Chapter 18

And never a doubt But when you are in, If you love a whole skin, I'll wager (and win) You'll be glad to get out.

_Dr. Growling's Metrical Romance._

The bird's-eye view which the doctor's peep from Parnassus has afforded, may furnish the imagination of the reader with materials to create in his own mind a vague yet not unjust notion of Neck-or-Nothing Hall; but certain details of the Hall itself, its inmates and its customs, may be desired by the matter-of-fact reader or the more minutely curious, and as the author has the difficult task before him of trying to please all tastes, something more definite is required.

The Hall itself was, as we have said, a rambling sort of structure. Ramifying from a solid centre, which gave the notion of a founder well to do in the world, additions, without any architectural pretensions to fitness, were _stuck_ on here and there, as whim or necessity suggested or demanded, and a most incongruous mass of gables, roofs, and chimneys, odd windows and blank walls, was the consequence. According to the circumstances of the occupants who inherited the property, the building was either increased or neglected. A certain old bachelor, for example, who in the course of events inherited the property, had no necessity for nurses, nursery-maids, and their consequent suite of apartments; and as he never aspired to the honour of matrimony, the ball-room, the drawing-room, and extra bed-chambers were neglected; but being a fox-hunter, a new kennel and range of stables were built, the dining-room enlarged, and all the ready money he could get at spent in augmenting the plate, to keep pace with the racing-cups he won, and proudly displayed at his drinking-bouts; and when he died suddenly (broke his neck), the plate was seized at the suit of his wine-merchant; and as the heir next in succession got the property in a ruinous condition, it was impossible to keep a stud of horses along with a wife and a large family, so the stables and kennel went to decay, while the ladies and family apartments could only be patched up. When the house was dilapidated, the grounds about it, of course, were ill kept. Fine old trees were there, originally intended to afford shade to walks which were so neglected as to be no more walkable than any other part of the grounds--the vista of aspiring stems indicated where an avenue had been, but neither hoe nor rolling-stone had, for many a year, checked the growth of grass or weed. So much for the outside of the house: now for the inside.

That had witnessed many a thoughtless, expensive, headlong and irascible master, but never one more so than the present owner; added to which, he had the misfortune of being unpopular. Other men, thoughtless, and headlong, and irritable as he, have lived and had friends; but there was something about O'Grady that was felt, perhaps, more than it could be defined, which made him unpleasing--perhaps the homely phrase "cross-grained" may best express it, and O'Grady was essentially a cross-grained man. The estate, when he got it, was pretty heavily saddled, and the "galled jade" did not "wince" the less for his riding.

A good jointure to his mother was chargeable on the property, and this was an excuse on all occasions for the Squire's dilatory payment in other quarters. "Sir," he would say, "my mother's jointure is sacred--it is more than the estate can well bear, it is true, but it is a sacred claim, and I would sooner sacrifice my life, my _honour_, sir, than see that claim neglected!" Now all this sounded mighty fine, but his mother could never see her jointure regularly paid, and was obliged to live in the house with him: she was somewhat of _an oddity_, and had apartments to herself, and, as long as she was let alone, and allowed to read romances in quiet, did not complain; and whenever a stray ten-pound note _did_ fall into her hands, she gave the greater part of it to her younger grand-daughter, who was fond of flowers and plants, and supported a little conservatory on her grand-mother's bounty, she paying the tribute of a bouquet to the old lady when the state of her botanical prosperity could afford it. The eldest girl was a favourite of an uncle, and _her_ passion being dogs, all the presents her uncle made her in money were converted into canine curiosities; while the youngest girl took an interest in the rearing of poultry. Now the boys, varying in age from eight to fourteen, had their separate favourites too--one loved bull-dogs and terriers, another game-cocks, the third ferrets, and the fourth rabbits and pigeons. These multifarious tastes produced strange results. In the house, flowers and plants, indicating refinement of taste and costliness, were strongly contrasted with broken plaster, soiled hangings, and faded paint; an expensive dog might be seen lapping cream out of a shabby broken plate; a never-ending sequence of wars raged among the dependent favourites, the bull-dogs and terriers chopping up the ferrets, the ferrets killing the game-cocks, the game-cocks killing the tame poultry and rabbits, and the rabbits destroying the garden, assisted by the flying reserve of pigeons. It was a sort of Irish retaliation, so amusingly exemplified in the nursery jingle--

The water began to quench the fire, The fire began to burn the stick, The stick began to beat the dog, The dog began to bite the kid.

