his
may convince you of your folly; at least, it may convince you of the
fact that there is a traitor and informer in your midst. Who he is I
leave yourselves to conjecture!"

He read out slowly the name of every young man that had been sworn in
that secret society in the parish. The young men listened sullenly, and
swore angrily between their teeth. But they could not deny their
betrayal. They were vexed, humbled, disgraced; but they had to make some
defence.

[Illustration: "The orator was caught by the nape of the neck."]

"The priests are always agin the people," said one keen-looking fellow,
who had been abroad.

"That's an utter falsehood," said Father Letheby, "and you know it. You
know that priests and people for seven hundred years have fought side
by side the battle of Ireland's freedom from civil and religious
disabilities. I heard your own father say how well he remembered the
time when the friar stole into the farmyard at night, disguised as a
pedlar, and he showed me the cavern down there by the sea-shore where
Mass was said, and the fishermen heard it, as they pretended to haul in
their nets."

"Thrue enough for you, your reverence," said a few others; "'t is what
our fathers, and our fathers' fathers, have tould us."

"And now," continued Father Letheby, "look at the consequences of your
present folly. Possible imprisonment in the dungeons of Portland and
Dartmoor; exile to America, enforced by the threats of prosecution; and
the sense of hostility to the Church, for you know you are breaking the
laws. You dare not go to confession, for you cannot receive absolution;
you are a constant terror to your mothers and sisters--and all at the
dictation of a few scoundrels, who are receiving secret service money
from the government, and a few newspapers that are run by Freemasons and
Jews."

"Ah, now, your reverence," said one of the boys, a litterateur, "you are
drawing the long bow. How could Irish newspapers be run by Freemasons
and Jews?"

"Would you be surprised to hear," said Father Letheby, "that all the
great Continental papers are the property of Freemasons and Jews; that
all the rancor and bitterness stirred up against the Church for the past
fifty years has been their work; that the anti-clerical feeling in
Germany and in France has been carefully originated and fostered by
them; that hatred of the Holy See is their motto; and that they have got
into Ireland. You can see the cloven foot in