me. Get me a cup, and I'll give you some
milk; here is bread and cold meat.'

'Yes,' muttered Larry, whose mouth was already too much engaged for speech.

'You will tell me by-and-by what they were doing at the village, and what
that shouting meant--won't you?'

'Yes,' said he, with a nod. Then suddenly bending his head to listen, he
motioned with his hand to keep silence, and after a long breath said,
'They're coming.'

'Who are coming?' asked she eagerly; but at the same instant a man emerged
from the copse below the hill, followed by several others, whom she saw by
their dress and equipment to belong to the constabulary.

Approaching with his hat in his hand, and with that air of servile civility
which marked him, old Gill addressed her. 'If it's not displazin' to ye,
miss, we want to ax you a few questions,' said he.

'You have no right, sir, to make any such request,' said she, with a
haughty air.

'There was a man with you, my lady,' he went on, 'as you drove through
Cruhan, and we want to know where he is now.'

'That concerns you, sir, and not me.'

'Maybe it does, my lady,' said he, with a grin; 'but I suppose you know who
you were travelling with?'

'You evidently don't remember, sir, whom you are talking to.'

'The law is the law, miss, and there's none of us above it,' said he, half
defiantly; 'and when there's some hundred pounds on a man's head, there's
few of us such fools as to let him slip through our fingers.'

'I don't understand you, sir, nor do I care to do so.'

'The sergeant there has a warrant against him,' said he, in a whisper
he intended to be confidential; 'and it's not to do anything that your
ladyship would think rude that I came up myself. There's how it is now,'
muttered he, still lower. 'They want to search the luggage, and examine
the baskets there, and maybe, if you don't object, they'd look through the
carriage.'

'And if I should object to this insult?' broke she in.

'Faix, I believe,' said he, laughing, 'they'd do it all the same. Eight
hundred--I think it's eight--isn't to be made any day of the year!'

'My uncle is a justice of the peace, Mr. Gill; and you know if he will
suffer such an outrage to go unpunished.'

'There's the more reason that a justice shouldn't harbour a Fenian, miss,'
said he boldly; 'as he'll know when he sees the search-warrant.'

'Get ready the carriage, Larry,' said she, turning contemptuously away,
'and follow me towards the village.'