When the Widow Rooney was forcibly ejected from the house of Mrs. James Casey, and found that Andy was not the possessor of that lady's charms, she posted off to Neck-or-Nothing Hall, to hear the full and true account of the transaction from Andy himself. On arriving at the old iron gate, and pulling the loud bell, she was spoken to through the bars by the savage old janitor and told to “go out o' that.” Mrs. Rooney thought fate was using her hard in decreeing she was to receive denial at every door, and endeavoured to obtain a parley with the gate-keeper, to which he seemed no way inclined.

“My name's Rooney, sir?”

“There's plenty bad o' the name,” was the civil rejoinder.

“And my son's in Squire O'Grady's sarvice, sir.”

“Oh—you're the mother of the beauty we call Handy, eh?”

“Yis, sir.”

“Well, he left the sarvice yistherday.”

“Is it lost the place?”

“Yis.”

“Oh dear! Ah, sir, let me up to the house and spake to his honour, and maybe he'll take back the boy.”

“He doesn't want any more servants at all—for he's dead.”

“Is it Squire O'Grady dead?”

“Aye—did you never hear of a dead squire before?”

“What did he die of, sir?”

“Find out,” said the sulky brute, walking back into his den.

It was true—the renowned O'Grady was no more. The fever which had set in from his “broiled bones,” which he would have in spite of anybody, was found difficult of abatement; and the impossibility of keeping him quiet, and his fits of passion, and consequent fresh supplies of “broiled bones,” rendered the malady unmanageable; and the very day after Andy had left the house the fever took a bad turn, and in four-and-twenty hours the stormy O'Grady was at peace.

What a sudden change fell upon the house! All the wedding paraphernalia which had been brought down lay neglected in the rooms where it had been the object of the preceding day's admiration. The deep, absorbing, silent grief of the wife,—the more audible sorrow of the girls,—the subdued wildness of the reckless boys, as they trod silently past the chamber where they no longer might dread reproof for their noise,—all this was less touching than the effect the event had upon the old dowager mother. While the senses of others were stunned by the blow, hers became awakened by the shock; all her absurd aberration passed away, and she sat in intellectual self-possession by the side of her son's death-bed, which she never left until he was laid in his coffin. He was the first and last of her sons. She had now none but grandchildren to look upon—the intermediate generation had passed away, and the gap yawned fearfully before her. It restored her, for the time, perfectly to her senses; and she gave the necessary directions on the melancholy occasion, and superintended all the sad ceremonials befitting the time, with a calm and dignified resignation which impressed all around her with wonder and respect.

Superadded to the dismay which the death of the head of a family produces was the terrible fear which existed that O'Grady's body would be seized for debt—a barbarous practice, which, shame to say, is still permitted. This fear made great precaution necessary to prevent persons approaching the house, and accounts for the extra gruffness of the gate porter. The wild body-guard of the wild chief was on doubly active duty; and after four-and-twenty hours had passed over the reckless boys, the interest they took in sharing and directing this watch and ward seemed to outweigh all sorrowful consideration for the death of their father. As for Gustavus, the consciousness of being now the master of Neck-or-Nothing Hall was apparent in a boy not yet fifteen; and not only in himself, but in the grey-headed retainers about him, this might be seen: there was a shade more of deference—the boy was merged in “the young master.” But we must leave the house of mourning for the present, and follow the Widow Rooney, who, as she tramped her way homeward, was increasing in hideousness of visage every hour. Her nose was twice its usual dimensions, and one eye was perfectly useless in showing her the road. At last, however, as evening was closing, she reached her cabin, and there was Andy, arrived before her, and telling Oonah, his cousin, all his misadventures of the preceding day.

The history was stopped for a while by their mutual explanations and condolences with Mrs. Rooney, on the “cruel way her poor face was used.”

“And who done it all?” said Oonah.

“Who but that born divil, Matty Dwyer—and sure they towld me you were married to her,” said she to Andy.

“So I was,” said Andy, beginning the account of his misfortunes afresh to his mother, who from time to time would break in with indiscriminate maledictions on Andy, as well as his forsworn damsel; and when the account was ended, she poured out a torrent of abuse upon her unfortunate forsaken son, which riveted him to the floor in utter amazement.

