"You lost no time in firing, Murtough," said one of his friends.

"And small blame to me, Billy," answered Murphy; "Egan is a capital shot, and how did I know but he might take it into his head to shoot me?--for he's very hot when roused, though as good-natured a fellow in the main as ever broke bread; and yet I don't think, after all, he'd have liked to do me much mischief either; but, you see, he couldn't stand the joke he thought I played him."

"Will you tell us what it was?" cried another of the party, pressing forward, "for we can't make it out exactly, though we've heard something of it--wasn't it leeches you sent to him, telling him he was a blood-sucking villain?"

A roar of laughter from Murtough followed this question. "Lord, how a story gets mangled and twisted!" said he, as soon as he could speak.

"Leeches! what an absurdity! No, it was----"

"A bottle of castor oil, wasn't it, by way of a present of noyeau?"

said another of the party, hurrying to the front to put forward _his_ version of the matter.

A second shout of laughter from Murphy greeted this third edition of the story. "If you will listen to me, I'll give you the genuine version," said Murtough, "which is better, I promise you, than any which invention could supply. The fact is, Squire Egan is enraged against O'Grady, and applied to me to hara.s.s him in the parchment line, swearing he would blister him; and this phrase of blistering occurred so often, that when I sent him over a bit o' parchment, which he engaged to have served on my bold O'Grady, I wrote to him, 'Dear Squire, I send you the blister;' and that most ingenious of all blunderers, Handy Andy, being the bearer, and calling at M'Garry's shop on his way home, picked up from the counter a _real_ blister, which was folded up in an inclosure, something like the process, and left the law-stinger behind him."

"That's grate!" cried Doyle.

"Oh, but you have not heard the best of it yet," added Murphy. "I am certain the bit of parchment was sent to O'Grady, for he was hunting M'Garry this morning through the town, with a cudgel of portentous dimensions--put that and that together."

"No mistake!" cried Doyle; "and divil pity O'Grady, for he's a bl.u.s.tering, swaggering, overbearing, ill-tempered----"

"Hillo, hillo, Bill!" interrupted Murphy, "you are too hard on the adjectives; besides, you'll spoil your appet.i.te if you ruffle your temper, and that would fret me, for I intend you to dine with me to-day."

"Faith an' I'll do that same, Murtough, my boy, and glad to be asked, as the old maid said."

"I'll tell you what it is," said Murphy; "boys, you must all dine with me to-day, and drink long life to me, since I'm not killed."

"There are seventeen of us," said Durfy; "the little parlour won't hold us all."

"But isn't there a big room at the inn, Tom?" returned Murphy, "and not better drink in Ireland than Mrs. Fay's. What do you say, lads--one and all--will you dine with me?"

"Will a duck swim?" chuckled out Jack Horan, an oily veteran, who seldom opened his mouth but to put something into it, and spared his words as if they were of value; and to make them appear so, he spoke in apophthegms.

"What say you, James Reddy?" said Murtough.

"Ready, sure enough, and willing too!" answered James, who was a small wit, and made the aforesaid play upon his name at least three hundred and sixty-five times every year.

"Oh, we'll all come," was uttered right and left.

"Good men and true!" shouted Murphy; "won't we make the rafters shake, and turn the cellar inside out! Whoo! I'm in great heart to-day. But who is this powdhering up the road? By the powers! 't is the doctor, I think; 't is--I know his bandy hat over the cloud of dust."

The individual thus designated as _the_ doctor now emerged from the obscurity in which he had been enveloped, and was received with a loud shout by the whole cavalcade as he approached them. Both parties drew rein, and the doctor, lifting from his head the aforesaid bandy hat, which was slouched over one eye, with a sinister droop, made a low obeisance to Murphy, and said, with a mock solemnity, "Your servant, sir--and so you're not killed?"

"No," said Murphy; "and you've lost a job, which I see you came to look for--but you're not to have the carving of me yet."

"Considering it's so near Michaelmas, I think you've had a great escape, signor," returned the doctor.

