“Yes, sir,” The O’Mahony said from his place at the right hand of Mother Agnes, venturing an experimental thumb against his glass and sharply withdrawing it, “wherever I went, in France or Spain or among the Turks, I found there had been a soldier O’Mahony there before me. Why, a French general told me that right at one time--quite a spell back, I should judge--there were fourteen O’Mahonys holding commissions in the French army. Yes, I remember, it was in the time of Louis XIX.” “You’re wrong, O’Mahony,” interrupted Kate, with the smile of a spoiled, favorite child, “’t was nineteen O’Mahonys in the reign of Louis XIV.” “Same thing,” he replied, pleasantly. “It’s as broad as it is long. There the O’Mahony’s were, anyway, and every man of ’em a fighter. It set me to figuring that before they went away--when they were all cooped up here together on this little neck of land--things must have been kept pretty well up to boiling point all the year round.” “An’ who was it ever had the power to coop ’em up here?” demanded Cormac O’Daly, with enthusiasm. “Heaven be their bed! ’T was not in thim O’Mahonys to endure it! Forth they wint in all directions, wid bowld raids an’ incursions, b’ating the O’Heas an’ def’ating the Coffeys wid slaughter, an’ as for the O’Driscolls--huh!--just tearing ’em up bodily be the roots! Sir, _t_ was a proud day whin an O’Daly first attached himself to the house of the O’Mahonys--such grand min as they, were, so magnanimous, so pious, so intelligent, so ferocious an’ terrifying--sir, me old blood warms at thought of ’em!” The caloric in Cormac’s veins impelled him at this juncture to rise to this feet. He took a sip from his glass, then adjusted his spectacles, and produced the back of an envelope from his pocket. “O’Mahony,” he said, with a voice full of emotion, “I’ve a slight pome here, just stated down hurriedly that I’ll take the liberty to rade to the company assimbled. ’T is this way it runs: ‘Hark to thim joyous sounds that rise. Making the face of Muirisc to be glad! ’T is the devil’s job to believe one’s eyes--’” “Well, thin, don’t be trying!” brusquely interrupted Mrs. Fergus. As the poet paused and strove to cow his spouse with a sufficiently indignant glance, she leaned over the table and addressed him in a stage whisper, almost audible to the deaf old nuns themselves. “Sit down, me man!” she adjured him. “’T is laughing at ye they are! Sure, doesn’t his honor know how different a chune ye raised while he was away! ’T is your part to sing small, now, an’ keep the ditch betwixt you an’ observation.” Cormac sat down at once, and submissively put the paper back in his pocket. It was a humble and wistful glance which he bent through his spectacles at the chieftain, as that worthy resumed his remarks. The O’Mahony did not pretend to have missed the adjuration of Mrs. Fergus.