Only an Irish Boy Andy Burke's Fortunes

CHAPTER IX WHAT FOLLOWED

The re­port of the gun, as may be sup­posed, had aroused both the ladies from their sleep.

“Did you hear it?” ejac­ulat­ed Miss Priscil­la, clutch­ing her sis­ter by the arm.

“Just so,” mut­tered Sophia, in be­wil­der­ment. “It's the gun.”

“Bur­glars!” ex­claimed Sophia, in alarm.

“I am afraid so. What shall we do?”

“Run away,” sug­gest­ed Sophia.

“No, we must not leave the boy to be mur­dered.”

“Per­haps he has shot them?” said Sophia, with a gleam of hope.

“At any rate, it is our du­ty to go and see what has hap­pened.”

“I'm afraid,” whim­pered Sophia, cov­er­ing up her head.

“Then you can stay here,” said the more coura­geous Priscil­la. “I will go.”

“And leave me alone?”

“I must.”

“I'll go too, then,” said Sophia, her teeth chat­ter­ing with fear.

So they crept out of bed, and throw­ing shawls over their shoul­ders, ad­vanced in­to the en­try, trem­bling with ex­cite­ment and fear.

“If we should find Andy wel­ter­ing in his gore?” sug­gest­ed Priscil­la.

“Don't say such hor­rid things, or I shall scream,” said her sis­ter.

Then came the tremu­lous knock men­tioned at the close of the last chap­ter.

Andy opened the door in per­son, and met the gaze of the two Miss Grants, Sophia al­most ready to drop with fright.

“Do you see any gore, Priscil­la?” she asked, tremu­lous­ly.

“Are you hurt, An­drew?” asked the el­der sis­ter.

“No, ma'am.”

“Did you fire the gun?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“What made you? Did any bur­glars try to get in?”

“Not ex­act­ly, ma'am,” said Andy; “but I thought there might be some.”

“Did you see any?”

“Not ex­act­ly,” said Andy, a lit­tle em­bar­rassed; “but I heard a noise.”

“Just so,” said Sophia.

“Why didn't you wait till they ap­peared at the win­dow, An­drew?”

“Be­cause, ma'am, they would fire at me first. I want­ed to scare 'em away.”

“Per­haps you were right. You don't see any traces of them out­side, do you?”

“You can look for your­self, ma'am.”

The two ladies went to the win­dow, which as al­ready ex­plained, had suf­fered from the dis­charge, and peered out timid­ly, but, of course, saw no bur­glars.

“Are you sure there were any bur­glars, An­drew?” asked Priscil­la.

“No, ma'am, I couldn't swear to it.”

“Well, no harm has been done.”

“Ex­cept breakin' the winder, ma'am.”

“Nev­er mind; we will have that mend­ed to-​mor­row.”

“Were you afraid, An­drew?” asked Miss Sophia.

“Not a bit,” an­swered Andy, valiant­ly. “I ain't afraid of bur­glars, as long as I have a gun. I'm a match for 'em.”

“How brave he is!” ex­claimed the timid la­dy. “We might have been killed in our beds. I'm glad we hired him, Priscil­la.”

“As there is noth­ing more to do, we had bet­ter go to bed.”

“Just so.”

“That's a bul­ly way to get out of a scrape,” said Andy to him­self, as the ladies filed out of his cham­ber. “I ex­pect­ed they'd scold me. Plague take the old gun--it kicks as bad as a mule. Oh, Andy, you're a lucky boy to get off so well.”

The next day Andy ob­tained per­mis­sion to take out the gun in the af­ter­noon when his chores were done.

“I want to get used to it, ma'am,” he said. “It kicked last night.”

“Dear me, did it?” asked Sophia. “I didn't know guns kicked. What do they kick with? They haven't got any legs.”

Andy ex­plained as well as he could what he meant by the gun's kick­ing, and said it was be­cause it had not been used for a good while, and need­ed to be tak­en out.

“It needs ex­er­cise, just like hors­es, ma'am,” he said.

“That is sin­gu­lar, An­drew,” said Priscil­la.

“Just so,” ob­served her sis­ter.

“It's a fact, ma'am,” said Andy. “It gets skit­tish, just like hors­es--but if I take it out some­times, it'll be all right.”

“Very well, you may take it, on­ly be care­ful.”

“Oh, I'll be care­ful, ma'am,” said Andy, with alacrity.

“Now, I'll have some fun,” he said to him­self.