In the midst of all these distinct and clashing tastes, that of Mrs. O'Grady (the wife) must not be forgotten; her weak point was a feather bed. Good soul! anxious that whoever slept under her roof should lie softly, she would go to the farthest corner of the county to secure an accession to her favourite property--and such a collection of luxurious feather beds never was seen in company with such rickety bedsteads and tattered and mildewed curtains, in rooms uncarpeted, whose paper was dropping off the wall,--well might it be called paper-hanging indeed!--whose washing-tables were of deal, and whose delf was of the plainest ware, and even that minus sundry handles and spouts. Nor was the renowned O'Grady without his hobby, too. While the various members of his family were thwarting each other, his master-mischief was thwarting them all; like some wicked giant looking down on a squabble of dwarfs, and ending the fight by kicking them all right and left. Then _he_ had _his_ troop of pets too--idle blackguards who were slingeing[13] about the place eternally, keeping up a sort of "cordon sanitaire," to prevent the pestilential presence of a bailiff, which is so catching, and turns to jail fever, a disease which had been fatal in the family. O'Grady never ventured beyond his domain except on the back of a fleet horse--there he felt secure; indeed, the place he most dreaded legal assault in was his own house, where he apprehended trickery might invade him: a carriage might be but a feint, and hence the great circumspection in the opening of doors.

[13] An Hibernicism, expressive of lounging laziness.

From the nature of the establishment, thus hastily sketched, the reader will see what an ill-regulated jumble it was. The master, in difficulties, had disorderly people hanging about his place for his personal security; from these very people his boys picked up the love of dog-fights, cock-fights, &c.; and they, from the fights of their pets, fought amongst themselves, and were always fighting with their sisters; so the reader will see the "metrical romance" was not overcharged in its rhymes on Neck-or-Nothing Hall.

When Furlong entered the hall, he gave his name to a queer-looking servant with wild scrubby hair, a dirty face, a tawdry livery, worse for wear, which had manifestly been made for a larger man, and hung upon its present possessor like a coat upon a clothes-horse; his cotton stockings, meant to be white, and clumsy shoes, meant to be black, met each other half-way, and split the difference in a pleasing neutral tint. Leaving Furlong standing in the hall, he clattered up-stairs, and a dialogue ensued between master and man so loud that Furlong could hear the half of it, and his own name in a tone of doubt, with that of "Egan," in a tone of surprise, and that of his "sable majesty" in a tone of anger, rapidly succeeded one another; then such broken words and sentences as these ensued--"fudge!--humbug!--rascally trick!--eh!--by the hokey, they'd better take care!--put the scoundrel under the pump!"

Furlong more than half suspected it was to him this delicate attention was intended, and began to feel uncomfortable: he sharpened his ears to their keenest hearing, but there was a lull in the conversation, and he could ascertain one of the gentler sex was engaged in it by the ogre-like voice uttering, "Fudge, woman!--fiddle-de-dee!" Then he caught the words, "perhaps," and "gentleman," in a lady's voice; then out thundered "that rascal's carriage!--why come in that?--friend!--humbug!--rascal's carriage!--tar and feather him, by this and that!"

Furlong began to feel very uncomfortable; the conversation ended; down came the servant, to whom Furlong was about to address himself, when the man said, "He would be with him in a minit," and vanished; a sort of reconnoitering party, one by one, then passed through the hall, eyeing the stranger very suspiciously, any of them to whom Furlong ventured a word scurrying off in double-quick time. For an instant he meditated a retreat, and, looking to the door, saw a heavy chain across it, the pattern of which must have been had from Newgate. He attempted to unfasten it, and as it clanked heavily, the ogre's voice from up-stairs bellowed, "Who the d----l's that opening the door?" Furlong's hand dropped from the chain, and a low growling went on up the staircase. The servant whom he first saw returned.

