efore 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:--

* * * * *

"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