tête with the infuriated Mr. Burke, might have ended in choking the life out of his far feebler body. As it was, indeed, he felt very sick and shaken, and it was some little time before he found breath enough to thank his rescuer. But with that breath there came a strong feeling of virtuous indignation, and a keen desire for vengeance on his foe.
“Thare, an’ it’s yourself as is the big coward to be laying hould on a man half your size, ye mane blayguard ye. And is it the dirty notes you’re afther talking of? It’s my belief you never had them of your own at all at all, or it’s more than the bare thanks you’d have given to the poor boy as brought them to ye.”
But in this hasty expression of his anger, Val O’Flaherty overstepped the bounds of prudence, and went far to convince his hearers—and more especially the Englishman who had momentarily taken up his defence—that he, that blundering, blustering Galway boy was, if not actually, the dangerous animal called a pickpocket, a companion, at least, and accomplice of one who was anything but a safe and respectable member of society.
“Hold hard there, young fellow,” said again the Saxon dealer, in a peremptory tone. “We can’t have none of that blarney. The notes was there, for I saw ’em counted, and if they isn’t now, why—” and he scratched his head with a musing air, being mentally divided probably between the rather pleasurable excitement of thief-detecting, and a natural and good-natured dislike to make an unpleasant remark.
Another station reached—a small place evidently, but still large enough to contain some officers of justice, some magistrate by whom that shivering, miserable youth might be tried and sentenced. These were the grazier’s thoughts as, jumping from the carriage, he called lustily for aid to secure the prisoner.
“Hands off,” cried Val, who, when the moment for action, and perchance for fight arrived, felt strong within him the pugnacious instincts of his countrymen. “Hands off; I’ll be afther ye in a hand’s turn, old boy, and then we’ll see who’ll have the best of it, and be d—d to ye.”
During his short and not over-agreeable walk to the residence of the stipendiary magistrate, Val O’Flaherty fully made up his mind to tell that gentleman the whole truth, nothing doubting but that this straightforward explanation of facts, combined with the certain and speedy reappearance of his careless brother, would procure his own immediate restoration to liberty. But the inexperienced Valentine had not reckoned with any degree of accuracy on the various suspicious circumstances which told so terribly against himself in the opinion of the gentleman who received his confession with such a grave and unsympathising air.
“It was jist foon, your worship—jist hoombugging we was—and Manus he got the notes, and seeing a frind on the platform, he disremembered the train and the money enthirely. But there’ll be no delay at all, your worship. Shure there’s another train to-night, and its mysel’ will be there to hurry him.”
But Mr. Sullivan, though a good-natured man, as well as an experienced magistrate, did not happen to see the matter in the same light, for, to set against a good deal of criminating evidence there was only the student’s very improbable story, to say nothing of the shabby hat and well-worn coat which, in order to save his only holiday suit, the prudent Val had deemed it wise to put on duty for the journey.
Such being the view taken by the magistrate of the matter, he declined to let the prisoner go, and the unlucky Val, infinitely to his surprise and consternation (for the obtaining the blessing of bail was as completely out of his reach as would have been the landed proprietorship and the well-to-do look which might have induced the worthy Mr. Sullivan to look more favourable on his case), the unlucky Val, I repeat, was placed under lock and key to think over his unlooked-for disgrace, and to wait impatiently, but alas! in vain, for the arrival of the brother whose testimony in this emergency could alone avail to rescue him from the unhappy position in which he found himself.
But we must leave the incarcerated student for awhile, in order to account for the absence of the actual perpetrator of the so-called robbery. He had small experience in railway travelling, that raw buckeen, who had scarcely ever left his native mountains, and to whom the “city of Dublin” was as yet a scene of only dreamt-of pleasure. Yes, he had very little experience in rapid locomotion, or, in the small Junction of Athlone, he would not have so completely lost his head as to allow the train by which he had travelled to depart without him; whilst he, staring into the windows of another which was on the point of starting for Longford, looked in vain for his brother’s familiar face, and for the portly figure of the horse-dealer.
“By the powers!” he cried at last, addressing a man who was employed in banging too the doors. “By the powers, but I was in it a minute ago, and now divil a one of them is in it afther.”
The words had scarcely passed the lips of Manus O’Flaherty when the train for Longford moved slowly away, and he was left on the platform alone! In a moment the full horror, not only of his own, but of his unlucky brother’s situation flashed across his mind. To have left the carriage with another man’s two hundred pounds (and how obtained was a reflection that now filled his brain with dismay unutterable), to have left his seat, I say, under such circumstances, seemed now to him an act little short of madness. But what was now to be done to remedy the evil? This was a question that even the greatly bewildered Connaught youth asked himself the instant the first shock was over; but it was a query easier asked than answered. He had no acquaintance now to aid him, for the fellow-student whom he had so eagerly greeted was by this time miles away in an outside jaunting car that had been waiting for him, and hours, too, must elapse before he could get on to Dublin, whilst in that time to what terrible suspicions would he not be subjected, and his brother,—his poor, guiltless, lonely Val—ah, that was the