"I fear," said Furlong, "there is some misappwehension."

"A what, sir?"

"A misappwehension."

"Oh, no, sir! it's only a mistake the master thought you might be making; he thinks you mistuk the house, maybe, sir?"

"Oh, no--I _wather_ think he mistakes me. Will you do me the favo'," and he produced a packet of papers as he spoke--"the favo' to take my cwedentials to Mr. O'Gwady, and if he throws his eye over these pape's----"

At the word "papers," there was a shout from above, "Don't touch them, you thief, don't touch them!--another blister,--ha! ha! By the 'ternal this and that, I'll have him in the horse-pond!" A heavy stamping overhead ensued, and furious ringing of bells; in the midst of the din, a very pale lady came down-stairs, and pointing the way to a small room, beckoned Furlong to follow her. For a moment he hesitated, for his heart misgave him; but shame at the thought of doubting or refusing the summons of a lady overcame his fear, and he followed to a little parlour, where mutual explanations between Mrs. O'Grady and himself, and many messages, questions, and answers, which she carried up and down stairs, at length set Furlong's mind at ease respecting his personal safety, and finally admitted him into the presence of the truculent lord of the castle--who, when he heard that Furlong had been staying in the enemy's camp, was not, it may be supposed, in a sweet temper to receive him. O'Grady looked thunder as Furlong entered, and eyeing him keenly for some seconds, as if he were taking a mental as well as an ocular measurement of him, he saluted him with--

"Well, sir, a pretty kettle of fish you've made of this. I hope you have not blabbed much about our affairs?"

"Why, I weally don't know--I'm not sure--that is, I won't be positive, because when one is thwown off his guard, you know----"

"Pooh, sir! a man should never be off his guard in an election. But how the d----l, sir, could you make such a thundering mistake as to go to the wrong house?"

"It was a howwid postilion, Miste' O'Gwady."

"The scoundrel!" exclaimed O'Grady, stamping up and down the room.

At this moment, a tremendous crash was heard; the ladies jumped from their seats; O'Grady paused in his rage, and his poor, pale wife exclaimed--

"'T is in the conservatory."

A universal rush was now made to the spot, and there was Handy Andy, buried in the ruins of flower-pots and exotics, directly under an enormous breach in the glass roof of the building. How this occurred a few words will explain. Andy, when he went to sleep in the justice-room, slept soundly for some hours, but awoke in the horrors of a dream, in which he fancied he was about to be hanged. So impressed was he by the vision, that he determined on making his escape if he could, and to this end piled the chair upon the desk, and the volumes of law books on the chair, and, being an active fellow, contrived to scramble up high enough to lay his hand on the frame of the sky-light, and thus make his way out on the roof. Then walking, as well as the darkness would permit him, along the coping of the wall, he approached, as it chanced, the conservatory; but the coping being loose, one of the flags turned under Andy's foot, and bang he went through the glass roof, carrying down in his fall some score of flower-pots, and finally stuck in a tub, with his legs upwards, and embowered in the branches of crushed geraniums and hydrangeas.

He was dragged out of the tub, amidst a shower of curses from O'Grady; but the moment Andy recovered the few senses he had, and saw Furlong, regardless of the anathemas of the Squire, he shouted out, "There he is!--there he is!" and rushing towards him, exclaimed, "Now, did I dhrowned you, sir,--did I? Sure, I never murdhered you!"

'T was as much as could be done to keep O'Grady's hands off Andy, for smashing the conservatory, when Furlong's presence made him no longer liable to imprisonment.

"Maybe he has a vote," said Furlong, anxious to display how much he was on the _qui vive_ in election matters.

"_Have_ you a vote, you rascal?"

"You may sarche me if you like, your honour," said Andy, who thought a vote was some sort of property he was suspected of stealing.

"You are either the biggest rogue or the biggest fool I ever met," said O'Grady. "Which are you now?"

"Whichever your honour plazes," said Andy.

"If I forgive you, will you stand by me at the election?"

"I'll stand anywhere your honour bids me," said Andy humbly.