“I thought I'd get pity here, at all events,” said poor Andy; “but instead o' that it's the worst word and the hardest name in your jaw you have for me.”

“And sarve you right, you dirty cur,” said his mother. “I ran off like a fool when I heerd of your good fortune, and see the condition that baggage left me in—my teeth knocked in and my eye knocked out, and all for your foolery, because you couldn't keep what you got.”

“Sure, mother, I tell you—”

“Howld your tongue, you omadhaun! And then I go to Squire O'Grady's to look for you, and there I hear you lost that place, too.”

“Faix, it's little loss,” said Andy.

“That's all you know about it, you goose; you lose the place just when the man's dead and you'd have had a shuit o' mournin'. Oh, you are the most misfortunate divil, Andy Rooney, this day in Ireland—why did I rear you at all?”

“Squire O'Grady dead!” said Andy, in surprise and also with regret for his late master.

“Yis—and you've lost the mournin'—augh!”

“Oh, the poor Squire!” said Andy.

“The iligant new clothes!” grumbled Mrs. Rooney. “And then luck tumbles into your way such as man never had; without a place, or a rap to bless yourself with, you get a rich man's daughter for your wife, and you let her slip through your fingers.”

“How could I help it?” said Andy.

“Augh!—you bothered the job just the way you do everything,” said his mother.

“Sure I was civil-spoken to her.”

“Augh!” said his mother.

“And took no liberty.”

“You goose!”

“And called her Miss.”

“Oh, indeed you missed it altogether.”

“And said I wasn't desarvin' of her.”

“That was thrue—but you should not have towld her so. Make a woman think you're betther than her, and she'll like you.”

“And sure, when I endayvoured to make myself agreeable to her——”

“Endayvoured!” repeated the old woman contemptuously. “Endayvoured, indeed! Why didn't you make yourself agreeable at once, you poor dirty goose?—no, but you went sneaking about it—I know as well as if I was looking at you—you went sneakin' and snivelin' until the girl took a disgust to you; for there's nothing a woman despises so much as shilly-shallying.”

“Sure, you won't hear my defince,” said Andy.

“Oh, indeed you're betther at defince than attack,” said his mother.

“Sure, the first little civil'ty I wanted to pay to her, she took up the three-legged stool to me.”

“The divil mend you! And what civil'ty did you offer her?”

“I made a grab at her cap, and I thought she'd have brained me.”

Oonah set up such a shout of laughter at Andy's notion of civility to a girl, that the conversation was stopped for some time, and her aunt remonstrated with her at her want of common sense; or, as she said, hadn't she “more decency than to laugh at the poor fool's nonsense?”

“What could I do agen the three-legged stool?” said Andy.

“Where was your own legs, and your own arms, and your own eyes, and your own tongue?—eh?”

“And sure I tell you it was all ready conthrived, and James Casey was sent for, and came.”

“Yis,” said the mother, “but not for a long time, you towld me yourself; and what were you doing all that time? Sure, supposing you wor only a new acquaintance, any man worth a day's mate would have discoorsed her over in the time and made her sinsible he was the best of husbands.”

“I tell you she wouldn't let me have her ear at all,” said Andy. “Nor her cap either,” said Oonah, laughing.

“And then Jim Casey kem.”

“And why did you let him in?”

“It was she let him in, I tell you.”

“And why did you let her? He was on the wrong side of the door—that's the outside; and you on the right—that's the inside; and it was your house, and she was your wife, and you were her masther, and you had the rights of the church, and the rights of the law, and all the rights on your side; barrin' right rayson—that you never had; and sure without that, what's the use of all the other rights in the world?”

“Sure, hadn't he his friends, sthrong, outside?”

“No matther, if the door wasn't opened to them, for then YOU would have had a stronger friend than any o' them present among them.”

“Who?” inquired Andy.

“The hangman” answered his mother; “for breaking doors is hanging matther; and I say the presence of the hangman's always before people when they have such a job to do, and makes them think twice sometimes before they smash once; and so you had only to keep one woman's hands quiet.”

