“Why,” she answered, “they axed me if I had seen about the country a tight-looking fat little man, wid black twinklin’ eyes and a rosy face, wid a pair o’ priest’s boots upon him, greased wid hog’s lard?  I said no, but to the revarse.  They then searched the cabin, tossed the two beds about—­poor Jemmy’s—­God rest my boy’s sowl!—­an’—­afterwards my own.  There was one that seemed to hould authority over the rest, and he axed who was my landlord?  I said I had no landlord.  They then said that surely I must pay rent to some one, but I said that I paid rent to nobody; that Mr. Reilly here, God bless him, gave me this house and garden free.”

“And what did they say when you named Mr. Reilly?”

“Why, they said he was a dacent Papish, I think they called it; and that there wasn’t sich another among them.  They then lighted their pipes, had a smoke, went about their business, and I saw no more of them from that day to this.”

Reilly felt that this conversation was significant, and that the widow’s cabin was any thing but a safe place of refuge, even for a few hours.  We have already said that he had been popular with all parties, which was the fact, until his acquaintance with the old squire and his lovely daughter.  In the meantime the loves of Willy Reilly and the far-famed Cooleen Bawn had gone abroad over the whole country; and the natural result was that a large majority among those who were anxious to exterminate the Catholic Church by the rigor of bigoted and inhuman laws, looked upon the fact of a tolerated Papist daring to love a Protestant heiress, and the daughter of a man who was considered such a stout prop of the Establishment, as an act that deserved death itself.  Reilly’s affection for the Cooleen Bawn was considered, therefore, not only daring but treasonable.  Those men, then, he reflected, who had called upon her while in pursuit of the unfortunate priest, had become acquainted with the fact of her dependence upon his bounty; and he took it for granted, very naturally and very properly, as the event will show, that now, while “on his keeping,” it would not be at all extraordinary if they occasionally searched her remote and solitary cabin, as a place where he might be likely to conceal himself.  For this night, however, he experienced no apprehension of a visit from them, but with what correctness of calculation we shall soon see.

“Molly,” said he, this poor man and I must sit with you for a couple of hours, after which we will leave you to your rest.”

“Indeed, Mr. Reilly,” she replied, “from what I heard this day I can make a party good guess at the raison why you are here now, instead of bein’ in your own comfortable house.  You have bitther enemies; but God—­blessed be his name—­is stronger than any of them.  However, I wish you’d let me get you and that poor man something to eat.”