sewhere as
well as you can; if not, the worst consequences may--nay, will follow."

The priest promised to communicate this intelligence to his companions,
one by one, after which, both he and Reilly, feeling fatigued and
exhausted by what they had undergone in the course of the night, threw
themselves each upon his couch of heather, and in a few minutes not only
they, but all their companions, were sunk in deep sleep.

CHAPTEE XI.--The Squire's Dinner and his Guests.

We now return to _Cooleen Bawn_, who, after her separation from Reilly,
retired to her own room, where she indulged in a paroxysm of deep grief,
in consequence of her apprehension that she might never see him again.
She also calculated upon the certainty of being obliged to sustain a
domestic warfare with her father, as the result of having made him the
confidant of her love. In this, however, she was agreeably disappointed;
for, on meeting him the next morning, at breakfast, she was a good
deal surprised to observe that he made no allusion whatsoever to the
circumstance--if, indeed, an occasional muttering of some unintelligible
words, _sotto voce_, might not be supposed to allude to it. The truth
was, the old man found the promise he had made to Sir Robert one of such
difficulty to his testy and violent disposition, that his language, and
the restraint which he felt himself under the necessity of putting on
it, rendered his conversation rather ludicrous.

"Well, Helen," he said, on entering the breakfast-parlor, "how did you
rest last night, my love? Rested sound--eh? But you look rather pale,
darling. (Hang the rascal!)"

"I cannot say that I slept as well as usual, sir. I felt headache."

"Ay, headache--was it? (heartache, rather. The villain.) Well come, let
me have a cup of tea and a mouthful of that toast."

"Will you not have some chicken, sir?"

"No, my dear--no; just what I said--a mouthful of toast, and a cup of
tea, with plenty of cream in it. Thank you, love. (A good swing for him
will be delightful. I'll go to see it.) Helen, my dear, I'm going to
give a dinner-party next week. Of course we'll have your future--hem--I
mean we'll have Sir Robert, and--let me see--who else? Why, Oxley, the
sheriff", Mr. Brown, the parson--I wish he didn't lean so much to the
cursed Papists, though--Mr. Hastings, who is tarred with the same
stick, it is whispered. Well, who next? Lord Deilmacare, a good-natured
jackass--a fellow who would eat a