re no longer, nor shall he again trouble us.

"Oh! but Martin, what nonsense!" said the widow, coaxingly to her son,
that night before she went to bed. "The lord wouldn't be going up there
just to wish him good bye--and Parson Armstrong too. What the dickens
could they be at there so long? Come, Martin--you're safe with me, you
know; tell us something about it now."

"Nonsense, mother; I've nothing to tell: Barry Lynch has left the place
for good and all, that's all about it."

"God bless the back of him, thin; he'd my lave for going long since.
But you might be telling us what made him be starting this way all of a
heap."

"Don't you know, mother, he was head and ears in debt?"

"Don't tell me," said the widow. "Parson Armstrong's not a sheriff's
officer, that he should be looking after folks in debt."

"No, mother, he's not, that I know of; but he don't like, for all that,
to see his tithes walking out of the country."

"Don't be coming over me that way, Martin. Barry Lynch, nor his father
before him, never held any land in Ballindine parish."

"Didn't they--well thin, you know more than I, mother, so it's no use
my telling you," and Martin walked off to bed.

"I'll even you, yet, my lad," said she, "close as you are; you see
else. Wait awhile, till the money's wanting, and then let's see who'll
know all about it!" And the widow slapped herself powerfully on that
part where her pocket depended, in sign of the great confidence she had
in the strength of her purse.

"Did I manage that well?" said the parson, as Lord Ballindine drove him
home to Kelly's Court, as soon as the long interview was over. "If I
can do as well at Grey Abbey, you'll employ me again, I think!"

"Upon my word, then, Armstrong," said Frank, "I never was in such hot
water as I have been all this day: and, now it's over, to tell you the
truth, I'm sorry we interfered. We did what we had no possible right to
do."

"Nonsense, man. You don't suppose I'd have dreamed of letting him off,
if the law could have touched him? But it couldn't. No magistrates in
the county could have committed him; for he had done, and, as far as
I can judge, had said, literally nothing. It's true we know what he
intended; but a score of magistrates could have done nothing with him:
as it is, we've got him out of the country: he'll never come back
again."

"What I mean is, we had no business to drive him out of the country
with threats."

"Oh, Ballindine, th