"That's a thorough-going rogue, I'm inclined to think," said O'Grady, aside to Furlong.

"He looks more like a fool in my appwehension," was the reply.

"Oh, these fellows conceal the deepest roguery sometimes under an assumed simplicity. You don't understand the Irish."

"Und'stand!" exclaimed Furlong; "I pwonounce the whole countwy quite incompwhensible!"

"Well!" growled O'Grady to Andy, after a moment's consideration, "go down to the kitchen, you house-breaking vagabond, and get your supper!"

Now, considering the "fee, faw, fum" qualities of O'Grady, the reader may be surprised at the easy manner in which Andy slipped through his fingers, after having slipped through the roof of his conservatory; but as between two stools folks fall to the ground, so between two rages people sometimes tumble into safety. O'Grady was in a divided passion--first his wrath was excited against Furlong for _his_ blunder, and just as that was about to explode, the crash of Andy's sudden appearance amidst the flower-pots (like a practical parody on "Love among the roses") called off the gathering storm in a new direction, and the fury sufficient to annihilate one, was, by dispersion, harmless to two. But on the return of the party from the conservatory, after Andy's descent to the kitchen, O'Grady's rage against Furlong, though moderated, had settled down into a very substantial dissatisfaction, which he evinced by poking his nose between his forefinger and thumb, as if he meditated the abstraction of that salient feature from his face, shuffling his feet about, throwing his right leg over his left knee, and then suddenly, as if that were a mistake, throwing his left over the right, thrumming on the arm of his chair, with his clenched hand, inhaling the air very audibly through his protruded lips, as if he were supping hot soup, and all the time fixing his eyes on the fire with a portentous gaze, as if he would have evoked from it a salamander.

Mrs. O'Grady in such a state of affairs, wishing to speak to the stranger, yet anxious she should say nothing that could bear upon immediate circumstances lest she might rouse her awful lord and master, racked her invention for what she should say; and at last, with "bated breath" and a very worn-out smile, faltered forth--

"Pray, Mr. Furlong, are you fond of shuttlecock?"

Furlong stared, and began a reply of "Weally, I _cawn't_ say that----"

When O'Grady gruffly broke in with, "You'd better ask him, does he love teetotum."

"I thought you could recommend me the best establishment in the metropolis, Mr. Furlong, for buying shuttlecocks," continued the lady, unmindful of the interruption.

"You had better ask him where you can get mouse-traps," growled O'Grady.

Mrs. O'Grady was silent, and O'Grady, whose rage had now assumed its absurd form of tagging changes, continued, increasing his growl, like a _crescendo_ on the double-bass, as he proceeded:--"You'd better ask, I think--mouse-traps--steel-traps--clap-traps--rat-traps--rattle-traps-- rattle-snakes!"

Furlong stared, Mrs. O'Grady was silent, and the Misses O'Grady cast fearful sidelong glances at "Pa," whose strange irritation always bespoke his not being in what good people call a "sweet state of mind;" he laid hold of a tea-spoon, and began beating a tattoo on the mantel-piece to a low smothered whistle of some very obscure tune, which was suddenly stopped to say to Furlong, very abruptly--

"So Egan diddled you?"

"Why, he certainly, as I conceive, pwactised, or I might say, in short--he--a--in fact----"

"Oh, yes," said O'Grady, cutting short Furlong's humming and hawing; "oh, yes, I know--diddled you."

Bang went the spoon again, keeping time with another string of nonsense. "Diddled you--diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon--who was there?"

"A Mister Dawson."

"Phew!" ejaculated O'Grady with a doleful whistle; "Dick the devil! You are in nice hands! All up with us--up with us--

Up, up, up, And here we go down, down, down, down, derry down!

Oh, murther!" and the spoon went faster than before. "Any one else?"

"Mister Bermingham."

"Bermingham!" exclaimed O'Grady.

"A cle'gyman, I think," drawled Furlong.

