“No,” thundered the voice; “it’s you I want, not your good, kind master, who’s been a friend to you, and who you sneer at, insult and deride, and who, Protestant as he is, tries to stop your greedy sin of eating meat on fast days. Come on!”
And he made a pass at Mike with the tormentor, which Mike dodged by going over backwards, chair and all.
“I’ll never cheek him again, by this, and by that, I won’t!” yelled Mike, as he got another prod in a fleshy part, “and I’ll never touch meat again, I won’t.” But at that he fainted. He soon came round, and was on his knees telling his beads when we entered the room, as if we were going to have a parting smoke before turning in.
“What the deuce have you been up to, Mike?” I said. “Who has been here? What is the cause of this awful smell, and what have you been making such a row about?”
“O holy Mary! sor,” whined Mike; “he’s been here.”
“Who the devil has been here, you drunken blackguard?” I shouted.
“Oh, dear sor, oh, kind sor, don’t spake disrespectfully of the Ould Gentleman; shure he’s been here, and has just left. Oh, sor; I’ll repent, I will. For God’s sake send for the holy father. What will I do? What will I do?”
We got him to his quarters at last, and next morning Mike was a changed man. Although still by nature cross-grained, yet a more respectful servant or a better comrade could not be found on a month’s trek, and he stayed with me till he died, two years afterwards, regretted by everyone who knew him. R.I.P.