"'Do you mane to insult me,' says the baron, getting mighty red, and throwing down the cards on the table, 'Is that what you're at?'
"'Go on with the deal,' says Mr. Brooke, quietly; 'but listen to me,' and here he dropped his voice to a whisper, 'as sure as you turn the king of hearts I'll send a bullet through your skull! Go on now, and don't rise from that seat till you've finished the game.' Faix, he just did as he was bid; he turned a little two or three of diamonds, and gettin' up from the table, he left the room, and the next morning there was no more seen of him in Aix-la-Chapelle. But that wasn't the end of it, for scarce was the baron two posts on his journey, when my master sends in his name, and says he wants to speak to Count Riedensegg. There was a long time, and a great debatin', I believe, whether they'd let him in or not; for the count couldn't make if it was mischief he was after; but at last he was ushered into the bedroom where the other was in bed.
"'Count,' says he, after he fastened the door, and saw that they was alone, 'Count, you tried a dirty thrick with that dirty spalpeen of a baron – an ould blaguard that's as well known as Freney, the robber – but I forgive you for it all, for you did it in the way of business. I know well what you was afther; you wanted a peep at our dispatches – there, ye needn't look cross and angry – why wouldn't ye do it, just as the baron always took a sly glance at my cards before he played his own. Well, now, I'm just in the humor to sarve you. They're not trating me as they ought here, and I'm going away, and if you'll give me a few letthers to some of the pretty women in Vienna, Kateuka Batthyani, and Amalia Gradoffsky, and one or two men in the best set, I'll send you in return something will surprise you.'
"It was after a long time and great batin' about the bush, that the ould count came in; but the sight of a sacret cipher did the business, and he consented.
"'There it is,' says Mr. Brooke, 'there's the whole key to our correspondence, study it well, and I'll bring you a sacret dispatch in the evening – something that will surprise you.'
"'Ye will – will ye?' says the count.
"'On the honor of an Irish gentleman, I will,' says Mr. Brooke.
"The count sits down on the spot and writes the letters to all the princesses and countesses in Vienna, saying that Mr. Brooke was the elegantest, and politest, and most trusty young gentleman ever he met; and telling them to treat him with every consideration.
"'There will be another account of me,' says the master to me, 'by the post; but I'll travel faster, and give me a fair start, and I ask no more.'
"And he was as good as his word, for he started that evening for Vienna, without lave or license, and that's the way he got dismissed from his situation."
"And did he break his promise to the count, or did he really send him any intelligence?"
"He kept his word like a gentleman; he promised him something that would surprise him, and so he did. He sent him the weddin' of Ballyporeen in cipher. It took a week to make out, and I suppose they've never got to the right understandin' it yet."
"I'm curious to hear how he was received in Vienna after this," said I. "I suppose you accompanied him to that city."
"Troth I did, and a short life we led there; but here we are now, at the end of our journey. That's Father Doogan's down there, that small, low, thatched house in the hollow."
"A lonely spot, too. I don't see another near it for miles on any side."
"Nor is there. His chapel is at Murrah, about three miles off. My eyes isn't over good; but I don't think there's any smoke coming out of the chimley."
"You are right – there is not."
"He's not at home, then, and that's a bad job for us, for there's not another place to stop the night in."
"But there will be surely some one in the house."
"Most likely not; 'tis a brat of a boy from Murrah does be with him when he's at home, and I'm sure he's not there now."
This reply was not very cheering, nor was the prospect itself much brighter. The solitary cabin, to which we were approaching, stood in a rugged glen, the sides of which were covered with a low furze, intermixed here and there with the scrub of what once had been an oak forest. A brown, mournful tint was over every thing – sky and landscape alike; and even the little stream of clear water that wound its twining course along, took the same color from the gravelly bed it flowed over. Not a cow nor sheep was to be seen, nor even a bird; all was silent and still.
"There's few would like to pass their lives down there, then!" said my companion, as if speaking to himself.
"I suppose the priest, like a soldier, has no choice in these matters."
"Sometimes he has, though. Father Doogan might have had the pick of the county, they say; but he chose this little quiet spot here. He's a friar of some ordher abroad, and when he came over, two or three years ago, he could only spake a little Irish, and, I believe, less English; but there wasn't his equal, for other tongues, in all Europe. They wanted him to stop and be the head of a college somewhere in Spain, but he wouldn't. 'There was work to do in Ireland,' he said, and there he'd go, and to the wildest and laste civilized bit of it besides; and ye see that he was not far out in his choice when he took Murrah."
"Is he much liked here by the people?"
"They'd worship him, if he'd let them, that's what it is; for if he has more larnin' and knowledge in his head than ever a bishop in Ireland, there's not a child in the barony his equal for simplicity. He that knows the names of the stars, and what they do be doing, and where the world's going, and what's comin' afther her, hasn't a thought for the wickedness of this life, no more than a sucking infant! He could tell you every crop to put in your ground from this to the day of judgment, and I don't think he'd know which end of the spade goes into the ground."
While we were thus talking, we reached the door, which, as well as the windows, was closely barred and fastened. The great padlock, however, on the former, with characteristic acuteness, was locked without being hasped, so that, in a few seconds, my old guide had undone all the fastenings, and we found ourselves under shelter.
A roomy kitchen, with a few cooking utensils, formed the entrance hall; and as a small supply of turf stood in one corner, my companion at once proceeded to make a fire, congratulating me as he went on with the fact of our being housed, for a long-threatening thunder storm had already burst, and the rain was swooping along in torrents.
While he was thus busied I took a ramble through the little cabin, curious to see something of the "interior" of one whose life had already interested me. There were but two small chambers, one at either side of the kitchen. The first I entered was a bedroom, the only furniture being a common bed, or a tressel like that of an hospital, a little colored print of St. Michael adorning the wall overhead. The bed-covering was cleanly, but patched in many places, and bespeaking much poverty, and the black "soutane" of silk that hung against the wall seemed to show long years of service. The few articles of any pretension to comfort were found in the sitting-room, where a small book-shelf with some well-thumbed volumes, and a writing-table covered with papers, maps, and a few pencil-drawings, appeared. All seemed as if he had just quitted the spot a few minutes before; the pencil lay across a half-finished sketch; two or three wild plants were laid within the leaves of a little book on botany; and a chess problem, with an open book beside it, still waited for solution on a little board, whose workmanship clearly enough betrayed it to be by his own hands.
I inspected every thing with an interest inspired by all I had been hearing of the poor priest, and turned over the little volumes of his humble library to trace, if I might, some clew to his habits in his readings. They were all, however, of one cast and character – religious tracts and offices, covered with annotations and remarks, and showing, by many signs the most careful and frequent perusal. It was easy to see that his taste for drawing or for chess were the only dissipations he permitted himself to indulge. What a strange life of privation, thought I, alone and companionless as he must be! and while speculating on the sense of duty which impelled such a man to accept a post so humble and unpromising,