Mr. Carv. Take courage, you are under my protection here—no one will dare to touch you.
Randal (with infinite contempt) Touch ye! Not I, ye dirty dog!
Mr. Carv. No, sir, you have done enough that way already, it appears.
Honor. Randal! what, has Randal done this?
Mr. Carv. Now observe—this Mr. Patrick Coxe, aforesaid, has taken refuge with me; for he is, it seems, afraid to appear before his master, Mr. O’Blaney, this night, after having been beaten: though, as he assures me, he has been beaten without any provocation whatsoever, by you, Mr. Randal Rooney—answer, sir, to this matter.
Randal. I don’t deny it, sir—I bet him, ‘tis true.
Pat. To a jelly—without marcy—he did, plase your honour, sir.
Randal. Sir, plase your honour, I got rason to suspect this man to be the author of all them lies that was tould backwards and forwards to my mother, about me and Miss Honor McBride, which made my mother mad, and driv’ her to raise the riot, plase your honour. I charged Pat with the lies, and he shirked, and could give me no satisfaction, but kept swearing he was no liar, and bid me keep my distance, for he’d a pocket pistol about him. “I don’t care what you have about you—you have not the truth about ye, nor in ye,” says I; “ye are a liar, Pat Coxe,” says I: so he cocked the pistol at me, saying, that would prove me a coward—with that I wrenched the pistol from him, and bet him in a big passion. I own to that, plase your honour—there I own I was wrong (turning to HONOR), to demane myself lifting my hand any way.
Mr. Carv. But it is not yet proved that this man has told any lies.
Randal. If he has tould no lies, I wronged him. Speak, mother—(COXE gets behind CATTY, and twitches her gown), was it he who was the informer, or not?