While their smiles and gracious words went round, the door was suddenly opened by Kerry O'Leary, who, forgetful of the visitors, in his eager anxiety as the bearer of news, cried out—
“There's a shindy, master dear! Such a row! May I never die in sin, if ever I seen the equal of it!”
“What does he mean?—is the fellow mad?” cried the O'Donoghue, angrily, while Sir Archy, bending on him a most ominous frown, muttered—
“Have ye lost a' decency tegether. Ye daft loon, what ails ye?”
“I ax your pardon, and the qualities pardon,” said Kerry, with an expression of abject misery for his unceremonious 'entrée.' “But, if you seen it, sorra bit but you'd forgive me.”
“There has been good fun somewhere, I'm certain,” cried out Frederick Travers, whose curiosity to learn Kerry's intelligence could no longer be repressed.
“What is it, then, Kerry?” said the O'Donoghue. “Let us hear it all.”
“'Tis Master Mark, good luck to him,” cried Kerry, overjoyed at the permission to speak out freely. “He was over at Ballyvourney with the greyhounds, when he seen that dirty spalpeen, Sam Wylie, wid a process-sarver along wid him, noticin' the tenants. The server was a stranger, and he didn't touch him; but he made the boys put Sam on Nick Malone's mule, and give him a fair start, and they run him down the mountain, with a fine view, and ran into him there at the horse-pond, where the mule flung him head over heels; and begorra, you wouldn't know 'twas a Christian, if you seen him this minit dripping wet, and the duck-weed all hanging round him—and he's running still—for he thinks Master Mark will take the life of him before he stops.”