“Eh? What? What?” he shouted, and then he rose and figuratively fell upon Mrs. Maccabe, for “a lying, thieving, scheming old harridan, who had ruined his innocent son—an infernal old fosthooke, who had made the match.”
“And what would I get, av you please?” drawing herself up with an air of superb enquiry. “For why would I marry me niece, a decent girl, to an idle, drunken scutt, that never earned six-pence, a low-minded rapscallion, heir to nothing but debt and his father’s bad name? A fine thing to tell Bridget Maccabe——” and she looked about her, as if in search of the ox tail.
In vain the Major stormed; here his bellowing and bullying was as water on a rock. To borrow a word from the intrepid widow, she “bested him,” as she subsequently boasted—cowed him, silenced him, yea even him.
George was scarcely able to get in one syllable between such a war of words, and two such champions. It was Greek meeting Greek with a vengeance. The Major assumed an attitude of ferocious antagonism that would have struck terror into the heart of a less valiant opponent, and the battle raged. At last there was a lull; the man was worn down by the woman’s vigorous eloquence, and Mrs. Maccabe calmly stated her ultimatum.
“The girl should be decently married, as soon as possible, before the priest, and before the Rev. Mr. Mahon, too, if they liked, and Denis Malone should take his wife home. If he passed the medical, he might get something to do.”
“But he has not passed,” bawled the Major. “I’ve heard by yesterday’s post he has failed for his final examination, and he is done for. The most I’ll do for him will be to give him a steerage passage to Australia, and a five-pound note.”
“Man, that’s all balderdash and nonsense!”—that the Major should live to be apostrophised as a mere “man”! “Ye can’t turn your only son out into the world as ye would an ass on a bog, and him with a wife on his hands—ye bid to provide for him,” responded the widow in a tone of unshaken resolve.
“Denis might make a good start in Australia,” ventured his step-brother. “You see he likes a country life: he rides well, and he knows a little about stock, and if he had a small share in a run, just a start, he might do very well.”
“Then will you start him?” enquired the Major, turning on him furiously, forgetting the recent plunge he had made into George’s pocket.
“I am quite unable to do anything at present.”