“I say, Sir Robert, I’ll shoot the villain.  Do not hold me.  My pistols are unloaded and loaded every day in the year; and ever since I transported that rebel priest I never go without them.  But are you sure, Sir Robert?  Is it not possible you may be mistaken?  I know you are a suspicious fellow; but still, as I said, you are, for that very reason, the more liable to be wrong.  But, if it is he, what’s to be done, unless I shoot him?”

“Under the last Administration, sir, I could have answered your question; but you know that if you shoot him now you will be hanged.  All that’s left for us is simply to effect this marriage the day after tomorrow; the documents are all ready, and in the course of to-morrow the license can be procured.  In the meantime, you must dispatch him to-night.”

“What do you mean, Sir Robert?”

“I say you must send him about his business.  In point of fact, I think the fellow knows that he is discovered, and it is not unlikely that he may make an effort to carry off your daughter this very night.”

“But, Sir Robert, can we not seize him and surrender him to the authorities?  Is he not an outlaw?”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Folliard, he is not an outlaw; I stretched a little too far there.  It is true I got his name put into the Hew and-Cry, but upon representations which I cannot prove.”

“And why did you do so, Sir Robert?”

“Why, Mr. Folliard, to save your daughter.”

The old man paused.

“Ah,” he exclaimed, “that is a bad business—­I mean for you; Sir Robert; but we will talk it over.  You shall stop and dine with me; I want some one to talk with—­some one who will support me and keep me in spirits;” and as he spoke he sobbed bitterly.  “I wish to God,” he exclaimed, “that neither I nor Helen—­my dear Helen—­had ever seen that fellow’s face.  You will dine with me, Bob?”

“I will, upon the strict condition that you keep yourself quiet, and won’t seem to understand any thing.”

“Would you recommend me to lock her up?”

“By no means; that would only make matters worse.  I shall dine with you, but you must be calm and quiet, and not seem to entertain any suspicions.”

“Very well, I shall; but what has become of our lunch?  Touch the bell.”

This hint sent Lanigan downstairs, who met the butler coming up with it.

“Why, Pat,” said he, “what kept you so long with the lunch?”

“I was just thinking,” replied Pat, “how it would be possible to poison that ugly, ill-made, long-legged scoundrel, without poisoning my master.  What’s to be done, Lanigan?  He will marry this darlin’ in spite of us.  And sure, now we have our privileges once more, since this great Earl came to rule over us; and sure, they say, he’s a greater gentleman than the king himself.  All I can say is, that if this same Sir Robert forces the Cooleen Baum to such an unnatural marriage, I’ll try a dose, hit or miss, for a cowheel anyway.”