“Do, Miss Anty, dear do, darling,” added Biddy.  “It’ll be a dale betther for you than waiting here to be batthered and bruised, and, perhaps, murthered out and out.”

“Hush, Biddy—­don’t be saying such things,” said the widow, who had a great idea of carrying on the war on her own premises, but who felt seriously afraid of Barry now that she was in his house, “don’t be saying such things, to frighthen her.  But you’ll be asier there than here,” she continued, to Anty; “and there’s nothin like having things asy.  So, get up alanna [12], and we’ll have you warm and snug down there in no time.”

     [Footnote 12:  alanna—­my child]

Anty did not want much persuading.  She was soon induced to get up and dress herself, to put on her cloak and bonnet, and hurry off with the widow, before the people of Dunmore should be up to look at her going through the town to the inn; while Biddy was left to pack up such things as were necessary for her mistress’ use, and enjoined to hurry down with them to the inn as quick as she could; for, as the widow said, “there war no use in letting every idle bosthoon [13] in the place see her crossing with a lot of baggage, and set them all asking the where and the why and the wherefore; though, for the matther of that, they’d all hear it soon enough.”

     [Footnote 13:  bosthoon—­a worthless fellow]

To tell the truth, Mrs Kelly’s courage waned from the moment of her leaving her own door, and it did not return till she felt herself within it again.  Indeed, as she was leaving the gate of Dunmore House, with Anty on her arm, she was already beginning to repent what she was doing; for there were idlers about, and she felt ashamed of carrying off the young heiress.  But these feelings vanished the moment she had crossed her own sill.  When she had once got Anty home, it was all right.  The widow Kelly seldom went out into the world; she seldom went anywhere except to mass; and, when out, she was a very modest and retiring old lady; but she could face the devil, if necessary, across her own counter.

And so Anty was rescued, for a while, from her brother’s persecution.  This happened on the morning on which Martin and Lord Ballindine met together at the lawyer’s, when the deeds were prepared which young Kelly’s genuine honesty made him think necessary before he eloped with old Sim Lynch’s heiress.  He would have been rather surprised to hear, at that moment, that his mother had been before him, and carried off his bride elect to the inn!

Anty was soon domesticated.  The widow, very properly, wouldn’t let her friends, Meg and Jane, ask her any questions at present.  Sally had made, on the occasion, a pot of tea sufficient to supply the morning wants of half a regiment, and had fully determined that it should not be wasted.  The Kelly girls were both up, and ready to do anything for their friend; so they got her to take a little of Sally’s specific, and put her into a warm bed to sleep, quiet and secure from any interruption.