Ireland -- Fiction; Land League (Ireland) -- Fiction; Land tenure -- Fiction; Political fiction
The result was that Teddy Mooney became very bitter in spirit, and
was for a while an Orangeman, and almost a Protestant. The evil
things that had been done to him were terrible to his spirit. He had
been threatened with eviction from ten acres of ground because he
couldn't pay his rent; or, as he said, because he had declined to
drive a maid-servant to the house of another gentleman who was also
boycotted. This had not been true, but it had served to embitter
Teddy Mooney. And now, at last, he had determined to belong to the
other side.
When an Irishman does make up his mind to serve the other side he
is very much determined. There is but the meditation of two minutes
between Landleaguing and Orangeism, between boycotting landlords and
thorough devotion to the dear old landlord. When Kit Mooney had first
laid down the law to his father, how he ought to assist in boycotting
all the enemies of the Landleague, no one saw his way clearer than
did Teddy Mooney. "I wouldn't mind doing without a bit or a sup,"
he said, when his son explained to him that he might have to suffer
a little for the cause. "Not a bit or a sup when the ould counthry
wants it." He had since had a few words with his son Kit, and was
now quite on the other side of the question. He was told that
somebody had threatened to cut off his old mare's tail because he
had driven Phil D'Arcy. Since that he had become a martyr as well as
an Orangeman, and was disposed to go any length "for the gintl'men."
This had come all about by degrees--had been coming about since poor
Florian's murder; and at last he wrote a letter to Yorke Clayton, or
got someone else to write it:
"Yer Honour,--It was Lax as dropped Master Flory. Divil a doubt about
it. There's one as can tell more about it as is on the road from
Ballyglunin all round. This comes from a well-wisher to the ould
cause. For Muster Clayton."
When Captain Clayton received this he at once knew from whom it
had come. The Landleaguing car-driver, who had turned gentlemen's
friend, was sufficiently well known to history to have been talked
about. Clayton, therefore, did not lose much time in going down to
Ballyglunin station and requiring to be driven yet once again from
thence to Carnlough. "And now, Mr. Teddy Mooney," he said, after they
had travelled together a mile or two from Ballyglunin, and had come
almost to the spot at which the poor boy had been shot, "tell me what
you know about Mr. Lax's movements in this part of the world." He
had never come there before since the fatal day without having three
policemen with him, but now he was alone. Such a man as Teddy Mooney
would be most unwilling to open his mouth in the presence of two or
more persons.
"O Lord, Captain, how you come on a poor fellow all unawares!"
"Stop a moment, Mr. Mooney," and the car stopped. "Whereabouts was it
the young gentleman perished?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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