“That is no justification for theft,” observed the graver of the two.  “Does any one among you suspect those who committed it in this instance?  If you do, I command you, as your Bishop, to mention them.”

“How, for instance,” added the other, “were you able to supply this sick boy with whey during his illness?”

“Oh thin, gintlemen,” replied Connor, dexterously parrying the question, “but it’s a mighty improvin’ thing to see our own Bishop,—­God spare his Lordship to us!—­an the Protestant minister o’ the parish joinin’ together to relieve an’ give good advice to the poor!  Bedad, it’s settin’ a fine example, so it is, to the Quality, if they’d take patthern by it.”

“Reply,” said the Bishop, rather sternly, “to the questions we have asked you.”

“The quistions, your Lordship?  It’s proud an’ happy we’d be to do what you want; but the sarra man among us can do it, barin’ we’d say what we ought not to say.  That’s the thruth, my Lord; an’ surely ’tisn’t your Gracious Reverence that ’ud want us to go beyant that?”

“Certainly not,” replied the Bishop.  “I warn you both against falsehood and fraud; two charges which might frequently be brought against you in your intercourse with the gentry of the country, whom you seldom scruple to deceive and mislead, by gliding into a character, when speaking to them, that is often the reverse of your real one; whilst at the same time you are both honest and sincere to persons of your own class.  Put away this practice, for it is both sinful and discreditable.”

“God bless your Lordship! an’ many thanks to your Gracious Reverence for advisin’ us!  Well we know that it’s the blessed thing to folly your words.”

“Bring over that naked, starved-looking man, who is stirring the fire under that pot,” said the Hector.  “He looks like Famine itself.”

“Paddy Dunn! will you come over here to his honor, Paddy!  He’s goin’ to give you somethin,” said Connor, adding of his own accord the last clause of his message.

The tattered creature approached him with a gleam of expectation in his eyes that appeared like insanity.

“God bless your honor for your goodness,” exclaimed Paddy.  “It’s me that’s in it, sir!—­Paddy Dunn, sir, sure enough; but, indeed, I’m the next thing to my own ghost, sir, now God help me!”

“What, and for whom are you cooking?”

“Jist the smallest dhrop in life, sir, o’ gruel, to keep the sowl in that lonely crathur, sir, the poor scholar.”

“Pray how long is it since you have eaten anything yourself?”

The tears burst from the eyes of the miserable creature as he replied—­

“Before God in glory, your honor, an’ in the presence of his Lordship here, I only got about what ’ud make betther nor half a male widin the last day, sir.  ‘Twas a weeshy grain o’ male that I got from a friend; an’ as Ned Connor here tauld me that this crathur had nothin’ to make the gruel for him, why I shared it wid him, bekase he couldn’t even beg it, sir, if he wanted it, an’ him not able to walk yit.”