believe you a deal sooner than
him that way; but you must be plain about this, Brady, that they were
talking about Ussher that night--d'ye hear? Be d----d but if you
let them shake you about that you're lost. D'ye hear? Why don't you
answer me, eh?"

"Oh! shure, your honour, I'll be plain enough; certain sure the
Captain's name war mentioned."

"Mentioned! yes, and how was it mentioned? Didn't you tell me that
Reynolds and young Macdermot were talking broadly about murdhering
him? Didn't they agree to kill him--to choke him in a bog hole--or
blow his brains out?"

"It war your honour they war to put in a bog hole."

"D----n them! I'll have 'em before I've done. But don't you know that
Macdermot, Reynolds, and the other fellow agreed to put an end to
Ussher? Why you told me so twenty times."

"I b'lieve they did; but faix, I ain't shure I heard it all rightly
myself, yer honour; I warn't exactly one of the party."

"That won't do, Brady; you told me distinctly that Reynolds and
Macdermot swore together to kill the man; and you must swear to that
in court. Why the barrister has been told that you can prove it."

"But, Mr. Keegan, do you wish me now to go and hang myself? You would
not wish a poor boy to say anything as'd ruin hisself?"

"Be d----d, but some one has been tampering with you. You know you'll
be in no danger, as well as I do; and by heavens if you flinch now
it'll be worse for you. Mind, I want you to say nothing but the
truth. But you know Ussher's death was settled among them; and you
must say it out plainly--d'ye hear? And I tell you what, Brady, if
you give your evidence like a man you'll never be the worse of those
evenings you spent at Mohill at Mrs. Mulready's, you know. But if you
hesitate or falter, as sure as you stand there, they'll come against
you; and then I'll not be the man to help you out of the scrape."

"But, Mr. Keegan, yer honour, they do be saying that iv I brings out
all that, it'll hang the young masther out and out, and then I'll
have his blood upon my conscience."

"Have the divil on your conscience. Isn't he a murderer out and out?
and, if so, shouldn't you tell the truth about it? Why, you fool,
it's only the truth. What are you afraid of? after telling me so
often that you would go through with it without caring a flash for
any one!"

"But you see there's so much more of a ruction about it now through
the counthry than there war. Counsellor Webb and all thim has mad