"Go away--oh, yes! I'm going--and so's Lizzie and Jim Sarkies. I saw them going off in the bug--oh!--hoo!--boo--ooh!"
It was too much for Bullin. He darted forward at Eddy's speech and seized him by the arm. The next moment there was a cuffing and a ringing of ears that Eddy remembers to this day, notwithstanding that he is in a fair way to succeed to his father's appointment, and has a small Eddy of his own. When he had finished with the boy and flung him from him, the elder jumped into his carriage and bade the coachman drive home. Laura's scared face as she met him at the door, confirmed his worst fears.
"Are they gone?" he asked. "Answer me, woman! Don't stand staring there."
Laura burst into tears, and the elder with a hissing cry of rage re-entered his carriage and drove to the Sarkies's house. There was no one there. A sudden thought struck him. "To the Catholic Church," he shouted; and the coachman needed no bidding to drive fast. He arrived in time to meet Faly stepping out of the door. "Where's my daughter?" inquired Bullin, furiously shaking his fist in the priest's face.
"I presume you are Mr. Bullin?" asked Faly in reply.
"Yes--I'm Mr. Bullin; and I want to know what you've done with my daughter--you and that blackguard Sarkies?"
"Gently, sir," was the reply. "Your daughter, I believe, is now on the way to the railway station with her husband. If I mistake not, her mother-in-law and another relative accompany the bride on the honeymoon trip. I presume even you will think that sufficient punishment?"
Bullin attempted to speak, but in vain. His face was purple with rage, and his hands moved convulsively up and down.
Faly was a little touched. "I don't think you need take on so, Mr. Bullin," he said. "Mr. Sarkies will make a most excellent husband."
But here the elder found tongue. "Damn you!" he shrieked with a half-articulate voice, "I shall have the law on you and your brood of snakes. May God's curse follow----"