“Faix, some of them would smash a door as soon as not,” said Andy.

“Well, then, you'd have the satisfaction of hanging them,” said the mother, “and that would be some consolation. But even as it is, I'll have law for it—I will—for the property is yours, any how, though the girl is gone—and indeed a brazen baggage she is, and is mighty heavy in the hand. Oh, my poor eye!—it's like a coal of fire—but sure it was worth the risk living with her for the sake of the purty property. And sure I was thinkin' what a pleasure it would be living with you, and tachin' your wife housekeepin', and bringing up the young turkeys and the childhre—but, och hone, you'll never do a bit o' good, you that got sitch careful bringin' up, Andy Rooney! Didn't I tache you manners, you dirty hanginbone blackguard? Didn't I tache you your blessed religion?—may the divil sweep you! Did I ever prevent you from sharing the lavings of the pratees with the pig?—and didn't you often clane out the pot with him? and you're no good afther all. I've turned my honest penny by the pig, but I'll never make my money of you, Andy Rooney!”

There was some minutes' silence after this eloquent outbreak of Andy's mother, which was broken at last by Andy uttering a long sigh and an ejaculation.

“Och? it's a fine thing to be a gintleman,” said Andy.

“Cock you up!” said his mother. “Maybe it's a gintleman you want to be; what puts that in your head, you omadhaun?”

“Why, because a gintleman has no hardships, compared with one of uz. Sure, if a gintleman was married, his wife wouldn't be tuk off from him the way mine was.”

“Not so soon, maybe,” said the mother, drily.

“And if a gintleman brakes a horse's heart, he's only a 'bowld rider,' while a poor sarvant is a 'careless blackguard' for only taking a sweat out of him. If a gintleman dhrinks till he can't see a hole in a laddher, he's only 'feesh—but 'dhrunk' is the word for a poor man. And if a gintleman kicks up a row, he's a 'fine sperited fellow,' while a poor man is a 'disordherly vagabone' for the same; and the Justice axes the one to dinner and sends th' other to jail. Oh, faix, the law is a dainty lady; she takes people by the hand who can afford to wear gloves, but people with brown fists must keep their distance.”

“I often remark,” said his mother, “that fools spake mighty sinsible betimes; but their wisdom all goes with their gab. Why didn't you take a betther grip of your luck when you had it? You're wishing you wor a gintleman, and yet when you had the best part of a gintleman (the property, I mane) put into your way, you let it slip through your fingers; and afther lettin' a fellow take a rich wife from you and turn you out of your own house, you sit down on a stool there, and begin to wish indeed!—you sneakin' fool—wish, indeed! Och! if you wish with one hand, and wash with th' other, which will be clane first—eh?”

“What could I do agen eight?” asked Andy.

“Why did you let them in, I say again?” said the mother, quickly.

“Sure the blame wasn't with me,” said Andy, “but with—”

“Whisht, whisht, you goose!” said his mother. “Av course you'll blame every one and everything but yourself—'The losing horse blames the saddle.'”

“Well, maybe it's all for the best,” said Andy, “afther all.”

“Augh, howld your tongue!”

“And if it wasn't to be, how could it be?”

“Listen to him!”

“And Providence is over us all.”

“Oh! yis!” said the mother. “When fools make mistakes they lay the blame on Providence. How have you the impidence to talk o' Providence in that manner? I'll tell you where the Providence was. Providence sent you to Jack Dwyer's, and kep Jim Casey away, and put the anger into owld Jack's heart—that's what the Providence did!—and made the opening for you to spake up, and gave you a wife—a wife with property! Ah, there's where the Providence was!—and you were the masther of a snug house—that was Providence! And wouldn't myself have been the one to be helping you in the farm—rearing the powlts, milkin' the cow, makin' the iligant butther, with lavings of butthermilk for the pigs—the sow thriving, and the cocks and hens cheering your heart with their cacklin'—the hank o' yarn on the wheel, and a hank of ingins up the chimbley—oh! there's where the Providence would have been—that would have been Providence indeed!—but never tell me that Providence turned you out of the house; that was your own goostherumfoodle.”

