dy to himself.

Scarcely had he left the apothecary's when another messenger alighted
at its door, and asked "If Squire O'Grady's things _was_ ready?"

"There they are," said the innocent M'Garry, pointing to the bottles,
boxes, and _blister_, he had made up and set aside, little dreaming
that the blister had been exchanged for a law process: and Squire
O'Grady's own messenger popped into his pocket the legal instrument
that it was as much as any seven men's lives were worth to bring within
gunshot of Neck-or-nothing Hall.

Home he went, and the sound of the old gate creaking on its hinges at
the entrance of the avenue awoke the deep-mouthed dogs around the
house, who rushed infuriate to the spot to devour the unholy intruder
on the peace and privacy of the patrician O'Grady; but they recognised
the old grey hack and his rider, and quietly wagged their tails and
trotted back, and licked their lips at the thoughts of the bailiff they
had hoped to eat. The door of Neck-or-nothing Hall was carefully
unbarred and unchained, and the nurse-tender was handed the parcel from
the apothecary's, and re-ascended to the sick room with slippered foot
as quietly as she could; for the renowned O'Grady was, according to her
account, "as cross as two sticks;" and she protested, furthermore,
"that her heart was grey with him."

Whenever O'Grady was in a bad humour, he had a strange fashion of
catching at some word that either he himself, or those with whom he
spoke, had uttered, and after often repeating it, or rather mumbling it
over in his mouth, as if he were chewing it, off he started into a
canter of ridiculous rhymes to the aforesaid word, and sometimes one of
these rhymes would suggest a new idea, or some strange association
which had the oddest effect possible; and to increase the absurdity,
the jingle was gone through with as much solemnity as if he were
indulging in a deep and interesting reverie, so that it was difficult
to listen without laughing, which might prove a serious matter when
O'Grady was in one of the _tantarums_, as his wife used to call them.

Mrs. O'Grady was near the bed of the sick man as the nurse-tender
entered.

"Here's the things for your honour, now," said she, in her most
soothing tone.

"I wish the d----l had you and them!" said O'Grady.

"Gusty, dear!" said his wife. (She might have said stormy instead of
gusty.)

"Oh! they'll do you good, your honour," said the nurse-tender, curtsying,
and