The O'Donoghue: Tale of Ireland Fifty Years AgoLever, Charles
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The O'Donoghue: Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago
Lever, Charles
Ireland -- Fiction
“You'd better go a little ways up the glen, Lanty, beside him,” said
Mary, as she looked out into the wild and dreary night.
“'Tis what I mean to do,” said Lanty, “I'll show him as far as the turn
of the road.”
Though the stranger declined the proffered civility, Lanty was firm in
his resolution, and the young man, vaulting lightly into the saddle,
called out a last farewell: to the others, and rode on beside his guide.
Mary had scarcely time to remove the remains of the supper, when Lanty
re-entered the cabin.
“He's the noble-hearted fellow, any way,” said he, “and never took a
shilling off the first price I asked him;” and with that he put his
hand into his breast pocket to examine, once more, the strange coin of
France. With a start, a tremendous oath broke from him--“My money--my
pocket-book is lost,” exclaimed he, in wild excitement, while he
ransacked pocket after pocket of his dress. “Bad luck to that glen, I
dropt it out there, and with the torrent of water that's falling, it
will never be found--och, murther, this is too bad.”
In vain the others endeavoured to comfort and console him--all their
assurances of its safety, and the certainty of its being discovered the
next morning, were in vain. Lanty re-lighted the lantern, and muttering
maledictions on the weather, the road, and his? own politeness, he
issued forth to search after his treasure, an occupation which, with all
his perseverance, was unsuccessful; for when day was breaking, he was
still groping along the road, cursing his hard fate, and every thing
which had any share in inflicting it.
“The money is not the worst of it,” said Lanty, as he threw himself
down, exhausted and worn out, on his bed. “The money's not the worst of
it--there was papers in that book, I wouldn't have seen for double the
amount.”
Long after the old smuggler was standing out to sea the next day, Lanty
Lawler wandered backwards and forwards in the glen, now searching among
the wet leaves that lay in heaps by the way side, or, equally in vain,
sounding every rivulet and water-course which swept past. His search,
was fruitless; and well it might be--the road was strewn with fragments
of rocks and tree-tops for miles--while even yet the swollen stream tore
wildly past, cutting up the causeway in its passage, and foaming on amid
the wreck of the hurricane.
Yet the entire of that day did he persevere, regardless of the beating
rain, and the cold, drifting wind, to pace to and fro, his heart bent
upon recovering what he had lost.
“Yer sowl is set upon money; devil a doubt of it, Lanty,” said Mary,
as dripping with wet,# and shaking with cold, he at last re-entered the
cabin; “sorra one of me would go rooting there, for a crock of goold, if
I was sure to find it.”
“It is not the money, Mary, I tould you before--it's something else was
in the pocket-book,” said he, half angrily, while he sat down to brood
in silence over his misfortune.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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