Beth's fury revived when she saw Murphy, and she laughed aloud derisively. All three men started and looked up, then crossed themselves.
"Didn't I tell ye, Pat!" Beth exclaimed. "Ye may save yourself the trouble of doctoring him. He's as dead as my magpie."
Murphy looked much depressed. "Shure, Miss Beth, the poor baste done ye no harm," he pleaded.
"No," said Beth, "nor my bird hadn't done you any harm, nor the cow Tony cut the tail off hadn't done him any harm."
"I didn't kill yer burrd," Murphy asserted doggedly.
"We'll see," said Beth. "When the horse dies we'll know who killed the bird. Then one of you skunks can try and kill me. But I'd advise you to use a silver bullet; and if you miss, you'll be damned.--Blast ye, Riley, will ye let me alone!"
Riley, hearing what was going on, and having called to her vainly to hold her tongue, had climbed the stack himself, and now laid hold of her. Beth struck him in the face promptly, whereupon he shook her, and loosening her hold of the wall, began to carry her down--a perilous proceeding, for the stack was steep, and Beth, enraged at the indignity, doubled herself up and scratched and bit and kicked the whole way to the ground.
"Ye little divil," said Riley, setting her on her feet, "ye'll get us all into trouble wid that blasted tongue o' yours."
"Who's afraid?" said Beth, shaking her tousled head, and standing up to Riley with her little fists clenched.
"If the divil didn't put ye out when he gave up housekeeping, I dunno where you come from," Riley muttered as he turned away and stumped off stolidly.
During the night the horse died, and Beth found when she went out next day that the carcass had been dragged down Murphy's garden and put in the lane outside. She climbed the wall, and discovered the farrier skinning the horse, and was much disgusted to see him using his hands without gloves on in such an operation. Her anger of the day before was all over now, and she was ready to be on the usual terms of scornful intimacy with Murphy.
"Ye'll never be able to touch anything to eat again with those hands," she said.
"Won't I, thin!" he answered sulkily, and without looking up. He was as inconsequent as a child that resents an injury, but can be diverted from the recollection of it by anything interesting, only to return to its grievance, however, the moment the interest fails. "Won't I, thin! Just you try me wid a bit o' bread-an'-butter this instant, an' see what I'll do wid it."