uttoned up
his coat about his neck, the wind being from the east, and he started,
at something very near a gallop, for Dublin.

There was a man at the door of the Salmon House, who, with a taciturn
and saturnine excitement, watched the unusual bustle going on at the
door-steps of Doctor Sturk's dwelling. This individual had been drinking
there for a while; and having paid his shot, stood with his back to the
wall, and his hands in his pockets, profoundly agitated, and with a
chaos of violent and unshaped thoughts rising and rolling in his
darkened brain.

After Lowe went into the house again, seeing the maid still upon the
steps, talking with Mr. Moore, the barber, who was making his lingering
adieux there, this person drew near, and just as the tonsor made his
final farewell, and strode down the street towards his own dwelling, he
presented himself in time to arrest the retreat of the damsel.

'By your leave, Mistress Katty,' said he, laying his hand on the iron
rail of the door-steps.

'Oh, good jewel! an' is that yourself, Mr. Irons? And where in the world
wor you this month an' more?'

'Business--nothin'--in Mullingar--an' how's the docthor to-night?'

The clerk spoke a little thickly, as he commonly did on leaving the
Salmon House.

'He's elegant, my dear--beyant the beyants--why, he's sittin' up,
dhrinking chicken-broth, and talking law-business with Mr. Lowe.'

'He's talkin'!'

'Ay is he, and Mr. Lowe just this minute writ down all about the way he
come by the breakin' of his skull in the park, and we'll have great
doings on the head of it; for the master swore to it, and Doctor
Toole----'

'An'who done it?' demanded Irons, ascending a step, and grasping the
iron rail.

'I couldn't hear--nor no one, only themselves.'

'An' who's that rode down the Dublin road this minute?'

'That's Mr. Lowe's man; 'tis what he's sent him to Dublin wid a note.'

'I see,' said Irons, with a great oath, which seemed to the maid wholly
uncalled for; and he came up another step, and held the iron rail and
shook it, like a man grasping a battle-axe, and stared straight at her,
with a look so strange, and a visage so black, that she was
half-frightened.

'A what's the matther wid you, Misther Irons?' she demanded.

But he stared on in silence, scowling through her face at vacancy, and
swaying slightly as he griped the metal banister.

'I _will_,' he muttered, with another most unclerklike oath, and he took
Katty b