“Asy, Sir Thomas!--Drink asy!” said the priest. “The whisky’s killin’ ye by inches!”
“Arrah, balderdash! Pat Butler, won’t ye let me take the colour of death off the water, man, and me threatened with the gout? It’s the law that’s fairly murderin’ me. Bad luck attend all consarned with the same! At the blast of the mail horn my heart bates like a bird; for within the last two years I have got as many lattitats by post, as would paper the drawin’-room. Shemus Rhua,” says he, turning to me,--“did ye see a black-lookin’ thief about the place, when ye were hunting the young setters on the moor?”
“Arrah, Sir Thomas, if I did, don’t ye think I would have been after askin’ him what he was doin’ there?”
“Sibby Byrn saw him thrust these d____d papers under the gate, and then cut over the bog as if the divil was at his heels. Well--small blame to him for runnin’--for, by all that’s beautiful, if I had gripped him, he would have gone back to the villain that employs him, lighter by both lugs. Sit down, Shemus. Izzy Blake, fill the boy a glass.” And then he began, poor ould gentleman, askin’ me about the dogs; but before I could answer him, he gave a sigh. “Arrah,” says he, “what need I be talkin’ about dogs, when, after November next, the divil a four-footed baste will be left upon Killcrogher, good nor bad!”
“Something must be done immediately,” said the priest. “If they foreclose the mortgage, and get a recaver on the estate, we’re done for.”
“If we could only raise five thousand to pay that cursed claim, we might stave off the other things till some good luck would turn up,” said the driver.
Sir Thomas sighed. Troth, an enemy would have pitied him!
“Arrah, Izzy Blake--that day will never come! Don’t talk of good luck, that’s over with me,” says he. “O Lord! to be baten by Peter Daly--and his grandmother before him, keepin’ a huxtery in Loughrea--and then to be hunted home afterwards, like a tithe-proctor! It’s enough to drive a man to drink, or make a quaker kick his own mother.”
You see, Mark, (observed the captain, in explanation,) the ould master had stood for the county. Well, from the time he came into possession of the estate, of course, Sir Thomas was like his father, a Sunday man and as he couldn’t meet the sheriff openly at the election, what the divil does he do, but he sits out in a boat, where he could hear how things were goin’ on, and give orders to the tenants. The Lord sees, the cratures did all they could for a good master as he was. Didn’t they kidnap the electors, tare down the booths, burn Peter Daly’s talley-room teetotally,--and throw a jaunting car, with six voters, clane over the bridge--horse, driver, and all! And what more; could they do? The money bate us in the long-run; and it was well Sir Thomas wasn’t taken into the bargain--for the bailiffs chased him to the very gates. No wonder then, poor ould gentleman, that the very name of the election put him always into a rage.