That night Mr Murphy and his steed had been carousing in the cabin of Billy the Rafter, a gentleman of no occupation, who lived by the main road half-way between Castle Knock and Tullagh. Mr Murphy, Con and Billy had been playing “Spoil Five” with an old greasy pack of cards, talking politics, and drinking whisky.

The events of the day before had placed Mr Murphy securely and forever on the pedestal of public admiration.

The sight of Billy Croom starting valiantly in pursuit of him followed by the sight of Billy Croom after the encounter, stripped of everything but his breeches and boots and going home in a sack, had left an undying impression on the public mind. The reduction of Con Cogan to a beast of burthen had completed the business. The whole affair had an artistic completeness, more especially when viewed by a people possessed at once of a sense of humour and an abhorrence of law.

So there had been whisky galore for Mr Murphy, and cheers—a compound not unpleasant, but apt to be unsettling to the mind.

It was long after two in the morning when the card-party broke up, and Mr Murphy, rising rather unsteadily to his feet, prepared to return to his arboreal home.

“It’s a fine night,” said Billy the Rafter, as he accompanied his visitors to the door; “faith, you could see to rade print be the light of the moon. Keep your eye out for the police, Paddy, for they do be sayin’ wind of it all has got over to Shepherd’s Cross.”

“P’leece!” said Mr Murphy with fine contempt, producing the horse pistol and inspecting the cap on it. “Who’s you talkin’ to? Now thin, Con—Billy give me a leg up, for the whisky’s got under me.”

Con, obedient to the superior will, as a donkey turned his back; Billy the Rafter gave the required leg up, and Mr Murphy mounted.

“’Night to you, Billy,” cried the mounted one. “Jay up. Put your best fut foremost, for it’s home I ought to have been an hour ago.”

“Let up wid thim spurs,” grumbled Con, as he took the high-road; “aisy wid that whip, don’t be moidherin’ me, or it’s into the ditch we’ll be; for it’s a double load I’m carryin’ wid you on me back and the whisky aboard.”

“Faith,” confessed Mr Murphy, “it’s two moons I’m seein’ meself, and the road looks twishtin’ like a corkscrew. Musha, but it’s a glurious night; it calls to me mind the ould days whin I wint courtin’. Jay up, y’ divil, an’ keep the road.”

“Hould on,” said Con, who had better eyes in his head than his rider. “What’s that foreninst us on the road?”

Mr Murphy, shutting one eye, made out a black mass on the road ahead of them.

“It’s a cart broke down,” said he; “where there’s a smash-up there’s always pickin’s. Jay up—we’ll lind them our ’sistance.”

It was the dogcart—a horrible ruin, one wheel off and shafts broken. Patsy holding Fly-by-night (name of satire) by the bridle, Miss Lestrange seated, like a young and beautiful Niobe, in a mole-skin cloak, on the hedge bank, and Dicky Fanshawe trying to console her.

“Hulloo, hulloo,” cried Mr Murphy, as he trotted up, “what’s the truble wid ye? Why, glory be to God, it’s Mr Fanshawe!”

“It’s Murphy!” cried Dicky Fanshawe, a feeling of hope springing up in his breast, for, whatever else the ruffian might be, he was a man of resource, and if there was such a thing as gratitude in the whole wide world, a friend.

Mr Murphy, from his point of vantage, gazed with a grin at the smashed cart, the weeping girl, the distracted Mr Fanshawe, and Patsy. Then touching Con with a spur he rode round the ruined vehicle and inspected it. Miss Lestrange noticed with an obfusc sort of horror that Con obeyed voice and spur just like a horse. The whole thing felt like a terrible and fantastic nightmare.

“There’s no time to lose!” cried Dicky, when Mr Murphy had made his inspection. “The thing is smashed beyond mending. Murphy, for heaven’s sake, do you know of a horse and trap anywhere near? I must get to Tullagh by four to catch the mail to Dublin. See here, we are running away, this young lady and I——”

“There’s not a horse and cart nearer than four miles,” said Murphy; “is there, Con?”

“Divil a wan,” replied the steed.

“Good Lord!” cried Dicky, “and we’re being chased. The General is after us in the carriage—you remember the old gentleman with the red face?”

“He’s afther you, is he, in a carriage?” said Mr Murphy.

“He is—he’ll be here any minute.”

“Con,” cried Mr Murphy, “set me down.”

“Now,” cried he, when he was on his feet, “help me, all of yiz, to clear the rubbage out of the road.”

They bent to their task, and in a minute the ruined dogcart was tumbled into the ditch and the road was clear.

“Listen!” said Miss Lestrange, who had risen to her feet.

The sound of hoofs and wheels came on the night air, and far on the road appeared a carriage rapidly approaching.

“Now, Mr Fanshawe,” said Murphy, whipping out his old pistol, “this is him, and I’m goin’ to give yiz a carridge to ride in, but you’ve got to pay for it, begob. One good turn desarves another. Out wid your money or your life!”

“Why, you infernal scoundrel!” cried Dicky.

“Out wid it!” cried Murphy—“watch and chain and all; times is bad, and I’ve no use for parlymentaries—I’m goin’ to give yiz a carridge to the station; would you have me play highwayman with the ould gentleman and let you go free?”

“I see,” cried Dicky, who caught the other’s meaning. “Here you are, if the business has to be done this way, I’d sooner stand in.”

