“Faix—I was just watching Miss Lizzie.”
“For what? What was she doing? She went to confession at four o’clock.”
“Confession, how are ye? And did she tell ye who confesses her?” And he looked under his eyebrows, with an unpleasant expression.
“Father Connell, you unfortunate natural, and who else?”
“No—but Father Denis Malone; I saw him confessing her, and sluthering and kissing her, in the lane by the horse park, not twenty minutes ago.”
Mrs. Maccabe rose hastily, and felt round for the ox tail. Many a time it had descended heavily on the dwarf’s shrinking shoulders.
“Joey! I’ll give you a lathering that you’ll remember to your dying day,” advancing between him and the door. “How dar you tell your black lies on a respectable girl like Lizzie?”
“Before the mother of God, and all the blessed saints, I swear I saw her,” howled Joey, holding a chair between himself and the virago, and trembling in every limb; but the thought of Denis spurred his flagging courage, and he added, “Sure Miss Betty saw them too, and hasn’t it been going on this year or more!”
“Ye little lying baste!” she screamed, swinging the tail, and bringing it down with a resounding whack. “Take that, and that, and that.”
“Oh! Mrs. Maccabe, ma’am! Oh! holy Moses! Oh! well maybe ye can read their writing,” and out of a very greasy pocket he unearthed three letters—one from Denis, and two in the handwriting of the fair Lizzie, written (were further proof required) on bill paper, with a little picture of a fat ox surmounted by “Bridget Maccabe and Sons, Butchers and Salesmen.”