“There's only one,” replied Nancy; “and indeed you're right enough—she is married, and not long either—and, in truth, I don't envy her the husband, she got. Lord save and guard us! I know I wouldn't long keep my senses if I had him.”
“Why so?” asked Alley. “Has he two heads upon him?”
“Troth, no,” replied the other; “but he's what they call a mad docther, an' keeps a rheumatic asylum—that manes a place where they put mad people, to prevent them from doin' harm. They say it would make the hair stand on your head like nettles even to go into it. However, that's not what I'm thinkin' of, but that darlin' lookin' creature that's wid the misthress. The Lord keep sorrow and cross-fortune from her, poor thing—for she looks unhappy. Avillish! are you and she related? for, as I'm a sinner, there's a resemblance in your faces—and even in your figures—only you're something rounder and fuller than she is.”
“Isn't she lovely?” returned Alley, making the most of the compliment. “Sure, wasn't it in Dublin her health was drunk as the greatest toast in Ireland.” She then added after a pause, “The Lord knows I wouldn't—”
“Wouldn't what—avourneen?”
“I was just thinkin', that I wouldn't marry a mad docther, if there was ne'er another man in Ireland. A mad docther! Oh, beetha. Then will you let us know the name that's upon him?” she added in a most wheedling tone.
“His name is Scareman, my misthress tells me—he's related by the mother's side to the Moontides of Ballycrazy, in the barony of Quarther Clift—arrah, what's this your name is, avourneen?”
“Alley Mahon I was christened,” replied her new friend; “but,” she added, with an air of modest dignity that was inimitable in its way—“in regard of my place as maid of honor to Lady Lucy, I'm usually called Miss Mahon, or Miss Alley. My mistress, for her own sake, in ordher to keep up her consequence, you persave, doesn't like to hear me called anything else than either one or t'other of them.”
“And it's all right,” replied the other. “Well, as I was going to say, that Mrs. Mainwaring is breakin' her heart about this unforthunate marriage of her daughter to Scareman. It seems—but this is between ourselves—it seems, my dear, that he's a dark, hard-hearted scrub, that 'id go to hell or farther for a shillin', for a penny, ay, or for a farden. An' the servant that was here afore me—a clean, good-natured girl she was, in throth—an' got married to a blacksmith, at the cross-roads beyant—tould me that the scrames, an' yells, an' howlins, and roarins—the cursin' and blasphaymin'—an' the laughin', that she said was worse than all—an' the rattlin' of chains—the Lord save us—would make one think themselves more in hell than in any place upon this world. And it appears the villain takes delight in it, an' makes lashins of money by the trade.”
“The sorra give him good of it!” exclaimed Alley; “an' I can tell you, it's Lady Lucy—(divil may care, thought she—I'll make a lady of her at any rate—this ignorant creature doesn't know the differ) it's Lady Lucy, I say, that will be sorry to hear of this same marriage—for you must know—what's this your name is?”