Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 106 — page 21: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

=e tne oe ee her eyes, that O’Glory didn’t like at all. He scented trouble. ‘* Yis, my dear; I think that I can be afther putting a trifle of money in yer way,” he re- eated, rubbing his hands together softly, and ming upon the girl in his warmest manner. ‘“A trifle of money is good, and the bigger om * the trifle the better,” the girl suggested, in an | extremely careless way, not at all impressed with wonder at the announcement. “And, me child, although I say it, who shouldn’t, maybe, 1 am the only man in the wourld who can give you this trifle of money.” | ‘Oh, Mr, O’Glory, you are so rich that of course you can afford to be generous if you wish to, but it is so good of you to give some of your money to a poor girl like myself; Iam sure [ don’t know what I will do to show my grati- tude,’ Again the old legal fox was embarrassed; the simplicity of the girl bothered him. It was his game to enter into as little explanation as pos- sible, but it was necessary to recall the girl from the false scent upon which she was hasten- ing. f Ahem, me dear child, it is not me own mo- ney that I am going to bestow upon yees,” ‘Not your own money?” ‘‘ No, me dear, but it is a trifle that I think ye are entitled to; Iam not shure of it, ye know, bek’ase it all comes from the law, and the law is a mighty unsartin thing.” ‘Oh, then, I may not get it after all?” ‘‘True for yees,” and the lawyer shook his head in a doleful sort of way. ‘' As I obsarved before, the law is very uncertain, but I know the law as well as any man in Ireland, and if there is a man living upon this earth to-da who can get this money for yees, it is meself who is that man,” ‘¢-You are very kind, indeed, to take all this trouble, and when you know, too, that I am not able to pay you anything,” and, as she spoke, she cast a speaking glance at the old fel- low’s face, which did not escape his notice, and which puzzled him exceedingly. | ‘* Of coorse, if I don’t succeed in getting any- thing fur yees, thin I will only have me trouble for me pains, but if I am lucky enough to get a trifle for yees—a hundred pounds, maybe—” and the lawyer paused to observe the effect of this announcement, fora hundred pounds was asmall fortune to a girl situated as she was, but he was disappointed. Instead of an out- burst of amazement, as he had confidently ex- pected, she only smiled, and nodded her head as as gnal for him to go on. ‘‘- Vis, me dear, a hundred pounds,” he contin- ued, ‘Maybe two hundred, if the law hasn't ate it all up.” ; ‘Why, I shall be quite rich, won’t I? and I sha’n’t have to tend the geese any more!” in the most commonplace and matter-of-fact tone pos- sible. ‘Tind the geese!” cried O’Glory; ‘‘ you would be a goose yourself if you did.” “Ah, now I understand why Mr. Feakle wanted tomarry me. Sharp fellow, isn’t}he?” The lawyer glared at this discovery of the meditated treachery of his clerk. ; ‘The blaggard! that was his game, was it!” ried, in a ion. a ; Oh, yes; he wouldn’t take no for an answer until I set the geese at him, but the old gander made him take to his heels ina twinkling. Of course, if there is any chance of my get a hundred pounds, I should be quite a catch for Mr, Mickey Feakle, but what I don’t under- stand isthe other.” _ ‘The other!” exclaimed O’Glory, in amaze- ment; ‘* phat other—phat do you mane? “ Why, the lieutenant!” ‘* The lieutinant?”’ ‘Yes, Lieutenant Smithers; he was here, the other day, and made the most ferocious love to me, and { don’t understand that at all,” ob- served the girl, with the most perfect simplici- ty, which, if not natural, was extremely well assumed. ‘‘ The lieutinant was afther ye?” and then in- to the mind of the lawyer flashed the remem- brance of the spot where he had revealed the secret of the irl’s fortune to his clerk. Right above his baad were the windows of the apartment occupied by Smithers. O’Glory re- membered, too, that he had not been particu- larly careful in regard to the tone of voice in which he had spoken, and now that the news of the soldier’s suit had been made known to him, he felt morally certain that Smithers had been sitting by one of the windows above, and so, by accident, had overheard the whole con- versation. The old leech groaned in secret; how could he hope to succ in his plan if all the details upon which the scheme was based were known to others? “Tt isreally a mystery,” the Goose-girl con- tinued. “I can understand that if Mickey Feakle found out there was one or twe hundred ounds coming to me, it would be a very strong nducement for him to come sweet-hearting to me, but with the lieutenant—the case is alto- gether different. If it was ten or twenty thou- saud pounds now—” and again the girl favored the lawyer with a sly look. eee ns Shamus. O’Brien. It was much as O’Glory could do to keep from groaning outright; he felt positively certain that all the fat was in the fire, metaphorically speaking, for he guessed that these two suitors, coming in hot haste to woo, had excited the suspicions of the girl, and had led her to believe that the great fortune which rumor had always declared that old Michael Sheelan had possessed had at last come to light. The gossips of the neighborhood had never wavered in their belief that the old miser had died ‘‘as rich as a Jew,” and that, sooner or later, the money would be discovered, and the discovery would make the Goose-girl the richest lady in Connemara. O’Glory resolved to learn the worst. “The Englishman is half-cracked, I think, and I wouldn’t like to go bail for anything that he might be afther doing. It’s a foine, hand- some girl ye are, and, maybe, it was sthruck by yer beauty he was. But now, Kitty, dar- lint, to come down to sober business, suppose I get this money for yees phat will ye be afther giving me for me trouble?” ‘* Oh, it isn’t for the likes of a "re girl like me to say,” she replied. ‘‘It is for you to set the price; how much, now?” ‘**T will be r’asonable wid yo seeing that it is you, Kitty, a colleen that I’ve always had a soft spot in me heart for. Of coorse, a man like meself must be paid for me trouble, and, as I am the only man that can be afther getting vou the money, ‘and Heaven knows it may be only a wee bit of a trifle after all—not over fifty pounds, maybe, suppose we say that [’m to have a quarter of all I get for ye for me trouble?’ ‘Suppose it should be twenty thousand pognaa or more, what then?’ she asked, shrewd- y ‘Oh, but it isn’t likely to be any such an amount!” he exclaimed, hastily, and with a dim apprehension that this second little game of his was destined to fail as completely as the first one had done. ‘* Suppose we say a quarter if it is two hund- red pounds and a hundred pound clear if the amount is over two hundred no matter how much it may be!” The lawyer saw at once that he had “ caught a Tartar,” and that Kitty Sheelan had not been dealing in geese all her life for nothing. “Oh, I couldn’t do it—I couldn’t ’bate a penny; it’s a quarter I must have or nothing!” ‘* It will be nothing then!” cried a rich, manly voice, and Tom Pepper made his a nce from the closet where he had taken Pr em the appearance of the caller. ‘‘ Mr. O’Glory, I have the honor to be your servant to com- mand,” and he made the lawyer, who had start- ed to his feet in a rage, a polite bow, which the angry man did not take the least notice of, so rg ie was he at the turn affairs had taken. **The fact is, Mr. O’Glory, we think we can get on in this little matter without your aid. wife—that is to be—” and a bright blush crept into Kitty’s cheeks at the expression, “is no doubt the heir to all the estate left by her father, the late Michael Sheelan. In some wa you have found out that there is an estate. ame you will have no objection to impart he precious information to me.” ** Pll see you hanged first!” snarled the angry man. ‘* Precisely—precisely what I expected!” and Tom was as cool as a cucumber, ‘‘ and so I have drawn up an advertisement in regard to the Sheelan estate—I had just finished when you <BR, shall cause to be inse in a e princi newspapers in England, Ire- land, Scotland and Wales, and the Old Boy will be in it if that don’t put me on the track of the money.” O’Glory waited to hear no more, but with a round of curses rushed from the cottage. Fate itself was in arms against O’Glory. CHAPTER XXXII THR NEXT MOVE, DesmMonD BURKE was not half so much ek 6 ae at the failure of the cunning scheme, which he and the old lawyer had contrived between them, as O’- Glory, although, if it had been successful, he would have received ten thousand pounds while the lawyer would have got but two. But Captain Burke, of late years, had become a fatalist; luck, fate was against him, and strive how he might the current seemed always to set in oppo- sition to his will. In almost everything he did ill-luck seemed to at- cked the favorite at the races, tend him. If he some dark horse was sure to win, but if, on the con- trary, he backed the field against the favorite, then the gallant animal at the top of the betting was cer- tain to win in a canter. And so convinced was he that luck was against him that at last, in mockery, he used to counsel his friends, if they wished to win, to bet exactly oppo- site to what he did. One gleam of good fortune only had shone upon his pathway for quite a long time, and that was the ca eee of Shamus O’Brien. this instance, for a wonder, fate forgot to frown upon him, “fortune was asleep, like an idle jade!” he commented, with bitter Satisfaction, when he re- ferred to the affair, “or else it would never have nape tiespite this saying, he be tly to h ut, des ; gan secretly to ho fest oes et that fale had rown tired oft ruses ng him, and that his luck had turned. The com- plete failure of his scheme, though, by means of <1 which he hoped to finger ten thousand pounds of Miss Maggie Moore’s money, rather put him out of _ conceit with this idea, so now it was time to change his tactics. He had ordered the troops to remain at a distance from the Hall, covering all the cross-roads in the di- rection of the hills so as to intercept the prisoner, after his release, in his anticipated flight in that di- rection, but now everything must be changed, Smithers’s recital of what he had seen in the glen had convinced Burke that the Irishmen were des | perate and determined enough to make an attack ] i ; oe ee upon the sew S Hall itself if they saw no other way to accomplish the purpose that they had in view— the release of the prisoner. As near as the lieutenant could calculate, there were from thirty to fifty men in the gang, and, in his opinion, nearer to mi § than to thirty. They were all pretty well armed, and if well led could hardly fail in securing the safety of the captive by a resolute and determined attack upon the old man sion. Burke had dispatched messengers at once to sum- mon the troops to his rescue, for he was really afraid that he would not be able to hold the post against a resolute attack with the small force at hie and. saanate shared in this opinion, for, as he express: ed it: ‘* This deuced old barracks has got so many wings, and somany ways of getting into it and out of it, that I really believe it would take a hundred men to hold it with any hope of success against anything of a force, you know. Another point of vantage possessed the peasants. There were at least a dozen men in the ranks well poqieanted with every nook and Mace in the old Hall, and there was little doubt Desmond’s mind that all the peasants in the neighborhood were in league, more or less, with the Bould Boys of the Mountain. Hence, with such a rambling old build- ing, while the few soldiers at the captain’s command were resisting an attack at a given point, there were ie = six others through which entrance could be g ; It was near nightfall before the messengers were dispatched to order the detachments of troops to hurry to the relief of the Hall, and if each and every one of them used the utmost speed and were not de- layed on the road, it would surely be midnight be- fore the nearest company could arrive at the Hall, and until midnight some weary hours must pass away. The captain and Smithers front of the mansion upon “* gloaming hour.”’ aced up and down in e smooth turf in the e faces of both were sober, for they fully under- | stood the extent of their a Smithers was no alarmist, and when he had quiet- ly said that the Bould Boys of the Mountain were as desperate and dogged a set of rascals as he had ever met with, and t in his mind there was no doubt, if they were ook ged led, they would fight, with the ferocity of bull-dogs, Burke knew he had not exaggerated the matter. i And Desmond Burke, too, as well as any man wh: had ever trodden Irish soil, knew what a blood- eg: Baw of desperadoes these same hard-work- ing, ple, honest peasants were when goaded on by rsonal wrongs to bloody deeds. “*By Jove, old boy!’’ he observed to the lieuten- ant, as they paced up and down, “this is a deuced awkward situation. e are a good deal like pirates fighting with a halter round our necks, if they do attack the Hall to-night. We shall hurt some of them in the first of it, sure, and if they do succeed in overpowering us in the end, which I confess doesn’t seem very unlikely, there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that, in their mad ot as they will be with the bloud and smoke o the con- flict, we shall all be slaughtered on the spot.” ve by Jove! there is a fine — to go in for, isn’t itnow? But, I say, as the position is untenable sup- lage we evacuate it—retreat with our prisoner, you ow,’’ was Smithers’s suggestion. ‘“‘Impossible to do it successfully; we should be detected and cut off before we had gonea mile. It is better to stick to the protection of the walls than to be cut off in the opening.”’ two dilemmas choose the least; now in this case, if any one would show me which was the least, I'd know better how to act.” ‘There are only two chances for us,”’ Burke an- € ‘Yes, that is exactly what I said, but I object te both of them. For a soldier to fall in battle is all ht; there’s the glory of the thing; but, to be cut off in a deuced skirmish with a deuced lot of ragged fellows, armed with all sorts of weapons— heavens, old boy! the very thought is perfectly dis- e" . “Tm talking of two chances for life, not for ‘* Deuced sight more agreeable, you know.” ‘In the first place, the moon is coming up,” and the captain pointed to where “ pale Luna, sweet mistress of the night,” was rising slowly above the horizon, beating back the envious clouds of the ebon eve with her soft, silvery rays. “Yas, it will give us Heht to see our own throats cut,’’ suggested Smithers; ‘it will be some consola-. tion to be able to see how the little operation is per- formed.” “The moon will give us light so that we can watch the movements of the assailants as they come up to the attack, and if we can see what “~~ are de- ing perhaps we may be able to beat them off. That is chance number one.”’ ‘** Deuced small one!"’ Smithers believed. “Itisa good deal like going in for a lottery, you know; a man stands about as good a chance to struck by lightning as he does to win any:hing ” ‘Very true, but it is a chance; then number two: | if we cannot succeed in repulsing the assailants we may be able to keep them in check until midnight; then our reénforcements will begin to come up and the game is ourown. Hence time must be ed ps hay means in our power. You know the pick- ets are out,” Smithers nodded. “Well, when the alarm is given that the rascals are advancing, we will fall back to the house. We will let them marshal their force upon the lawn here, which they will be pretty sure to do, for these ; Eomichboo cS (E(@)