lor mayn't shoot him dead; that is, av he
behaves himself, and don't have no blusthering. Was old Jonas much
afeard, now, Dan?"

"Afeard, is it! the divil wouldn't fright him. Maybe, after all, it's
the Counsellor 'll be shot first."

"Oh, in course he may," said Barney; "oh musha, musha, wirrasthrue,
how'd I ever be looking the misthress and the young ladies in the
face, av I was taking him home dead and buried as he's likely to
be, av he don't hit that owld masther of yours in the very first go
off;" and then the man's air of triumph at the idea of his master's
shooting Jonas Brown, turned to despondency as the thought struck him
that the Counsellor might be shot himself. But he soon cheered up
again at a brighter reflection.

"But that'd be the wake, Dan! My; there'd have been nothing like that
in the counthry, since old Peyton was waked up at Castleboy; not a
man in the county but would be there, nor a woman neither; and signs
on, there's not another in the counthry at all like the masther for a
poor man."

At this moment two shots were heard.

"Virgin Mary!--there they are at it," said Dan; "now they're oncet
began in arnest, they'll not lave it till they're both dead, or
there's not a grain of powdher left. Bad cess to them Majors for
bringing thim together; couldn't they be fighting theyselles av they
plazed, and not be setting the real gentry of the counthry at each
other like game cocks?"

"Had they much powdher I wonder, Dan? Was there a dail of ammunition
in the carriage?"

"Faix their war so; that Major, bad luck to him, had his own and
Master George's horns crammed with powdher, and as many bullets in a
bag under his coat-tail as he could well-nigh carry."

"Then they're one or both as good as dead; they're loading again now,
I'll go bail. Och! that I'd thrown the owld horse down coming over
the bridge, and pitched the masther into the wather. I'd be a dail
readier getting him out of that, than putting the life into him when
he's had three or four of them bullets through his skin."

"It's thrue for you, Barney," said the good-natured Dan; "and as
Mr. Fred couldn't well be turning an owld servant like me off the
place av he didn't keep up the chariot, I wish it mayn't be the
Counsellor's luck to be first kilt, for he's as good a man as iver
trod."

In the meantime the two Majors had paced the ground with a good deal
of official propriety, loaded the pistols, and exchanged a quantity
of courtes