Bryan then withdrew, after having received another friendly nod of remonstrance, which seemed to say, “Why will you thus persist, when you see that he is not disposed to enter into these matters now?  Am I not your friend?” Still, however, he did not feel perfectly at ease with the result of his visit.  A slight sense of uncertainty and doubt crept over him, and in spite of every effort at confidence, he found that that which he had placed in Fethertonge, if it did not diminish, was most assuredly not becoming stronger.

CHAPTER XVI.—–­A Spar Between Kate and Philip Hogan

—­Bryan M’Mahon is Cautioned against Political Temptation—­He Seeks Major Vanston’s Interest with the Board of Excise.

The consequences of the calamity which was hanging over Bryan M’Mahon’s head, had become now pretty well understood, and occasioned a very general and profound sympathy for the ruin in which it was likely to involve him.  Indeed, almost every one appeared to feel it more than he himself did, and many, who on meeting him, were at first disposed to offer him consolation, changed their purpose on witnessing his cheerful and manly bearing under it.  Throughout the whole country there was but one family, with another exception, that felt gratified at the blow which had fallen on him.  The exception we speak of was no other than Mr, Hycy Burke, and the family was that of the Hogans.  As for Teddy Phats, he was not the man to trouble himself by the loss of a moment’s indifference upon any earthly or other subject, saving and excepting always that it involved the death, mutilation, or destruction in some shape, of his great and relentless foe, the Gauger, whom he looked upon as the impersonation of all that is hateful and villainous in life, and only sent into this world to war with human happiness at large.  That great professional instinct, as the French say, and a strong unaccountable disrelish of Hycy Burke, were the only two feelings that disturbed the hardened indifference of his nature.

One night, shortly after Bryan’s visit to his landlord, the Hogans and Phats were assembled in the kiln between the hours of twelve and one o’clock, after having drunk nearly three quarts of whiskey among them.  The young savages, as usual, after the vagabond depredations or mischievous exercises of the day, were snoring as we have described them before; when Teddy, whom no quantity of liquor could affect beyond a mere inveterate hardness of brogue and an indescribable effort at mirth and melody, exclaimed—­“Fwhy, dhen, dat’s the stuff; and here’s bad luck to him that paid fwor it.”

“I’ll not drink it, you ugly keout,” exclaimed Philip, in his deep and ruffianly voice; “but come—­all o’ yez fill up and drink my toast.  Come, Kate, you crame of hell’s delights, fill till I give it.  No,” he added abruptly, “I won’t drink that, you leprechaun; the man that ped for it is Hycy Burke, and I like Hycy Burke for one thing, an’ I’ll not dhrink bad luck to him.  Come, are yez ready?”