“Pturr-r!” says Rory; “pturr-r, pturr-r!” says he; but the garron was now too near home to pturr for the brightest man that ever stood in shoe; and instead of stopping, he put his best leg forward, and carried the car clane up to Luke Fogarty's door, some minutes sooner than he would have done, may be, if nobody had said “Pturr-r!” to him at all.
“Kead mille faltha!” cried Luke, as soon as he saw the piper; “long looked for, come at last!—But who's this with you, Corney?”
“Faith! I don't know, then,” says Carolan, who wasn't at all plaized with the garron, that he didn't stop when Rory bid him; “I don't know a ha'p'orth about him,” says he, with his mouth close to the big end o' the crooked bull's-horn, that Fogarty held to his ear; “I found him, after losing his horse, sitting up upon Henniker's mile-stone; and it raining harder than usual:—so I took him on the car; but he wouldn't tell me who he was. He's high and mighty enough to be a king; and, may be, if the top of the dirt was taken off his dothes, we'd find him dressed like a gentleman.”
“Arrah! Corney! now I look at him again, and that he's wiped his face, I think I know him.—You're welcome, sir,” says Luke to the stranger, who couldn't but hear what the piper had said, yet took no notice of it; “you're welcome, sir, to a poor man's place, and the best I've got, this bad night:—but don't I know you somewhere?—Then, if I did, what harm?”—continued Luke, seeing how the man drew himself up, and, putting on his airs, didn't condescend to answer what was said to him; “If I did know you, what harm?—and, faith! then, I do, Corney!” says he, turning to the piper; “sure you heard of one Andie Hogan, that got a mint o' money a'most, by selling little bonnets he made o' the paper they puts on the walls of fine houses, to the women and girls at pattams and fairs, far and near;—didn't you, Corney?”
“I did,” says Corney, with his mouth at the bull's-horn, “and how he advertised the fine fortune he'd give his lame daughter; and how, while he was making a great match for her, one Purcell, a bit of a tailor, away there at Dungarvan, ran off with her. Sure I've a story as long as from here till to-morrow, and two or three songs about them. Didn't ould Hogan make it up with Purcell, and lave him all he had? And didn't the tailor turn upstart when he'd got the money,—and wouldn't look on his own relations, but cocked his nose at them, and every body that used to know him, as though they were dirt?”
“Well then, Corney,” says Luke; “and if you never saw him before, you can get a look at him now, for this is himself.”
“Oh! pullaloo! murther and horse-beans!” shouted Corney; “and is it with Purcell I've been riding?—No offence, sir,—and I beg pardon for being bould in the bog there;—but are you now, without a word of a lie,—are you the Mushroom?”
“I hope I'm not brought here to be insulted,” says the gentleman.
“Well I but are you Mr. Purcell—or are you not? Is it you that's own cousin to that Thady Purcell, whose widow is married to Jack Forrester—ould Timberleg Toe-trap's club-footed son? Are you the Dungarvan tailor that snapped up Andie Hogan's lame daughter, or is Luke a liar?—Answer me that now, and there'll be an end of our talk.”
“I shall not remain here another minute,” says Purcell; for it was indeed himself—and Luke Fogarty had seen him at The Beg, dunning young Veogh, for money Pierce owed him, long before:—“I shall try if I can't get civility, at least, under another roof;” says he.