"What the devil is all this about?" said the Squire, seeing the bewilderment of Furlong and Andy. "What is it at all?" and he stooped as he spoke, and lifted the valance. But here description must end, and imagination supply the scene of fury and confusion which succeeded. At the first fierce volley of imprecation O'Grady gave vent to, Andy ran off and alarmed the family, Augusta screamed, and Furlong held for support by the bedpost, while, between every hurricane of oaths, O'Grady ran to the door, and shouted for his pistols, and anon returned to the chamber to vent every abusive epithet which could be showered on man and woman. The prodigious uproar soon brought the whole house to the spot; Mrs. O'Grady and the two spare girls amongst the first; Mat, and the cook, and the scullion, and all the housemaids in rapid succession; and Scatterbrain himself at last; O'Grady all the time foaming at the mouth, stamping up and down the room, shaking his fist at Furlong, and, after a volley of names impossible to remember or print, always concluding with the phrase, "Wait till I get my pistols!"

"Gusty, dear," said his trembling wife, "what is it all about?"

He glared upon her with his flashing eyes, and said, "Fine education you give your children, ma'am. Where have you brought up your daughters to go to, eh?"

"To church, my dear," said Mrs. O'Grady, meekly; for she being a Roman Catholic, O'Grady was very jealous of his daughters being reared staunch Protestants, and she, poor simple woman, thought that was the drift of his question.

"Church, my eye, woman!--Church, indeed!--'faith, she ought to have gone there before she came where I found her. Thunderan'ouns, where are my pistols?"

"Where _has_ she gone to, my love?" asked the wife in a tremor.

"To the divil, ma'am. Is that all you know about it?" said O'Grady.

"And you wish to know where she is?"

"Yes, love," said his wife.

"Then look under that bed, ma'am, and you'll see her without spectacles."

Mrs. O'Grady now gave a scream, and the girls and the housemaids joined in the chorus. Augusta bellowed from under the bed, "Mamma! mamma!

indeed it's all Ratty--I never did it."

At this moment, to help the confusion, a fresh appearance made its way into the room; it was that of the Dowager O'Grady--arrayed in all the bygone finery of faded full-dress, and the tin chimney-pot on her head.

"What is all this about?" she exclaimed, with an air of authority; "though my weatherc.o.c.k tells me the wind is nor'west, I did not expect such a storm. Is any one killed?"

"No," said O'Grady; "but somebody will be soon. Where are my pistols?

Blood and fire! will n.o.body bring me my pistols?"

"Here they are, sir," said Handy Andy, running in.

O'Grady made a rush for the pistols, but his mother and his wife threw themselves before him, and Scatterbrain shoved Andy outside the room.

"Confound you, you numscull! would you give pistols into the hands of a frantic man?"

"Sure, he ax'd for them, sir."

"Go out o' this, you blockhead! Go and hide them somewhere, where your master won't find them."

Andy retired, muttering something about the hardness of a servant's case, in being scolded and called names for doing his master's bidding.

Scatterbrain returned to the room, where the confusion was still in full bloom; O'Grady swearing between his mother and wife, while Furlong endeavoured to explain how the young lady happened to be in his room; and she kicking in hysterics amidst the maids and her sisters, while Scatterbrain ran to and fro between all the parties, giving an ear to Furlong, an eye to O'Grady, and smelling salts to his daughter.

The case was a hard one to a milder man than O'Grady--his speculation about Scatterbrain all knocked on the head, for it could not be expected _he_ would marry the lady who had been found under another man's bed. To hush the thing up would be impossible, after the publicity his own fury had given to the affair. "Would she ever be married after such an affair was _eclate_?" The question rushed into his head on one side, and the answer rushed in at the other, and met it with a plump "No!"--the question and answer then joined hands in O'Grady's mind, and danced down the middle to the tune of "Haste to the wedding!"

"Yes," he said, slapping his forehead, "she must be married at once."

Then, turning to Furlong, he said, "You're not married, I hope?"

Furlong acknowledged he was not, though he regretted the moment he had made the admission.

