I've a genus for the muses, and encourages me—”

“Humph!” says Larry.

“And puts my things in the paper, when he gets the editor's back turned, for the editor is a consaited chap that likes no one's po'thry but his own; but never mind—if I ever get a writ against that chap, won't I sarve it!”

“And I dar say some day you will have it agen him, sir,” said Larry.

“Sure of it, a'most,” said Goggins; “them litherary men is always in defficulties.”

“I wondher you'd be like them, then, and write at all,” said Larry.

“Oh, as for me, it's only by way of amusement; attached as I am to the legal profession, my time wouldn't permit; but I have been infected by the company I kept. The living images that creeps over a man sometimes is irresistible, and you have no pace till you get them out o' your head.”

“Oh, indeed, they are very throublesome,” says Larry, “and are the litherary gintlemen, sir, as you call them, mostly that way?”

“To be sure; it is that which makes a litherary man: his head is full—teems with creation, sir.”

“Dear, dear!” said Larry.

“And when once the itch of litherature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen.”

“But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any other way you can.”

“To be sure,” said Goggins, “I have seen a litherary gentleman in a sponging-house do crack things on the wall with a bit of burnt stick, rather than be idle—they must execute.”

“Ha!” says Larry.

“Sometimes, in all their poverty and difficulty, I envy the 'fatal fatality,' as the poet says, of such men in catching ideas.”

“That's the genteel name for it,” says Larry.

“Oh!” exclaimed Goggins, enthusiastically, “I know the satisfaction of catching a man, but it's nothing at all compared to catching an idea. For the man, you see, can give hail and get off, but the idea is your own for ever. And then a rhyme—when it has puzzled you all day, the pleasure you have in nabbing it at last!”

“Oh, it's po'thry you're spakin' about,” said Larry.

“To be sure,” said Goggins; “do you think I'd throw away my time on prose? You're burning that bacon, Tim,” said he to his sub.

“Poethry, agen the world!” continued he to Larry, “the Castilian sthraime for me!—Hand us that whisky”—he put the bottle to his mouth and took a swig—“That's good—you do a bit of private here, I suspect,” said he, with a wink, pointing to the bottle.

Larry returned a significant grin, but said nothing. Oh, don't be afraid o' me—I would n't'peach—”

“Sure it's agen the law, and you're a gintleman o' the law,” said Larry.

“That's no rule,” said Goggins: “the Lord Chief Justice always goes to bed, they say, with six tumblers o' potteen under his belt; and dhrink it myself.”

“Arrah, how do you get it?” said Larry.

“From a gentleman, a friend o' mine, in the Custom-house.”

“A-dad, that's quare,” said Larry, laughing.

“Oh, we see queer things, I tell you,” said Goggins, “we gentlemen of the law.”

“To be sure you must,” returned Larry; “and mighty improvin' it must be. Did you ever catch a thief, sir?”

“My good man, you mistake my profession,” said Goggins, proudly; “we never have anything to do in the criminal line, that's much beneath us.”

“I ax your pardon, sir.”

“No offence—no offence.”

“But it must be mighty improvin', I think, ketching of thieves, and finding out their thricks and hidin'-places, and the like?”

“Yes, yes,” said Goggins, “good fun; though I don't do it, I know all about it, and could tell queer things too.”

“Arrah, maybe you would, sir?” said Larry.

“Maybe I will, after we nibble some rashers—will you take share?”

“Musha, long life to you,” said Larry, always willing to get whatever he could. A repast was now made, more resembling a feast of savages round their war-fire than any civilised meal; slices of bacon broiled in the fire, and eggs roasted in the turf-ashes. The viands were not objectionable; but the cooking! Oh!—there was neither gridiron nor frying-pan, fork nor spoon; a couple of clasp-knives served the whole party. Nevertheless, they satisfied their hunger and then sent the bottle on its exhilarating round. Soon after that, many a story of burglary, robbery, swindling, petty larceny, and every conceivable crime, was related for the amusement of the circle; and the plots and counterplots of thieves and thief-takers raised the wonder of the peasants. Larry Hogan was especially delighted; more particularly when some trick of either villany or cunning came out.

