The Tithe-Proctor eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 445 pages of information about The Tithe-Proctor.

The Tithe-Proctor eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 445 pages of information about The Tithe-Proctor.

“Why, no,” replied the magistrate, “not exactly wrong; but it is certainly an infamous country to live in.  I am an impartial man, Mr. Purcel—­I mane, sir, an impartial magistrate; but the fact is, sir, that every man is marked whose life is valuable to the government of his country.  I know no man, Mr. Purcel—­mark me you, too, Hourigan—­I know no man, sir, in my capacity of a magistrate—­hem—­hem!—­only according to the merits—­I am as much the poor man’s friend as I am the rich man’s, and of the two more:  if I lane at all, which I don’t, it is to the poor man; but as an impartial man—­magistrate I mane—­I know naither rich or poor.  On the bench, I say, I know naither poverty nor riches, barring, as I said, upon the merits.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, your worship—­an’ before you begin—­as I was comin’ down here a while agone,” said Hourigan, “I seen a strange and suspicious-lookin’ man inside the hedge at the shrubbery below; he was an ill-faced villain, plaise your reverence, an’ I thought I seen his pockets stickin’ out as if he had pistols in them.  I thought it better to tell your worship.”

The worthy magistrate had scarcely recovered from the first fit of agitation when this intelligence threw him into an immediate relapse.  Indeed so ludicrous was his distress that he actually wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

“Sam,” said he, after a fit of tremulous coughing, into which he forced himself, in order to conceal the quaver which terror had given to his voice, “Sa—­am—­hugh! ugh!—­go-o—­an-n-d—­ugh! ugh! ugh!—­get a ca-a-se of doub-uble pis-pistols—­ugh! ugh!—­da—­amn this cough—­ough—­and place—­them-em on the table here—­we—­we—­will at least pep-pepper the villain—­if—­if—­he—­he should dare to show his face—–­ace.  I trust I—­I—­know my duties as—­a mag-istrate—­my cour—­urage and in-trep—­id—­ity as such—­ugh! ijg’h! ugh!—­are no saycret now, I think.”

“I don’t believe,” observed Purcel, “that there is one syllable of truth in what he says.  I can read the falsehood in his eye.  However,” he added, “if you will postpone this matter of Hourigan’s for a few minutes, I shall soon see whether there is any one there or not.”

“Here, then,” said the magistrate, “take these pistols” (pointing to those which Finigan had just laid on the table).  Purcel declined them with a nod, taking a good case at the same time out of his own pocket.  “No, sir, thank you, I never travel without my two friends here, with either of which I can break a bottle at the distance of thirty yards.  You will be good enough to tell that to your friends, Mr. Hourigan, and also to reflect upon it yourself.”

Having examined his friends, as he called them, he started out and proceeded directly towards the shrubbery, where, however, there was no trace whatever of any one.  On his way home he met Fergus O’Driscol, who had been out that morning cock-shooting through the grounds, and to whom he mentioned the story told by Hourigan.  “Why, the lying scoundrel,” exclaimed Fergus, “I saw him myself speaking to a new laboring lad whom Mr. Arthur, the steward, sent in there this morning to gather and remove the rotten underwood.  He has only vamped up this story to frighten my heroic father, and between you and me it is not difficult to do.”

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The Tithe-Proctor from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.