'
"'And so you are preparing?' I asked.
"'I ought rather say,' he replied, 'that we are prepared; we go in
another month; I only wish we were there already.'
"'I fear, Bryan,' said I, 'that you have not been well trated of late.'
He looked at me with something like surprise, but said nothing; and in
a quarter, I added, 'that was the last from which you were prepared to
expect justice without mercy.'
"'I don't understand you,' he replied sharply; 'what do you mean?'
"'Bryan,' said I, 'I scorn a moral circumbendibus where the direct truth
is necessary; I have heard it said, and I fear it is burthened wid too
much uncomfortable veracity, that Kathleen Cavanagh has donned the black
cap* in doing the judicial upon you, and that she considers her sentence
equal to the laws of the Medes and Persians, unchangeable--or,
like those of our own blessed church--wid reverence be the analogy
made--altogether infallible.' His eye blazed as I spoke; he caught me
where by the collar wid a grip that made me quake--'Another word against
Kathleen Cavanagh,' he replied, 'and I will shake every joint of your
carcass out of its place.' His little sister, Dora, was wid him at the
time; 'Give him a shake or two as it is,' she added, egging him on, 'for
what he has said already;' throth she's a lively little lady that,
an' if it wasn't that she has a pair of dark shining eyes, and sweet
features--ay, and as coaxin' a figure of her own--however, sorra may
care, somehow, I defy any one to, be angry wid her.
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