'
It was now fine moonlight, and Lord Colambre met with a boy, who said
he could show him a short way across the fields to the widow O'Neill's
cottage.
CHAPTER XII
All were asleep at the cottage, when Lord Colambre arrived, except the
widow, who was sitting up, waiting for him; and who had brought her dog
into the house, that he might not fly at him, or bark at his return. She
had a roast chicken ready for her guest, and it was--but this she never
told him the only chicken she had left; all the others had been sent
with the DUTY-FOWL as a present to the under-agent's lady. While he was
eating his supper, which he ate with the better appetite, as he had had
no dinner, the good woman took down from the shelf a pocket-book, which
she gave him: 'Is not that your book?' said she. 'My boy Brian found it
after you in the potato furrow, where you dropped it.'
'Thank you,' said Lord Colambre; 'there are bank notes in it, which I
could not afford to lose.'
'Are there?' said she; 'he never opened it--nor I.'
Then, in answer to his inquiries about Grace and the young man, the
widow answered, 'They are all in heart now, I thank ye kindly, sir, for
asking; they'll sleep easy to-night anyway, and I'm in great spirits for
them and myself--for all's smooth now.
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