"You'll provoke me to break your neck some day, you vagabond! Ride back for your life, you omadhaun; and pay whatever he asks, and get me the letter."

"Why, sir, I tell you he was sellin' them before my face for fourpence a-piece."

"Go back, you scoundrel! or I'll horsewhip you; and if you're longer than an hour, I'll have you ducked in the horse-pond!"

Andy vanished, and made a second visit to the post-office. When he arrived, two other persons were getting letters, and the postmaster was selecting the epistles for each, from a large parcel that lay before him on the counter; at the same time many shop customers were waiting to be served.

"I'm come for that letther," said Andy.

"I'll attend to you by-and-by."

"The masther's in a hurry."

"Let him wait till his hurry's over."

"He'll murther me if I'm not back soon."

"I'm glad to hear it."

While the postmaster went on with such provoking answers to these appeals for dispatch, Andy's eye caught the heap of letters which lay on the counter: so while certain weighing of soap and tobacco was going forward, he contrived to become possessed of two letters from the heap, and, having effected that, waited patiently enough till it was the great man's pleasure to give him the missive directed to his master.

Then did Andy bestride his hack, and in triumph at his trick on the postmaster, rattled along the road homeward as fast as the beast could carry him. He came into the squire's presence, his face beaming with delight, and an air of self-satisfied superiority in his manner, quite unaccountable to his master, until he pulled forth his hand, which had been grubbing up his prizes from the bottom of his pocket; and holding three letters over his head, while he said, "Look at that!" he next slapped them down under his broad fist on the table before the squire, saying--

"Well! if he did make me pay elevenpence, by gor, I brought your honour the worth o' your money anyhow!"

CHAPTER II

Andy walked out of the room with an air of supreme triumph, having laid the letters on the table, and left the squire staring after him in perfect amazement.

"Well, by the powers! that's the most extraordinary genius I ever came across," was the soliloquy the master uttered as the servant closed the door after him; and the squire broke the seal of the letter that Andy's blundering had so long delayed. It was from his law-agent on the subject of an expected election in the county, which would occur in case of the demise of the then sitting member;--it ran thus:

"Dublin, _Thursday_.

"My dear Squire,--I am making all possible exertions to have every and the earliest information on the subject of the election. I say the election,--because, though the seat of the county is not yet vacant, it is impossible but that it must soon be so. Any other man than the present member must have died long ago; but Sir Timothy Trimmer has been so undecided all his life that he cannot at present make up his mind to die; and it is only by Death himself giving the casting vote that the question can be decided. The writ for the vacant county is expected to arrive by every mail, and in the meantime I am on the alert for information. You know we are sure of the barony of Ballysloughgutthery, and the boys of Killanmaul will murder any one that dares to give a vote against you. We are sure of Knockdoughty also, and the very pigs in Glanamuck would return you; but I must put you on your guard on one point where you least expected to be betrayed. You told me you were sure of Neck-or-nothing Hall; but I can tell you you're out there; for the master of the aforesaid is working heaven, earth, ocean, and all the little fishes, in the other interest; for he is so over head and ears in debt, that he is looking out for a pension, and hopes to get one by giving his interest to the Honourable Sackville Scatterbrain, who sits for the Borough of Old Goosebery at present, but whose friends think his talents are worthy of a county. If Sack wins, Neck-or-nothing gets a pension--that's _poz_. I had it from the best authority. I lodge at a milliner's here:--no matter; more when I see you. But don't be afraid; we'll bag Sack, and distance Neck-or-nothing. But, seriously speaking, it's too good a joke that O'Grady should use you in this manner, who have been so kind to him in money matters: but, as the old song says, 'Poverty parts good company;' and he is so cursed poor that he can't afford to know you any longer, now that you have lent him all the money you had, and the pension _in prospectu_ is too much for his feelings. I'll be down with you again as soon as I can, for I hate the diabolical town as I do poison. They have altered Stephen's Green--_ruined_ it I should say. They have taken away the big ditch that was round it, where I used to hunt water-rats when a boy. They are destroying the place with their d----d improvements. All the dogs are well, I hope, and my favourite b.i.t.c.h. Remember me to Mrs. Egan, whom all admire.

"My dear squire, yours per quire,

"Murtough Murphy.

"_To Edward Egan, Esq., Merryvale._"

Murtough Murphy was a great character, as may be guessed from his letter. He was a country attorney of good practice; good, because he could not help it--for he was a clever, ready-witted fellow, up to all sorts of trap, and one in whose hands a cause was very safe; therefore he had plenty of clients without his seeking them. For if Murtough's practice had depended on his looking for it, he might have made broth of his own parchment; for though to all intents and purposes a good attorney, he was so full of fun and fond of amus.e.m.e.nt, that it was only by dint of the business being thrust upon him he was so extensive a pract.i.tioner. He loved a good bottle, a good hunt, a good joke, and a good song, as well as any fellow in Ireland: and even when he was obliged in the way of business to press a gentleman hard--to hunt his man to the death--he did it so good-humouredly that his very victim could not be angry with him. As for those he served, he was their prime favourite; there was nothing they _could_ want to be done in the parchment line, that Murtough would not find out some way of doing; and he was so pleasant a fellow, that he shared in the hospitality of all the best tables in the county. He kept good horses, was on every race-ground within twenty miles, and a steeple-chase was no steeple-chase without him. Then he betted freely, and, what's more, won his bets very generally; but no one found fault with him for that, and he took your money with such a good grace, and mostly gave you a _bon mot_ in exchange for it--so that, next to winning the money yourself, you were glad it was won by Murtough Murphy.

