The clink of glasses told that the same fact had occurred to Miss O'Reilly, and a bottle of port, and another of what looked like water, but was in effect old potheen, were immediately upon the table.
"How well ye wouldn't put down a glass for me!" thundered old O'Reilly, "I suppose it's saving it for my wake you are!"
"Or her own wedding, maybe!" said Flurry, shamelessly ogling Miss O'Reilly, "we'll see that before the wake, I'm thinking!"
"Well, well, isn't he the dead spit of his father!" said Miss O'Reilly to the rafters.
"Here, woman, give me the kettle," said her brother, "I'll drink my glass of punch with Mr. Florence Knox, the way I did with his father before him! The doctor says I might carry out six months, and I think myself I won't carry out the week, but what the divil do I care! I'm going to give Mr. Knox his pick of my hounds this day, and that's what no other man in Ireland would get, and be dam we'll wet our bargain!"
"Well, well," said Miss O'Reilly, remonstratingly, bringing the kettle, "and you that was that weak last night that if you got Ireland's crown you couldn't lift the bedclothes off your arms!"
"Them hounds are in my family, seed and breed, this hundred years and more," continued old O'Reilly, silencing his sister with one black glance from under his thick grey brows, "and if I had e'er a one that was fit to come after me they'd never leave it!" He took a gulp of the hot punch. "Did ye ever hear of my brother Phil that was huntsman to the Charlevilles long ago, Mr. Knox? Your father knew him well. Many's the good hunt they rode together. He wasn't up to forty years when he was killed, broke his neck jumping a hurl, and when they went to bury him it's straight in over the churchyard wall they took him! They said he never was one to go round looking for a gate!"
"THEM HOUNDS ARE IN MY FAMILY, SEED AND BREED, THIS HUNDRED YEARS."