“Very well, sir,” replied the servant, “I shall do so.”

This occurred on the day of Whitecraft’s visit to Squire Folliard, and it was on the evening of the same that Smellpriest was sent upon the usual chase, on the information of the Rev. Samson Strong; so that the events to which we have alluded occurred, as if by some secret relation to each other, on the same day.

At length our friend Fergus entered the office, in his usual garb of an aged and confirmed mendicant.

“Well, Reilly,” said the sheriff, “I am glad you have come.  I could have taken up this ruffian, this Red Rapparee, as he is properly called, upon suspicion; but that would have occasioned delay; and it is my object to lodge him in jail this night, so as to give him no chance of escape unless he breaks prison; but in order to prevent that, I shall give strict injunctions, in consequence of the danger to be apprehended from so powerful and desperate a character, that he be kept in strong irons.”

“If it be within the strength of man, sir, to break prison, he will; he done it twice before; and he’s under the notion that he never was born to be hanged; some of the ould prophecy men, and Mary Mahon, it seems, tould him so.”

“In the meantime, Reilly, we shall test the truth of such prophecies.  But listen.  What is your wish that I should do for you, in addition to what I have already done.  You know what I have promised you, and that for some time past, and that I have the Secretary’s letter stating that you are free, and have to dread neither arrest nor punishment; but that is upon the condition that you shall give all the evidence against this man that you are possessed of.  In that case the Government will also bountifully reward you besides.”

“The Government need not think of any such thing, your honor,” replied Reilly; “a penny of Government money will never cross my pocket.  It isn’t for any reward I come against this man, but because he joined the blood-hounds of Sir Robert Whitecraft against his own priests and his own religion; or at last against the religion he professed, for I don’t think he ever had any.”

“Well, then, I can make you one of my officers.”

“Is it to go among the poor and distressed, sir, and help, maybe, to take the bed from undher the sick father or the sick mother, and to leave them without a stick undher the ould roof or naked walls?  No, sir; sooner than do that I’d take to the highway once more, and rob like a man in the face of danger.  That I may never see to-morrow,” he proceeded, with vehemence, “but I’d rather rob ten rich men than harish one poor family.  It was that work that druv me to the coorse I left—­that an’ the persecution that was upon us.  Take my word, sir, that in nineteen cases out of twenty it was the laws themselves, and the poverty they brought upon the country, that made the robbers.”

“But could you not give evidence against some others of the gang?”