"Bermingham!" reiterated O'Grady. "What business has he there, and be ----!" O'Grady swallowed a curse when he remembered he was a clergyman. "The enemy's camp--not his principles! Oh, Bermingham, Bermingham,--B_rim_magem, B_rum_magem, Sheffield, Wolverhampton--Murther! Any one else? Was Durfy there?"

"No," said Furlong; "but there was an odd pe'son, whose name wymes to his--as you seem fond of wymes, Mister O'Gwady."

"What!" said O'Grady, quickly, and fixing his eyes on Furlong; "Murphy?"

"Yes. Miste' Muffy."

O'Grady gave a more doleful whistle than before, and banging the spoon faster than ever, exclaimed again, "Murphy!--then I'll tell you what it is; do you see that?" and he held up the spoon before Furlong, who, being asked the same question several times, confessed he _did_ see the spoon. "Then I'll tell you what it is," said O'Grady again, "I wouldn't give you _that_ for the election;" and, with a disdainful jerk, he threw the spoon into the fire, after which he threw himself back in his chair with an appearance of repose, while he glanced fiercely up at the ceiling, and indulged in a _very_ low whistle indeed. One of the girls stole softly round to the fire and gently took up the tongs to recover the spoon; it made a slight rattle, and her father turned smartly round, and said, "Can't you let the fire alone?--there's coal enough on it; the devil burn 'em all--Egan, Murphy, and all o' them! What do you stand there for, with the tongs in your hands, like a hairdresser, or a stuck pig? I tell you, I'm as hot as a lime-kiln; go out o' that."

The daughter retired, and the spoon was left to its fate; the ladies did not dare to utter a word; O'Grady continued his gaze on the ceiling and his whistle; and Furlong, very uncomfortable and much more astonished, after sitting in silence for some time, thought a retreat the best move he could make, and intimated his wish to retire.

Mrs. O'Grady gently suggested it was yet early; which Furlong acknowledged, but pleaded his extreme fatigue after a day of great exertion.

"I suppose you were canvassing," said O'Grady, with a wicked grin.

"Ce'tainly not; they could sca'cely pwesume on such a thing as that, I should think, in _my_ pwesence."

"Then what fatigued you?--eh?"

"Salmon-fishing, sir."

"What!" exclaimed O'Grady, opening his fierce eyes, and turning suddenly round. "Salmon-fishing! Where the d----l were you salmon-fishing?"

"In the wiver, close by here."

The ladies now all stared; but Furlong advanced a vehement assurance, in answer to their looks of wonder, that he had taken some very fine salmon indeed.

The girls could not suppress their laughter; and O'Grady, casting a look of mingled rage and contempt on the fisherman, merely uttered the ejaculation, "Oh, Moses!" and threw himself back in his chair; but starting up a moment after, he rang the bell violently. "What do you want, my dear?" said his poor wife, venturing to lift her eyes, and speaking in the humblest tone--"what do you want?"

"Some broiled bones!" said O'Grady, very much like an ogre; "I want something to settle my stomach after what I've heard, for, by the powers of ipecacuanha, 't is enough to make a horse sick--sick, by the powers!--shivering all over like a dog in a wet sack. I must have broiled bones and hot punch!"

The servant entered, and O'Grady swore at him for not coming sooner, though he was really expeditious in his answer to the bell.

"Confound your lazy bones; you're never in time."

"'Deed, sir; I came the minit I heerd the bell."

"Hold your tongue!--who bid you talk? The devil fly away with you!--and you'll never go fast till he does. Make haste now--go to the cook----"

"Yes, sir."

"Curse you! can't you wait till you get your message? Go to the devil with you!--get some broiled bones--hot water and tumblers--don't forget the whisky--and pepper them well. Mind, hot--everything hot--screeching hot. Be off, now, and make haste--mind, make haste!"

"Yes, sir," said the servant, whipping out of the room with celerity, and thanking Heaven when he had the door between him and his savage master. When he got to the kitchen, he told the cook to make haste, if ever she made haste in her life, "for there's owld Danger up-stairs in the divil's temper, God bless us!" said Mick.

"Faix, he's always that," said the cook, scurrying across the kitchen for the gridiron.

"Oh! but he's beyant all to-night," said Mick; "I think he'll murther that chap up-stairs before he stops."

