down you go on the black list. Boys," he
proceeded, with a wheedling look of good-humor to the rest, "we'll have
neither Spies nor Stags here, come or go what may."

"Stags!" replied Rouser Redhead, whose face had already become scarlet
with indignation. "Stags, you say, Bartle Flanagan! Arrah, boys, I
wondher where is poor Connor O'Donovan by this time?"

"I suppose bushin' it afore now," said our friend of the preceding part
of the night. "I bushed it myself for a year and a half, but be Japurs I
got sick of it. But any how, Bartle, you oughn't to spake of Stags, for
although Connor refused to join us, damn your blood, you had no right
to go to inform upon him. Sure, only for the intherest that was made for
him, you'd have his blood on your sowl."

"An' if he had itself," observed one of Flanagan's friends, "'twould
signify very little. The Bodagh desarved what he got, and more if he had
got it. What right has he, one of our own purswadjion as he is to hould
out against us the way he does? Sure he's as rich as a Sassenach, an'
may hell resave the farden he'll subscribe towards our gettin' arms or
ammunition, or towards defindin' us when we're brought to thrial. So
hell's delight wid the dirty Bodagh, says myself for wan."

"An' is that by way of defince of Captain Bartle Flanagan?" inquired
Rouser Redhead, indignantly. "An' so our worthy captain sint the man
across that punished our inimy, even accordian to your own provin', an'
that by staggin' aginst him. Of coorse, had the miser's son been one of
huz, Bartle's brains would be scattered to the four quarthers of heaven
long agone."

"An' how did I know but he'd stag aginst me?" said Bartle, very calmly.

"Damn well you knew he would not," observed Ned M'Cormick, now
encouraged by the bold and decided manner of Rouser Redhead. "Before
ever you went into Fardorougha's sarvice you sed to more than one that
you'd make him sup sorrow for his harshness to your father and family."

"An' didn't he desarve it, Ned? Didn't he ruin us?"

"He might desarve it, an' I suppose he did; but what right had you to
punish the innocent for the guilty? You knew very well that both his son
and his wife always set their faces against his doin's.'"

"Boys," said Flanagan, "I don't understand this, and I tell you more I
won't bear it. This night let any of you that doesn't like to be undher
me say so. Rouser Redhead, you'll never meet in a Ribbon Lodge agin.
You're scratched out of