The Return of the O'Mahony. Frederic Harold
the Cove ag’in, if your honor has work for me elsewhere.”
“I guess I can fix that,” said The O’Mahony, speaking more slowly, and studying his man as he spoke. “You see, I ain’t got a man in this hull Ireland that I can call a friend. I don’t know nothin’ about your ways, no more’n a babe unborn. It took me jest about two minutes, after I got out through the Custom House, to figger out that I was goin’ to need some one to sort o’ steer me—and need him powerful bad, too. Why, I can’t even reckon in your blamed money, over here. You call a shillin’ what we’d call two shillin’s, an’ there ain’t no such thing as a dollar. Now, I’m goin’ out to my estates, where I don’t know a livin’ soul, an’ prob’ly they’d jest rob me out o’ my eye-teeth, if I hadn’t got some one to look after me—some one that knew his way around. D’ye see?”
The car-driver’s eyes sparkled, but he shook his curly red head with doubt, upon reflection.
“You’ve been fair wid me, sir,” he said, after a pause, “an’ I’ll not be behind you in honesty. You don’t know me at all. What the divil, man!—why, I might be the most rebellious rogue in all County Cork.” He scratched his head with added dubiety, as he went on; “An’, for the matter of that, faith, if you did know me, it’s some one else you’d take. There’s no one in the Cove that ’ud give me a character.”
“You’re right,” observed The O’Mahony. “I don’t know you from a side o’ soleleather. But that’s my style. I like a fellow, or I don’t like him, and I do it on my own hook, follerin’ my own notions, and just to suit myself. I’ve been siz’in’ you up, all around, an’ I like the cut o’ your gib. You might be washed up a trifle more, p’r’aps, and have your hair cropped; but them’s details. The main point is, that I believe you’ll act fair and square with me, an see to it that I git a straight deal!”
“Sir, I’ll go to the end of the earth for you,” said Jerry. He rose, and by an instinctive movement, the two men shook hands across the table.
“That’s right,” said The O’Mahony, referring more to the clasping of hands than to the vow of fealty. “That’s the way I want ’er to stand. Don’t call me ‘yer honor,’ or any o’ that sort o’ palaver. I’ve been a poor man all my life. I ain’t used to bossin’ niggers around, or playin’ off that I’m better’n other folks. Now that I’m returnin’ to my estates, prob’ly I’ll have to stomach more or less of that sort o’ nonsense. That’s one of the things I’ll want you to steer me in.”
“An’ might I be askin’, where are these estates, sir?”
“So far’s I can make out, they’re near where we come in sight of Ireland first; it can’t be very far from here. They’re on the seashore—I know that much. We go to Dunmanway, wherever that is, by the railroad to-morrow, and there the lawyers have telegraphed to have the agent meet us. From there on, we’ve got to stage it. The place itself is Murrisk, beyond Skull—nice, comfortable, soothin’ sort o’ names you Irish have for your towns, eh?”
“And what time’ll we be startin’ to-morrow?”
“The train leaves at noon—that is, for Dunmanway.”
“Thank God for that,” said Jerry, with a sigh of relief.
The O’Mahony turned upon him with such an obviously questioning glance that he made haste to explain:
“I’ll be bound your honor hasn’t been to mass since—since ye were like that grasshopper ye spoke about.”
“Mass—no—how d’ye mean? What is it?”
“Luk at that, now!” exclaimed Jerry, triumphantly. “See what ’d ’a’ come to ye if ye’d gone to your estates without knowing the first word of your Christian obligations! We’ll rise early to-morrow, and I’ll get ye through all the masses there are in Cork, betune thin an’ midday.”
“Gad! I’d clean forgotten that,” said The O’Mahony. “An’ now let’s git out an’ see the town.”
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