"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 weathercock 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 nobody 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."