Tales and Novels — Volume 02 eBook

O’Neill, after being in custody for about an hour and a half, was set at liberty upon the payment of his debt.  As he passed by the cathedral in his way home, he heard the clock strike; and he called to a man, who was walking backwards and forwards in the churchyard, to ask whether it was two or three that the clock struck.  “Three,” answered the man; “and, as yet, all is safe.”

O’Neill, whose head was full of other things, did not stop to inquire the meaning of these last words.  He little suspected that this man was a watchman, whom the over-vigilant verger had stationed there to guard the Hereford cathedral from his attacks.  O’Neill little guessed that he had been arrested merely to keep him from blowing up the cathedral this night.  The arrest had an excellent effect upon his mind, for he was a young man of good sense:  it made him resolve to retrench his expenses in time, to live more like a glover and less like a gentleman; and to aim more at establishing credit, and less at gaining popularity.  He found, from experience, that good friends will not pay bad debts.

CHAPTER II.

On Thursday morning, our verger rose in unusually good spirits, congratulating himself upon the eminent service he had done to the city of Hereford, by his sagacity in discovering the foreign plot to blow up the cathedral, and by his dexterity in having the enemy held in custody, at the very hour when the dreadful deed was to have been perpetrated.  Mr. Hill’s knowing friends farther agreed it would be necessary to have a guard that should sit up every night in the churchyard; and that as soon as they could, by constantly watching the enemy’s motions, procure any information which the attorney should deem sufficient grounds for a legal proceeding, they should lay the whole business before the mayor.

After arranging all this most judiciously and mysteriously with friends who were exactly of his own opinion, Mr. Hill laid aside his dignity of verger; and assuming his other character of a tanner proceeded to his tan-yard.  What was his surprise and consternation, when he beheld his great rick of oak bark levelled to the ground; the pieces of bark were scattered far and wide, some over the close, some over the fields, and some were seen swimming upon the water!  No tongue, no pen, no muse can describe the feelings of our tanner at this spectacle! feelings which became the more violent from the absolute silence which he imposed on himself upon this occasion.  He instantly decided in his own mind, that this injury was perpetrated by O’Neill, in revenge for his arrest; and went privately to the attorney to inquire what was to be done, on his part, to secure legal vengeance.

The attorney unluckily, or at least as Mr. Hill thought, unluckily, had been sent for, half an hour before, by a gentleman at some distance from Hereford, to draw up a will; so that our tanner was obliged to postpone his legal operations.