m told; and what business has he here, you know? It is all very
fine for a week or so, but they'll find him out, they will, Sir. He may
call himself Mervyn, or Fitzgerald, or Thompson, Sir, or any other name,
but it won't do, Sir. No, Dr. Walsingham, it won't do. The people down
in this little village here, Sir, are plaguy sharp--they're cunning;
upon my life, I believe they are too hard for Nutter.'

In fact, Sturk had been urging on his lordship the purchase of this
little property, which, for many reasons ought to be had a bargain, and
adjoined Lord Castlemallard's, and had talked him into viewing it quite
as an object. No wonder, then, he should look on Mervyn's restorations
and residence, in the light of an impertinence and an intrusion.

CHAPTER XIV.

RELATING HOW PUDDOCK PURGED O'FLAHERTY'S HEAD--A CHAPTER WHICH, IT IS
HOPED, NO GENTEEL PERSON WILL READ.

Rum disagreed with O'Flaherty confoundedly, but, being sanguine, and
also of an obstinate courage not easily to be put down, and liking that
fluid, and being young withal, he drank it defiantly and liberally
whenever it came in his way. So this morning he announced to his friend
Puddock that he was suffering under a headache 'that 'id burst a pot.'
The gallant fellow's stomach, too, was qualmish and disturbed. He heard
of breakfast with loathing. Puddock rather imperiously insisted on his
drinking some tea, which he abhorred, and of which, in very imperfect
clothing and with deep groans and occasional imprecations on 'that
bastely clar't'--to which he chose to ascribe his indisposition--he
drearily partook.

'I tell you what, Thir,' said Puddock, finding his patient nothing
better, and not relishing the notion of presenting his man in that seedy
condition upon the field: 'I've got a remedy, a very thimple one; it
used to do wondereth for my poor Uncle Neagle, who loved rum shrub,
though it gave him the headache _always_, and sometimes the gout.'

And Puddock had up Mrs. Hogg, his landlady, and ordered a pair of little
muslin bags about the size of a pistol-cartridge each, which she
promised to prepare in five minutes, and he himself tumbled over the
leaves of his private manuscript quarto, a desultory and miscellaneous
album, stuffed with sonnets on Celia's eye--a lock of hair, or a pansy
here or there pressed between the pages--birthday verses addressed to
Sacharissa, receipts for 'puptons,' 'farces,' &c.; and several for
toilet luxuries, 'Angelic