Only an Irish Boy Andy Burke's Fortunes

CHAPTER XIX BAFFLED A ROBBER

Fair­fax paused at Andy's threat. He was on­ly a boy, it is true, but he looked cool and res­olute, and the gun, which was point­ed at him, looked pos­itive­ly dan­ger­ous. But was he to be thwart­ed in the very mo­ment of his tri­umph, by a boy? He could not en­dure it.

“Young man,” he said, “this is dan­ger­ous busi­ness for you. If you don't make your­self scarce, you won't be like­ly to re­turn at all.”

“I'll take the risk,” said Andy, cool­ly.

“Con­found him! I thought he'd be fright­ened,” said Fair­fax to him­self.

“I don't want to kill you,” he said, with a fur­ther at­tempt to in­tim­idate Andy.

“I don't mean to let you,” said our hero, qui­et­ly.

“You are no match for me.”

“With a gun I am.”

“I don't be­lieve it is load­ed.”

“If you try to pick up that pis­tol, I'll con­vince you; by the pow­ers, I will,” said Andy, en­er­get­ical­ly.

“What is to pre­vent my tak­ing away the gun from you?”

“Faith,” re­turned Andy, quaint­ly, “you'll take the pow­der and ball first, I'm thinkin'.”

Fair­fax thought so, too, and that was one rea­son why he con­clud­ed not to try it.

It was cer­tain­ly a pro­vok­ing po­si­tion for him.

There lay the pis­tol on the ground, just at his feet; yet, if he tried to pick it up, the boy would put a bul­let through him. It was fur­ther­more pro­vok­ing to re­flect that, had he not stopped to par­ley with Colonel Pre­ston, he might have se­cured the mon­ey, which he so much de­sired, be­fore Andy had come up. There was one oth­er re­source. He had tried bul­ly­ing, and with­out suc­cess. He would try ca­jol­ing and temp­ta­tion.

“Look here, boy,” he said, “I am a des­per­ate man. I would as leave mur­der you as not.”

“Thank you,” said Andy. “But I'd rather not have it done.”

“I don't want to hurt you, as I said be­fore, but you mustn't in­ter­fere with me.”

“Then you mustn't in­ter­fere with the colonel.”

“I must have the mon­ey in his pock­et­book.”

“Must you? Maybe, I'll have some­thing to say, to that.”

“He has eight hun­dred dol­lars with him.”

“Did he tell you?”

“No mat­ter; I know. If you won't in­ter­fere with me, I'll give you two hun­dred of it.”

“Thank you for noth­ing, then,” said Andy, in­de­pen­dent­ly. “I'm on­ly a poor Irish boy, but I ain't a thafe, and nev­er mane to be.”

“Bra­vo, Andy!” said Colonel Pre­ston, who had await­ed with a lit­tle anx­iety the re­sult of the of­fer.

Fair­fax stooped sud­den­ly, but be­fore he could get hold of the pis­tol, Andy struck him on the head with the gun-​bar­rel, caus­ing him to roll over, while, in a quick and adroit move­ment, he him­self got hold of the pis­tol be­fore Fair­fax had re­cov­ered from the crack on his head.

“Now,” said Andy, tri­umphant­ly, with the gun over his shoul­der, and pre­sent­ing the pis­tol, “lave here mighty quick, or I'll shoot ye.”

“Give me back the pis­tol, then,” said the dis­com­fit­ed ruf­fi­an.

“I guess not,” said Andy.

“It's my prop­er­ty.”

“I don't know that. Maybe you took it from some thrav­el­er.”

“Give it to me, and I'll go off peace­ably.”

“I won't take no rob­ber's word,” said Andy. “Are you goin'?”

“Give me the pis­tol. Fire it off, if you like.”

“That you may load it again. You don't catch a weasel asleep,” an­swered Andy, shrewd­ly. “I've a great mind to make you march in­to the vil­lage, and give you up to the per­lice.”

This sug­ges­tion was by no means pleas­ant for the high­way­man, par­tic­ular­ly as he re­flect­ed that Andy had shown him­self a res­olute boy, and dou­bly armed as he now was, it was quite with­in his pow­er to car­ry out his threat.

“Don't fire af­ter me,” he said.

“I nev­er at­tack an in­imy in the rare,” said Andy, who al­ways in­dulged in the brogue more than usu­al un­der ex­cit­ing cir­cum­stances.

I make this ex­pla­na­tion, as the read­er may have no­ticed a dif­fer­ence in his di­alect at dif­fer­ent times.

“We shall meet again, boy!” said Fair­fax, men­ac­ing­ly, turn­ing at the dis­tance of a few feet.

