“But I presume it is his intention to do so?” said the parson.

“I should choose to have another magistrate present then,” said Frank.  “Really, Doctor Colligan, I think the best thing you can do is to come before myself and the stipendiary magistrate at Tuam.  We shall be sure to find Brew at home to-day.”

“But, my lord,” said Colligan, “I really had no intention of doing that.  I have no witnesses.  I can prove nothing.  Indeed, I can’t say he ever asked me to do the deed:  he didn’t say anything I could charge him with as a crime:  he only offered me the farm if his sister should die.  But I knew what he meant; there was no mistaking it:  I saw it in his eye.”

“And what did you do, Doctor Colligan, at the time?” said the parson.

“I hardly remember,” said the doctor; “I was so flurried.  But I know I knocked him down, and then I rushed out of the room.  I believe I threatened I’d have him hung.”

“But you did knock him down?”

“Oh, I did.  He was sprawling on the ground when I left him.”

“You’re quite sure you knocked him down?” repeated the parson.

“The divil a doubt on earth about that!” replied Colligan.  “I tell you, when I left the room he was on his back among the chairs.”

“And you did not hear a word from him since?”

“Not a word.”

“Then there can’t be any mistake about it, my lord,” said Armstrong.  “If he did not feel that his life was in the doctor’s hands, he would not put up with being knocked down.  And I’ll tell you what’s more—­if you tax him with the murder, he’ll deny it and defy you; but tax him with having been knocked down, and he’ll swear his foot slipped, or that he’d have done as much for the doctor if he hadn’t run away.  And then ask him why the doctor knocked him down?—­you’ll have him on the hip so.”

“There’s something in that,” said Frank; “but the question is, what is Doctor Colligan to do?  He says he can’t swear any information on which a magistrate could commit him.”

“Unless he does, my lord,” said Armstrong, “I don’t think you should listen to him at all; at least, not as a magistrate.”

“Well, Doctor Colligan, what do you say?”

“I don’t know what to say, my lord.  I came to your lordship for advice, both as a magistrate and as a friend of the young man who is to marry Lynch’s sister.  Of course, if you cannot advise me, I will go away again.”

“You won’t come before me and Mr Brew, then?”

“I don’t say I won’t,” said Colligan; “but I don’t see the use.  I’m not able to prove anything.”

“I’ll tell you what, Ballindine,” said the parson; “only I don’t know whether it mayn’t be tampering with justice—­suppose we were to go to this hell-hound, you and I together, and, telling him what we know, give him his option to stand his trial or quit the country?  Take my word for it, he’d go; and that would be the best way to be rid of him.  He’d leave his sister in peace and quiet then, to enjoy her fortune.”