“Sure enough, the bad dhrop’s in him,” exclaimed several on both sides.  “But what the h—­l does he mane now, I dunna?”

“It’ll be only a good joke to-morrow wid him,” observed one of them—­“but, boys, we must think how to manage him; I can’t forgive him for the cowardly blow he hot the poor colleen here, an’ for the same rason I didn’t dhraw the knot so tight upon her as I could a’ done.”

“Was it you that nipped my arm?” asked Biddy.

“Faix, you may say that, an’ it was to let you know that, let him say as he would, after what we seen of him to-night, we wouldn’t allow him to thrate you badly without marryin’ you first.”

The night having been now pretty far advanced, the two parties separated in order to go to their respective homes—­Alick taking Biddy under his protection to her master’s.  As the way of many belonging to each lodge lay in the same direction, they were accompanied, of course, to the turn that led up to the Bodagh’s house.  Biddy, notwithstanding the severe blow she had got, related the night’s adventure with much humor, dwelling upon her own part in the transaction with singular glee.

“There’s some thraicherous villin in the Bodagh’s,” said she, “be it man or woman; for what ’id you think but the hall-door was left lying to only—­neither locked nor boulted.  But, indeed, anyhow, it’s the start was taken out o’ me whin Ned M’Cormick—­that you wor to meet in our kitchen, Alick—­throth, I won’t let Kitty Lowry wait up for you so long another time.”  She added this to throw the onus of the assignation off her own shoulders, and to lay it upon those of Alick and Kitty.  “But, anyhow, I had just time to throw her clothes upon me and get into her bed.  Be me sowl, but I acted the fright an’ sickness in style.  I wasn’t able to spake a word, you persave, till we got far enough from the house to give Miss Oona time to hide herself.  Oh, thin, the robbin’ villin how he put the muzzle of his gun to the lock of Miss Oona’s desk, when he couldn’t get the key, an’ blewn it to pieces, an’ thin he took every fardin’ he could lay his hands upon.”

She then detailed her own feelings during the abduction, in terms so ludicrously abusive of Flanagan, that those who accompanied her were exceedingly amused; for what she said was strongly provocative of mirth, yet the chief cause of laughter lay in the vehement sincerity with which she spoke, and in the utter unconsciousness of uttering anything that was calculated to excite a smile.  There is, however, a class of such persons, whose power of provoking laughter consists in the utter absence of humor.  Those I speak of never laugh either at what they say themselves, or what any one else may say; but they drive on right ahead with an inverted originality that is perfectly irresistible.

We must now beg the reader to accompany them to the Bodagh’s, where a scene awaited them for which they were scarcely prepared.  On approaching the house they could perceive, by the light glittering from the window chinks, that the family were in a state of alarm; but at this they were not surprised; for such a commotion in the house, after what had occurred, was but natural.  They went directly to the kitchen door and rapped.