“‘Damn him!’ says another, ’let us not take the vagabone’s life; it’s enough to take the ears from him, and to give him a prod or two of a bagnet on the ribs; but don’t kill him.’

“‘Well, well,’ says Reilly, ’let us knock at the door, and get himself and the family out,’ says he, ’and then we’ll see what can be done wid him.’

“‘Tattheration to me,’ says the big Longford fellow, ’if he had sarved me, Reilly, as he did you, but I’d roast him in the flames of his own house,’ says he.

“‘I’d have you to know,’ says Slevin, ’that you have no command here, Collier.  I’m captain at the present time,’ says he; ’and more nor what I wish shall not be done.  Go over,’ says he to the blackfaces, ’and rap him up.’

“Accordingly they began to knock at the door, commanding Vengeance to get up and come out to them.

“‘Come, Vengeance,’ says Collier, ’put on you, my good fellow, and come out till two or three of your neighbors, that wish you well, gets a sight of your purty face, you babe of grace!’

“‘Who are you that wants me at all?’ says Vengeance from within.

“‘Come out, first,’ says Collier; ’a few friends that has a crow to pluck with you; walk out, avourneen; or if you’d rather be roasted alive, why you may stay where you are,’ says he.

“‘Gentlemen,’ says Vengeance, ’I have never, to my knowledge, offended any of you; and I hope you won’t be so cruel as to take an industrious, hard-working man from his family, in the clouds of the night, to do him an injury.  Go home, gentlemen, in the name of God, and let me and mine alone.  You’re all mighty dacent gentlemen, you know, and I’m determined never to make or meddle with any of you.  Sure, I know right well it’s purtecting me you would be, dacent gentlemen.  But I don’t think there’s any of my neighbors there, or they wouldn’t stand by and see me injured.’

“‘Thrue for you, avick,’ says they giving, at the same time; a terrible patterrara agin the door, with two or three big stones.

“‘Stop, stop!’ says Vengeance, ’don’t break the door, and I’ll open it.  I know you’re merciful, dacent gentlemen—­I know your merciful.’

“So the thief came and unbarred it quietly, and the next minute about a dozen of them that war within the house let slap at us.  As God would have had it, the crowd didn’t happen to be forenent the door, or numbers of them would have been shot, and the night was dark, too, which was in our favor.  The first volley was scarcely over, when there was another slap from the outhouse; and after that another from the gardens; and after that, to be sure, we took to our scrapers.  Several of them were very badly wounded; but as for Collier, he was shot dead, and Grogan was taken prisoner, with five more, on the spot.  There never was such a chase as we got; and only that they thought there was more of us in it, they might have tuck most of us prisoners.