"What for?" inquired Mary, forgetting that she was running considerable risk, from the circumstance of delaying the Squire's breakfast.
"The devil a one ov me knows; whiniver he's crass, he thinks that hittin' me a lick will bring him straight; bedad, if such showers of good luck as he's had all his life drownds a good timper as his is drownded, I hope I may niver be worth a scurrig as long as I breathe."
"Indeed, an' I have the same sort of comfort wid the mistress," said Mary. "Haven't I had the heart's blood of an illigant scowldin' jest now, for sugarin' her ladyship's tay wid brown?"
"Why, murther alive, Mollshee, you don't tell me that it's the lump she uses?"
"Not a word of a lie in it, nigh hand an ounce of tay in the taypot, too," replied Mary, with a what-do-you-think-of-that expression.
"Faix, I mind the time," said Barney, "when she thought the smell of that same wonst a week was a nosegay.
"Thrue for you, indade, an' not long ago, aither."
Here a sudden thought occurred to the gossipping Hebe.
"Murther alive!" said she, with a start that made the cups rattle; "if I ain't forgettin' ould Bluebeard's breakfast; there'll be wigs on the green, if the could's come at the eggs, for he's mighty perticular entirely."
So saying, she knocked a timid knock at the door of the dreaded Squire's room; a fierce "Come in," followed by the inevitable cough, hurried her into the apartment, from whence she emerged again very shortly, and, with stealthy step and a look more eloquent than words, indicated the state of Bulworthy's temperament.