"I won't indeed," said Furlong and he got safe to land.
"But I will!" cried a voice from a neighbouring wood; and Miss O'Grady appeared, surrounded by a crowd of little pet-dogs. She shook her head in a threatening manner at the offenders, and all the little dogs set up a yelping bark, as if to enforce their mistress's anger. The snappish barking of the pets was returned by one hoarse bay from "Bloodybones," which silenced the little dogs, as a broadside from a seventy-four would dumbfounder a flock of privateers, and the boys returned the sister's threat by a universal shout of "Tell-tale!"
"Go home, tell-tale!" they all cried; and with an action equally simultaneous, they stooped one and all for pebbles, and pelted Miss Augusta so vigorously, that she and her dogs were obliged to run for it.
CHAPTER XVI
Having recounted Furlong's out-door adventures, it is necessary to say something of what was passing at Neck-or-Nothing Hall in his absence.
O'Grady, on leaving the breakfast-table, retired to his justice-room to transact business, a principal feature in which was the examination of Handy Andy, touching the occurrences of the evening he drove Furlong to Merryvale; for though Andy was clear of the charge for which he had been taken into custody, namely, the murder of Furlong, O'Grady thought he might have been a party to some conspiracy to drive the stranger to the enemy's camp, and therefore put him to the question very sharply. This examination he had set his heart upon; and reserving it as a bonne bouche, dismissed all preliminary cases in a very off-hand manner, just as men carelessly swallow a few oysters preparatory to dinner.
As for Andy, when he was summoned to the justice-room, he made sure it was for the purpose of being charged with robbing the post-office, and cast a sidelong glance at the effigy of the man hanging on the wall, as he was marched up to the desk where O'Grady sat in magisterial dignity; and, therefore, when he found it was only for driving a gentleman to a wrong house all the pother was made, his heart was lightened of a heavy load, and he answered briskly enough. The string of question and reply was certainly an entangled one, and left O'Grady as much puzzled as before whether Andy was stupid and innocent, or too knowing to let himself be caught—and to this opinion he clung at last. In the course of the inquiry, he found Andy had been in service at Merryvale; and Andy, telling him he knew all about waiting at table, and so forth, and O'Grady being in want of an additional man-servant in the house while his honourable guest, Sackville Scatterbrain, should be on a visit with him, Andy was told he should be taken on trial for a month. Indeed, a month was as long as most servants could stay in the house—they came and went as fast as figures in a magic lantern.
Andy was installed in his new place, and set to work immediately scrubbing up extras of all sorts to make the reception of the honourable candidate for the county as brilliant as possible, not only for the honour of the house, but to make a favourable impression on the coming guest; for Augusta, the eldest girl, was marriageable, and to her father's ears "The Honourable Mrs. Sackville Scatterbrain" would have sounded much more agreeably than "Miss O'Grady."
"Well—who knows?" said O'Grady to his wife; "such things have come to pass. Furbish her up, and make her look smart at dinner—he has a good fortune, and will be a peer one of these days—worth catching. Tell her so."
Leaving these laconic observations and directions behind him, he set off to the neighbouring town to meet Scatterbrain, and to make a blow-up at the post-office about the missing letters. This he was the more anxious to do, as the post-office was kept by the brother of M'Garry, the apothecary; and since O'Grady had been made to pay so dearly for thrashing him, he swore eternal vengeance against the whole family. The post-master could give no satisfactory answer to the charge made against him, and O'Grady threatened a complaint to headquarters, and prophesied the postmaster's dismissal. Satisfied for the present with this piece of prospective vengeance, he proceeded to the inn, and awaited the arrival of his guest.