While the medicine was in the course of preparation for Andy, he
commenced restoring to his pockets the various parcels he had taken
from them in hunting for the recipe, Now, it happened that he had laid
them down close beside some articles that were compounded, and sealed
up for going out, on the apothecary's counter; and as the law process
which Andy had received from Murtough Murphy chanced to resemble in form
another enclosure that lay beside it, containing a blister, Andy, under
the influence of his peculiar genius, popped the blister into his pocket
instead of the packet which had been confided to him by the attorney,
and having obtained the necessary medicine from M'Grane, rode home with
great self-complacency that he had not forgot to do a single thing that
had been entrusted to him: "I'm all right this time," said Andy to
himself.
Scarcely had he left the apothecary's shop when another messenger
alighted at its door, and asked "If Squire O'Grady's things was ready?"
"There they are," said the innocent M'Grane, pointing to the bottles,
boxes, and _blister_, he had made up and set aside, little dreaming that
the blister had been exchanged for a law process; and Squire O'Grady's
own messenger popped into his pocket the legal instrument, that it was
as much as any seven men's lives were worth to bring within gun-shot of
Neck-or-nothing Hall.
Home he went, and the sound of the old gate creaking on its hinges
at the entrance to the avenue awoke the deep-mouthed dogs around the
house, who rushed infuriate to the spot to devour the unholy intruder
on the peace and privacy of the patrician O'Grady; but they recognised
the old grey hack and his rider, and quietly wagged their tails and
trotted back, and licked their lips at the thoughts of the bailiff
they had hoped to eat. The door of Neck-or-nothing Hall was carefully
unbarred and unchained, and the nurse-tender was handed the parcel from
the apothecary, and re-ascended to the sick-room with slippered foot as
quietly as she could; for the renowned O'Grady was, according to her
account, "as cross as two sticks;" and she protested, furthermore, "that
her heart was grey with him."
Mrs. O'Grady was near the bed of the sick man as the nurse-tender
entered.
"Here's the things for your honour now," said she in her most soothing
tone.
"I wish the d--l had you and them!" said O'Grady.
"Gusty, dear!" said his wife. She might have said stormy instead of
gusty.
"Oh! they'll do you good, your honour," said the nurse-tender,
curtsying, and uncorking bottles, and opening a pill-box.
"Curse them all!" said the squire. "A pretty thing to have a gentleman's
body made a perfect sink for these blackguard doctors and apothecaries
to pour their dirty stuff into--faugh!"
"Now, sir, dear, there's a little blisther just to go on your chest--if
you plaze----"
"A _what_!"
"A warm plasther, dear."
"A _blister_ you said, you old _divil_!"
"Well, sure, it's something to relieve you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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