“Can't he take the law o' them, aunt?” inquired Oonah.

“To be sure he can—and shall, too,” said the mother. “I'll be off to 'torney Murphy to-morrow; I'll pursue her for my eye, and Andy for the property, and I'll put them all in Chancery, the villains!”

“It's Newgate they ought to be put in,” said Andy.

“Tut, you fool, Chancery is worse than Newgate: for people sometimes get out of Newgate, but they never get out of Chancery, I hear.”

As Mrs. Rooney spoke, the latch of the door was raised, and a miserably clad woman entered, closed the door immediately after her, and placed the bar against it. The action attracted the attention of all the inmates of the house, for the doors of the peasantry are universally “left on the latch,” and never secured against intrusion until the family go to bed.

“God save all here!” said the woman, as she approached the fire.

“Oh, is that you, ragged Nance?” said Mrs. Rooney; for that was the unenviable but descriptive title the new-comer was known by: and though she knew it for her soubriquet, yet she also knew Mrs. Rooney would not call her by it if she were not in an ill temper, so she began humbly to explain the cause of her visit, when Mrs. Rooney broke in gruffly—

“Oh, you always make out a good rayson for coming; but we have nothing for you to-night.”

“Throth, you do me wrong,” said the beggar, “if you think I came shooling. [Footnote: Going on chance here and there, to pick up what one can.] It's only to keep harm from the innocent girl here.”

“Arrah, what harm would happen her, woman?” returned the widow, savagely, rendered more morose by the humble bearing of her against whom she directed her severity; as if she got more angry the less the poor creature would give her cause to justify her harshness. “Isn't she undher my roof here?”

“But how long may she be left there?” asked the woman, significantly.

“What do you mane, woman?”

“I mane there's a plan to carry her off from you to-night.”

Oonah grew pale with true terror, and the widow screeched, after the more approved manner of elderly ladies making believe they are very much shocked, till Nance reminded her that crying would do no good, and that it was requisite to make some preparation against the approaching danger. Various plans were hastily suggested, and as hastily relinquished, till Nance advised a measure which was deemed the best. It was to dress Andy in female attire and let him be carried off in place of the girl. Andy roared with laughter at the notion of being made a girl of, and said the trick would instantly be seen through.

“Not if you act your part well; just keep down the giggle, jewel, and put on a moderate phillelew, and do the thing nice and steady, and you'll be the saving of your cousin here.”

“You may deceive them with the dhress; and I may do a bit of a small shilloo, like a colleen in disthress, and that's all very well,” said Andy, “as far as seeing and hearing goes; but when they come to grip me, sure they'll find out in a minute.”

“We'll stuff you out well with rags and sthraw, and they'll never know the differ—besides, remember, the fellow that wants a girl never comes for her himself, [Footnote: This is mostly the case.] but sends his friends for her, and they won't know the differ—besides, they're all dhrunk.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they're always dhrunk—that same crew; and if they're not dhrunk to-night, it's the first time in their lives they ever were sober. So make haste, now, and put off your coat, till we make a purty young colleen out o' you.”

It occurred now to the widow that it was a service of great danger Andy was called on to perform; and with all her abuse of “omadhaun” she did not like the notion of putting him in the way of losing his life, perhaps.

“They'll murdher the boy, maybe, when they find out the chate,” said the widow.

“Not a bit,” said Nance.

“And suppose they did,” said Andy, “I'd rather die, sure, than the disgrace should fall upon Oonah, there.”

“God bless you, Andy dear!” said Oonah. “Sure, you have the kind heart, anyhow; but I wouldn't for the world hurt or harm should come to you on my account.”

“Oh, don't be afeard!” said Andy, cheerily; “divil a hair I value all they can do; so dhress me up at once.”

After some more objections on the part of his mother, which Andy overruled, the women all joined in making up Andy into as tempting an imitation of feminality as they could contrive; but to bestow the roundness of outline on the angular form of Andy was no easy matter, and required more rags than the house afforded, so some straw was indispensable, which the pig's bed only could supply. In the midst of their fears, the women could not help laughing as they effected some likeness to their own forms, with their stuffing and padding; but to carry off the width of Andy's shoulders required a very ample and voluptuous outline indeed, and Andy could not help wishing the straw was a little sweeter which they were packing under his nose. At last, however, after soaping down his straggling hair on his forehead, and tying a bonnet upon his head to shade his face as much as possible, the disguise was completed, and the next move was to put Oonah in a place of safety.