He found a sup­ply of pow­der and some shot in the clos­et, and pro­ceed­ed to ap­pro­pri­ate them.

“Come back in time for sup­per, An­drew,” said Miss Priscil­la.

“Yes, ma'am, I'm al­ways on hand at meal times,” an­swered our hero.

“That's be­cause he's hun­gry,” said Sophia, bril­liant­ly.

“You're right, ma'am,” said Andy; “my stom­ach al­ways tells me when it's sup­per time.”

“It's as good as a watch,” said Priscil­la, smil­ing.

“And a good deal cheap­er,” ob­served Sophia, with an­oth­er bril­liant idea.

Andy start­ed up the road with his gun over his shoul­der. It was his in­ten­tion af­ter go­ing a lit­tle dis­tance to strike in­to the fields, and make for some woods not far away, where he thought there would be a good chance for birds or squir­rels. He hadn't gone many steps be­fore he en­coun­tered God­frey Pre­ston, his an­tag­onist of three days pre­vi­ous.

Now, God­frey hadn't seen or heard any­thing of Andy since that day. He had learned from his moth­er with great sat­is­fac­tion that she had dis­charged Mrs. Burke from her em­ploy­ment, as this, he imag­ined, would trou­ble Andy. But of Andy him­self he knew noth­ing, and was not aware that he had al­ready se­cured a place. When he saw our hero com­ing along, his cu­rios­ity led him to stop and find out, if he could, where he was go­ing with the gun he car­ried on his shoul­der, and where he ob­tained it. So he looked in­tent­ly at Andy, wait­ing for him to speak, but Andy pre­ferred to leave that to him.

“Whose gun is that?” asked God­frey, in the tone of one who was en­ti­tled to ask the ques­tion.

“Shure, it be­longs to the own­er,” said Andy, with a smile.

“Of course, I know that,” said God­frey, im­pa­tient­ly. “I'm not quite a fool.”

“Not quite,” re­peat­ed Andy, em­pha­siz­ing the last word in a way which made God­frey col­or.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“What do I mane? It was on­ly your words I re­peat­ed.”

“Then, don't trou­ble your­self to re­peat them--do you hear?”

“Thank you; I won't.”

“You didn't tell me whose gun that is.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Very like­ly you stole it,” said God­frey, pro­voked.

“Maybe you'll go and tell the own­er.”

“How can I when you haven't told me whose it is?”

“No more I did,” said Andy with ap­par­ent in­no­cence.

“Where are you go­ing with it?”

“Goin' out shootin'.”

“So I sup­posed.”

“Did you, now? Then what made you ask?” re­turned Andy.

“You are an im­pu­dent fel­low,” said God­frey, pro­voked.

“I nev­er am im­pu­dent to gen­tle­men,” said Andy, point­ed­ly.

“Do you mean to say that I am not a gen­tle­man?” de­mand­ed the oth­er, an­gri­ly.

“Suit your­self,” said Andy, cool­ly.

“You're on­ly an Irish boy.”

“Shure, I knew that be­fore. Why can't you tell me some news? I'm an Irish boy and I'm proud of the same. I'll nev­er go back on ould Ire­land.”

“The Irish are a low set.”

“Are they now? Maybe you nev­er heard of Burke, the great or­ator.”

“What of him?”

“Shure, he was an Irish­man; and isn't my name Andy Burke, and wasn't he my great-​grand­fa­ther?”

“He must be proud of his great-​grand­son,” said God­frey, sar­cas­ti­cal­ly.

“I nev­er axed him, but no doubt you're right. But it's time I was goin', or I shan't get any birds. Would you like to come with me?”

“No, I am par­tic­ular about the com­pa­ny I keep.”

“I'm not, or I wouldn't have in­vit­ed you,” said Andy, who was rather quick­er wit­ted than his op­po­nent.

“I should like to know where he got that gun,” said God­frey to him­self, fol­low­ing with his eyes the re­treat­ing fig­ure of our hero. “I am sure that isn't his gun. Ten to one he stole it from some­body.”

But God­frey's cu­rios­ity was not des­tined to be grat­ified that af­ter­noon, as it might have been if he had seen Andy turn­ing in­to the yard of the Miss­es Grant two hours af­ter­ward. He had not shot any­thing, but he had got used to fir­ing the gun, and was not like­ly to be caught again in any such ad­ven­ture as that record­ed in the last chap­ter.