without forswearing
himself.

But while this lamentable failure was going on, success reached him
from another side. He didn't care a straw what the newspapers said
of him, so long as he could hang Mr. Lax. His triumph in that respect
would drown all other failures. Mr. Lax was still in custody, and
many insolent petitions had been made on his behalf in order that he
might be set free. "Did the Crown intend to pretend that they had any
shadow of evidence against him as to the shooting of Terry Carroll?"

"No;--but there was another murder committed a day or two before.
Poor young Florian Jones had been murdered. Even presuming that Lax's
hand cannot be seen visible in the matter of Terry Carroll, there is,
we think, something to connect him with the other murder. The two, no
doubt, were committed in the same interest. The Crown is not prepared
to allow Lax to escape from its hands quite yet." Then there were
many words on the subject going on just at the time at which Lax
especially wanted his freedom, and at which, to tell the truth, Yorke
Clayton was near the end of his tether in regard to poor Florian.

In the beginning of his inquiry as to the Ballyglunin murder, he
entertained an idea that Lax, after firing the shot, had been seen
by that wicked car-driver, who had boycotted Mr. Jones in his great
need. The reader will probably have forgotten that Mr. Jones had
required to be driven home to Morony Castle from Ballyglunin station,
and had been refused the accommodation by a wicked old Landleaguer,
who had joined the conspiracy formed in the neighbourhood against
Mr. Jones. He had done so, either in fear of his neighbours, or
else in a true patriot spirit--because he had gone without any
supper, as had also his horses, on the occasion. The man's name was
Teddy Mooney, the father of Kit Mooney who stopped the hunting at
Moytubber. And he certainly was patriotic. From day to day he went
on refusing fares,--for the boycotted personages were after all more
capable of paying fares than the boycotting hero of doing without
them,--suffering much himself from want of victuals, and more on
behalf of his poor animal. He saw his son Kit more than once or twice
in those days, and Kit appeared to be the stancher patriot of the
two. Kit was a baker, and did earn wages; but he utterly refused to
subsidise the patriotism of his father. "If ye can't do that for the
ould counthry," said Kit, "ye ain't half the man I took ye for."