“Get upon the hurdle in the corner, under the thatch,” said Nance.

“Oh, I'd be afeard o' my life to stay in the house at all.”

“You'd be safe enough, I tell you,” said Nance; “for once they see that fine young woman there,” pointing to Andy, and laughing, “they'll be satisfied with the lob we've made for them.”

Oonah still expressed her fear of remaining in the cabin.

“Then hide in the pratee-trench, behind the house.”

“That's better,” said Oonah.

“And now I must be going,” said Nance; “for they must not see me when they come.”

“Oh, don't leave me, Nance dear,” cried Oonah, “for I'm sure I'll faint with the fright when I hear them coming, if some one is not with me.”

Nance yielded to Oonah's fears and entreaties, and with many a blessing and boundless thanks for the beggar-woman's kindness, Oonah led the way to the little potato garden at the back of the house, and there the women squatted themselves in one of the trenches and awaited the impending event.

It was not long in arriving. The tramp of approaching horses at a sharp pace rang through the stillness of the night, and the women, crouching flat beneath the overspreading branches of the potato tops, lay breathless in the bottom of the trench, as the riders came up to the widow's cottage and entered. There they found the widow and her pseudo niece sitting at the fire; and three drunken vagabonds, for the fourth was holding the horses outside, cut some fantastic capers round the cabin, and making a mock obeisance to the widow, the spokesman addressed her with—

“Your sarvant, ma'am!”

“Who are yiz at all, gintleman, that comes to my place at this time o' night, and what's your business?”

“We want the loan o' that young woman there, ma'am,” said the ruffian.

Andy and his mother both uttered small squalls.

“And as for who we are, ma'am, we're the blessed society of Saint Joseph, ma'am—our coat of arms is two heads upon one pillow, and our motty, 'Who's afraid?—Hurroo!'” shouted the savage, and he twirled his stick and cut another caper. Then coming up to Andy, he addressed him as “young woman,” and said there was a fine strapping fellow whose heart was breaking till he “rowled her in his arms.”

Andy and the mother both acted their parts very well. He rushed to the arms of the old woman for protection, and screeched small, while the widow shouted “millia murther!” at the top of her voice, and did not give up her hold of the make-believe young woman until her cap was torn half off, and her hair streamed about her face. She called on all the saints in the calendar, as she knelt in the middle of the floor and rocked to and fro, with her clasped hands raised to heaven, calling down curses on the “villains and robbers” that were tearing her child from her, while they threatened to stop her breath altogether if she did not make less noise, and in the midst of the uproar dragged off Andy, whose struggles and despair might have excited the suspicion of soberer men. They lifted him up on a stout horse, in front of the most powerful man of the party, who gripped Andy hard round the middle and pushed his horse to a hand gallop, followed by the rest of the party. The proximity of Andy to his cavaliero made the latter sensible to the bad odour of the pig's bed, which formed Andy's luxurious bust and bustle; but he attributed the unsavoury scent to a bad breath on the lady's part, and would sometimes address his charge thus:—

“Young woman, if you plaze, would you turn your face th' other way;” then in a side soliloquy, “By Jaker, I wondher at Jack's taste—she's a fine lump of a girl, but her breath is murther intirely—phew—young woman, turn away your face, or by this and that I'll fall off the horse. I've heerd of a bad breath that might knock a man down, but I never met it till now. Oh, murther! it's worse it's growin'—I suppose 't is the bumpin' she's gettin' that shakes the breath out of her sthrong—oh, there it is again—phew!”

