"My Dear Squire,--I send you the _blister_ for O'Grady as you insist on it; but I think you won't find it easy to serve him with it.--Your obedient and obliged, "Murtough Murphy. "_To Edward Egan, Esq., Merryvale._" * * * * * The squire opened the cover, and when he saw a real instead of a figurative blister, grew crimson with rage. He could not speak for some minutes, his indignation was so excessive. "So," said he at last, "Mr. Murtough Murphy, you think to cut your jokes with me, do you? By all that's sacred, I'll cut such a joke on you with the biggest horsewhip I can find, that you'll remember it. '_Dear Squire, I send you the blister._' Bad luck to your impidence! Wait till awhile ago--that's all. By this and that, you'll get such a blistering from me, that all the spermaceti in M'Garry's shop won't cure you." CHAPTER III Squire Egan was as good as his word. He picked out the most suitable horsewhip for chastising the fancied impertinence of Murtough Murphy; and as he switched it up and down with a powerful arm, to try its weight and pliancy, the whistling of the instrument through the air was music to his ears, and whispered of promised joy in the flagellation of the jocular attorney. "We'll see who can make the sorest blister," said the squire. "I'll back whalebone against Spanish flies any day. Will you bet, Dick?" said he to his brother-in-law, who was a wild, helter-skelter sort of fellow, better known over the country as Dick the Divil than Dick Dawson. "I'll back your bet, Ned." "There's no fun in that, Dick, as there is nobody to take it up." "May be Murtough will. Ask him before you thrash him: you'd better." "As for _him_" said the squire, "I'll be bound he'll back my bet after he gets a taste o' this;" and the horsewhip whistled as he spoke. "I think he had better take care of his back than his bet," said Dick as he followed the squire to the hall-door, where his horse was in waiting for him, under the care of the renowned Andy, who little dreamed of the extensive harvest of mischief which was ripening in futurity, all from his sowing. "Don't kill him quite, Ned," said Dick, as the squire mounted to his saddle. "Why, if I went to horsewhip a gentleman, of course I should only shake my whip at him; but an attorney is another affair. And, as I'm sure he'll have an action against me for assault, I think I may as well get the worth of my money out of him, to say nothing of teaching him better manners for the future than to play off his jokes on his employers." With these words off he rode in search of the devoted Murtough, who was not at home when the squire reached his house; but as he was returning through the village, he espied him coming down the street in company with Tom Durfy and the widow, who were laughing heartily at some joke Murtough was telling them, which seemed to amuse him as much as his hearers.