“Shure yer welkim to yer pint av—”
Murty confronted her:
“I tell ye, Missis Clancy, that I tuk nothin’, nayther bit, bite, nor sup, from the time I et me brekquest till I met Misther Fogarty’s own boy, and he thrated me. Av I tuk a pint out av yer lucre, ma’am, I’d say it at wanst, wudout batin’ about the bush.”
“That’s enough, Murty; say no more about the tay. They gev ye a bad matarial, Murty, an’ shure that’s none o’ you’re fault. Here,” she added, pouring out a saucerful—the saucer being about the dimensions of a large soup-plate—and presenting it to him; “put that to yer mouth an’ say is it worth three hapence an ounce?”
“Sorra a care I care,” growled Murty, but in a much softer tone.
“Thry it, anyhow,” urged the housekeeper.
“I don’t care a thraneen for tay, Mrs. Clancy,” said Murty, throwing a glance full of profound meaning towards a small press in which Mrs. Clancy kept a supply of cordials.
“Ah!” exclaimed that lady, “I see be the twist in yer eye that ye want somethin’ to put betune yer shammy an’ the cowld. Ye have a long road to thravel, Murty, so a little sup o’ ginger cordial will warm it for ye, avic.” And while the now thoroughly pacified Murty gently remonstrated, Mrs. Clancy proceeded to the cupboard, and, pouring a golliogue of the grateful compound into a tea-cup, handed it to Murty, who tossed it off with a smack that would have started a coach and four.
“So ye’ll stop the night at the castle?” observed the housekeeper in a careless tone.
“Yis, ma’am.”