"Sure enough," said Murphy, laughing; "but you're late this time: so you must turn back, and content yourself with carving something more innocent than an attorney to-day--though at an attorney's cost. You must dine with me."

"Willingly, signor," said the doctor; "but pray don't make use of the word 'cost.' I hate to hear it out of an attorney's mouth--or _bill_, I should say."

A laugh followed the doctor's pleasantry, but no smile appeared upon _his_ countenance; for though uttering quaint and often very good, but oftener very bitter, things, he never moved a muscle of his face, while others were shaking their sides at his sallies. He was, in more ways than one, a remarkable man. A ma.s.sive head, large and rather protruding eyes, lank hair, slouching ears, a short neck, and broad shoulders, rather inclined to stooping, a long body, and short legs, slightly bowed, const.i.tuted his outward man; and a lemon-coloured complexion, which a residence of some years in the East Indies had produced, did not tend to increase his beauty. His mind displayed a superior intelligence, original views, contempt of received opinions, with a power of satire and ridicule, which rendered him a pleasing friend or a dangerous enemy, as the case might be; though, to say the truth, friend and foe were treated with nearly equal severity, if a joke or sarcasm tempted the a.s.sault. His own profession hated him, for he unsparingly ridiculed all stale practice, which his conviction led him to believe was inefficient, and he daringly introduced fresh, to the no small indignation of the more cut and dry portion of the faculty, for whose hate he returned contempt, of which he made no secret. From an extreme coa.r.s.eness of manner, even those who believed in his skill were afraid to trust to his humour: and the dislike of his brother-pract.i.tioners to meet him superadded to this, damaged his interest considerably, and prevented his being called in until extreme danger frightened patients, or their friends, into sending for Dr. Growling. His carelessness in dress, too, inspired disgust in the fair portion of the creation: and "snuffy" and "dirty," "savage" and "brute," were among the sweet words they applied to him.

Nevertheless, those who loved a joke more than they feared a hit, would run the risk of an occasional thrust of the doctor's stiletto, for the sake of enjoying the mangling he gave other people; and such rollicking fellows as Murphy, and Durfy, and Dawson, and Squire Egan petted this social hedgehog.

The doctor now turned his horse's head, and joined the cavalcade to the town. "I have blown my Rosinante," said he; "I was in such a hurry to see the fun."

"Yes," said Murphy, "he smokes."

"And his master takes snuff," said the doctor, suiting the action to the word. "I suppose, signor, you were thinking a little while ago that the squire might serve an ejectment on your vitality?"

"Or that in the trial between us I might get damages," said Murphy.

"There is a difference, in such case," said the doctor, "between a court of law and the court of honour; for in the former, the man is plaintiff before he gets his damages, while in the latter, it is after he gets his damages that he complains."

"I'm glad my term is not ended, however," said Murphy.

"If it had been," said the doctor, "I think you'd have had a long vacation in limbo."

"And suppose I had been hit," said Murphy, "you would have been late on the ground. You're a pretty friend!"

"It's my luck, sir," said the doctor; "I'm always late for a job.

By-the-bye, I'll tell you an amusing fact of that musty piece of humanity, Miss Jinkins. Her niece was dangerously ill, and she had that licensed slaughterer from Killanmaul trying to tinker her up, till the poor girl was past all hope, and then she sends for me. She swore, some time ago, I shall never darken her doors; but when she began to apprehend that death was rather a darker gentleman than I, she tolerated my person. The old crocodile met me in the hall--by-the-bye, did you ever remark she's _like_ a crocodile, only not with so pleasing an expression?--and wringing her hands she cried, 'Oh, doctor, I'll be bound to you forever!'--I hope not, thought I to myself. 'Save my Jemima, doctor, and there's nothing I won't do to prove my grat.i.tude.'

