ny to save you from gaol. Is that plain?"

"Perfectly plain, and very easy to believe. But you will give more than
a penny; you would even give more than I ask, to save yourself from the
annoyance you will have to undergo."

"Not on any account will I give you one single farthing."

"Very well. Then I have only to tell you what I must do. Of course, I
shall remain here. You cannot turn me out of your house, or refuse me a
seat at your table."

"By Heavens, though, I both can and will!"

"You cannot, my lord. If you think of it, you'll find you cannot,
without much disagreeable trouble. An eldest son would be a very
difficult tenant to eject summarily: and of my own accord I will not go
without the money I ask."

"By heavens, this exceeds all I ever heard. Would you rob your own
father?"

"I will not rob him, but I'll remain in his house. The sheriff's
officers, doubtless, will hang about the doors, and be rather
troublesome before the windows; but I shall not be the first Irish
gentleman that has remained at home upon his keeping. And, like other
Irish gentlemen, I will do so rather than fall into the hands of these
myrmidons. I have no wish to annoy you; I shall be most sorry to do so;
most sorry to subject my mother to the misery which must attend the
continual attempts which will be made to arrest me; but I will not put
my head into the lion's jaw."

"This is the return for what I have done for him!" ejaculated the earl,
in his misery. "Unfortunate reprobate! unfortunate reprobate!--that I
should be driven to wish that he was in gaol!"

"Your wishing so won't put me there, my lord. If it would I should not
be weak enough to ask you for this money. Do you mean to comply with my
request?"

"I do not, sir: not a penny shall you have--not one farthing more shall
you get from me."

"Then good night, my lord. I grieve that I should have to undergo a
siege in your lordship's house, more especially as it is likely to be a
long one. In a week's time there will be a '_ne exeat_' [48] issued
against me, and then it will be too late for me to think of France."
And so saying, the son retired to his own room, and left the father to
consider what he had better do in his distress.

[FOOTNOTE 48: ne exeat--(Latin) "let him not leave"; a legal
writ forbidding a person to leave the jurisdiction
of the court]

Lord Cashel was dreadfully embarrassed. What Lord Kilcullen said was