Spite of all her efforts, the woman's face exhibited disagreeable symptoms of emotion at this announcement; she bit her lips and dropped her eyelids lower than usual, to conceal the expression which gleamed to her eyes, while her colour shifted even through her rouge. At length, with a smile infinitely more unpleasant than any expression which her face had yet worn, she observed,--

"Ashwoode, Ashwoode. Oh! dear, to be sure; some of Sir Richard's family; well, I did not expect to see them darken these doors again.

Dear me! who'd have thought of the Ashwoodes looking after him again?

well, well, but they're a very forgiving family," and she uttered an ill-omened t.i.ttering.

"Which is the room, ma'am, if you please?" repeated Flora.

"That's the room," cried the stalwart dame, with astounding vehemence, and at the same time opening a door and exhibiting a large neglected bed-chamber, with its bed-clothes and other furniture lying about in entire disorder, and no vestige of a fire in the grate; "that's the room, miss, and make the best of it yourself, for you've nothing else to do."

In this very uncomfortable predicament Flora Guy applied herself energetically to reduce the room to something like order, and although it was very cold and not a little damp, she succeeded, nevertheless, in giving it an air of tolerable comfort by the time her young mistress was prepared to retire to it.

As soon as Mary Ashwoode had entered this chamber her maid proceeded to narrate the occurrences which had just taken place.

"Well, Flora," said she, smiling, "I hope the old lady will resume her good temper by to-morrow, for one night I can easily contrive to rest with such appliances as we have. I am more sorry, for your sake, my poor girl, than for mine, however, and wherever I lay me down, my rest will be, I fear me, very nearly alike."

"She's the darkest, ill-lookingest old woman, G.o.d bless us, that ever I set my two good-looking eyes upon, my lady," said Flora. "I'll put a table to the door; for, to tell G.o.d's truth, I'm half afeard of her.

She has a nasty look in her, my lady--a bad look entirely."

Flora had hardly spoken when the door opened, and the subject of their conversation entered.

"Good evening to you, Miss Ashwoode," said she, advancing close to the young lady, and speaking in her usual low soft tone. "I hope you find everything to your liking. I suppose your own maid has settled everything according to your fancy. Of course, she knows best how to please you. I'm very delighted to see you here in Ardgillagh, as I was telling your innocent maid there--very glad, indeed; because, as I said, it shows how forgiving you are, after all the master has said and done, and the way he has always spit on every one of your family that ever came here looking after his money--though, indeed, I'm sure you're a great deal too good and too religious to care about money; and I'm sure and certain it's only for the sake of Christian charity, and out of a forgiving disposition, and to show that there isn't a bit of pride of any sort, or kind, or description in your carcase--that you're come here to make yourself at home in this house, that never belonged to you, and that never will, and to beg favours of the gentleman that hates, and despises, and insults everyone that carries your name--so that the very dogs in the streets would not lick their blood. I like that, Miss Ashwoode--I _do_ like it," she continued, advancing a little nearer; "for it shows you don't care what bad people may say or think, provided you do your Christian duty. They may say you're come here to try and get the old gentleman's money; they may say that you're eaten up to the very backbone with meanness, and that you'd bear to be kicked and spit upon from one year's end to the other for the sake of a few pounds--they'll call you a sycophant and a schemer--but you don't mind that--and I admire you for it--they'll say, miss--for they don't scruple at anything--they'll say you lost your character and fortune in Dublin, and came down here in the hope of finding them again; but I tell you what it is," she continued, giving full vent to her fury, and raising her accents to a tone more resembling the scream of a screech-owl than the voice of a human being, "I know what you're at, and I'll blow your schemes, Miss Innocence. I'll make the house too hot to hold you. Do you think I mind the old bed-ridden cripple, or anyone else within its four walls? Hoo! I'd make no more of them or of you than that old gla.s.s there;" and so saying, she hurled the candlestick, with all her force, against the large mirror which depended from the wall, and dashed it to atoms.

"Hoo! hoo!" she screamed, "you think I am afraid to do what I threatened; but wait--wait, I say; and now good-night to you, Miss Ashwoode, for the first time, and pleasant dreams to you."

So saying, the fiendish hag, actually quivering with fury, quitted the room, drawing the door after her with a stunning crash, and leaving Mary Ashwoode and her servant breathless with astonishment and consternation.

CHAPTER LXVII.

THE EXPULSION.

While this scene was going on in Mary Ashwoode's chamber, our friend Oliver French, having wished Mr. Audley good-night, had summoned to his presence his confidential servant, Mr. M'Guinness. The corpulent invalid sat in his capacious chair by the fireside, with his m.u.f.fled legs extended upon a pile of pillows, a table loaded with the materials of his protracted and omnigenous repast at his side. Black M'Guinness made his appearance, evidently a little intoxicated, and not a little excited. He proceeded in a serpentine course through the chamber, overturning, of malice prepense, everything in which he came in contact.

"What the devil ails you, sir?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. French--"what the plague do you mean? D--n you, M'Guinness, you're drunk, sir, or mad."

"Ay, to be sure," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed M'Guinness, grimly. "Why not--oh, do--I've no objection; d----n away, sir, pray, do."

"What do you mean by talking that way, you scoundrel?" exclaimed old French.

