feard some of us would be shot,
an' that the lot would fall on myself; for the coffin, thinks I, was
sent as a warnin'. How-and-ever, I spied about Cassidy's stable, till
I seen that the coast was clear; so whin I heard the low cry of the
patrich that Anthony and I agreed on, I joined yez."

"Well, about to-morrow," observed Kenny--"ha, ha, ha!--there'll be lots
o' swearin'--Why the whole parish is to switch the primer; many a
thumb and coat-cuff will be kissed in spite of priest or magistrate. I
remimber once, when I was swearin' an alibi for long Paddy Murray, that
suffered for the M'Gees, I kissed my thumb, I thought, so smoothly, that
no one would notice it; but I had a keen one to dale with, so says he,
'You know for the matther o' that, my good fellow, that you have your
thumb to kiss every day in the week,' says he, 'but you might salute the
book out o' dacency and good manners; not,' says he, 'that you an' it
are strangers aither; for, if I don't mistake, you're an ould hand at
swearin' alibis.'

"At all evints, I had to smack the book itself, and it's I, and Barney
Green, and Tim Casserly, that did swear stiffly for Paddy, but the thing
was too clear agin him. So he suffered, poor fellow, an' died right
game, for he said over his dhrop--ha, ha, ha!--that he was as innocent
o' the murder as a child unborn: an' so he was in one sinse, bein'
afther gettin' absolution."

"As to thumb-kissin'," observed the elder Meehan; "let there be none
of it among us to-morrow; if we're caught at it 'twould be as bad
as stayin' away altogether; for my part, I'll give it a smack like a
pistol-shot--ha, ha, ha!"

"I hope they won't bring the priest's book," said Denis. "I haven't the
laste objection agin payin' my respects to the magistrate's paper, but
somehow I don't like tastin' the priest's in a falsity."

"Don't you know," said the Big Mower, "that with a magistrate's present,
it's ever an' always only the Tistament by law that's used. I myself
wouldn't kiss the mass-book in a falsity."

"There's none of us sayin' we'd do it in a lie," said the elder Meehan;
"an' it's well for thousands that the law doesn't use the priest's book;
though, after all, aren't there books that say religion's all a sham? I
think myself it is; for if what they talk about justice an' Providence
is thrue, would Tom Dillon be transported for the robbery we committed
at Bantry? Tom, it's true, was an ould offender; but he was innocent of
that, an