lower into his ear, "Let alone the
esthate, an' the house, an' all that, you'd niver put up with what he
has been about this day, paceable an' in quiet?"

"You're thrue in that, Joe, by G----d!"

"Well then, won't we see you righted? Let the bloody ruffian come
to Ballycloran, an' then see the way he'll go back again to Carrick.
Will you say the word, Mr. Thady? Will you join us agin thim that is
as much, an' a deal more, agin you than they are agin us?"

"But what is it you main to do?"

"That's what you'll know when you've joined us; but you know it
isn't now or here we'd be telling you that which, maybe, would put
our necks in your hand. But when you've taken the oath we've all
taken, we'll be ready then not only to tell you all, but follow you
anywhere."

The young man paused.

"Isn't it enough for you to know that our inimies is your
inimies--that thim you wishes ill to, we wishes ill to? Isn't Keegan
the man you've most cause to hate, an' won't we right you with him?
Don't we hate that bloody Captain that is this moment playing his
villain's tricks with your own sisther in the next room there? and
shure you can't feel very frindly to him. By the holy Virgin, when
you're one of us, it's not much longer he shall throuble you. If you
can put up with what the likes of them is doing to you--if you can
bear all that--why, Mr. Thady, you're not the man I took you for.
But mind, divil a penny of rint 'll ever go to Ballycloran agin from
Drumleesh; for the matter's up now;--you're either our frind or
our inimy. But if, Mr. Thady, you've the pluck they all says you
have--an' which I iver see in you, God bless you!--it's not only one
of us you'll be, but the head of us all; for there isn't one but 'll
go to hell's gate for your word; an' then the first tinant on the
place that pays as much as a tinpenny to Keegan, or to any but jist
yourself--by the cross! he may dig his own grave."

What Thady immediately said does not much signify; before long he had
promised to come over to Mrs. Mulready's at Mohill with Pat Brady, on
an appointed night, there to take the oath of the party to whom he
now belonged.

Though it was agreed that the secret determinations of the party
were not to be divulged to him until he had joined them there,
it nevertheless was pretty clearly declared that their immediate
and chief object was the destruction of Ussher, and, if possible,
the liberation of the three men who had lately been confin