Val, for years, knew his father’s disposition too well to form any expectations whatsoever from him, and, indeed, it is but just to say that old Deaker took care not to allow him an opportunity of falling into a single misconception on the subject.  As a natural consequence, Val hated him, and would have come long before to an open rupture with him, were it not that he feared to make him his enemy.  He also thought it possible that Deaker, out of respect for his villany, might in some capricious moment have thought of rewarding it; and so probably he might have done, were it not for two traits in his character which his worthy father especially detested—­viz., cowardice and hypocrisy.

Val, on his return home, found fewer carts than he had calculated upon even among his blood-hounds.  Orangemen, in the social and civil duties of life, are sterling and excellent men in general.  It is only when brought together for the discharge of political duties, by such miscreants as M’Clutchy, or when met in their Lodges under the united influence of liquor and mad prejudices; or when banded together in fairs and markets under the same stimulants, and probably provoked and dared by masses of less open and more treacherous opponents; it is only then we say that their most licentious outrages were committed.  Meet the Orangeman, however, in his field, or in his house and he will aid and assist you in your struggles or difficulties, as far as he can; no matter how widely you may differ from him in creed.

The fact was that on understanding the nature of the duty Val expected from them—­and which the reader may perceive was not an official one, most of them absolutely refused to come.  M’Loughlin, they said, had given extensive employment, and circulated large sums of money annually in the neighborhood, and they did not see why an Absentee landlord, or his Agent, should wish to throw so many hands out of employment, and to ruin so many families.  They wern’t on duty now, which was a different thing; but they had their own opinions on the subject—­they knew Captain Phil’s conduct—­and d—­n them, if M’Loughlin was a Papish twenty times over, if they’d lend a hand in any sense to carry away his furniture.  It was all well enough when they were drunk or on duty, but they weren’t drunk or on duty now.

Three or four cars and carts were all that Val found at home on his arrival there—­a circumstance which, added to his recent disappointment touching Deaker—­from whom he had, in fact, to the last, cherished secret expectations—­inflamed his resentment against M’Loughlin almost beyond all conception.

On leaving Constitution Cottage for M’Loughlin’s, he was not a little surprised to see worthy Phil walking, backward, and forward on the lawn, accompanied by no less a personage than our friend Raymond-na-hattha.

“Ah,” said he to Phil, looking at him and Raymond, “there’s a pair of you.”

“Never mind, old fellow,” said Phil with a grin, “you don’t know what’s ahead—­a pretty bit of goods; begad, father, Raymond’s a jewel:—­ah, you don’t know her, but I do—­hip, hip, old cook.”