The visit to White & Carmody’s law-office had weighed heavily upon the mind of The O’Mahony during the whole voyage across the Atlantic, and it still was the burden of his thoughts as he sat beside Jerry Higgins—this he learned to be the car-driver’s name—in the train which rushed up the side of the Lea toward Cork. The first-class compartment to which Jerry had led the way was crowded with people who had arrived by the Moldavian, and who scowled at their late fellow-passenger for having imposed upon them the unsavory presence of the carman. The O’Mahony was too deeply occupied with his own business to observe this. Jerry smiled blandly into the hostile faces, and hummed a “come-all-ye” to himself.
When, an hour or so after their arrival, The O’Mahony emerged from the lawyers’ office the waiting Jerry scarcely knew him for the same man. The black felt hat, which had been pulled down over his brows, rested with easy confidence now well back on his head; his gray eyes twinkled with a pleasant light; the long face had lost its drawn lines and saturnine expression, and reflected content instead.
“Come along somewhere where we can get a drink,” he said to Jerry; but stopped before they had taken a dozen steps, attracted by the sign and street-show of a second-hand clothing shop. “Or no,” he said, “come in here first, and I’ll kind o’ spruce you up a bit so’t you can pass muster in society.”
When they came upon the street again, it was Jerry who was even more strikingly metamorphosed. The captious eye of one whose soul is in clothes might have discerned that the garments he now wore had not been originally designed for Jerry. The sleeves of the coat were a trifle long; the legs of the trousers just a suspicion short. But the smile with which he surveyed the passing reflections of his improved image in the shop-windows was all his own. He strode along jauntily, carrying the heavy bags as if they had been mere featherweight parcels.
The two made their way to a small tavern near the quays, which Jerry knew of, and where The O’Mahony ordered a room, with a fire in it, and a comfortable meal to be laid therein at once.
“Sure, it’s not becomin’ that I should ate along wid your honor,” Jerry remonstrated, when they had been left alone in the dingy little chamber, overlooking the street and the docks beyond.
At this protest The O’Mahony lifted his brows in unaffected surprise.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, half-derisively; and no more was said on the subject.
No more was said on any subject, for that matter, until fish had succeeded soup, and the waiter was making ready for a third course. Then the founder of the feast said to this menial:
“See here, you, don’t play this on me! Jest tote in whatever more you’ve got, an’ put er down, an’ git out. We don’t want you bobbin’ in here every second minute, all the afternoon.”
The waiter, with an aggrieved air, brought in presently a tray loaded with dishes, which he plumped down all over The O’Mahony’s half of the table.
“That’s somethin’ like it,” said that gentleman, approvingly; “you’ll get the hang of your business in time, young man,” as the servant left the room. Then he heaped up Jerry’s plate and his own, ruminated over a mouthful or two, with his eyes searching the other’s face—and began to speak.
“Do you know what made me take a shine to you?” he asked, and then made answer: “’Twas on account of your dodrotted infernal cheek. It made me laugh—an’ I’d got so it seemed as if I wasn’t never goin’ to laugh any more. That’s why I cottoned to you—an’ got a notion you was jest the kind o’ fellow I wanted. D’ye know who I am?”
Jerry’s quizzical eyes studied his companion’s face in turn, first doubtingly, then with an air of reassurance.
“I do not, your honor,” he said at last, visibly restraining the impulse to say a great deal more.
“I’m the O’Mahony of Murrisk, an’ I’m returnin’ to my estates.”
Jerry did prolonged but successful battle once more with his sense of humor and loquacious instincts.
“All right, your honor,” he said, with humility.
“Maybe I don’t look like an Irishman or talk like one,” the other went on, “but that’s because I was taken to America when I was a little shaver, knee-high to a grasshopper, an’ my folks didn’t keep up no connection with Irishmen. That’s how I lost my grip on the hull Ireland business, don’t you see?”
“Sure, your honor, it’s as clear as Spike Island in the sunshine.”
“Well, that’s how it was. And now my relations over here have died off—that is, all that stood in front of me—and so the estates come to me, and I’m The O’Mahony.”
“An’ it’s proud ivery mother’s son of your tin-ints ‘ll be at that same, your honor.”
“At first, of course, I didn’t know but the lawyers ’ud make a kick when I turned up and claimed the thing. Generally you have to go to law, an’ take your oath, an’ fight everybody. But, pshaw! why they jest swallered me slick’n clean, as if I’d had my ears pinned back an’ be’n greased all over. Never asked ‘ah,’ ‘yes,’ or ‘no.’ Didn’t raise a single question. I guess there ain’t no White in the business now. I didn’t see him or hear anything about him. But Carmody’s a reg’lar old brick. They wasn’t nothin’ too good for me after he learnt who I was. But what fetched him most was that I’d seen Abe Lincoln, close to, dozens o’ times. He was crazy to know all about him, an’ the assassination, an’ what I thought ’ud be the next move; so’t we hardly talked about The O’Mahony business at all. An’ it seems ther’s been a lot o’ shenanigan about it, too. The fellow that came out to America to—to find me—Linsky his name was—why, darn my buttons, if he hadn’t run away from Cork, an’ stole my papers along with a lot of others, countin’ on peddlin’ ’em over there an’ collarin’ the money.”
“Ah, the thief of the earth!” said Jerry.
“Well, he got killed there, in about the last battle there was in the war; an’ ’twas by the finding of the papers on him that—that I came by my rights.”
“Glory be to God!” commented Jerry, as he buried his jowl afresh in the tankard of stout.
A term of silence ensued, during which what remained of the food was disposed of. Then The O’Mahony spoke again:
“Are you a man of family?”
“Well, your honor, I’ve never rightly, come by the truth of it, but there are thim that says I’m descinded from the O’Higginses of Westmeath. I’d not venture to take me Bible oath on it, but—”
“No, I don’t mean that. Have you got a wife an’ children?”
“Is it me, your honor? Arrah, what girl that wasn’t blind an’ crippled an’ deminted wid fits wud take up wid the likes of me?”
“Well, what is your job down at Queenstown like? Can you leave it right off, not to go back any more?”
“It’s no job at all. Sure, I jist take out Mikey Doolan’s car, wid that thund’rin’ old Maggie, givin’ warnin’ to fall to pieces on the road in front of me, for friendship—to exercise ’em like. It’s not till every other horse and ass in Queenstown’s ingaged that anny mortial sow ’ll ride on my car. An’ whin I gets a fare, why, I do be after that long waitin’ that—”
“That you drive ’em up on top of the hill whether they want to go or not, eh?” asked The O’Mahony, with a grin.
Jerry took the liberty of winking at his patron in response.
“Egor! that’s the way of it, your honor,” he said, pleasantly.
“So you don’t have to go back there at all?” pursued the other.
“Divila rayson have I for ever settin’ fut in 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.”