“Wouldn't you do it better yourself, sir?”
“No, you whelp, don't you see how my hands, and be hanged to them, tremble and shake. Put in another glass, I say—carry it to my mouth now; hold, you croil—here's the glorious, pious, and immortal memory! Ho! Lanty, there's nothing like being a good Protestant after all—so I'll stand to glorious Bill, to the last; nine times nine, and one cheer more! hurra!”
He then laid himself back, and attempted to whistle the Boyne Water, but having only one tusk in front, the sound produced resembled the wild whistle of the wind through the chink of a door—shrill and monotonous; after which he burst out into a chuckling laugh, tickled, probably, at the notion of that celebrated melody proving disloyal in spite of him, as refusing, as it were, to be whistled.
At this moment Miss Isabel, or as he most frequently called her Miss Jezabel Puzzle, came in with a gleaming eye and an unsteady step—her hair partially dishevelled, and her dress most negligently put on. The moment Deaker saw her, his whole manner changed, notwithstanding his previous violence—the swagger departed from him, his countenance fell, and he lay mute and terror-stricken before her. It was indeed clear that her sway over him was boundless, and such was the fact. On this occasion she simply looked at him significantly, held up her hand in a menacing attitude, and having made a mock curtesy, immediately left the room.
“Lanty,” said he in an undertone, when she had gone, “Lanty, you clip, go and tell her to forgive me; I said too much, and I'm sorry for it, say—go you scoundrel.”
“Faix I'll do no such thing, sir,” replied Lanty, alarmed at the nature of the message; “I know better than to come across her now; she'd whale the life out o' me. Sure she's afther flailing the cook out o' the kitchen—and Tom Corbet the butler has one of his ears, he says, hangin' off him as long as a blood-hound's.”
“Speak easy,” said Doaker, in a voice of terror, “speak lower, or she may hear you—Isn't it strange,” he said to himself, “that I who never feared God or man, should quail before this Jezabel!”
“Begad, an' here's one, your honor, that'll make her quail, if he meets her.”
“Who is it,” asked the other eagerly, “who is it you imp?”
“Why, Mr. M'Clutchy, sir; he's ridin' up the avenue.”