This was too much for the excited dame; with a yell of fury she rushed at Peggy, and would assuredly have indented the marks of all her finger-nails in her comely countenance, but that the other, finding the door conveniently open, snatched up the tureen of soup and fled down stairs like a phantom.
Her prey thus escaping, the shock of her terrible rage was concentrated upon the head of the devoted Dan; to what grievous extremity it would carry her he had not an idea, but he felt that something awful was about to take place.
"Considher my misfortunes," he cried, "and be merciful, Mrs. Bulworthy."
Implacable as the embodied Parcæ, she advanced towards him.
"You're not goin' to murdher me, woman," he roared.
Silently, she approached still nearer, desperation was in her aspect.
"Help, murdher, help!" cried Dan, inevitable fate seeming to be on the point of overwhelming him in some way or another.
"What the divil is the ould monsther goin' to do?" thought he, as a frightful suspicion raised his flesh into little hillocks, and made his hair sting his head like needle-points, when he saw her deliberately take a singular-looking phial and pour out a few drops of a fiery red liquor, filling the rest of the glass with water, through which the former hissed and eddied for a few moments, and then subsided into a horrible blackness.
"Drink this," she ejaculated, solemnly, "and pay the penalty of your infamous conduct."
"What is it?" he inquired, in a voice of alarm.