Strange that these two who had never met before except as the bitterest of enemies should talk now as comrades. Mike kept pinching his clothing and turning every side to the blaze, thus drying the garments quite rapidly. He was so interested in the story of Noxon that he grew careless.

"I think I see smoke coming from behind you," finally said the sitter.

Mike reached back to investigate and with a gasp s.n.a.t.c.hed back his fingers.

"I'm afire! Is there a well outside that I can dive into the same?"

"Turn around; I can help you," said Noxon, laughing, dropping his foot and sitting forward.

Together they quenched the twist of blaze which if left alone would have played the mischief with Mike's garments.

"I'm thinking this is a little different, Mr. Noxon, from last night."

"It is, and I hope it will always stay that way."

Mike was astonished and looked questioningly at the fellow.

"Phwat might ye be maaning?" he asked, lowering his voice.

Noxon tried to speak, but his voice broke. He s.n.a.t.c.hed out his handkerchief from the side pocket of his coat and pressed it to his eyes.

Then his breast heaved and he broke into sobbing.

The heart of Mike melted at the sight. He had never dreamed of anything like this. Enmity and resentment gave way to an anguish of sympathy for the fellow. He longed to say something comforting, but could not think of a word, and remained mute. Very soon the youth regained his self-control.

Dropping his handkerchief in his lap, and with eyes streaming, he exclaimed from the very depths of his despair:

"Oh, why didn't that man aim better and kill me! I'm not fit to live! I'm the worst villain unhanged! I am lost--d.a.m.ned, and a curse to those who love me!"

Mike pulled himself together sufficiently to reply:

"I don't think ye're quite all them things. Cheer up! cheer up, old fellow!"

Noxon did not speak, but slowly swayed his head from side to side, like one from whom all hope had departed. Mike drew a chair beside him, and as tenderly as a mother lifted the white hand from where it lay on the handkerchief, and held it in his own warm grasp.

"Noxy, me bye, Mike Murphy is yer frind through thick and thin--don't ye forget _that_--and I'm going to see ye through this if I have to break a thrace in trying."

"_You!_" repeated the despairing one, looking up in Mike's honest blue eyes. "No one can save a wretch like me. I'm not worth saving!"

"Ye forget there's One to whom the same is aisy, me bye. Ye feel down in the mouth jest now, as Jonah did respicting the whale, but bimeby this fog will clear away and the sun will shine forth again. I've been in some purty bad sc.r.a.pes mesilf and He niver desarted me. Why, it ain't two hours, since He raiched out His hand, grabbed me by the neck and saved me from drowning. I tell ye, Noxy, that He won't fail ye."

"But you never did what I have done."

The Irish youth bent his head as if recalling his past life.

"I can't say that I did, but I'm the meanest scamp that iver lived--barring yersilf," he added, with the old twinkle in his eyes.

"Come, now, be a man and we'll have ye out of this sc.r.a.pe as quick as I jumped awhile ago whin I awoke to the fact that me trousers was afire."

Noxon actually smiled at the recollection.

"You call yourself a scamp. Why, you are an angel compared with me--so is everybody! Kit Woodford and Graff Miller are a thousand times better than I."

CHAPTER XXVII

AN UNWELCOME CALLER

With rare wisdom Mike now gave an abrupt turn to the conversation.

Lowering his voice to a confidential tone, he asked:

"Does Mrs. McCaffry know anything of this?"

"If so, she hasn't given me any reason to suspect it," replied Noxon, brightening up and seizing the straw held out to him. "I told her I had met with an accident, and neither she nor her husband asked a question.

Their big hearts had no room for any feeling other than of pity for the one who is not deserving of a particle of it."

"She told me her husband works in Beartown. He wint there airly this morning; he'll hear of the throuble at the post office and the beefeater, as ye call him, will let everybody know he winged the robber as he was running off. Did ye spake any caution to the man before he lift this morning?"

"By good luck I thought of that. I asked him to make no mention of my being at his house and he promised me he would not."

"Arrah, now, but that's good, as me dad says whin he tips up the jug. All that ye have to do is to sit here and let Mrs. McCaffry nurse that game leg till ye're able to thravel."

"Ah, if that was _all_! But I have a father and mother whose hearts I am breaking. I have two younger brothers and a sweet sister. What of _them_!" demanded Noxon almost fiercely.

"Ye have read the blissed story of the Prodigal Son, haven't ye?"

"I am a thousandfold worse than that poor devil, who was simply foolish."

"Do yer dad and mither know where ye are?"

"No; the one decent thing I did when I turned rascal was to change my name. Orestes Noxon is a _nom de plume_."

"I don't know the fellow, but that shows, me bye, ye ain't such a big fool as ye look. I'm beginning to have hope for ye."

A strange impulse came to Mike. It was to sing in a low, inexpressibly sweet voice a single stanza of a familiar hymn, just loud enough for the one auditor to hear. But he restrained himself, fearing the effect upon him. The "fountains of the deep" were already broken up, and the result might be regrettable. At that moment a heavy tread sounded on the little steps outside, the door was pushed inward, and the bulky form of the red-faced Mrs. McCaffry filled the whole s.p.a.ce. She now stepped awkwardly and ponderously within.

"I begs that ye'll oxcoose me for not coming in wid this blarney and inthrodoocing ye to aich ither. Have ye becoom acquainted?"

"It was an oversight which no Irish leddy should be guilty of," gravely replied Mike, "espicially whin the same is the fourth cousin of me own mither. But ye have been away from the owld counthry so long that ye have forgot a good deal, Aunt Maggie."

"I haven't furgot to resint the insult of being accused of relationship wid the family of a spalpeen that is proud of the belaif. Whin Tam coomes home to-night I'll explain the insult to him and lave ye two to sittle the same."

"I'm thankful ye give me due notice, Aunt Maggie, so that I'll have time to slip outside and climb a tree. Which reminds me to ask how fur it is to Beartown."

"It's a good half mile from our home, and nigh about the same distance back. Ye can figger out the rist for yersilf. Now, me darlint," said she, coming to Noxon's chair and bending over with her broad face radiating sympathy, "it's toime I had a look at that leg, which would be a big ornamint if bestowed on the spalpeen wid the freckles and rid hair."

"I don't think it can need any attention," said Noxon, pleased to listen to the sparring of the two; "but you are the doctor."