“Sure, I knew you would,” said Mr Murphy, now thoroughly sober; “you’re a gintleman to the last button of your wistcoat. Give me the suverins, take back the notes; they’re no use to me, bad cess to them! Now the watch and chain. Thank you kindly. Has the young lady any movables?”

“Only this bracelet,” said Violet.

“Kape it,” said Mr Murphy; “bracelits is no use to me. Now it’s my turn. Con!”

Con presented his back and Mr Murphy mounted. The carriage was only a few hundred yards off, and the pair of ruffians, one on the back of the other, stood square before it on the roadway.

“Hulloo! hulloo!” cried Larry, reining in. “What are yiz? Why, it’s Paddy Murphy!”

With the stopping of the carriage the door flew open and General Grampound came out of the vehicle like a bombshell. He exploded on the road into unprintable language. Then he found himself fronting Murphy’s red, grinning face, and a pistol held within a foot of his head.

“Wan word out of you and I’ll blow your skylights off!” cried Murphy.

General Grampound’s long army experience had taught him to know an utterly desperate ruffian when he met one.

“Into the carridge wid you, Mr Fanshawe,” cried Murphy. “I’m wid yiz, miss,—I won’t harm the ould gintleman if he keeps a dacent tongue in his head, but I’m goin’ to give him a lesson in dancin’—away wid yiz! Good luck, and send me a piece of the weddin’ ceek.”

“Patsy, get on the box and come with us,” cried Mr Fanshawe as he bundled Miss Lestrange into the carriage and into the arms of Doris and Little Lord Gawdor, “the children are all right. Larry will drive them back. I’m very sorry,” he cried over his shoulder to his uncle; “it’s your own fault, if you have to walk home. This scoundrel has taken my watch and chain and all my money—nearly. I’ll write.”

“Larry,” cried Mr Murphy as the carriage drove off.

“What is it?”

“If you miss the thrain I’ll boot your ribs in to-morrow mornin’.”

“Have we time?” gasped Violet Lestrange with Doris’s arms about her neck.

“Where are we, Mr Fanshawe?” asked little Lord Gawdor.

“I don’t know,” replied Mr Fanshawe, putting his head out of the window.

He looked back. On the moonlight road Mr Murphy was squatting on his hams with the old horse pistol levelled straight at General Grampound.

General Grampound was dancing on the moonlit roadway before Mr Murphy, with all the grace and agility of a performing elephant.

You may think it strange that any consideration would cause a retired General officer of the British Army to disgrace the moon by performing such antics before her. Well, that just shows you have never met Mr Murphy, seen his smile, or come under the profound power of his suasion.

“We are near Tullagh,” said Mr Fanshawe. “I recognise that row of trees. Look! there’s the railway line and the station. The train either hasn’t arrived, or it’s gone. I can’t tell the time, I haven’t my watch.”

“Put your head out,” said Violet.

He did so.

“Patsy!” he cried.

“Yes, sir.”

“You can’t see the train?”

“No, sir; but it hasn’t come, we’ve tin minits to the good.”

“How do you know?” shouted Mr Fanshawe

“I’ve got your watch an’ chain, sir,” came Patsy’s voice. “I whipped it out of Paddy’s pocket whin he was playin’ tricks wid the ould Gineral and the handkerchief wid your money wrapped up in it. Mr Fanshawe, sir!”

“Yes?”

“I’ve counted the gowld, it’s all there—six suverins; and there’s fourteen shillings of Paddy’s as well.”

“We must take Patsy with us,” said Mr Fanshawe, when he had communicated the news to his companions.

“I always said Patsy was a brick,” said little Lord Gawdor. “Didn’t I, Doris?”

“Yes,” said Doris. “Here’s the station, and there’s the station man with a lantern in his hand.”

“The dear children went back in the carriage,” wrote Mrs Fanshawe, six weeks later to a girl friend. “I could never have imagined an experience so awful and—so lovely; and the strange thing is, every one is so pleased, even old General Grampound has consented to write. It was an abusive letter, but even that’s a lot for him. I’m sure he has a good heart—somewhere.

“I got such a lovely emerald pendant from Lady Seagrave; and, fancy, she was going to have given me a grebe muff and a prayer-book for Christmas. Little Bob told me, and I think that was partly why I ran away.

“Poor dear Mr Murphy is going to America. Dicky is getting him out of the country through a friend. He says he’s taken an office for him in Wall Street, wherever that is. Dicky is so good—you can’t think.

“We have Patsy with us; he has just been giving a French boy what he calls ‘buther’ in the courtyard of the hotel. Dicky says he got the remains of the French boy away from him just in time.

“He is always fighting, but Dicky says that as long as there is a bit of him left he never intends to part with Patsy.”

If you have read ONE of the fine Novels by Ethel M. Dell, you will want the others.

Full particulars will be found in the pages following.

Illustration: Decoration

THE KEEPER OF THE DOOR

6/- and 2/- Net.

THE WAY OF AN EAGLE

6/-, 2/- Net and 1/- Net.

THE KNAVE OF DIAMONDS

6/-, 2/- Net and 1/- Net.

THE ROCKS OF VALPRÉ

6/- and 2/- Net.

THE SWINDLER, and other Stories

6/-

• Transcriber’s Notes:
  • Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
  • Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended.
  • Typographical errors were silently corrected.
  • Spelling and hyphenation were made consistent when a predominant form was found in this book; otherwise it was not changed.