The squire read his letter two or three times, and made his comments as he proceeded. "'Working heaven and earth to'--ha!--so that's the work O'Grady's at--that's old friendship,--foul!--foul! and after all the money I lent him, too;--he'd better take care--I'll be down on him if he plays false;--not that I'd like that much either:--but--let's see who's this coming down to oppose me?--Sack Scatterbrain--the biggest fool from this to himself;--the fellow can't ride a bit,--a pretty member for a sporting county! 'I lodge at a milliner's'--divil doubt you, Murtough; I'll engage you do. Bad luck to him!--he'd rather be fooling away his time in a back parlour, behind a bonnet shop, than minding the interests of the county. 'Pension'--ha!--wants it sure enough;--take care, O'Grady, or, by the powers, I'll be at you. You may baulk all the bailiffs, and defy any other man to serve you with a writ; but, by jingo! if I take the matter in hand, I'll be bound I'll get it done. 'Stephen's Green--big ditch--where I used to hunt water-rats.' Divil sweep you, Murphy, you'd rather be hunting water-rats any day than minding your business. He's a clever fellow for all that. 'Favourite b.i.t.c.h--Mrs. Egan.'--Aye! there's the end of it--with his bit o' po'thry, too! The divil!"

The squire threw down the letter, and then his eye caught the other two that Andy had purloined.

"More of that stupid blackguard's work!--robbing the mail--no less!--that fellow will be hanged some time or other. Egad, may be they'll hang him for this! What's best to be done? May be it will be the safest way to see whom they are for, and send them to the parties, and request they will say nothing: that's it."

The squire here took up the letters that lay before him, to read their superscriptions; and the first he turned over was directed to Gustavus Granby O'Grady, Esq., Neck-or-nothing Hall, Knockbotherum. This was what is called a curious coincidence. Just as he had been reading all about O'Grady's intended treachery to him, here was a letter to that individual, and with the Dublin post-mark too, and a very grand seal.

The squire examined the arms; and, though not versed in the mysteries of heraldry, he thought he remembered enough of most of the arms he had seen to say that this armorial bearing was a strange one to him. He turned the letter over and over again, and looked at it back and front, with an expression in his face that said, as plain as countenance could speak, "I'd give a trifle to know what is inside of this." He looked at the seal again: "Here's a--goose, I think it is, sitting on a bowl with cross-bars on it, and a spoon in its mouth: like the fellow that owns it, may be. A goose with a silver spoon in its mouth--well, here's the gable-end of a house, and a bird sitting on the top of it. Could it be Sparrow? There is a fellow called Sparrow, an under-secretary at the Castle. D----n it! I wish I knew what it's about."

The squire threw down the letter as he said, "D----n it!" but took it up again in a few seconds, and catching it edgewise between his forefinger and thumb, gave a gentle pressure that made the letter gape at its extremities, and then, exercising that sidelong glance which is peculiar to postmasters, waiting-maids, and magpies who inspect marrowbones, peeped into the interior of the epistle, saying to himself as he did so, "All's fair in war, and why not in electioneering?" His face, which was screwed up to the scrutinising pucker, gradually lengthened as he caught some words that were on the last turn-over of the sheet, and so could be read thoroughly, and his brow darkened into the deepest frown as he scanned these lines: "As you very properly and pungently remark, poor Egan is a spoon--a mere spoon." "Am I a spoon, you rascal?" said the squire, tearing the letter into pieces, and throwing it into the fire.

"And so, _Misther_ O'Grady, you say I'm a spoon!" and the blood of the Egans rose as the head of that pugnacious family strode up and down the room: "I'll spoon you, my buck!--I'll settle your hash! may be I'm a spoon you'll sup sorrow with yet!"

Here he took up the poker, and made a very angry lunge at the fire that did not want stirring, and there he beheld the letter blazing merrily away. He dropped the poker as if he had caught it by the hot end, as he exclaimed, "What the d----l shall I do? I've burnt the letter!" This threw the squire into a fit of what he was wont to call his "considering cap;" and he sat with his feet on the fender for some minutes, occasionally muttering to himself what he began with,--"What the d----l shall I do? It's all owing to that infernal Andy--I'll murder that fellow some time or other. If he hadn't brought it--I shouldn't have seen it, to be sure, if I hadn't looked; but then the temptation--a saint couldn't have withstood it. Confound it! what a stupid trick to burn it! Another here, too--must burn that as well, and say nothing about either of them:" and he took up the second letter, and, merely looking at the address, threw it into the fire. He then rang the bell, and desired Andy to be sent to him. As soon as that ingenious individual made his appearance, the squire desired him, with peculiar emphasis, to shut the door, and then opened upon him with--

"You unfortunate rascal!"

"Yis, your honour."

"Do you know that you might be hanged for what you did to-day?"

"What did I do, sir?"

"You robbed the post-office."

"How did I rob it, sir?"

"You took two letters that you had no right to."

"It's no robbery for a man to get the worth of his money."

"Will you hold your tongue, you stupid villain! I'm not joking: you absolutely might be hanged for robbing the post-office."

"Sure I didn't know there was any harm in what I done; and for that matther sure, if they're sitch wonderful value, can't I go back again wid 'em?"

"No, you thief! I hope you've not said a word to any one about it."

"Not the sign of a word pa.s.sed my lips about it."

"You're sure?"

"Sartin!"

"Take care, then, that you never open your mouth to mortal about it, or you'll be hanged, as sure as your name is Andy Rooney."

"Oh! at that rate I never will. But may be your honour thinks I ought to be hanged?"

"No,--because you did not intend to do a wrong thing; but, only I have pity on you, I could hang you to-morrow for what you have done."

"Thank you, sir."