"Scoundrel!" repeated M'Guinness, overturning a small table, and all thereupon, with a crash upon the floor, and approaching the old gentleman, while his ugly face grew to a sickly, tallowy white with rage, "you go for to bring a whole lot of beggarly squatters into the house to make away with your substance, and to turn you against your faithful, tried, trusty, and dutiful servants," he continued, shaking his fist in his master's face. "You do, and to leave them, ten to one, in their old days unprovided for. d.a.m.n ingrat.i.tude!--to the devil with thankless, unnatural vermin! You call me scoundrel. Scoundrel was the word--by this cross it was."

While Oliver French, speechless with astonishment and rage, gazed upon the audacious menial, Mistress Martha herself entered the chamber.

"Yes, they are, you old dark-hearted hypocrite--they're settled here--fixed in the house--they are," screamed she; "but they _sha'n't_ stay long; or, if they do, I'll not leave a whole bone in their skins.

What did _they_ ever do for you, you thankless wretch?"

"Ay, what did they ever do for you?" shouted M'Guinness.

"Do you think we're fools--do you? and idiots--do you? not to know what you're at, you ungrateful miscreant! Turn them out, bag and baggage--every mother's skin of them, or I'll show them the reason why, turn them out, I say."

"You infernal hag, I'd see you in h.e.l.l or Bedlam first," shouted Oliver, transported with fury. "You have had your way too long, you accursed witch--you have."

"Never mind--oh!--you wretch," shrieked she--"never mind--wait a bit--and never fear, you old crippled sinner, I'll be revenged on you, you old devil's limb. Here's your watch for you," screamed she, s.n.a.t.c.hing a ma.s.sive, chased gold watch from her side, and hurling it at his head. It pa.s.sed close by his ear, and struck the floor behind him, attesting the force with which it had been thrown, as well as the solidity of its workmanship, by a deep mark ploughed in the floor.

Oliver French grasped his crutch and raised it threateningly.

"You old wretch, I'll not let you strike the woman," cried M'Guinness, s.n.a.t.c.hing the poker, and preparing to dash it at the old man's head.

What might have been the issue of the strife it were hard to say, had not Mr. Audley at that moment entered the room.

"Heyday!" cried that gentleman, "I thought it had been robbers--what's all this?"

M'Guinness turned upon him, but observing that he carried a pistol in each hand, he contented himself with muttering a curse and lowering the poker which he held in his hand.

"Why, what the devil--your own servants--your own man and woman!"

exclaimed Mr. Audley. "I beg your pardon, sir--pray excuse me, Mr.

French; perhaps I ought not to have intruded upon you."

"Pray don't go, Mr. Audley--don't think of going," said Oliver, eagerly, observing that his visitor was drawing to the door. "These beasts will murder me if you leave me; I can't help myself--do stay."

"Pray, madam, you are the amiable and remarkably quiet gentlewoman with whom I was to-day honoured by an interview? G.o.d bless my body and soul, can it possibly be?" said Mr. Audley, addressing himself to the lady.

"You vile old swindling schemer," shrieked she, returning--"you skulking, mean dog--you brandy-faced old reprobate, you--hoo! wait, wait--wait awhile; I'll master you yet--just wait--never mind--hoo!"

and with something like an Indian war-whoop she dashed out of the room.

"Get out of this apartment, you ruffian, you--M'Guinness, get out of the room," cried old French, addressing the fellow, who still stood grinning and growling there.

"No, I'll not till I do my business," retorted the man, doggedly; "I'll put you to bed first. I've a right to do my own business; I'll undress you and put you to bed first--bellows me, but I will."

"Mr. Audley, I beg pardon for troubling you," said Oliver, "but will you pull the bell if you please, like the very devil."

"Pull away till you are black in the face; _I'll_ not stir," retorted M'Guinness.

Mr. Audley pulled the bell with a sustained vehemence which it put Mr.

French into a perspiration even to witness.

"Pull away, old gentleman--you may pull till you burst--to the devil with you all. I'll not stir a peg till I choose it myself; I'll do my business what I was hired for; there's no treason in that. D---- me, if I stir a peg for you," repeated M'Guinness, doggedly.

Meanwhile, two half-dressed, scared-looking servants, alarmed by Mr.

Audley's persevering appeals, showed themselves at the door.

"Thomas--Martin--come in here, you pair of b.o.o.bies," exclaimed French, authoritatively; "Martin, do you keep an eye on that scoundrel, and Thomas, run you down and waken the post-boy and tell him to put his horses to, and do you a.s.sist him, sir, away!"

With unqualified amazement in their faces, the men proceeded to obey their orders.

"So, so," said Oliver, still out of breath with anger, "matters are come to a pleasant pa.s.s, I'm to be brained with my own poker--by my own servant--in my own house--very pleasant, because forsooth, I dare to do what I please with my own--highly agreeable, truly! Mr. Audley, may I trouble you to give me a gla.s.s of noyeau--let me recommend that to you, Mr. Audley, it has the true flavour--nay, nay--I'll hear of no excuse--I'm absolute in my own room at least--come, my dear sir--I implore--I insist--nay, I command; come--come--a b.u.mper; very good health, sir; a pleasant pair of furies!--just give me the legs of that woodc.o.c.k while we are waiting."