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"An' ye did?" asked Coolin, open-mouthed and staring; for never had he seen Connor with aught on his face but a devil-may-care smile. "Ordered away we was next avenin', an' sorra the glimpse of Mary Haggarty to me for Headquarters is a lady that will not be denied. Away we wint overseas.
She told Haggarty with a significant air to get the wine from the cellah, and whispered to me that he was his own butlah; and the poor fellow, taking the hint, scudded away into the town for a pound of beefsteak and a couple of bottles of wine from the tavern.
"Shure, I'll tell ye now why the chills rin down me back whin I hear uv y'r drame. Thrue things are drames, as I'll prove to ye as quare as condinsation an' as thrue, Coolin; fer condinsation comes out uv nothin', and so do drames.... There was Mary Haggarty, Coolin ye'll not be knowin' Mary Haggarty. It was mornin' an' evenin' an' the first day uv the world where she were. That was Mary Haggarty.
Haggarty and his lady; for, perhaps, if the truth were known, I never thought for a moment about them; until one day, being at Kingstown, near Dublin, dawdling on the beach, and staring at the Hill of Howth, as most people at that watering-place do, I saw coming towards me a tall gaunt man, with a pair of bushy red whiskers, of which I thought I had seen the like in former years, and a face which could be no other than Haggarty's.
Well, one day, marching home from parade, I saw a lady seated at an open window, by another who seemed an invalid, and the lady at the window, who was dressed in the profoundest mourning, cried out, with a scream, 'Gracious, heavens! it's Mr. Haggarty of the 120th. "'Sure I know that voice, says I to Whiskerton.
'Tis five years ago, an' I take it hard that Mary Haggarty spakes to me through you. 'Tis a warnin', Coolin." "'Twas a lie I told you, Connor 'twas a lie!" And Coolin tried to grin. Connor's voice was like a woman's, soft and quiet, as he answered: "Ye'll lie fast enough, Coolin, whin the truth won't sarve; but the truth has sarved its turn this time." "Aw, Connor dear, only wan half's thrue.
"Small, but snug," says Haggarty: "I'll lead the way, Fitz; put your hat on the flower-pot there, and turn to the left into the drawing-room." A fog of onions and turf-smoke filled the whole of the house, and gave signs that dinner was not far off. Far off? You could hear it frizzling in the kitchen, where the maid was also endeavouring to hush the crying of a third refractory child.
Fitz-Boodle: don't you remember him in Warwickshire, darling?" "Mr. Fitz-Boodle! I am very glad to see him," said the lady, rising and curtseying with much cordiality. Mrs. Haggarty was blind. Mrs. Haggarty was not only blind, but it was evident that smallpox had been the cause of her loss of vision.
Thrue it is, Coolin, that the hand uv mortial man has an ugly way uv squazin' a woman's heart dry whin, at last, to his coaxin' she lays it tinder an' onsuspectin' on the inside grip uv it." "But the heart uv Mary Haggarty, Connor?" "'Twas loike a flower under y'r fut, Coolin, an' a heavy fut is to you. She says to me wan day, 'Ye're breakin' me heart, William Connor, says she.
Shlapin' I was wan night in a troop-ship in the Bay uv Biscay; an' I dramed I saw Mary walkin' along the cliff by well, 'tis no matter, fer ye've niver been there, an 'tis no place to go to unheedin'. Manny an' manny a time I'd walked wid Mary Haggarty there. There's a steep hill betune two pints uv land.
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