s sombre equipage; not
even if it display the crowning glory of woolly black plumes to waggle
over his head. Accordingly, when Pat has died on his humble bed, which
is as likely as not just earth tempered with straw, under his rifted
thatch, through which he may perhaps see the stars glimmer with nothing
except the smoke-haze and gathering mists between, he is conveyed thence
with whatever pomp and circumstance his savings permit, and all his
neighbours feel that the right thing has been done.

It is true that Mr. Polymathers had given no sign of any such sentiment.
When discreetly sounded on the subject during his last days, he had
replied: "Ah! man, it's very immaterial," in a tone of indifference as
unmistakable as the phrase was ambiguous. And from this fact, coupled
with his written instructions, it might, one would have thought, safely
have been inferred that he desired no costly magnificence at his
obsequies. Yet the point was obscured in his late host's mind by a thick
cloud of doubts and scruples.

Mr. Polymathers had died surprisingly rich, not less than twenty-five
pounds, seven shillings and threepence having been counted awestrickenly
out of his leathern pouch. The ground rents of all Lisconnel did not
reach to such a figure. It had been larger still before his disastrous
expedition to the University; but it had never undergone any diminution
so long as he abode under Felix O'Beirne's roof. On the first Saturday
after his convalescence he had inquired, pouch in hand: "And what might
be the amount of me pecuniary debt to you, sir?" And old O'Beirne had
replied: "And you spendin' your time puttin' the heighth of larnin' into
the two lads' heads! Bedad, sir, it's debt the other way round,
supposin' there was to be any talk about it." The same little scene,
dwindled at last into a mere form and ceremony, had taken place on
every succeeding Saturday. Not that Mr. Polymathers did not feel he had
grounds for more than merely formal demur. But he was then facing the
steep hill of his ambition, and had sometimes to stoop as he climbed.

But now, when he had turned back baffled, and all his climbing was done,
old Felix had no engrossing object to blunt a sense of many scruples
that must be removed before he himself or his family could with honour
derive profit from the event; as they would do if Mr. Polymathers's
instructions were carried out. For by that document, which he had
finished drawing up only just in time