Moore, the barber, was already busy making his morning circuit, servant men and maids were dropping in and out at the baker’s, and old Poll Delany, in her weather-stained red hood, and neat little Kitty Lane, with her bright young careful face and white basket, were calling at the doors of their customers with new laid eggs.  Through half-opened hall doors you might see the powdered servant, or the sprightly maid in her mob-cap in hot haste steaming away with the red japanned ‘tea kitchen’ into the parlour.  The town of Chapelizod, in short, was just sitting down to its breakfast.

Mervyn, in the meantime, had had his solitary meal in the famous back parlour of the Phoenix, where the newspapers lay, and all comers were welcome.  He was by no means a bad hero to look at, if such a thing were needed.  His face was pale, melancholy, statuesque—­and his large enthusiastic eyes, suggested a story and a secret—­perhaps a horror.  Most men, had they known all, would have wondered with good Doctor Walsingham, why, of all places in the world, he should have chosen the little town where he now stood for even a temporary residence.  It was not a perversity, but rather a fascination.  His whole life had been a flight and a pursuit—­a vain endeavour to escape from the evil spirit that pursued him—­and a chase of a chimera.

He was standing at the window, not indeed enjoying, as another man might, the quiet verdure of the scene, and the fragrant air, and all the mellowed sounds of village life, but lost in a sad and dreadful reverie, when in bounced little red-faced bustling Dr. Toole—­the joke and the chuckle with which he had just requited the fat old barmaid still ringing in the passage—­’Stay there, sweetheart,’ addressed to a dog squeezing by him, and which screeched out as he kicked it neatly round the door-post.

‘Hey, your most obedient, Sir,’ cried the doctor, with a short but grand bow, affecting surprise, though his chief object in visiting the back parlour at that moment was precisely to make a personal inspection of the stranger.  ’Pray, don’t mind me, Sir,—­your—­ho!  Breakfast ended, eh?  Coffee not so bad, Sir; rather good coffee, I hold it, at the Phoenix.  Cream very choice, Sir?—­I don’t tell ’em so though (a wink); it might not improve it, you know.  I hope they gave you—­eh?—­eh? (he peeped into the cream-ewer, which he turned towards the light, with a whisk).  And no disputing the eggs—­forty-eight hens in the poultry yard, and ninety ducks in Tresham’s little garden, next door to Sturk’s.  They make a precious noise, I can tell you, when it showers.  Sturk threatens to shoot ’em.  He’s the artillery surgeon here; and Tom Larkin said, last night, it’s because they only dabble and quack—­and two of a trade, you know—­ha! ha! ha!  And what a night we had—­dark as Erebus—­pouring like pumps, by Jove.  I’ll remember it, I warrant you.  Out on business—­a medical man, you know, can’t always choose—­and near meeting a bad accident too.  Anything in