The Return of the O'Mahony: A NovelFrederic, Harold
History
The Return of the O'Mahony: A Novel
Frederic, Harold
Deception -- Fiction; Ireland -- Fiction; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Desertions -- Fiction
He was a slender man of middle age, with a pale, spectacled face, framed
by a veritable mane of dingy reddish hair thrown back from temples and
brow. This brow, thus bared, was broad and thoughtful besides being
wonderfully white, and, with the calm gray eyes, which shone steadily
through the glasses, seemed to constitute practically the whole face.
There were, one noted at a second glance, other portions of this face--a
weak, pointed nose, for example, and a mouth and chin hidden under
irregular outlines of straggling beard; but the brow and the eyes were
what the gaze returned to. The man wore a loose, nondescript sort of
gown, gathered at the waist with a cord. Save for a table against the
wall, littered with papers and writing materials and lighted by a lamp
in a bracket above, the chamber differed in little from its appearance
on that memorable night when the dead monk’s sleep of centuries had been
so rudely broken in upon.
“I’m glad ye’ve come down ag’in to-day,” said the man of the brow and
eyes. “Since this mornin’, I’ve traced out the idintity of Finghin--the
one wid the brain-ball I told ye of--as clear as daylight. Not a
man-jack of ’em but ’ll see it now like the nose on their face.”
“Ah, thin, that’s a mercy,” said Jerry, seating himself tentatively on
a corner of the table. “Egor! It looked at one toime there as if his
identity was gone to the divil intoirely. But l’ave you to smoke him
out!”
“It can be proved that this Finghin is wan an’ the same wid the
so-called Fiachan Roe, who married the widow of the O’Dubhagain, in the
elevinth cintury.”
“Ah, there ye have it!” said Jerry, shaking his head dejectedly. “He
_wud_ marry a widdeh, w’u’d he? Thin, be me sowl, ’tis a marvel to
grace he had anny idint--whatever ye call it--left at all. Well, sir, to
tell ye the truth, ’tis disappointed I am in Finghin. I credited him
with more sinse than to be marryin’ widdehs. An’ I suppose ye’ll l’ave
him out of your book altogether now. Egor, an’ serve him right, too!”
The other smiled; a wan and fleeting smile of the eyes and brow.
“Ah, don’t be talkin!” he said, pleasantly, and then added, with a sigh:
“More like he’ll l’ave _me_, wid me work undone. You’ll bear me witness,
sir, that I’ve been patient, an’ thried me best to live continted here
in this cave of the earth, an’ busy me mind wid work; but no man can
master his drames. ’Tis that that’s killin’ me. Every night, the
moment I’m asleep, faith, I’m out in the meadehs, wid flowers on the
ditches an’ birds singin’, an’ me fishin’ in the brook, like I was a boy
ag’in; an’ whin I wake up, me heart’s broke intirely! I tell ye, man, if
’t wasn’t for me book here, I’d go outside in spite of ’em all, an’
let ’em hang me, if they like--jist for wan luk at the sky an’ wan
breath of fresh air.”
Jerry swung his legs nonchalantly, but there was a new speculation
twinkling in his eyes as he regarded his companion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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