own hands, and
I'll put on Molly Crudden's big pillion, for you know she's too fat to
walk to mass, and you will feel yourself quite easy and comfortable in
it"

"No, no, Lanigan; I know not why the impression is on me; but I feel as
if I were never to experience comfort more. Go to Mr. Reilly; make
what arrangements he and you may think proper, and afterwards you can
acquaint me with them. You see, Lanigan, in what a state of excitement
and uncertainty I am. But tell Reilly that, rather than be forced into a
marriage, with Whitecraft--rather than go distracted--rather than
die--I shall fly with him."

CHAPTER XIX.--Reilly's Disguise Penetrated

--Fergus Reilly is on the Trail of the Rapparee--He Escapes--Sir Robert
begins to feel Confident of Success.

Lanigan, on passing the dining parlor, heard what he conceived to be
loud and angry voices inside the room, and as the coast was clear
he deliberately put his ear to the key-hole, which ear drank in the
following conversation:

"I say, Sir Robert, I'll shoot the villain. Do not hold me. My pistols
are unloaded and loaded every day in the year; and ever since I
transported that rebel priest I never go without them. But are you sure,
Sir Robert? Is it not possible you may be mistaken? I know you are a
suspicious fellow; but still, as I said, you are, for that very reason,
the more liable to be wrong. But, if it is he, what's to be done, unless
I shoot him?"

"Under the last Administration, sir, I could have answered your
question; but you know that if you shoot him now you will be hanged.
All that's left for us is simply to effect this marriage the day after
tomorrow; the documents are all ready, and in the course of to-morrow
the license can be procured. In the meantime, you must dispatch him
to-night."

"What do you mean, Sir Robert?"

"I say you must send him about his business. In point of fact, I think
the fellow knows that he is discovered, and it is not unlikely that he
may make an effort to carry off your daughter this very night."

"But, Sir Robert, can we not seize him and surrender him to the
authorities? Is he not an outlaw?"

"Unfortunately, Mr. Folliard, he is not an outlaw; I stretched a little
too far there. It is true I got his name put into the _Hew and-Cry_, but
upon representations which I cannot prove."

"And why did you do so, Sir Robert?"

"Why, Mr. Folliard, to save your daughter."

The old man paused.

"Ah," he exclaimed