“Get out wid you!  You’re no good, and never will be.  An’ it wasn’t for the young woman upstairs, I’d have the coat off your back, and your face well mauled, before I let you out of the shop!” And so ended the interview, in which the anxious brother can hardly be said to have been triumphant, or successful.

The widow, on the other hand, seemed to feel that she had acquitted herself well, and that she had taken the orphan’s part, like a woman, a Christian, and a mother; and merely saying, with a kind of inward chuckle, “Come to me, indeed, with his roguery! he’s got the wrong pig by the ear!” she walked off, to join the more timid trio upstairs, one of whom was speedily sent down, to see that business did not go astray.

And then she gave a long account of the interview to Anty and Meg, which was hardly necessary, as they had heard most of what had passed.  The widow however was not to know that, and she was very voluble in her description of Barry’s insolence, and of the dreadfully abusive things he had said to her—­how he had given her the lie, and called her out of her name.  She did not, however, seem to be aware that she had, herself, said a word which was more than necessarily violent; and assured Anty over and over again, that, out of respect to her feelings, and because the man was, after all, her brother, she had refrained from doing and saying what she would have done and said, had she been treated in such a manner by anybody else.  She seemed, however, in spite of the ill-treatment which she had undergone, to be in a serene and happy state of mind.  She shook Anty’s two hands in hers, and told her to make herself “snug and asy where she was, like a dear girl, and to fret for nothing, for no one could hurt or harum her, and she undher Mary Kelly’s roof.”  Then she wiped her face in her apron, set to at her dinner; and even went so far as to drink a glass of porter, a thing she hadn’t done, except on a Sunday, since her eldest daughter’s marriage.

Barry Lynch sneaked up the town, like a beaten dog.  He felt that the widow had had the best of it, and he also felt that every one in Dunmore was against him.  It was however only what he had expected, and calculated upon; and what should he care for the Dunmore people?  They wouldn’t rise up and kill him, nor would they be likely even to injure him.  Let them hate on, he would follow his own plan.  As he came near the house gate, there was sitting, as usual, Jacky, the fool.

“Well, yer honer, Masther Barry,” said Jacky, “don’t forget your poor fool this blessed morning!”

“Away with you!  If I see you there again, I’ll have you in Bridewell, you blackguard.”

“Ah, you’re joking, Masther Barry.  You wouldn’t like to be afther doing that.  So yer honer’s been down to the widdy’s?  That’s well; it’s a fine thing to see you on good terms, since you’re soon like to be so sib.  Well, there an’t no betther fellow, from this to Galway, than Martin Kelly, that’s one comfort, Masther Barry.”