'Well, what of all this, Sirrah?'
'A message,' answered Irons. The man's manner, though quiet, was dogged, and somewhat savage.
'Give it me, then,' said Mervyn, expecting a note, and extending his hand.
'I've nothing for your hand, Sir, 'tis for your ear,' said he.
'From whom, then, and what?' said Mervyn, growing impatient again.
'I ask your pardon, Mr. Mervyn; I have a good deal to do, back and forward, sometimes early, sometimes late, in the church—Chapelizod Church—all alone, Sir; and I often think of you, when I walk over the south-side vault.'
'What's your message, I say, Sir, and who sends it,' insisted Mervyn.
'Your father,' answered Irons.
Mervyn looked with a black and wild sort of enquiry on the clerk—was he insane or what?—and seemed to swallow down a sort of horror, before his anger rose again.
'You're mistaken—my father's dead,' he said, in a fierce but agitated undertone.