“Now women are troublesome cattle to deal with mostly,” said Goggins. “They are remarkably 'cute first, and then they are spiteful after; and for circumventin' either way are sharp hands. You see they do it quieter than men; a man will make a noise about it, but a woman does it all on the sly. There was Bill Morgan—and a sharp fellow he was, too—and he had set his heart on some silver spoons he used to see down in a kitchen windy, but the servant-maid, somehow or other, suspected there was designs about the place, and was on the watch. Well, one night, when she was all alone, she heard a noise outside the windy, so she kept as quiet as a mouse. By-and-by the sash was attempted to be riz from the outside, so she laid hold of a kittle of boiling wather and stood hid behind the shutter. The windy was now riz a little, and a hand and arm thrust in to throw up the sash altogether, when the girl poured the boiling wather down the sleeve of Bill's coat. Bill roared with the pain, when the girl said to him, laughing, through the windy, 'I thought you came for something.'”

“That was a 'cute girl,” said Larry, chuckling.

“Well, now, that's an instance of a woman's cleverness in preventing. I'll teach you one of her determination to discover and prosecute to conviction; and in this case, what makes it curious is, that Jack Tate had done the bowldest thing, and run the greatest risks, 'the eminent deadly,' as the poet says, when he was done up at last by a feather-bed.”

“A feather-bed,” repeated Larry, wondering how a feather-bed could influence the fate of a bold burglar, while Goggins mistook his exclamation of surprise to signify the paltriness of the prize, and therefore chimed in with him.

“Quite true—no wonder you wonder—quite below a man of his pluck; but the fact was, a sweetheart of his was longing for a feather-bed, and Jack determined to get it. Well, he marched into a house, the door of which he found open, and went up-stairs, and took the best feather-bed in the house, tied it up in the best quilt, crammed some caps and ribbons he saw lying about into the bundle, and marched down-stairs again; but you see, in carrying off even the small thing of a feather-bed, Jack showed the skill of a high practitioner, for he descendhered the stairs backwards.”

“Backwards!” said Larry, “what was that for?”

“You'll see by-and-by,” said Goggins; “he descendhered backwards when suddenly he heard a door opening, and a faymale voice exclaim, 'Where are you going with that bed?'

“'I am going up-stairs with it, ma'am,' says Jack, whose backward position favoured his lie, and he began to walk up again.

“'Come down here,' said the lady, 'we want no beds here, man.'

“'Mr. Sullivan, ma'am, sent me home with it himself,' said Jack, still mounting the stairs.

“'Come down, I tell you,' said the lady, in a great rage. 'There's no Mr. Sullivan lives here—go out of this with your bed, you stupid fellow.'

“'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' says Jack, turning round, and marching off with the bed fair and aisy. Well, there was a regular shilloo in the house when the thing was found out, and cart-ropes wouldn't howld the lady for the rage she was in at being diddled; so she offered rewards, and the dickens knows all; and what do you think at last discovered our poor Jack?”

“The sweetheart, maybe,” said Larry, grinning in ecstasy at the thought of human perfidy.

“No,” said Goggins, “honour even among sweethearts, though they do the trick sometimes, I confess; but no woman of any honour would betray a great man like Jack. No—'t was one of the paltry ribbons that brought conviction home to him; the woman never lost sight of hunting up evidence about her feather-bed, and, in the end, a ribbon out of one of her caps settled the hash of Jack Tate.”

From robbings they went on to tell of murders, and at last that uncomfortable sensation which people experience after a feast of horrors began to pervade the party; and whenever they looked round, there was the coffin in the background.

“Throw some turf on the fire,” said Goggins, “'t is burning low; and change the subject; the tragic muse has reigned sufficiently long—enough of the dagger and the bowl—sink the socks and put on the buckskins. Leather away, Jim—sing us a song.”

“What is it to be?” asked Jim.

“Oh—that last song of the Solicitor-General's,” said Goggins, with an air as if the Solicitor-General were his particular friend.

“About the robbery?” inquired Jim.

“To be sure,” returned Goggins.

“Dear me,” said Larry, “and would so grate a man as the Solicithor-General demane himself by writin' about robbers?”

“Oh!” said Goggins, “those in the heavy profession of the law must have their little private moments of rollickzation; and then high men, you see, like to do a bit of low by way of variety. 'The Night before Larry was stretched' was done by a bishop, they say; and 'Lord Altamont's Bull' by the Lord Chief Justice; and the Solicitor-General is as up to fun as any bishop of them all. Come, Jim, tip us the stave!”

Jim cleared his throat and obeyed his chief.

THE QUAKER'S MEETING

I

II

[Footnote: The inferior class of quakers make THEE serve not only its own grammatical use, but also do the duty of THY and THINE.]

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

“Well, it's a quare thing you should be singin' a song here,” said Larry Hogan, “about Jim Barlow, and it's not over half a mile out of this very place he was hanged.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed all the men at once, looking with great interest at Larry.

