“Come, my customer,” said their leader, “who and what are you?  Quick—­give an account of yourself.”

“A poor creature that’s lookin’ for my bit, sir, God help me.”

“What’s your name?”

“One Paddy Brennan, sir, please your honor.”

“Ay—­one Paddy Brennan (hiccough), and—­and—­one Paddy Brennan, where do you go of a Sunday?”

“I don’t go out at all, sir, of a Sunda’; whenever I stop of a Saturday night I always stop until Monday mornin’.”

“I mean, are you a Papish?”

“Troth, I oughtn’t to say I am, your honor—­or at least a very bad one.”

“But you are, a Papish.”

“A kind of one, sir.”

“Curse me, the fellow’s humbug-gin’ you, sergeant,” said one of the men; “to be sure he’s a Papish.”

“To be sure,” replied several of the others—­“doesn’t he admit he’s a Papish?”

“Blow me, if—­if—­I’ll bear this,” replied the sergeant.  “I’m a senior off—­off—­officer conductin’ the examination, and I’ll suffer no—­no—­man to intherfare.  I must have subor—­or—­ordination, or I’ll know what for.  Leave him to me, then, and I’ll work him up, never fear.  George Johnston isn’t the blessed babe to be imposed upon—­that’s what I say.  Come, my good fellow, mark—­mark me now.  If you let but a quarter of—­of—­an inch of a lie out of your lips, I you’re a dead man.  Are you all charged, gentlemen?”

“All charged, sergeant, with loyalty and poteen at any rate; hang the Pope.”

“Shoulder arms—­well done.  Present arms.  Where is—­is—­this rascal?  Oh, yes, here he is.  Well, you are there—­are you?”

“I’m here, captain.”

“Well blow me, that’s not—­not—­bad, my good fellow; if I’m not a captain, worse men have been so (hiccough); that’s what I say.”

“Hadn’t we better make a prisoner of him at once, and bring him to Sir Robert’s?” observed another.

“Simpson, hold—­old—­your tongue, I say.  Curse me if I’ll suffer any man to in—­intherfere with me in the discharge of my duty.”

“How do we know,” said another, “but I he’s a Rapparee in disguise?—­for that matter, he may be Reilly himself.”

“Captain and gentlemen,” said Fergus, “if you have any suspicion of me, I’m willin’ to go anywhere you like; and, above all things, I’d like to go to Sir Robert’s, bekaise they know me there—­many a good bit and sup I got in his kitchen.”

“Ho, ho!” exclaimed the sergeant; “now I have you—­now I know whether you can tell truth or not.  Answer me this.  Did ever Sir Robert himself give you charity?  Come, now.”

Fergus perceived the drift of the question at once.  The penurious character of the baronet was so well known throughout the whole barony that if he had replied in the affirmative every man of them would have felt that the assertion was a lie, and he would consequently have been detected.  He was prepared, however.

“Throth then, gintlemen,” he replied, “since you must have the truth, and although maybe what I’m goin’ to say won’t be plaisin’ to you, as Sir Robert’s friends, I must come out wid it; devil resave the color of his money ever I seen yet, and it isn’t but I often axed him for it.  No—­but the sarvints often sind me up a bit from the kitchen below.”