"Oh, wirra! wirra!" cried the cook; "there's the fire not bright, bad luck to it, and he wantin' a brile!"

"Bright or not bright," said Mick, "make haste I'd advise you, or he'll have your life."

The bell rang violently.

"There, do you hear him tattherin'?" said Mick, rushing up-stairs.

"I thought it was tay they wor takin'," said Larry Hogan, who was sitting in the chimney-corner, smoking.

"So they are," said the cook.

"Then I suppose, briled bones is genteel with tay?" said Larry.

"Oh, no; it's not for tay, at all, they want them; it's only ould Danger himself. Whenever he's in a rage, he ates briled bones."

"'Faith, they are a brave cure for anger," said Larry; "I wouldn't be angry myself, if I had one."

Down rushed Mick, to hurry the cook--bang, twang! went the bell as he spoke. "Oh, listen to him!" said Mick: "for the tendher mercy o' Heaven, make haste!"

The cook transferred the bones from the gridiron to a hot dish.

"Oh, murther, but they're smoked!" said Mick.

"No matther," said the cook, shaking her red elbow furiously; "I'll smother the smoke with the pepper--there!--give them a good dab o' musthard now, and sarve them hot!"

Away rushed Mick, as the bell was rattled into fits again.

While the cook had been broiling bones for O'Grady below, he had been grilling Furlong for himself above. In one of the pauses of the storm, the victim ventured to suggest to his tormentor that all the mischief that had arisen might have been avoided, if O'Grady had met him at the village, as he requested of him in one of his letters. O'Grady denied all knowledge of such a request, and after some queries about certain portions of the letter, it became manifest it had miscarried.

"There!" said O'Grady; "there's a second letter astray; I'm certain they put my letters astray on purpose. There's a plot in the post-office against me; by this and that, I'll have an inquiry. I wish all the post-offices in the world were blown up; and all the postmasters hanged, postmaster-general and all--I do--by the 'ternal war, I do--and all the mail coaches in the world ground to powder, and the roads they go on into the bargain--devil a use in them but to carry bad news over the universe--for all the letters with any good in them are lost; and if there's a money enclosure in one, that's sure to be robbed. Blow the post-office, I say--blow it, and sink it!"

It was at this moment Mick entered with the broiled bones, and while he was in the room, placing glasses on the table, and making the necessary arrangements for making "screeching hot punch," he heard O'Grady and Furlong talking about the two lost letters.

On his descent to the kitchen, the cook was spreading a bit of supper there, in which Andy was to join, he having just completed some applications of brown paper and vinegar to the bruises received in his fall. Larry Hogan, too, was invited to share in the repast; and it was not the first time, by many, that Larry quartered on the Squire. Indeed, many a good larder was opened to Larry Hogan; he held a very deep interest in the regards of all the female domestics over the country, not on the strength of his personal charms, for Larry had a hanging lip, a snub nose, a low forehead, a large ugly head, whose scrubby grizzled hair grew round the crown somewhat in the form of a priest's tonsure. Not on the strength of his gallantry, for Larry was always talking morality and making sage reflections, while he supplied the womankind with bits of lace, rolls of ribbon, and now and then silk stockings. He always had some plausible story of how they happened to come in his way, for Larry was not a regular pedlar; carrying no box, he drew his chance treasures from the recesses of very deep pockets contrived in various parts of his attire. No one asked Larry how he came by such a continued supply of natty articles, and if they had, Larry would not have told them; for he was a very "close" man, as well as a "civil-spoken," under which character he was first introduced to the reader on the memorable night of Andy's destructive adventure in his mother's cabin. Larry Hogan was about as shrewd a fellow as any in the whole country, and while no one could exactly make out what _he_ was, or how he made the two ends of his year meet, he knew nearly as much of every one's affairs as they did themselves; in the phrase of the country, he was "as 'cute as a fox, as close as wax, and as deep as a draw-well."

The supper-party sat down in the kitchen, and between every three mouthfuls poor Mick could get, he was obliged to canter up-stairs at the call of the fiercely rung bell. Ever and anon, as he returned, he bolted his allowance with an ejaculation, sometimes pious, sometimes the reverse, on the hard fate of attending such a "born devil," as he called the Squire.

