on tiptoe, spoke in whispers, and left me in five minutes. Reading was absolutely forbidden, and with a sombre half light to sit in, and chicken-broth to support me, I dragged out as dreary an existence as a gentleman west of Athlone.
Whenever my uncle or Considine were not in the room, my companion was my own servant, Michael, or, as he was better known, “Mickey Free.” Now, had Mickey been left to his own free and unrestricted devices, the time would not have hung so heavily; for among Mike’s manifold gifts, he was possessed of a very great flow of gossiping conversation; he knew all that was doing in the country, and never was barren in his information wherever his imagination could come into play. Mickey was the best hurler in the barony, no mean performer on the violin, could dance the national bolero of “Tatter Jack Walsh” in a way that charmed more than one soft heart beneath a red wolsey bodice, and had, withal, the peculiar free-and-easy, devil-may-care kind of offhand Irish way that never deserted him in the midst of his wiliest and most subtle moments, giving to a very deep and cunning fellow all the apparent frankness and openness of a country lad.
He had attached himself to me as a kind of sporting companion and, growing daily more and more useful, had been gradually admitted to the honours of the kitchen and the prerogative of cast clothes, without ever having been actually engaged as a servant, and while thus no warrant officer, as, in fact, he discharged all his duties well and punctually, was rated among the ship’s company; though no one could ever say at what precise period he changed his caterpillar existence and became a gay butterfly, with cords and tops, a striped vest, and a most knowing jerry hat, who stalked about the stable-yard, and bullied the helpers. Such was Mike; he had made his fortune, such as it was, and a most becoming pride in the fact that he made himself indispensable to an establishment which, before he entered it, never knew the want of him. As for me, he was everything to me: Mike informed me what horse was wrong, why the chestnut mare couldn’t go out, and why the black horse could. He knew the arrival of a new cover of partridge quicker than the Morning Post does of a noble family from the Continent, and could tell their whereabouts twice as accurately; but his talents took a wider range than field sports afford, and he was the faithful chronicler of every wake, station, wedding, or christening for miles round, and, as I took no small pleasure in those very national pastimes, the information was of great value to me. To conclude this brief sketch, Mike was a devout Catholic, in the same sense that he was enthusiastic about everything; that is, he believed and obeyed exactly as far as suited his own peculiar notions of comfort and happiness; beyond that his scepticism stepped in and saved him from inconvenience, and, though he might have been somewhat puzzled to reduce his faith to a rubric, still it answered his purpose, and that was all he wanted. Such, in short, was my valet, Mickey Free, and who, had not heavy injunctions been laid on him as to silence and discretion, would well have lightened my hours.
“Ah! then, Misther Charles,” said he, with a half-suppressed yawn at the long period of probation his tongue had been undergoing in silence, “ah! then, but ye were mighty near it.”
