“And if there’s a just God in heaven, Bartle, who sees my heart, however things may go against me for a time, I say I will be able to sarve you, or any other friend that desarves it.  But about sleepin’ in to-night—­coorse I wouldn’t be knockin’ up my father, and disturbin’ my poor mother for no rason; so, of coorse, as I said, I’ll sleep in the barn; it makes no difference one way or other.”

“Connor,” said Flanagan, with much solemnity, “if Bodagh Buie’s wise, he’ll marry you and his daughter as fast as he can.”

“An’ why, Bartle?”

“Why, for rasons you know nothin’ about.  Of late he’s got very much out o’ favor, in regard of not comin’ in to what people wish.”

“Speak plainer, Bartle; I’m in the dark now.”

“There’s work goin’ on in the counthry, that you and every one like you ought to be up to; but you know nothin’, as I said, about it.  Now Bodagh Buie, as far as I hear—­for I’m in the dark myself nearly as much as you—­Bodagh Buie houlds out against them; an’ not only that, I’m tould, but gives them hard words, an’ sets them at defiance.”

“But what has all this to do with me marrying his daughter?”

“Why, he wants some one badly to stand his friend wid them; an’ if you were married to her, you should on his account become one o’ thim; begad, as it is, you ought, for to tell the truth there’s talk—­strong talk too—­about payin’ him a nightly visit that mayn’t sarve him.”

“Then, Bartle, you’re consarned in this business.”

“No, faith, not yet; but I suppose I must, if I wish to be safe in the counthry; an’ so must you too, for the same rason.”

“And, if not up, how do you know so much about it?”

“From one o’ themselves, that wishes the!  Bodagh well; ay, an’ let me tell you, he’s a marked man, an’ the night was appointed to visit him; still it was put back to thry if he could be managed, but he couldn’t; an’ all I know about it is that the time to remimber him is settled, an’ he’s to get it, an’, along wid other things, he’ll be ped for turnin’ off—­however, I can’t say any more about that.”

“How long is it since you knew this?”

“Not long—­only since last night, or you’d a got it before this.  The best way, I think, to put him on his guard ’ud be to send him a scrape of a line wid no name to it.”

“Bartle,” replied Connor, “I’m as much behoulden to you for this, as if it had been myself or my father that was marked.  God knows you have a good heart, an’ if you don’t sleep sound, I’m at a loss to know who ought.”

“But it’s hard to tell who has a good heart, Connor; I’d never say any one has till I’d seen them well thried.”