“Very well, Mrs Kelly—­you shall pay for this impudence, and that dearly.  You’ve invented these lies, as a pretext for getting my sister and her property into your hands!”

“Lies!” screamed the widow; “av’ you say lies to me agin, in this house, I’ll smash the bones of ye myself, with the broom-handle.  Lies, indeed! and from you, Barry Lynch, the biggest liar in all Connaught—­not to talk of robber and ruffian!  You’d betther take yourself out of that, fair and asy, while you’re let.  You’ll find you’ll have the worst of it, av’ you come rampaging here wid me, my man;” and she turned round to the listening crowd for sympathy, which those who dared were not slow in giving her.

“And that’s thrue for you, Mrs Kelly, Ma’am,” exclaimed one.

“It’s a shame for him to come storming here, agin a lone widdy, so it is,” said a virago, who seemed well able, like the widow herself, to take her own part.

“Who iver knew any good of a Lynch—­barring Miss Anty herself?” argued a third.

“The Kellys is always too good for the likes of them,” put in a fourth, presuming that the intended marriage was the subject immediately in discourse.

“Faix, Mr Martin’s too good for the best of ’em,” declared another.

“Niver mind Mr Martin, boys,” said the widow, who wasn’t well pleased to have her son’s name mentioned in the affair—­“it’s no business of his, one way or another; he ain’t in Dunmore, nor yet nigh it.  Miss Anty Lynch has come to me for protection; and, by the Blessed Virgin, she shall have it, as long as my name’s Mary Kelly, and I ain’t like to change it; so that’s the long and short of it, Barry Lynch.  So you may go and get dhrunk agin as soon as you plaze, and bate and bang Terry Rooney, or Judy Smith; only I think either on ’em’s more than a match for you.”

“Then I tell you, Mrs Kelly,” replied Barry, who was hardly able to get in a word, “that you’ll hear more about it.  Steps are now being taken to prove Miss Lynch a lunatic, as every one here knows she unfortunately is; and, as sure as you stand there, you’ll have to answer for detaining her; and you’re much mistaken if you think you’ll get hold of her property, even though she were to marry your son, for, I warn you, she’s not her own mistress, or able to be so.”

“Drat your impudence, you low-born ruffian,” answered his opponent; “who cares for her money?  It’s not come to that yet, that a Kelly is wanting to schame money out of a Lynch.”

“I’ve nothing more to say, since you insist on keeping possession of my sister,” and Barry turned to the door.  “But you’ll be indicted for conspiracy, so you’d better be prepared.”

“Conspiracy, is it?” said one of Mrs Kelly’s admirers; “maybe, Ma’am, he’ll get you put in along with Dan and Father Tierney, God bless them!  It’s conspiracy they’re afore the judges for.”

Barry now took himself off, before hearing the last of the widow’s final peal of thunder.