Murtagh's Story continued - The Priest, Exorcist, and Thimble-engro - How to Check a Rebellion.
I WAS telling ye, Shorsha, when ye interrupted me, that Ifound the Pope, the rector, the sub-rector, and the almoner seated at the table, the rector with my pack of cards in his hands, about to deal out to the Pope and the rest, not forgetting himself, for whom he intended all the trump-cards, no doubt.No sooner did they perceive me than they seemed taken all aback; but the rector, suddenly starting up with the cards in his hand, asked me what I did there, threatening to have me well disciplined if I did not go about my business; 'I am come for my pack,' said I, 'ye ould thaif, and to tell his Holiness how I have been treated by ye;' then going down on my knees before his Holiness, I said, 'Arrah, now, your Holiness! will ye not see justice done to a poor boy who has been sadly misused? The pack of cards which that old ruffian has in his hand are my cards, which he has taken from me, in order to chate with.Arrah! don't play with him, your Holiness, for he'll only chate ye - there are dirty marks upon the cards which bear the trumps, put there in order to know them by; and the ould thaif in daling out will give himself all the good cards, and chate ye of the last farthing in your pocket; so let them be taken from him, your Holiness, and given back to me; and order him to lave the room, and then, if your Holiness be for an honest game, don't think I am the boy to baulk ye.I'll take the old ruffian's place, and play with ye till evening, and all night besides, and divil an advantage will I take of the dirty marks, though I know them all, having placed them on the cards myself.' Iwas going on in this way when the ould thaif of a rector, flinging down the cards, made at me as if to kick me out of the room, whereupon I started up and said, 'If ye are for kicking, sure two can play at that;' and then I kicked at his reverence, and his reverence at me, and there was a regular scrimmage between us, which frightened the Pope, who, getting up, said some words which I did not understand, but which the cook afterwards told me were, 'English extravagance, and this is the second edition;' for it seems that, a little time before, his Holiness had been frightened in St.Peter's Church by the servant of an English family, which those thaives of the English religious house had been endeavouring to bring over to the Catholic faith, and who didn't approve of their being converted.Och! his Holiness did us all sore injustice to call us English, and to confound our house with the other; for however dirty our house might be, our house was a clane house compared with the English house, and we honest people compared with those English thaives.Well, his Holiness was frighted, and the almoner ran out, and brought in his Holiness's attendants, and they laid hold of me, but Istruggled hard, and said, 'I will not go without my pack;arrah, your Holiness! make them give me my pack, which Shorsha gave me in Dungarvon times of old;' but my struggles were of no use.I was pulled away and put out in the ould dungeon, and his Holiness went away sore frighted, crossing himself much, and never returned again.
"In the old dungeon I was fastened to the wall by a chain, and there I was disciplined once every other day for the first three weeks, and then I was left to myself, and my chain, and hunger; and there I sat in the dungeon, sometimes screeching, sometimes hallooing, for I soon became frighted, having nothing in the cell to divert me.At last the cook found his way to me by stealth, and comforted me a little, bringing me tidbits out of the kitchen; and he visited me again and again - not often, however, for he dare only come when he could steal away the key from the custody of the thaif of a porter.I was three years in the dungeon, and should have gone mad but for the cook, and his words of comfort, and his tidbits, and nice books which he brought me out of the library, which were the 'Calendars of Newgate,'