"Why he's worse nor ever, to-night," says the cook. "What ails him at all--what is it all about?"

"Oh, he's blackguardin' and blastin' away about that quare slink-lookin' chap, up-stairs, goin' to Squire Egan's instead of comin' here."

"That was a bit o' your handy work," said Larry, with a grim smile at Andy.

"And then," said Mick, "he's swearin' by all the murthers in the world agen the whole counthry, about some letthers was stole out of the post-office by somebody."

Andy's hand was in the act of raising a mouthful to his lips, when these words were uttered; his hand fell, and his mouth remained open. Larry Hogan had his eye on him at the moment.

"He swares he'll have some one in the body o' the jail," said Mick; "and he'll never stop till he sees them swing."

Andy thought of the effigy on the wall, and his dream, and grew pale.

"By the hokey," said Mick, "I never see him in sitch a tattherin' rage!"--bang went the bell again--"Ow, ow!" cried Mick, bolting a piece of fat bacon, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his livery, and running up-stairs.

"Misses Cook, ma'am," said Andy, shoving back his chair from the table; "thank you, ma'am, for your good supper. I think I'll be goin' now."

"Sure, you're not done yet, man alive."

"Enough is as good as a feast, ma'am," replied Andy.

"Augh! sure the morsel you took is more like a fast than a feast," said the cook, "and it's not Lent."

"It's not lent, sure enough," said Larry Hogan, with a sly grin; "it's not _lent_, for you _gave_ it to him."

"Ah, Misther Hogan, you're always goin' on with your conundherums," said the cook; "sure, that's not the lent I mane at all--I mane Good Friday Lent."

"Faix, every Friday is good Friday that a man gets his supper," said Larry.

"Well, you _will_ be goin' on, Misther Hogan," said the cook. "Oh, but you're a witty man; but I'd rather have a yard of your lace, any day, than a mile o' your discourse."

"Sure, you ought not to mind my goin' _on_, when you're lettin' another man go _off_, that-a-way," said Larry, pointing to Andy, who, hat in hand, was quitting the kitchen.

"Faix an' he mustn't go," said the cook; "there's two words to that bargain;" and she closed the door, and put her back against it.

"My mother's expectin' me, ma'am," said Andy.

"Throth, if 't was your wife was expectin' you, she must wait a bit," said the cook; "sure you wouldn't leave the thirsty curse on my kitchen?--you must take a dhrop before you go; besides the dogs outside the place would ate you onless there was some one they knew along wid you: and sure, if a dog bit you, you couldn't dhrink wather afther, let alone a dhrop o' beer, or a thrifle o' sper'ts: isn't that thrue, Misther Hogan?"

"Indeed an' it is, ma'am," answered Larry; "no one can dhrink afther a dog bites them, and that's the rayson that the larn'd fackleties calls the disaise high-_dhry_----"

"High-dhry what?" asked the cook.

"That's what I'm thinkin' of," said Larry. "High-dhry--high-dhry--something."

"There's high-dhry snuff," said the cook.

"Oh, no--no, no, ma'am!" said Larry, waving his hand and shaking his head, as if unwilling to be interrupted in endeavouring to recall

"Some fleeting remembrance;"

"high-dhry--po--po--something about po; 'faith, it's not unlike popery," said Larry.

"Don't say popery," cried the cook; "it's a dirty word! Say Roman Catholic when you spake of the faith."

"Do you think _I_ would undhervalue the faith?" said Larry, casting up his eyes. "Oh, Missis Mulligan, you know little of me; d' you think I would undhervalue what is my hope, past, present, and to come?--_what_ makes our hearts light when our lot is heavy?--_what_ makes us love our neighbour as ourselves?"

"Indeed, Misther Hogan," broke in the cook, "I never knew any one fonder of calling in on a neighbour than yourself, particularly about dinner-time----"

"What makes us," said Larry, who would _not_ let the cook interrupt his outpouring of pious eloquence--"what makes us fierce in prosperity to our friends, and meek in adversity to our inimies?"

