Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/466

458 eyes, and a mouth bursting with suppressed merriment, whilst the train, which had been for several seconds gradually decreasing in velocity, came at last to a stand-still at Athlone station.

“Athlone! Athlone!” shouted the officials. “Change here for Longford,” &c., &c., &c.

The repose of the stout cattle-dealer was too deep to be more than momentarily disturbed by the stoppage, but to Manus O’Flaherty it was an event which (combined with the boyish practical joke I have just narrated) gave a gloomy colouring to years of his after-life. Looking from the window of the carriage, with his fingers just removed from the notes which he had concealed in his breast coat-pocket, the Galway student, as his evil stars would have it, recognised in one of the many loungers on the platform the face of a friend.

“Ah! by the powers, now!” he shouted. “If there isn’t that thief of the world Dinis Grady! Let me out, guard, will ye? It’s three minutes here, and it isn’t one I’ll be stopping in it;” and with that Mr. Manus O’Flaherty, with all the agility of his energetic eighteen summers, sprang from the carriage, bearing with him the grazier’s gains, and followed by the anxious eyes of the half-repentant Val, who still retained his seat within the carriage.

He had a bold spirit of his own, and bore a light heart within his breast, did cheery Val O’Flaherty, or he would have been still more agitated than in truth he was when the moments sped by, and he, leaning with his thin little body from the carriage window, looked in vain for the return of his absent brother. The time was nearly up, and with a heart which was beginning to beat faster than was altogether agreeable, he was preparing to jump out, and search for the truant, when a banging of doors, and the rapid steps of the guard on the platform gave notice that the moment of departure had arrived.

“Och, thin, wait a moment, will ye, now?” cried the poor fellow, resisting the closing of his particular door, and speaking in appealing tones of entreaty to the official. “Jist a moment—there’s a gentleman coming—or—let me out—will ye—I’m ill—I’m—och, Jasus!” but at that moment the door was closed and locked, the whistle sounded, and Val, with a white face and dire consternation in his breast, was carried on his way.

For a few minutes the unhappy victim of a joint practical joke was in a state of bewilderment so complete, that he could barely realise the extent of the misfortune that had befallen him. Before him sat and snored the unsuspicious man whose awaking to a sense of his bereavement could not be long delayed; and heavy on his own breast sat the demon of fear, as he glanced towards the other travellers, who must in so short a time become the witnesses of his disgrace. And yet—he asked himself, as the cold sweat broke out upon his forehead, and his heart beat wildly with the dread of coming retribution—and yet what proof was there that he had aught to do with what to all the world must seem a robbery? And then, of course, the truth must soon become apparent. His brother, stupid fellow, had but missed the train, bad cess to him! and by the next he’d hurry on, and bringing back the money, nothing bad would come of it. And comforting himself with these reflections, Val stilled the pulses in his frame, and leaning back in his corner kept a sort of fascinated gaze on the fellow-travellers, whose slumbers, greatly as such a consummation was to be wished for, could scarcely be expected to last for ever.

At Mullingar—and no wonder, for the excitement and clamour were there increased by a more than usual amount of screeching drunkenness—Mr. John Burke awoke for good.

“Now for it!” said Val to himself, with an internal groan, as obeying the strong instinct of money preservation, the grazier’s hand dived into his breeches-pocket. “Now for it!” and putting on with a very ill grace a face of intense interest in the scene enacting on the platform, Mr. Valentine O’Flaherty stared vacantly from the window of the carriage.

The stout traveller, as we have said, thrust his hand into the pocket in which he remembered having placed his treasure, and not finding it there he tried the other side, but all in vain! The pockets were empty, and the frightened man roared lustily in the extremity of his agitation for the guard.

It was not a small body that he thrust through the window, and Val was almost thankful at the moment for the respite which the eclipsing of his own slender person afforded.

“Guard, I’m robbed and desthroyed,” he cried. “Let me out. I’ve lost two hunder pound, and it’s a ruffian as got out at Athlone as took it of me! Let me out, I say, and be d—d to you.”

But the busy officials on the platform (the bell having already rung for departure) were too much occupied to attend to Mr. Burke’s complaints, so the train, jolting, swaying, shaking, as only Irish trains (when they are pressed for time) can do, carried the frantic man and his unhappy companion on their way. The former sank back in his seat, in what Val almost trusted was a state of collapse, and he was beginning to hope that Dublin might be reached, and he make his escape without being subjected to the indignity of suspicion, when he was roused by an exclamation from his unfortunate neighbour, and by a clutch at his own neckcloth which nearly strangled him.

“You villain!” exclaimed Mr. Burke, passionately. “You villain! It’s you as was the friend of him as robbed me—the thief of the world!—and he to make off that way!” and he shook the pale-faced student vigorously, whilst his hold on his thick woollen comforter never relaxed for a moment, and his knuckles dug into the veins of the boy’s throat.

“I say, hold hard there, old gentleman,” said one of the other passengers, who chanced to be an Englishman. “Fair play’s a jewel, and though the matter looks queer, you’ll get no good by murdering a fellow,” and, suiting the action to the word, he, with the assistance of the fourth traveller, loosened the grazier’s hold, and pushed him back, not too tenderly, into his place. Val was anything but sorry to be released from a grasp which, had he chanced to have been