a hair of this man's head is injured there will be
a massacre of the Popish population before two months; and I beg also to
let you know, for the satisfaction of the English Cabinet, that they
may embroil themselves with France, or get into whatever political
embarrassment they please, but an Irish Protestant will never hoist a
musket, or draw a sword, in their defence. Gentlemen, let us bid his
Excellency a good-morning."

This was startling language, as the effect proved, for it startled
the viceroy into a compliance with their wishes, and they went home
post-haste, in order that the pardon might arrive in time.

CHAPTER XXV.--Reilly stands his Trial

Rumor of _Cooleen Bawn_'s Treachery--How it appears--Conclusion.

Life, they say, is a life of trials, and so may it be said of this
tale--at least of the conclusion of it; for we feel that it devolves
upon us once more to solicit the presence of our readers to the same
prison in which the Red Rapparee and Sir Robert Whitecraft received
their sentence of doom.

As it is impossible to close the mouth or to silence the tongue of fame,
so we may assure our readers, as we have before, that the: history of
the loves of those two celebrated individuals, to wit, Willy Reilly and
the far-famed _Cooleen Bawn_, had given an interest to the coming trial
such as was never known within the memory of man, at that period, nor
perhaps equalled since. The Red Rapparee, Sir Robert Whitecraft, and all
the other celebrated "villains of that time, have nearly perished out of
tradition itself, whilst those of our hero and heroine are still fresh
in the feelings of the Connaught and Northern peasantry, at whose
hearths, during the winter evenings, the rude but fine old ballad that
commemorated that love is still sung with sympathy, and sometimes, as
we can I testify, with tears. This is fame. One circumstance, however,
which deepened the interest felt by the people, told powerfully against
the consistency of the _Cooleen Bawn_, which was, that she had resolved
to come forward that day to bear evidence against; her lover. Such
was the general impression received from her father, and the attorney
Doldrum, who conducted the trial against Reilly, although our readers
are well aware that on this point they spoke without authority. The
governor of the prison, on going that morning to conduct him to the bar,
said:

"I am sorry, Mr. Reilly, to be the bearer of bad news; but as the
know