co-conspirator, and Carroll showed plainly, by his movements and by
the glances which he cast around him, that he understood perfectly
the dreadful nature of the business in which he was engaged. "You see
that jintl'man there?" And Carroll pointed to the man in the mask.

"I see him," said poor Florian, almost in tears.

"You'd better mark him, that's all. If he cotches a hould o'ye he'd
tear ye to tatthers, that's all. Not that he'd do ye the laist harum
in life if ye'd just hould yer pace, and say nothin' to nobody."

"Not a word I'll say, Pat."

"Don't! That's all about it. Don't! We knows,--he knows,--what
they're driving at down at the Castle. Sorra a word comes out of the
mouth o' one on 'em, but that he knows it." Here the man in the mask
shook his head and looked as horrible as a man in a mask can look.
"They'll tell ye that the father who owns ye ought to know all about
it. It's just him as shouldn't know."

"He don't," said Florian.

"Not a know;--an' if you main to keep yourself from being holed as
they holed Muster Bingham the other day away at Hollymount." The boy
understood perfectly well what was meant by the process of "holing."
The Mr. Bingham, a small landlord, who had been acting as his
own agent some twenty miles off, in the County of Mayo, had been
frightfully murdered three months since. It was the first murder that
had stained the quarrel which had now commenced in that part of the
country. Mr. Bingham had been unpopular, but he had had to deal with
such a small property, that no one had imagined that an attack would
be made on him. But he had been shot down as he was driving home from
Hollymount, whither he had gone to receive rent. He had been shot
down during daylight, and no one had as yet been brought to justice
for the murder. "You mind's Muster Bingham, Muster Flory; eh? He's
gone, and sorra a soul knows anything about it. It's I'd be sorry to
think you'd be polished off that way." Again the man in the mask made
signs that he was wide awake.

To tell the truth of Florian, he felt rather complimented in the
midst of all his horrors in being thus threatened with the fate of
Mr. Bingham. He had heard much about Mr. Bingham, and regarded him
as a person of much importance since his death. He was raised to
a level now with Mr. Bingham. And then his immediate position was
very much better than Bingham's. He was alive, and up to the present
moment,--as long as he held his tongue and told