“What’s that to you?” said he; but in a moment he softened and added, taking me by the hand, “My good lad, I know you are a mere boy, and not up to the ways yet; but your father would be angry if I did not make you do yourself justice; so come, get ready, my buck, to canter off to Denny Cuff’s, where we’ll be more handy for to-morrow.”
I persisted in desiring him not to deliver any hostile message; but in vain. “If,” said he, as he mounted his pony, “you won’t fight, I must fight him myself, as the thing occurred in my house. I’ll engage that, if you did not call out Charley, all the bullock-feeders from Ossory, and that double-tongued dog from Ballybrophy at the head of them, would post you at the races at Roscrea.”
Before I could expostulate further Mr. Reddy Long galloped off with a view holloa, to deliver a challenge for me against my will[[23]] to Mr. Charley White, who had given me no provocation. I felt very uneasy; however, off I rode to Cuffsborough, where I made my complaint to old Denny Cuff, whose daughter was married to Reddy Long, and whose son afterward married my sister.
[23]. I had made an unbending rule, for which I was dreadfully teased in the country, never to fight or quarrel about horse-flesh.
Old Cuff laughed heartily at me, and said, “You know Charley White?”
“To be sure I do,” said I; “a civil and inoffensive man as any in Ossory.”
“That’s the very reason Reddy will deliver a challenge to him,” said Cuff.
“’Tis an odd reason enough,” answered I.