"'T is well for you," said O'Grady, "for it has saved your life. You shall marry her, then!" He never thought of asking Furlong's acquiescence in the measure. "Come here, you baggage!" he cried to Augusta, as he laid hold of her hand, and pulled her up from her chair; "come here! I intended you for a better man; but since you _have_ such a hang-dog taste, why, go to him!" And he shoved her over to Furlong.

"There!" he said, addressing _him_, "take her, since you _will_ have her. We'll speak of her fortune after."

The poor girl stood abashed, sobbing aloud, and tears pouring from her downcast eyes. Furlong was so utterly taken by surprise, that he was riveted to the spot where he stood, and could not advance a step towards his drooping intended. At this awkward moment, the glorious old dowager came to the rescue; she advanced, tin chimney-pot and all, and taking a hand of each of the princ.i.p.als in hers, she joined them together in a theatrical manner, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, with a benignant air, "Bless you, my children!"

In the midst of the mingled rage, confusion, fright, and astonishment of the various parties present, there was something so exquisitely absurd in the old woman's proceeding, that nearly every one felt inclined to laugh; but the terror of O'Grady kept their risible faculties in check.

Fate, however, decreed the finale should be comic; for the cook, suddenly recollecting herself, exclaimed, "Oh, murther! the goose will be burned!" and ran out of the room; a smothered burst of laughter succeeded, which roused the ire of O'Grady, who, making a charge right and left amongst the delinquents, the room was soon cleared, and the party dispersed in various directions, O'Grady's voice rising loud above the general confusion, as he swore his way down-stairs, kicking his mother's tin turban before him.

CHAPTER XVII

Canva.s.sing before an election resembles skirmishing before a battle;--the skirmishing was over, and the arrival of the Honourable Sackville Scatterbrain was like the first gun that commences an engagement;--and now both parties were to enter on the final struggle.

A jolly group sat in Murphy's dining-parlour on the eve of the day fixed for the nomination. Hitting points of speeches were discussed--plans for bringing up voters--tricks to interrupt the business of the opposite party--certain allusions on the hustings that would make the enemy lose temper; and, above all, everything that could cheer and amuse the people, and make them rejoice in their cause.

"Oh, let me alone for _that_ much," said Murtough. "I have engaged every piper and fiddler within twenty miles round, and divil a screech of a chanter[19] or a sc.r.a.pe of catcut Scatterbrain can have for love or money--that's one grand point."

[19] The princ.i.p.al tube of a bagpipe.

"But," said Tom Durfy, "he has engaged the yeomanry band."

"What of that?" asked d.i.c.k Dawson; "a band is all very well for making a splash in the first procession to the hustings, but what good is it in working out the details?"

"What do you call details?" said Durfy.

"Why, the popular tunes in the public-houses and in the tally-rooms, while the fellows are waiting to go up. Then the dances in the evening--Wow!--won't Scatterbrain's lads look mighty shy when they know the Eganites are kicking their heels to 'Moll in the Wad,' while _they_ haven't a lilt to shake their bones to?"

"To be sure," said Murphy; "we'll have the deserters to our cause from the enemy's camp before the first night is over;[20] wait till the girls know where the fiddles are--and won't they make the lads join us!"

[20] In those times elections often lasted many days.

"I believe a woman would do a good deal for a dance," said Doctor Growling; "they are immensely fond of saltatory motion. I remember, once in my life, I used to flirt with a little actress who was a great favourite in a provincial town where I lived, and she was invited to a ball there, and confided to me she had no silk stockings to appear in, and without them her presence at the ball was out of the question."

"That was a hint to you to buy the stockings," said d.i.c.k.

"No--you're out," said Growling. "She knew I was as poor as herself; but though she could not rely on my purse, she had every confidence in my taste and judgment, and consulted me on a plan she formed for going to the ball in proper twig. Now, what do you think it was?"

"To go in cotton, I suppose," returned d.i.c.k.

"Out, again, sir--you'd never guess it; and only a woman could have hit on the expedient; it was the fashion in those days for ladies in full dress to wear pink stockings, and she proposed _painting her legs_!"

"Painting her legs!" they all exclaimed.

"Fact, sir," said the doctor; "and she relied on me for telling her if the cheat was successful----"

"And was it?" asked Durfy.

"Don't be in a hurry, Tom. I complied on one condition--namely, that I should be the painter."