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Updated: June 19, 2025
And so good-bye to you, Father Donovan, and God bless you, and I humbly beseech your own blessing in return." The old man's eyes grew wider and wider as I went on talking and talking and shaking him by the hand. "What's come over you, O'Ruddy?" he said, "and where are you going?" "I am taking a long journey to the west and must have an early start."
He sprang up and grasped me by the hand and said: "Well, O'Ruddy, I think your troubles are at an end, or," he cried, laughing again, "just beginning, but you'll be able to say more on that subject this time next year. Never mind my mother; Mary is, and always will be, the best girl in the world." "I believe you," said I, returning his handshake as cordially as he had bestowed it.
It serves us right for paying attention to a babbling idiot like him. I said in the first place that that Irish baboon of an O'Ruddy was not likely to give them to the ape that follows him." "Tare-an-ounds!"
The morning for the duel dawned softly warm, softly wet, softly foggy. The Colonel popped into my room the moment I was dressed. To my surprise, he was now quite mournful. It was I, now, who had to do the cheering. "Your spirits are low, Colonel?" said I banteringly. "Aye, O'Ruddy," he answered with an effort, "I had a bad night, with the gout.
"We cannot compromise with you, O'Ruddy," said Lord Strepp in a very determined tone, which for the first time made me doubt the wisdom of my proceedings; for of course it was a compromise I had in mind all the time, for I knew as well as Father Donovan that if he refused to settle with me my position was entirely untenable. "We cannot compromise with you," went on the young man.
"O'Ruddy," she said, solemnly, with a little catch in her voice, "you're a bold man, and I think you've no doubt of your answer; but what has happened makes me the more anxious for your success in dealing with those who will oppose both your wishes and mine.
There was a subdued and chastened cadence in the inquiry that pleased me. "I am, and waiting for you." "May I come up?" "Yes, and very welcome; but you'll remember, Lord Strepp, that you come up as a prisoner." "I quite understand that, Mr. O'Ruddy."
But still he laughed and cried: "Straw! Straw! Nothing but straw!" "Well, sir," said I with icy dignity, "I may be a fool of an Irishman with no title save an older one than yours; but I would be deeply sorry if there came a day when I should throw a trust back in the teeth of a dead comrade's son." "No," said the bright-eyed old man, comforting himself amid his pillows. "Look you, O'Ruddy!
Suddenly the Earl raised his hand. "Enough," he said sternly. "You are your father's son. Come to my chamber in the morning, O'Ruddy." There had been little chance to see what was inside the cloaks of the ladies, but at the words of the Earl there peeped from one hood a pair of bright liquid eyes God save us all! In a flash I was no longer a free man; I was a dazed slave; the Saints be good to us!
Indeed, a rasping voice from beneath the canopies called to me before I knew that anybody was in the chamber but myself and the valet. "Come hither, O'Ruddy," called the Earl. "Tompkins, get out! Is it your duty to stand there mummified? Get out!" The servant hastily withdrew, and I walked slowly to the great man's bedside.
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