“An’ mighty glad I am of it:  my own—­own’s bad enough, God knows, an’ for the mat—­matther o’ that—­here’s God pardon us all, barrin’ that ould cardin’ sinner—­amin, acheerna villish, this night!  Boys, I’ll sing-yes a song.”

“Aisy, Ned,” said one or two of them, “bad as it was, let us hear Billy Bradly’s story out.”

“Well,” proceeded Billy, “when the ticklin’ was over, we took the scraws off of the grave, lined wid thorns as it was, and laid the procthor, naked and bleedin’—­scarified into gris-kins—­”

“Let me at—­at him, the ould cardin’ mur—­urdherer; plain murdher’s daicency compared to that.  Don’t hould me, Dick; if I was sworn ten times over, I’ll bate the divil’s taptoo on his ould carkage.”

“Be aisy, Ned—­be aisy now, don’t disturb the company—­sure you wouldn’t rise your hand to an ould man like Billy Bradly.  Be quiet.”

—­“Scarified into griskins as he was,” proceeded Bradly looking at Ned with a grin of contempt—­“ay, indeed, snug and cosily we laid him in his bed of feadhers, and covered him wid thin scraws for fear he’d catch could—­he! he! he!  That’s the way we treated the procthors in our day.  I think I desarve a drink now!”

Drinking was now resumed with more vigor, and the proceedings of the night were once more discussed.

“It was a badly-managed business every way,” said one of them, “especially to let M’Carthy escape; however, we’ll see him ’igain, and if we can jist lay our eyes upon him in some quiet place, it’ll be enough;—­what’s to be done wid this body till mornin.’  It can’t be lyin’ upon the chairs here all might.”

M’Carthy, we need scarcely assure our readers, did not suffer all this time to pass without making an effort to escape.  This, however, was a matter of dreadful danger, as the circumstances of the case stood.  In the first place, as we have already said, the door between the room in which he lay and that in which the Whiteboys sat, was open, and the light of the candles shone so strongly into it, that it was next to an impossibility for him to cross over to the window without being seen; in the second place, the joints of the beds were so loose and rickety that, on the slightest motion of its Occupant, it creaked and shrieked so loud, that any attempt to rise off it must necessarily have discovered him.

“We must do something with the body of this unlucky boy,” continued the speaker; “divil resave you, M’Carthy, it was on your account he came to this fate; blessed man, if we could only catch him!”

“Here, Dick, you and Jemmy there, and Art, come and let us bring him into the bed’ in the next room—­it’s a fitter and more properer place for him than lyin’ upon chairs here.  God be merciful to you, poor Lanty, it’s little you expected this when you came out to-night!  Take up the candles two more of you, and go before us:  here—­steady now; mother of heaven, how stiff and heavy he has got in so short a time—­and his family! what will they say?  Hell resave you, M’Carthy, I say agin!  I’m but a poor man, and I wouldn’t begrudge a five-pound note to get widin shot of you, wherever you are.”