“I must shell my fwisky,” replied Teddy, sullenly, “fwhedher you come or stay.”

“If you don’t clear the place of them instantly,” replied Hycy, “I shall return home again.”

Hogan seemed a good deal alarmed at this intimation, and said—­“Ay, indeed, Terry, we had better put them out o’ this.”

“Fwhor fwhat?” asked Teddy, “dere my best customers shure—­an’ fwlay would I quarrel wid ’em all fwor wan man?”

“Good-night, then, you misshapen ruffian,” said Burke, about to go.

“Aisy, Mr. Burke,” said.  Hogan; “well soon make short work wid them.  Here, Ted, you devil’s catch-penny, come an’ help me!  Hillo, here!” he shouted, “what are you at, you gallows crew?  Do you want to go to the stone jug, I say?  Be off out o’ this—­here’s the guager, blast him, an’ the sogers!  Clear out, I tell you, or every mother’s son of you will sleep undher the skull and cross-bones to-night.” (* Meaning the County Prison)

“Here you, Barney,” whispered Teddy, who certainly did not wish that Burke should return as he came; “here, you great big fwhool you, give past your yowlin’ dere—­and lookin’ at your blood—­run out dere, come in an’ shout the gauger an’ de sogers.”

Barney, who naturally imagined that the intelligence was true, complied with the order he had received in a spirit of such alarming and dreadful earnestness, that a few minutes found the still-house completely cleared of the two parties, not excepting Hogan himself, who, having heard nothing of Teddy’s directions to the fool, took it now for granted that that alarm was a real one, and ran along with the rest.  The schoolmaster had fallen asleep, Kate Hogan was engaged in making preparations for supper at the lower end of the casern, and the fool had been dispatched to fetch Hogan himself back, so that Hycy now saw there was a good opportunity for stating at more length than he could in the market the purpose of his visit.

“Teddy,” said he, “now that the coast’s clear, let us lose no time in coming to the point.  You are aware that Bryan M’Mahon has come into the mountain farm of Ahadarra by the death of his uncle.”

“Shiss; dese three years.”

“You will stick to your cursed brogue,” said the other; “however, that’s your own affair.  You are aware of this?”

“I am.”

“Well, I have made my mind up to take another turn at this,” and he tapped the side of the still with his stick; “and I’ll try it there.  I don’t know a better place, and it is much more convenient than this.”

Teddy looked at him from under his brows, but seemed rather at a loss to comprehend his meaning.

“Fwor fhy ’ud you go to Ahadarra?”

“It’s more convenient, and quite as well adapted for it as this place, or nearly.”

“Well!  Shiss, well?”

“Well; why that’s all I have to say about it, except that I’m not to be seen or known in the business at all—­mark that.”