"His head has been hurt, and he don't
know nothin' that he's talkin' 'bout."
Barney clung to Merriwell and Hodge as if he feared the woman would drag
him bodily away from these friends.
"Oi suppose thot she may be able to foorce me into marryin' her," he
moaned. "Oi kilt a thramp, and Oi wor hidin' frum the officers--may the
divil floy away wid thim--and Oi sneaked intil her house, d'ye moind,
and hid me loike a fool under her bed. The crayther had been lookin'
under thot bed for forty years to foind a man! And whin she let her ould
oyes loight on me, she pulled me out av there; an' she's been kapin' me
and scarin' me intil fits and hoidin' me from the officers iver
since--and, bad cess to her, nixt wake she wor goin' to marry me."
"Why did you sneak round the hotel and along the paths in that queer
way?" Frank asked, after the vinegary-visaged and matrimonially inclined
female had departed in despair and disgust, and he had Barney alone.
"That still puzzles me. We heard that you had been killed by those
tramps, and you looked and acted enough like a ghost to be one!"
"A ghost, is it?" said Barney, glancing about as if he did not like even
the thought. "Thot ould witch wor kapin' me hid away from the officers
in thot wee bit av a house roight behind the three over there, and all
the ixercoise Oi could git wor whin Oi could shlip out av noights and
walk round and swally a brith av fresh air.
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