It was as well, perhaps, for the prosecution of the deceit, that the distaste the fellow conceived for his charge prevented any closer approaches to Andy's visage, which might have dispelled the illusion under which he still pushed forward to the hills and bumped poor Andy towards the termination of his ride. Keeping a sharp look-out as he went along, Andy soon was able to perceive they were making for that wild part of the hills where he had discovered the private still on the night of his temporary fright and imaginary rencontre with the giants, and the conversation he partly overheard all recurred to him, and he saw at once that Oonah was the person alluded to, whose name he could not catch, a circumstance that cost him many a conjecture in the interim. This gave him a clue to the persons into whose power he was about to fall, after having so far defeated their scheme, and he saw he should have to deal with very desperate and lawless parties. Remembering, moreover, the herculean frame of the inamorato, he calculated on an awful thrashing as the smallest penalty he should have to pay for deceiving him, but was, nevertheless, determined to go through the adventure with a good heart, to make deceit serve his turn as long as he might, and at the last, if necessary, to make the best fight he could.

As it happened, luck favoured Andy in his adventure, for the hero of the blunderbuss (and he, it will be remembered, was the love-sick gentleman) drank profusely on the night in question, quaffing deep potations to the health of his Oonah, wishing luck to his friends and speed to their horses, and every now and then ascending the ladder from the cave, and looking out for the approach of the party. On one of these occasions, from the unsteadiness of the ladder, or himself, or perhaps both, his foot slipped, and he came to the ground with a heavy fall, in which his head received so severe a blow that he became insensible, and it was some time before his sister, who was an inhabitant of this den, could restore him to consciousness. This she did, however, and the savage recovered all the senses the whisky had left him; but still the stunning effect of the fall cooled his courage considerably, and, as it were, “bothered” him so, that he felt much less of the “gallant gay Lothario” than he had done before the accident.

The tramp of horses was heard overhead ere long, and Shan More, or Big John, as the Hercules was called, told Bridget to go up to “the darlin',” and help her down.

“For that's a blackguard laddher,” said he; “it turned undher me like an eel, bad luck to it!—tell her I'd go up myself, only the ground is slipping from undher me—and the laddher—”

Bridget went off, leaving Jack growling forth anathemas against the ground and the ladder, and returned speedily with the mock-lady and her attendant squires.

“Oh, my jewel!” roared Jack, as he caught sight of his prize. He scrambled up on his legs, and made a rush at Andy, who imitated a woman's scream and fright at the expected embrace; but it was with much greater difficulty he suppressed his laughter at the headlong fall with which Big Jack plunged his head into a heap of turf, [Footnote: Peat] and hugged a sack of malt which lay beside it.

Andy endeavoured to overcome the provocation to merriment by screeching; and as Bridget caught the sound of this tendency towards laughter between the screams, she thought it was the commencement of a fit of hysterics, and it accounted all the better for Andy's extravagant antics.

“Oh, the craythur is frightened out of her life!” said Bridget. “Leave her to me,” said she to the men. “There, jewel machree!” she continued to Andy, soothingly, “don't take on you that way—don't be afeerd, you're among friends—Jack is only dhrunk dhrinking your health, darlin', but he adores you.” Andy screeched.

“But don't be afeerd, you'll be thrated tender, and he'll marry you, darlin', like an honest woman!”

Andy squalled.

“But not to-night, jewel—don't be frightened.”

Andy gave a heavy sob at the respite.

“Boys, will you lift Jack out o' the turf, and carry him up into the air? 't will be good for him, and this dacent girl will sleep with me to-night.”

Andy couldn't resist a laugh at this, and Bridget feared the girl was going off into hysterics again.

“Aisy, dear—aisy—sure you'll be safe with me.”

“Ow! ow! ow!” shouted Andy.

“Oh, murther!” cried Bridget, “the sterricks will be the death of her! You blackguards, you frightened her coming up here, I'm sure.”

The men swore they behaved in the genteelest manner. “Well, take away Jack, and the girl shall have share of my bed for this night.”

Andy shook internally with laughter.

“Dear, dear, how she thrimbles!” cried Bridget, “Don't be so frightful, lanna machree—there, now—they're taking Jack away, and you're alone with myself and will have a nice sleep.”

The men all the time were removing Shan More to upper air; and the last sounds they heard as they left the cave were the coaxing tones of Bridget's voice, inviting Andy, in the softest words, to go to bed.