“Your honor,” said the Red Rapparee, approaching and giving a military salute to his patron, “will you allow me to remain in town for an hour or two?  I have a scheme in my head that may come to something.  I will tell your honor what it is when I get home.”

“Very well, O’Donnel,” replied Sir Robert; “but I’d advise you not to ride late, if you can avoid it.  You know that every man in your uniform is a mark for the vindictive resentment of these Popish rebels.”

“Ah! maybe I don’t know that, your honor; but you may take my word for it that I will lose little time.”

He then rode down a by-street, very coolly, taking the gauger’s horse along with him.  The reader may remember the fable of the cat that had been transformed into a lady, and the unfortunate mouse.  The Rapparee, whose original propensities were strong as ever, could not, for the soul of him, resist the temptation of selling the horse and pocketing the amount.  He did so, and very deliberately proceeded home to his barracks, but took care to avoid any private communication with his patron for some days, lest he might question him as to what he had done with the animal.

In the meantime, this monstrous outrage upon an unoffending priest, who was a natural subject of France, perpetrated, as it was, in the open face of day, and witnessed by so many, could not, as the reader may expect, be long concealed.  It soon reached the ears of the Marquis of ------and his lady, who were deeply distressed at the disappearance of their aged and revered friend.  The Marquis, on satisfying himself of the truth of the report, did not, as might have been expected, wait upon Sir Robert Whitecraft; but without loss of time set sail for London, to wait upon the French Ambassador, to whom he detailed the whole circumstances of the outrage.  And here we shall not further proceed with an account of those circumstances, as they will necessarily intermingle with that portion of the narrative which is to follow.

CHAPTER XVI.—­Sir Robert ingeniously extricates Himself out of a great Difficulty.

On the day after the outrage we have described, the indignant old squire’s carriage stopped at the hall-door of Sir Robert Whitecraft, whom he found at home.  As yet, the latter gentleman had heard nothing of the contumelious dismissal of Miss Herbert; but the old squire was not ignorant of the felonious abduction of the priest.  At any other time, that is to say, in some of his peculiar stretches of loyalty, the act might, have been a feather in the cap of the loyal baronet; but, at present, he looked both at him and his exploits through the medium of the insult he had offered to his daughter.  Accordingly, when he entered the baronet’s library, where he found him literally sunk in papers, anonymous letters, warrants, reports to Government, and a vast variety of other documents, the worthy Sir Robert rose, and in the most cordial manner, and with the most extraordinary suavity of aspect, held out his hand, saying: