"I saw you pick the latch up and throw
it away."

"You've sharp eyes, ain't you, to be seeing what warn't there to be
seen at all? If you say you saw me in it, I'll have the tongue out of
your mouth, you young liar."

"What's the good of frightening the boy, Michael. He's a good boy,
and isn't a going to peach upon any of us."

"But I ain't a liar. He's a liar." This Florian said, plucking up
renewed courage from the kind words Pat Carroll had said in his
favour.

"Never mind," said Pat, throwing oil on the troubled waters. "We're
all frinds at present, and shall be as long as we don't split on
nobody."

"It's the meanest thing out,--that splitting on a pal," said the man
who had been called Michael. "It's twice worse when one does it to
one's father. I wouldn't show a ha'porth of mercy to such a chap as
that."

"And to a Catholic as peached to a Prothestant," said Carroll,
intending to signify his hatred of such a wretch by spitting on the
ground.

"Or to a son as split because his father was in question." Then
Michael spat twice upon the floor, showing the extremity of the
disgust which in such a case would overpower him.

"I suppose I may go now," said Florian. He was told by Pat Carroll
that he might go. But just at that moment the man in the mask, who
had not spoken a word, extemporised a cross out of two bits of burned
wood from the hearth, and put it right before Florian's nose; one
hand held one stick, and the other, the other. "Swear," said the man
in the mask.

"Bedad! he's in the right of it. Another oath will make it all the
stronger. 'That ye'll never say a word of this to mortial ears,
whether father or sister or brother, let 'em say what they will to
yer, s'help yer the Blessed Virgin.'"

"I won't then," said Florian, struggling to get at the cross to kiss
it.

"Stop a moment, me fine fellow," said Michael. "Nor yet to no one
else--and you'll give yourself up to hell flames av you don't keep
the blessed oath to the last day of your life. Now let him kiss it,
Pat. I wouldn't be in his shoes for a ten-pun note if he breaks that
oath."

"Nor I neither," said Pat. "Oh laws, no." Then Florian was allowed to
escape from the cabin. This he did, and going out into the dark, and
looking about him to see that he was not watched, made his way in at
the back door of a fairly large house which stood near, still in the
outskirts of the town of Headford. It was a fairly large house in
Headford; but H