Having made a hasty toilet, I proceeded to the parlour, which, however late events might have impressed upon my memory, I could scarcely recognise.  Instead of the long oak table and the wassail bowl, there stood near the fire a small round table, covered with a snow—­white cloth, upon which shone in unrivalled brightness a very handsome tea equipage—­the hissing kettle on one hob was vis a vis’d by a gridiron with three newly taken trout, frying under the reverential care of Father Malachi himself—­a heap of eggs ranged like shot in an ordnance yard, stood in the middled of the table, while a formidable pile of buttered toast browned before the grate—­the morning papers were airing upon the hearth—­every thing bespoke that attention to comfort and enjoyment one likes to discover in the house where chance may have domesticated him for a day or two.

“Good morning, Mr. Lorrequer.  I trust you have rested well,” said Father Malachi as I entered.

“Never better; but where are our friends?”

“I have been visiting and comforting them in their affliction, and I may with truth assert it is not often my fortune to have three as sickly looking guests.  That was a most unlucky affair last night, and I must apologise.”

“Don’t say a word, I entreat; I saw how it all occurred, and am quite sure if it had not been for poor Curzon’s ill-timed melody—­”

“You are quite right,” said the father interrupting me.  “Your friend’s taste for music—­bad luck to it—­was the ‘teterrima causa belli.’”

“And the subscription,” said I; “how did it succeed?”

“Oh, the money went in the commotion; and although I have got some seven pounds odd shillings of it, the war was a most expensive one to me.  I caught old Mahony very busy under the table during the fray; but let us say no more about it now—­draw over your chair.  Tea or coffee? there’s the rum if you like it ‘chasse.’”

I immediately obeyed the injunction, and commenced a vigorous assault upon the trout, caught, as he informed me, “within twenty perches of the house.”

“Your poor friend’s nose is scarcely regimental,” said he, “this morning; and as for Fin, he was never remarkable for beauty, so, though they might cut and hack, they could scarcely disfigure him, as Juvenal says—­isn’t it Juvenal?

“‘Vacuus viator cantabit ante Latronem;’

“or in the vernacular: 

“’The empty traveller may whistle
Before the robber and his pistil’ (pistol).”

“There’s the Chili vinegar—­another morsel of the trout?”

“I thank you; what excellent coffee, Father Malachi!”

“A secret I learned at St. Omer’s some thirty years since.  Any letters, Bridget?”—­to a damsel that entered with a pacquet in her hand.

“A gossoon from Kilrush, y’r reverence, with a bit of a note for the gentleman there.”

“For me!—­ah, true enough.  Harry Lorrequer, Esq.  Kilrush—­try Carrigaholt.”  So ran the superscription—­the first part being in a lady’s handwriting; the latter very like the “rustic paling” of the worthy Mrs. Healy’s style.  The seal was a large one, bearing a coronet at top, and the motto in old Norman—­French, told me it came from Callonby.