Handy Andy Volume I Part 32

"That's a doctrine," said the Squire, "in which you will find it difficult to make an Irish host coincide."

"But you must have known, sir, that it was not my intention to come to your house."

"How could I know that, sir?" said the Squire, jocularly.

"Why, Miste' Wegan--you know--that is--in fact--confound it, sir!" said Furlong, at last, losing his temper, "you know I told you all about our electioneering tactics."

A loud laugh was all the response Furlong received to this outbreak.

"Well, sir," repeated he, "I pwotest it is extremely unfair."

"You know, my dear sir," said d.i.c.k, "we Irish are such _poor ignorant creatures_, according to your own account, that we can make no use of the knowledge with which you have so generously supplied us."

"You know," said the Squire, "we have no _real_ finesse."

"Sir," said Furlong, growing sulky, "there is a certain finesse that is _fair_, and another that is _unfair_--and I pwotest against----"

"Pooh, pooh!" said Murphy. "Never mind trifles. Just wait till to-morrow, and I'll show you even better salmon-fis.h.i.+ng than you had to-day."

"Sir, no consideration would make me wemain anothe' wower in this house."

Murphy screwed his lips together, puffed out something between a whistle and the blowing out of a candle, and ventured to suggest to Furlong he had better wait even a couple of hours, till he had got his allowance of claret. "Remember the adage, sir, '_In vino veritas_,' and we'll tell you all _our_ electioneering secrets after we've had enough wine."

"As soon, Miste' Wegan," said Mr. Furlong, quite chapfallen, "as you can tell me how I can get to the house to which I _intended_ to go, I will be weddy to bid you good evening."

"If you are determined, Mr. Furlong, to remain here no longer, I shall not press my hospitality upon you; whenever you decide upon going, my carriage shall be at your service."

"The soone' the bette', sir," said Furlong, retreating still further into a cold and sulky manner.

The Squire made no further attempt to conciliate him; he merely said, "d.i.c.k, ring the bell. Pa.s.s the claret, Murphy."

The bell was rung--the claret pa.s.sed--a servant entered, and orders were given by the Squire that the carriage should be at the door as soon as possible. In the interim, d.i.c.k Dawson, the Squire, and Murphy, laughed as if nothing had happened, and Mrs. Egan conversed in an under-tone with Mr. Bermingham. f.a.n.n.y looked mischievous, and Furlong kept his hand on the foot of his gla.s.s, and shoved it about something in the fas.h.i.+on of an uncertain chess-player, who does not know where to put the piece on which he has laid his finger.

The carriage was soon announced, and Mrs. Egan, as Furlong seemed so anxious to go, rose from table; and as she retired, he made her a cold and formal bow. He attempted a tender look and soft word to f.a.n.n.y--for Furlong, who thought himself a _beau garcon_, had been playing off his attractions upon her all day, but the mischievously merry f.a.n.n.y Dawson, when she caught the sheepish eye, and heard the mumbled gallantry of the Castle Adonis, could not resist a t.i.tter, which obliged her to hide her dimpling cheek and pearly teeth in her handkerchief, as she pa.s.sed to the door. The ladies being gone, the Squire asked Furlong, would he not have some more wine before he went.

"No, thank you, Miste' Wegan," replied he, "after being twicked in the manner that a----"

"Mr. Furlong," said the Squire, "you have said quite enough about that.

When you came into my house last night, sir, I had no intention of practising any joke upon you. You should have had the hospitality of an Irishman's house, without the consequence that has followed, had you not indulged in sneering at the Irishman's country, which, to your shame be it spoken, is _your own_. You vaunted your own superior intelligence and finesse over us, sir; and told us you came down to overthrow poor Pat in the trickery of electioneering movements. Under these circ.u.mstances, sir, I think what we have done is quite fair. We have shown you that you are no match for us in the finesse upon which you pride yourself so much; and the next time you talk of your countrymen, and attempt to undervalue them, just remember how you have been outwitted at Merryvale House. Good evening, Mr. Furlong, I hope we part without owing each other any ill-will." The Squire offered his hand, but Furlong drew up, and amidst such expletives as "weally," and "I must say," he at last made use of the word "atwocious."

"What's that you say?" said d.i.c.k. "You don't speak very plain, and I'd like to be sure of the last word you used."

"I mean to say that a----" and Furlong, not much liking the _tone_ of d.i.c.k's question, was humming and hawing a sort of explanation of what "he meant to say," when d.i.c.k thus interrupted him--

"I tell you this, Mr. Furlong; all that has been done is my doing--I've humbugged you, sir,--_hum-bugged_. I've sold you--dead. I've pumped you, sir--all your electioneering bag of tricks, _bribery_ and all, exposed; and now go off to O'Grady, and tell him how the poor ignorant Irish have _done_ you; and see, Mr. Furlong," in a quiet under-tone, "if there's anything that either he or you don't like about the business, you shall have any satisfaction you like, and as often as you please."

"I shall _conside'_ of that, sir," said Furlong, as he left the house, and entered the carriage, where he threw himself back in offended dignity, and soliloquised vows of vengeance. But the b.u.mping of the carriage over a rough road disturbed the pleasing reveries of revenge, to awaken him to the more probable and less agreeable consequences likely to occur to himself for the blunder he had made; for, with all the puppy's self-sufficiency and conceit, he could not by any process of mental delusion conceal from himself the fact that he had been most tremendously _done_, and how his party would take it was a serious consideration. O'Grady, another horrid Irish squire--how should he face _him_? For a moment he thought it better to go back to Dublin, and he pulled the check-string--the carriage stopped--down went the front gla.s.s. "I say, coachman."

"I'm not the coachman, sir."

"Well, whoever you are----"

"I'm the groom only, sir; for the coachman was----"

"Sir, I don't want to know who you are, or about your affairs; I want you to listen to me--_cawn't_ you listen?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, then--dwive to the village."

"I thought it was to the Hall I was to dhrive, sir."

"Do what you're told, sir--the village!"

"What village, sir?" asked Mat, the groom, who knew well enough, but from Furlong's impertinence did not choose to understand anything gratuitously.

"Why the village I came from yeste'day."

"What village was that, sir?"

"How stoopid you are!--the village the mail goes to."

"Sure the mail goes to all the villages in Ireland, sir."

"You pwovoking blockhead!--Good Heavens, how _stoopid_ you Iwish are!--the village that leads to Dublin."

"'Faith they all lead to Dublin, sir."

"Confound you--you must know!--the posting village, you know--that is, not the post town, if you know what a post town is."

"To be sure I do, sir--where they sell blankets, you mane."

"No--no--no! I want to go to the village where they keep post-chaises--now you know."

"Faix, they have po'chayses in all the villages here; there's no betther accommodation for man or baste in the world than here, sir."

Furlong was mute from downright vexation, till his rage got vent in an oath, another denunciation of Irish stupidity, and at last a declaration that the driver _must_ know the village.

"How would I know it, sir, when you don't know it yourself?" asked the groom; "I suppose it has a name to it, and if you tell me that, I'll dhrive you there fast enough."

"I cannot wemember your howwid names here--it is a Bal, or Bally, or some such gibbewish----"

Mat would not be enlightened.

"Is there not Bal or Bally something?"

"Oh, a power o' Bailies, sir; there's Ballygash, and Ballyslash, and Ballysmish, and Ballysmash, and----" so went on Mat, inventing a string of Ballies, till he was stopped by the enraged Furlong.

"None o' them! none o' them!" exclaimed he, in a fury; "'t is something about 'dirt' or 'mud.'"