“Give a body time, if you plaise,” responded the priest, who at that moment had about him all the marks and tokens of a farmer, or, at least, of a man who wished to pass for one.  “I think,” he added, “if you knew who you had, you’d not only pass me by, but the very coach I’m travelin’ in.  Don’t be unaisy, man alive,” he proceeded; “have patience—­for patience, as everybody knows, is a virtue—­do, then, have patience, or, maybe—­oh! ay!—­here it is—­here is what you want—­the very thing, I’ll be bound—­and you must have it, too.”  And the poor man, in the hurry and alarm of the moment, pulled out one of the baronet’s pistols.

The robber whipped away the lantern, and instantly disappeared.  “By the tarn, boys,” said he, “it’s Finnerty himself, disguised like a farmer.  But he’s mid to travel in a public coach, and the beaks on the lookout for him.  Hello! all’s right, coachman; drive on, we won’t disturb you this night, at all events.  Gee hup!—­off you go; and off we go—­with empty pockets.”

It happened that this language, which the robber did not intend to have reached the ears of the passengers, was heard nevertheless, and from this moment until they changed horses at ------ there was a dead silence in the coach.

On that occasion one gentleman left it, and he had scarcely been half a minute gone when a person, very much in the garb and bearing of a modern detective, put in his head, and instantly withdrew it, exclaiming,

“Curse me, it’s a hit—­he’s inside as snug as a rat in a trap.  Up with you on top of the coach, and we’ll pin him when we reach town.  ’Gad, this is a windfall, for the reward is a heavy one.—­If we could now manage the baronet’s business, we were made men.”

He then returned into the coach, and took his seat right opposite the priest, in order the better to watch his motions, and keep him completely under his eye.

“Dangerous traveling by night, sir,” said he, addressing the priest, anxious to draw his man into conversation.

“By night or by day, the roads are not very safe at the present time,” replied his reverence.

“The danger’s principally by night, though,” observed the other.  “This Finnerty is playing the devil, they say; and is hard to be nabbed by all accounts.”

The observation was received by several hums, and hems, and has, and very significant ejaculations, whilst a fat, wealthy-looking fellow, who sat beside the peace-officer—­for such he was—­in attempting to warn him of Finnerty’s presence, by pressing on his foot, unfortunately pressed upon that of the priest in mistake, who naturally interpreted the hems and has aforesaid to apply to the new-corner instead of himself.  This cannot be matter of surprise, inasmuch as the priest had his ears so completely muffled up with the collar of his jock and a thick cotton kerchief, that he heard not the allusions which the robber had made outside the coach, when he mistook him for Finnerty.  He consequently peered very keenly at the last speaker, who to tell the truth, had probably in his villanous features ten times more the character and visage of a highwayman and cutthroat than the redoubtable Finnerty himself.