This possessed a sort of fascination for poor Andy; for at last, relinquishing all others, he stood riveted before it, and muttered to himself, "I wondher can they hang me--sure it's no murdher I done--but who knows what witnesses they might get? and these times they sware mighty hard; and Squire O'Grady has such a pack o' blackguards about him, sure he could get anything swore he liked. Oh, wirra! wirra! what'll I do at all! Faix! I wouldn't like to be hanged--oh! look at him there--just the last kick in him--and a disgrace to my poor mother into the bargain. Augh!--but it's a dirty death to die--to be hung up like a dog over a gate, or an old hat on a peg, just that-away;" and he extended his arm as he spoke, suspending his _caubeen_, while he looked with disgust at the effigy. "But sure they _can't_ hang me--though now I remember Squire Egan towld me long ago I'd be hanged some day or other. I wondher does my mother know I'm tuk away--and Oonah, too, the craythur, would be sorry for me. Maybe, if my mother spoke to Squire Egan, his honour would say a good word for me:--though that wouldn't do; for him and Squire O'Grady's bitther inimies now, though they wor once good friends. Och hone! sure that's the way o' the world; and a cruel world it is--so it is. Sure 't would be well to be out of it a'most, and in a betther world. I hope there's no po'chaises in heaven!"
The soliloquy of poor Andy was interrupted by a low, measured sound of thumping, which his accustomed ear at once distinguished to be the result of churning; the room in which he was confined being one of a range of offices stretching backward from the principal building and next door to the dairy. Andy had grown tired by this time of his repeated contemplation of the rhymes and sketches, his own thoughts thereon, and his long confinement; and now the monotonous sound of the churn-dash falling on his ear, acted as a sort of _busho_,[6] and the worried and wearied Andy at last laid down on the platform and fell asleep to the bumping lullaby.
[6] A soft, monotonous chant the nurses sing to children to induce sleep.
The sportsmen, having returned from their fishing excursion to dinner, were seated round the hospitable board of Squire Egan; Murphy and Dick in high glee, at still successfully hoodwinking Furlong, and carrying on their mystification with infinite frolic.