f your sister I was thinking when I said where'd we
be if we quarrelled. For it's not I'll be the cuckoo to push you out,
McMurrough, lad. But a man there is will play the old grey bird yet, if
you let him be. And him with the power and all."

"D'you mean John Sullivan?"

"I mean that same, my jewel."

The young man laughed derisively. He had resumed his seat by the
other's side. "Pho!" he said, "you'll be jesting. For the power, it's
but a name. If he were to use, were it but the thin end of it, it would
run into his hand! The boys would rise upon him, and Flavvy'd be the
worst of them. It's in the deep bog he'd be, before he knew where he
was, and never'd he come out, Luke Asgill! Sure, I'm not afraid of
him!"

"You've need to be!" Asgill said soberly.

"Pho! It takes more than him to frighten me! Why, man, he's a soft
thing, if ever there was one! He'll not say boh! to a goose with a
pistol in its hand!"

"And that might be, if you weren't such a fool as ye are, McMurrough!"
Asgill answered. "No, but hear me out, lad!" he continued earnestly. "I
say he might not harm you, if you had not the folly we both know of in
your mind. But I tell you freely I'll be no bonnet to it while he
stands by. 'Tis too dangerous. Not that I believe you are much in
earnest, my lad, whatever others may think--what's your rightful king
to you, or you to him, that you should risk aught? But whether you go
into it out of pure devilment, or just to keep right with your
sister----"

"Which is why you stand bonnet for it," McMurrough struck in, with a
grin.

"That's possible. But I do that, my lad, because I hope naught may come
of it, but just a drinking of healths and the like. So, why should I
play the informer and get myself misliked? But you--you may find
yourself deeper in it than you think, and quicker than you think, while
all the time, if the truth were told"--with a shrewd look at the
other--"I believe you've little more heart for it than myself."

The young man swore a great oath that he was in it body and soul, swore
it by the bones of his ten toes. But he laughed before the words were
out of his mouth. And "I don't believe you," Asgill said coolly. "You
know, and I know, what you were ready to do when the old man was alive,
and if it had paid you properly. And you'd do the same now, if it paid
you now. So what are the wrongs of the old faith to you that you should
risk all for them? Or the rights of the old Irish, for t