, "that is a bad business--I mean for you; Sir Robert;
but we will talk it over. You shall stop and dine with me; I want some
one to talk with--some one who will support me and keep me in spirits;"
and as he spoke he sobbed bitterly. "I wish to God," he exclaimed, "that
neither I nor Helen--my dear Helen--had ever seen that fellow's face.
You will dine with me, Bob?"

"I will, upon the strict condition that you keep yourself quiet, and
won't seem to understand any thing."

"Would you recommend me to lock her up?"

"By no means; that would only make matters worse. I shall dine with
you, but you must be calm and quiet, and not seem to entertain any
suspicions."

"Very well, I shall; but what has become of our lunch? Touch the bell."

This hint sent Lanigan downstairs, who met the butler coming up with it.

"Why, Pat," said he, "what kept you so long with the lunch?"

"I was just thinking," replied Pat, "how it would be possible to poison
that ugly, ill-made, long-legged scoundrel, without poisoning my master.
What's to be done, Lanigan? He will marry this darlin' in spite of us.
And sure, now we have our privileges once more, since this great Earl
came to rule over us; and sure, they say, he's a greater gentleman than
the king himself. All I can say is, that if this same Sir Robert forces
the Cooleen Baum to such an unnatural marriage, I'll try a dose, hit or
miss, for a cowheel anyway."

Lanigan laughed, and the butler passed on with the lunch.

We may state here that the squire, notwithstanding his outspoken manner
against Popery, like a terrible reverend baronet not long deceased,
who, notwithstanding his discovery of the most awful Popish plots, and
notwithstanding the most extravagant denunciations against Popery, like
him, we say, the old squire seldom had more than one or two Protestant
servants under his roof. Pat hated Longshanks, as he termed him, as did
all the household, which, indeed, was very natural, as he was such a
notorious persecutor of their religion and their clergy.

Lanigan lost no time in acquainting Reilly with what he had heard, and
the heart of the latter palpitated with alarm on hearing that the
next day but one was likely to join his _Cooleen Bawn_, by violent and
unnatural proceedings, to the man whom she so much detested. He felt
that it was now time to act in order to save her. Arrangements were
consequently made between them as to the time and manner of their
escape, and those a