“‘Open the door for Ned Sheehy,’ says the voice,—for ’twas shut against me,—and the door flew open in an instant. In I ran without stop or stay, thinking it better to be beat by Jack Myers, he being an old friend of mine, than to be spitted like a Michaelmas goose by a man that I knew nothing about, either of him or his family, one or the other.
“‘Have you any news for me?’ says the voice, putting just the same question to me that it did before.
“‘Yes, sir,’ says I, ‘and plenty.’ So I mentioned all that had happened to me in the big wood, and how I got up in the tree, and how I was made come down again, and put to turning the spit, roasting the gentleman, and how I could not please him, turn him fast or easy, although I tried my best, and how he ran after me at last, spit and all.
“‘If you had told me this before, you would not have been turned out in the cold,’ said the voice.
“‘And how could I tell it to you, sir,’ says I, ‘before it happened?’
“‘No matter,’ says he, ‘you may sleep now till morning on that bundle of hay in the corner there, and only I was your friend, you’d have been kilt entirely.’ So down I lay, but I was dreaming, dreaming all the rest of the night; and when you, master dear, woke me with that blessed blow, I thought ’twas the man on the spit had hold of me, and could hardly believe my eyes, when I found myself in your honour’s presence, and poor Modderaroo safe and sound by my side; but how I came there is more than I can say, if ’twas not Jack Myers, although he did make the offer to strike me, or some one among the good people that befriended me.”
“It is all a drunken dream, you scoundrel,” said Mr. Gumbleton; “have I not had fifty such excuses from you?”
“But never one, your honour, that really happened before,” said Ned, with unblushing front. “Howsomever, since your honour fancies ’tis drinking I was, I’d rather never drink again to the world’s end, than lose so good a master as yourself, and if I’m forgiven this once, and get another trial——”
“Well,” said Mr. Gumbleton, “you may, for this once, go into Mountbally Gumbletonmore again; let me see that you keep your promise as to not drinking, or mind the consequences; and, above all, let me hear no more of the good people, for I don’t believe a single word about them, whatever I may do of bad ones.”