“Pray who informed you, Mr. Cochrane?”

“That’s not your business, my man,” replied Cochrane, “out with them before we search.”

“I’ll tell you what, Cochrane,” replied M’Loughlin, “whoever informed you that we have arms is a liar—­we have no arms.”

“And right well they know that,” said his son, “it’s not for arms they come, but it’s a good excuse to insult the family.”

His father (who, on looking more closely at them, now perceived that they were tipsy, and some of them quite drunk) though a man of singular intrepidity, deemed it the wisest and safest course to speak to them as civilly as possible.

“I did’nt think, Tom Cochrane,” said he, “that either I or any of my family, deserved such a visit as this from, I may say, my own door neighbors.  It’s not over civil, I think, to come in this manner, disturbing a quiet and inoffensive family.”

“What’s the ribelly rascal sayin’?” asked a drunken fellow, who lurched across the floor, and would have fallen, had he not come in contact with a chest of drawers, “what, wha-at’s he say-ayin? but I sa-ay here’s to hell with the Po-po-pope—­hurra!”

“Ah?” said young M’Loughlin, “you have the ball at your own foot now, but if we were man to man, with equal weapons, there would be none of this swagger.”

“What’s tha-at the young rible says,” said ’the drunken fellow, deliberately covering him with his cavalry pistol—­“another word, and I’ll let day-light through you.”

“Come, Burke,” said a man named Irwin, throwing up the muzzle of the pistol, “none o’ this work, you drunken brute.  Don’t be alarmed, M’Loughlin, you shan’t be injured.”

“Go go to h—­l, George, I’ll do what I—­I li-like; sure ’all these ribels ha-hate King William that sa-saved us from brass money a-and wooden noggins—­eh, stay, shoes it is; no matter, they ought to be brogues I think, for it—­it’s brogues—­ay, brogues, the papish—­it is, by hell, ‘brogues and broghans an’ a’ the Pa-papishes wear—­that saved us from bra-brass money, an—­and wooden brogues, that’s it—­for dam-damme if ever the Papishers was da-dacent enough to wear brass shoes, never, by jingo; so, boys, it’s brass brogues—­ay, do they ha-hate King William, that put us in the pil-pillory, the pillory in hell, and the devils pel-peltin’ us with priests,—­hurra boys, recover arms—­stand at aise—­ha—­ram down Catholics—­hurra!”

“Mr. M’Loughlin—­”

“Mislher M’Loughlin! ay, there’s respect for a Pa-pish, an’ from a purple man, too!”

“You had better be quiet, Burke,” retorted Irwin, who was a determined and powerful man.

“For God’s sake, gentlemen,” said Mrs. M’Loughlin, “do not disturb or alarm our family—­you are at liberty to search the house, but, as God is above us, we have no arms of any kind, and consequently there can be none in the house.”