"Pink!" said O'Grady eying her askance, as if he could have eaten her. "Pink, you old besom, pink"--he uncorked the phial, and put it to his nose. "Pink--phew--!" and he repeated a rhyme to pink which would not look well in print. "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 its something to relieve you." The squire gave a deep growl, and his wife put in the usual appeal of "Gusty, dear!" "Hold you tongue, will you? How would _you_ like it? I wish you had it on your----" "Deed-an-deed, dear," said the nurse-tender. "By the 'ternal war! if you say another word, I'll throw the jug at you!" "And there's a nice dhrop o' gruel I have on the fire for you," said the nurse, pretending not to mind the rising anger of the squire, as she stirred the gruel with one hand, while with the other she marked herself with the sign of the cross, and said in a mumbling manner, "God presarve us! he's the most cantankerous Christian I ever kem across!" "Shew me that infernal thing!" said the squire. "What thing, dear?" "You know well enough, you old hag!--that blackguard blister!" "Here it is, dear. Now just open the _burst_ o' your shirt, and let me put it an you." "Give it into my hand here, and let me see it." "Sartinly, sir;--but I think, if you'd let me just----" "Give it to me, I tell you!" said the squire, in a tone so fierce that the nurse paused in her unfolding of the packet, and handed it with fear and trembling to the already indignant O'Grady. But it is only imagination can figure the outrageous fury of the squire when, on opening the envelope with his own hand, he beheld the law process before him. There, in the heart of his castle, with his bars, and bolts, and bull-dogs, and blunderbusses around him, he was served--absolutely served--and he had no doubt the nurse-tender was bribed to betray him. A roar and a jump up in bed, first startled his wife into terror, and put the nurse on the defensive. "You infernal old strap!" shouted he, as he clutched up a handful of bottles on the table near him and flung them at the nurse, who was near the fire at the time: and she whipped the pot of gruel from the grate, and converted it into a means of defence against the phial-pelting storm. Mrs. O'Grady rolled herself up in the bed-curtains while the nurse screeched "Murther!" and at last, when O'Grady saw that bottles were of no avail, he scrambled out of bed, shouting, "Where's my blunderbuss?" and the nurse-tender, while he endeavoured to get it down from the rack where it was suspended over the mantel-piece, bolted out of the door and ran to the most remote corner of the house for shelter. In the meantime, how fared it at Merryvale. Andy returned with his parcel for the squire, and his note from Murtough Murphy, which ran thus:-- * * * * *