“It's truth I'm telling you. He made a very bowld robbery up by the long hill there, on two gintlemen, for he was mighty stout.”

“Pluck to the back-bone,” said Goggins.

“Well, he tuk the purses aff both o' them; and just as he was goin' on afther doin' the same, what should appear on the road before him, but two other travellers coming up forninst him. With that the men that was robbed cried out, 'Stop thief!' and so Jim, seein' himself hemmed in betune the four o' them, faced his horse to the ditch and took across the counthry; but the thravellers was well mounted as well as himself, and powdhered afther him like mad. Well, it was equal to a steeple chase a'most; and Jim, seein' he could not shake them off, thought the best thing he could do was to cut out some troublesome work for them; so he led off where he knew there was the divil's own leap to take, and he intended to 'pound [Footnote: Impound] them there, and be off in the mane time; but as ill luck would have it, his own horse, that was as bowld as himself, and would jump at the moon if he was faced to it, missed his foot in takin' off, and fell short o' the leap and slipped his shouldher, and Jim himself had a bad fall of it too, and, av coorse, it was all over wid him—and up came the four gintlemen. Well, Jim had his pistols yet, and he pulled them out, and swore he'd shoot the first man that attempted to take him; but the gintlemen had pistols as well as he, and were so hot on the chase they determined to have him, and closed on him. Jim fired and killed one o' them; but he got a ball in the shouldher himself, from another, and he was taken. Jim sthruv to shoot himself with his second pistol, but it missed fire. 'The curse o' the road is on me,' said Jim; 'my pistol missed fire, and my horse slipped his shouldher, and now I'll be scragged,' says he, 'but it's not for nothing—I've killed one o' ye,' says he.”

“He was all pluck,” said Goggins.

“Desperate bowld,” said Larry. “Well, he was thried and condimned av coorse, and was hanged, as I tell you, half a mile out o' this very place, where we are sittin', and his appearance walks, they say, ever since.”

“You don't say so!” said Goggins.

“'Faith, it's thrue!” answered Larry.

“You never saw it,” said Goggins.

“The Lord forbid!” returned Larry; “but it's thrue, for all that. For you see the big house near this barn, that is all in ruin, was desarted because Jim's ghost used to walk.”

“That was foolish,” said Goggins; “stir up the fire, Jim, and hand me the whisky.”

“Oh, if it was only walkin', they might have got over that; but at last one night, as the story goes, when there was a thremendious storm o' wind and rain—”

“Whisht!” said one of the peasants, “what's that?”

As they listened, they heard the beating of heavy rain against the door, and the wind howled through its chinks.

“Well,” said Goggins, “what are you stopping for?”

“Oh, I'm not stoppin',” said Larry; “I was sayin' that it was a bad wild night, and Jimmy Barlow's appearance came into the house and asked them for a glass o' sper'ts, and that he'd be obleeged to them if they'd help him with his horse that slipped his shouldher; and, 'faith, afther that, they'd stay in the place no longer; and signs on it, the house is gone to rack and ruin, and it's only this barn that is kept up at all, because it's convaynient for owld Skinflint on the farm.”

“That's all nonsense,” said Goggins, who wished, nevertheless, that he had not heard the “nonsense.”

“Come, sing another song, Jim.”

Jim said he did not remember one.

“Then you sing, Ralph.”

Ralph said every one knew he never did more than join a chorus.

“Then join me in a chorus,” said Goggins, “for I'll sing, if Jim's afraid.”

“I'm not afraid,” said Jim.

“Then why won't you sing?”

“Because I don't like.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Goggins.

“Well, maybe you're afraid yourself,” said Jim, “if you towld thruth.” “Just to show you how little I'm afeard,” said Goggins, with a swaggering air, “I'll sing another song about Jimmy Barlow.”

“You'd better not,” said Larry Hogan. “Let him rest in pace!”

“Fudge!” said Goggins. “Will you join chorus, Jim?”

“I will,” said Jim, fiercely.

“We'll all join,” said the men (except Larry), who felt it would be a sort of relief to bully away the supernatural terror which hung round their hearts after the ghost story by the sound of their own voices.

“Then here goes!” said Goggins, who started another long ballad about Jimmy Barlow, in the opening of which all joined. It ran as follows:—

As it would be tiresome to follow this ballad through all its length, breadth, and thickness, we shall leave the singers engaged in their chorus, while we call the reader's attention to a more interesting person than Mister Goggins or Jimmy Barlow.