'Is she long ill, ma'am?' said I. 'A fortnight, doctor.' 'I wish I had been called in sooner, ma'am,' says I--for, 'pon my conscience, Murphy, it is too ridiculous the way the people go on about me. I verily believe they think I can raise people out of their graves; and they call me in to repair the damages disease _and_ the doctors have been making; and while the gentlemen in black silk stockings, with gold-headed canes, have been fobbing fees for three weeks, perhaps, they call in poor Jack Growling, who scorns Jack-a-dandyism, and _he_ gets a solitary guinea for mending the bungling that cost something to the tune of twenty or thirty perhaps. And when I have plucked them from the jaws of death--regularly cheated the s.e.xton out of them--the best word they have for me is to call me a pig, or abuse my boots, or wonder that the doctor is not more particular about his linen--the fools! But to return to my gentle crocodile. I was shown upstairs to the sick room, and there, sir, I saw the unfortunate girl, speechless, at the last gasp absolutely. The Killanmaul dandy had left her to die--absolutely given her up; and _then_, indeed, I'm sent for! Well, I was in a rage, and was rushing out of the house, when the crocodile way-laid me in the hall. 'Oh, doctor, won't you do something for my Jemima?' 'I can't, ma'am,' says I; 'but Mr. Fogarty can.' 'Mr.

Fogarty!' says she. 'Yes, ma'am,' says I. 'You have mistaken my profession, Miss Jinkins--I'm a doctor, ma'am; but I suppose _you took me for an undertaker_!'"

"Well, you hit her hard, doctor," said Murphy.

"Sir, you might as well hit a rhinoceros," returned the doctor.

"When shall we dine?" asked Jack Horan.

"As soon as Mrs. Fay can let us have the eatables," answered Murphy; "and, by-the-bye, Jack, I leave the ordering of the dinner to you, for no man understands better how to do that same; besides, I want to leave my horse in my own stable, and I'll be up at the inn, after you, in a brace of shakes."

The troop now approached the town. Those who lived there rode to their own stables, and returned to the party at Mrs. Fay's: while they who resided at a distance dismounted at the door of the inn, which soon became a scene of bustle in all its departments from this large influx of guests; and the preparation for the dinner, exceeding in scale what Mrs. Fay was generally called upon to provide, except when the a.s.sizes, or races, or other such cause of commotion, demanded all the resources of her establishment, and more, if she had them. So the Dinnys, and the Tims, and the Mickeys, were rubbing down horses, cleaning knives, or drawing forth extra tables from their dusty repose; and the Biddys, and Judys, and Nellys, were washing up plates, scouring pans, and brightening up extra candlesticks, or doing deeds of doom in the poultry-yard, where an audible commotion gave token of the premature deaths of sundry supernumerary chickens.

Murphy soon joined his guests, grinning from ear to ear, and rubbing his hands as he entered.

"Great news, boys," said he; "who do you think was at my house, when I got home, but M'Garry, with his head bandaged up, and his whole body, as he declares, bearing black and blue testimony to the merciless attack of the bold O'Grady, against whom he swears he'll bring an action for a.s.sault and battery. Now, boys, I thought it would be great fun to have him here to dinner--it's as good as a play to hear him describe the thrashing--so I asked him to come. He said he was not in a fit state to dine out; but I egged him on by saying that a sight of him in his present plight would excite sympathy for him, and stir up public feeling against O'Grady, and that all would tell in the action, as most likely some of the present company might be on the jury, and would be the better able to judge how far he was ent.i.tled to damages, from witnessing the severity of the injury he had received. So he's coming; and mind, you must all be deeply affected at his sufferings, and impressed with the _powerful_ description he gives of the same."

"Very scientific, of course," said old Growling.

"Extensively so," returned Murphy; "he laid on the Latin _heavy_."

"Yes--the fool!" growled the doctor: "he can't help sporting it even on me. I went into his shop one day, and asked for some opium wine, and he could not resist calling it _vinum opii_ as he handed it to me."

"We'll make him a martyr!" cried Durfy.

"We'll make him dhrunk!" said Jack Horan, "and that will be better. He brags that he never was what he calls 'inebriated' in his life; and it will be great fun to send him home on a door, with a note to his wife, who is proud of his propriety."