As it was, I had to buy a few little things in town and to send them down by my brother, Jerome Bigg; but the county folk rained plate and jewelry on Janet Oakley, and old Mr. Robert's gifts were worth two hundred and fifty to pawn any day.
Things were just in this way when the week-before the wedding arrived. I remember the Saturday night well—how Sir Nicolas told them that he had sent instructions for bonfires on all the hills in Kerry; and how, notwithstanding his young brother's death, his people were coming to the castle by hundreds to drink a bumper to Janet Oakley. He was always good to play the winning game, was my master; and that we were winning hand over fist at the White House no man could deny. Once married to that rosy-cheeked miss, who knew no more of the world than a child of seven, Sir Nicolas might have laughed at his friends. That old Oasley would have stood by him I did not doubt, if once the thing were done. And when that night I saw Janet kissing her husband that was to be on the stairs leading to the picture gallery, I said to myself, "Kiss away, miss, for there'll be tears to follow, quick enough."
I'd been pretty busy during the day, beginning to get my master's clothes ready for the following Saturday. It was near to twelve o'clock at night when I sat down to a glass of whiskey and water and a pipe, and to a copy of a local paper left by the butler in my room. This I read a while, and it was when I was running my eye over the fashionable
