as their hands in everything
that's wicked and disgraceful. They would ruin me if they could," said
Bryan, "and I suppose it was with the hope of doing so that they set up
the still where they did."

"Well, now," replied Hycy, with an air of easy and natural generosity,
"I should be sorry to think so: they are d--d scoundrels, or rather
common ruffians, I grant you; but still, Bryan, I don't like to suspect
even such vagabonds without good grounds. Bad as we know them to be, I
have my doubts whether they are capable of setting about such an act
for the diabolical purpose of bringing you to ruin. Perhaps they merely
deemed the place on your farm a convenient one to build a still-house
in, and that they never thought further about it."

"Or what," replied Bryan, "if there was some one behind their backs who
is worse than themselves? Mightn't sich a thing as that be possible?"

"True," replied Hycy, "true, indeed--that's not improbable.
Stay--no--well it may be--but--no--I can't think it."

"What is it you can't think?"

"Why, such a thing might be," proceeded Hycy, "if you have an enemy; but
I think, Bryan, you are too well liked--and justly so too--if you will
excuse me for saying so to your face--to have any enemy capable of going
such nefarious lengths as that."

Bryan paused and seemed a good deal struck with the truth of Hycy's
observation--"There's raison, sure enough in what you say, Hycy," he
observed. "I don't know that I have a single enemy--unless the
Hogans themselves--that would feel any satisfaction in drivin' me to
destruction."

"And besides," continued Hycy, "between you and me now, Bryan, who the
devil with an ounce of sense in his head would trust such scoundrels, or
put himself in their power?"

Bryan considered this argument a still more forcible one than the other.

"That's stronger still," Re replied, "and indeed I am inclined to
think that after all, Hycy, it happened as you say. Teddy Phats I think
nothing at all about, for the poor, misshapen vagabone will distil
poteen for any one that employs him."

"True," replied the other, "I agree with you; but what's to be done,
Bryan? for that's the main point now."

"I scarcely know," replied Bryan, who now began to feel nothing but
kindness towards Hycy, in consequence of the interest which that young
fellow evidently took in his misfortune, for such, in serious truth, it
must be called. "I am the only proprietor of Ahadarra," he proceeded,