“Thank you, sir. You needn't thrub­ble your­self,” said Andy, “I ain't anx­ious to mate you.”

“When we do meet, you'll know it,” said the oth­er.

“Maybe I will. Go along wid ye!” said Andy, point­ing the pis­tol at him.

“Don't shoot,” said Fair­fax, hasti­ly, and he quick­ened his pace to get out of the way of a dan­ger­ous com­pan­ion.

Andy laughed as the high­way­man dis­ap­peared in the dis­tance.

“I thought he wouldn't wait long,” he said.

“Andy,” said Colonel Pre­ston, warm­ly, “you have be­haved like a hero.”

“I'm on­ly an Irish boy,” said Andy, laugh­ing. “Shure, they don't make heroes of such as I.”

“I don't care whether you are Irish or Dutch. You are a hero for all that.”

“Shure, sir, it's lucky I was round whin that spalpeen want­ed to rob you.”

“How did you hap­pen to be out with a gun this af­ter­noon?”

“I got my work all done, and Miss Grant said I might go out shootin' if I want­ed. Shure, I didn't ex­pect it 'ud been rob­bers I would be af­ther shootin'.”

“You came up just in the nick of time. Weren't you afraid?”

“I didn't stop to think of that when I saw that big black­guard p'intin' his pis­tol at you. I thought I'd have a hand in it my­self.”

“Jump in­to the chaise, Andy, and ride home with me.”

“What, wid the gun?”

“To be sure. We won't leave the gun. That has done us too good ser­vice al­ready to-​day.”

“I've made some­thing out of it, any­way,” said Andy, dis­play­ing the pis­tol, which was sil­ver-​mount­ed, and al­to­geth­er a very pret­ty weapon. “It's a reg­ular beau­ty,” he said, with ad­mi­ra­tion.

“It will be bet­ter in your hands than in the re­al own­er's,” said Colonel Pre­ston.

By this time Andy was in the chaise, rapid­ly near­ing the vil­lage.

“If you hadn't come up just as you did, Andy, I should have been poor­er by eight hun­dred dol­lars.”

“That's a big pile of mon­ey,” said Andy, who, as we know, was not in the habit of hav­ing large sums of mon­ey in his own pos­ses­sion.

“It is con­sid­er­ably more than I would like to lose,” said Colonel Pre­ston, to whom it was of less im­por­tance than to Andy.

“I won­der will I ev­er have so much mon­ey?” thought Andy.

“Now, I'll tell you what I think it on­ly right to do, Andy,” pur­sued the colonel.

Andy lis­tened at­ten­tive­ly.

“I am go­ing to make you a present of some mon­ey, as an ac­knowl­edg­ment of the ser­vice you have done me.”

“I don't want any­thing, Colonel Pre­ston,” said Andy. “I didn't help you for the mon­ey.”

“I know you didn't, my lad,” said the colonel, “but I mean to give it to you all the same.”

He took out his pock­et­book, but Andy made one more re­mon­strance.

“I don't think I ought to take it, sir, thankin' you all the same.”

“Then I will give you one hun­dred dol­lars for your moth­er. You can't refuse it for her.”

Andy's eyes danced with de­light. He knew how much good this mon­ey would do his moth­er, and re­lieve her from the ne­ces­si­ty of work­ing so hard as she was now com­pelled to do.

“Thank you, sir,” he said. “It'll make my moth­er's heart glad, and save her from the hard work.”

“Here is the mon­ey, Andy,” said the colonel, hand­ing his young com­pan­ion a roll of bills.

Again Andy poured out warm protes­ta­tions of grat­itude for the mu­nif­icent gift, with which Colonel Pre­ston was well pleased.

“I be­lieve you are a good boy, Andy,” he said. “It is a good sign when a boy thinks so much of his moth­er.”

“I'd be ashamed not to, sir,” said Andy.

They soon reached the vil­lage. Andy got down at the Miss­es Grant's gate, and was soon as­ton­ish­ing the sim­ple ladies by a nar­ra­tive of his en­counter with the high­way­man.

“Do you think he'll come here?” asked Sophia, in alarm. “If he should come when Andy was away----”

“You could fire the gun your­self, Sophia.”

“I should be fright­ened to death.”

“Then he couldn't kill you af­ter­ward.”

“Just so,” an­swered Sophia, a lit­tle be­wil­dered.

“Were you shot, An­drew?” she asked, a minute af­ter­ward.

“If I was, I didn't feel it,” said Andy, jo­cose­ly.

Andy's hero­ic achieve­ment made him still more val­ued by the Miss­es Grant, and they re­joiced in the hand­some gift he had re­ceived from the colonel, and read­ily gave him per­mis­sion to car­ry it to his moth­er af­ter sup­per.