“In this room? Why, I thought you Ormondes were always out-and-out papists.”
“And so we have been, and so we are. I’ll tell you how it happened. My father—God be merciful to him!—was always noted for his hospitality, and one evening, after a hard run with the Bohernabreena hounds, he invited the hunt, at least as many as were in at the death, home to dinner, sending a boy across the bog with the news to my mother.”
“‘I haven’t much to offer you to eat, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘but we’ll make it up in the liquor.’
“About twenty gentlemen rode over here, and, after having dined in a scratch sort of way, they plunged on the claret—this identical wine.”
“It is too good for fox-hunters,” observed my guest. “Such liquid nectar is for brain-workers like me.”
“After a very joyous carouse one of the party, called ‘Orange Dick,’ a Mr. Templeton, of Ashbrooke Hall, about ten miles from this, a deputy lieutenant and J.P., stood up and asked permission to propose a toast. The permission was freely accorded by my father, and full bumpers were called for. When the glasses were all filled and the company on their feet, Mr. Templeton gave the memory of the great, glorious, pious, and immortal King William, which was received with three times three, my father, to the astonishment of one or two, joining in.
“‘Now, gentlemen,’ said my father, ‘I drank your toast; you’ll drink mine. Fill your glasses.’
“They required but little inducement to do as he bade, and in an instant were in readiness.
“‘To your feet, gentlemen.’
“This order having been complied with—for it was given as such, and not as a request—my father shouted in a voice of thunder: