“Nothin', boys, is asier,” said Delaney. “There's to be a patthern in Ballymagowan, on next Sathurday--an' that's jist half way betune ourselves and the Scanlan boys. Let us musther, an' go there, any how. We can keep an eye on Mat widout much trouble, an' when opportunity sarves, nick him at wanst, an' off wid him clane.”
“But,” said Traynor, “what would we do wid him when he'd be here? Wouldn't he cut an' run the first opportunity.
“How can he, ye omadhawn, if we put a manwill* in our pocket, an' sware him? But we'll butther him up when he's among us; or, be me sowks, if it goes that, force him either to settle wid ourselves, or to make himself scarce in the country entirely.”
* Manual, a Roman Catholic prayer-book, generally pronounced as above.
“Divil a much force it'll take to keep him, I'm thinkin',” observed Murphy. “He'll have three times a betther school here; and if he wanst settled, I'll engage he would take to it kindly.”
“See here, boys,” says Dick Dolan, in a whisper, “if that bloody villain, Brady, isn't afther standin' this quarter of an hour, strivin' to hear what we're about; but it's well we didn't bring up anything consarnin' the other business; didn't I tell yees the desate was in 'im? Look at his shadow on the wall forninst us.”
“Hould yer tongues, boys,” said Traynor; “jist keep never mindin', and, be me sowks, I'll make him sup sorrow for that thrick.”
“You had betther neither make nor meddle wid him,” observed Delany, “jist put him out o' that--but don't rise yer hand to him, or he'll sarve you as he did Jem Flannagan: put ye three or four months in the _Stone Jug_” (* Gaol).
Traynor, however, had gone out while he was speaking, and in a few minutes dragged in Brady, whom he caught in the very act of eaves-dropping.
“Jist come in, Brady,” said Traynor, as he dragged him along; “walk in, man alive; sure, and sich an honest man as you are needn't be afeard of lookin' his friends in the face! Ho!--an' be me sowl, is it a spy we've got; and, I suppose, would be an informer' too, if he had heard anything to tell!”
“What's the manin' of this, boys?” exclaimed the others, feigning ignorance. “Let the honest man go, Traynor. What do ye hawl him that way for, ye gallis pet'?”