"Oh! Misther Hogan!" said the cook, blessing herself.

"What puts the leg undher you when you are in throuble? why, your faith: what makes you below desait, and above reproach, and on neither side of nothin'?" Larry slapped the table like a prime minister, and there was no opposition. "Oh, Missis Mulligan, do you think I would desaive or bethray my fellow-crayture? Oh, no--I would not wrong the child unborn,"--and this favourite phrase of Larry (and other rascals) was, and is, unconsciously, true; for people, most generally, must be born before they _can_ be much wronged.

"Oh, Missis Mulligan," said Larry, with a devotional appeal of his eyes to the ceiling, "be at war with sin, and you'll be at paice with yourself!"

Just as Larry wound up his pious peroration, Mick shoved in the door, against which the cook supported herself, and told Andy the Squire said he should not leave the Hall that night.

Andy looked aghast.

Again Larry Hogan's eye was on him.

"Sure I can come back here in the mornin'," said Andy, who at the moment he spoke was conscious of the intention of being some forty miles out of the place before dawn, if he could get away.

"When the Squire says a thing, it must be done," said Mick. "You must sleep here."

"And pleasant dhrames to you," said Larry, who saw Andy wince under his kindly worded stab.

"And where must I sleep?" asked Andy, dolefully.

"Out in the big loft," said Mick.

"I'll show you the way," said Larry; "I'm goin' to sleep there myself to-night, for it would be too far to go home. Good night, Mrs. Mulligan--good night, Mickey--come along, Andy."

Andy followed Hogan. They had to cross a yard to reach the stables; the night was clear, and the waning moon shed a steady though not a bright light on the enclosure. Hogan cast a lynx eye around him to see if the coast was clear, and satisfying himself it was, he laid his hand impressively on Andy's arm as they reached the middle of the yard, and setting Andy's face right against the moonlight, so that he might watch the slightest expression, he paused for a moment before he spoke; and when he spoke, it was in a low mysterious whisper--low, as if he feared the night breeze might betray it,--and the words were few, but potent, which he uttered; they were these--"_Who robbed the post-office?_"

The result quite satisfied Hogan; and he knew how to turn his knowledge to account. O'Grady and Egan were no longer friends; a political contest was pending; letters were missing; Andy had been Egan's servant; and Larry Hogan had enough of that mental chemical power, which, from a few raw facts, unimportant separately, could make a combination of great value.

Soon after breakfast at Merryvale the following morning, Mrs. Egan wanted to see the Squire. She went to his sitting-room--it was bolted. He told her, from the inside, he was engaged just then, but would see her by-and-by. She retired to the drawing-room, where Fanny was singing. "Oh, Fanny," said her sister, "sing me that dear new song of 'The Voices,' 't is so sweet, and must be felt by those who, like me, have a happy home."

Fanny struck a few notes of a wild and peculiar symphony, and sang her sister's favourite.

THE VOICE WITHIN

I

You ask the dearest place on earth, Whose simple joys can never die; 'T is the holy pale of the happy hearth, Where love doth light each beaming eye. With snowy shroud Let tempests loud Around my old tower raise their din;-- What boots the shout Of storms without, While voices sweet resound within? O dearer sound For the tempests round, The voices sweet within!

II

I ask not wealth, I ask not power; But, gracious Heaven, oh grant to me That, when the storms of Fate may lower, My heart just like my home may be! When in the gale Poor Hope's white sail No haven can for shelter win, Fate's darkest skies The heart defies Whose still small voice is sweet within O, heavenly sound, 'Mid the tempests round, That voice so sweet within!

Egan had entered as Fanny was singing the second verse; he wore a troubled air, which his wife at first did not remark. "Is not that a sweet song, Edward?" said she. "No one ought to like it more than you, for your home is your happiness, and no one has a clearer conscience."

Egan kissed her gently, and thanked her for her good opinion, and asked her what she wished to say to him. They left the room.

Fanny remarked Egan's unusually troubled air, and it marred her music; leaving the piano, and walking to the window, she saw Larry Hogan walking from the house, down the avenue.