g you fancy."

The girl looked at them with surprise, and for a moment or two seemed
at a loss how to account for such evident excitement. At length she
exclaimed: "By dad, I have it; you won the hunt, gintlemen."

"Better than that, Letty," they replied, nodding, and immediately
entering the parlor.

"Well, boys," said the father, "a good day's sport?"

"Capital, father! are you long home!"

"Since about two o'clock."

"How did you come?"

"Why, boys, ye must know that either Dr. Turbot or I was fired at
to-day. A bullet--a pistol bullet--whistled right between us in the
parsonage garden, and the poor frightened doctor refused to come by the
usual way, and, in consequence, I was obliged to take the lower road."

He then entered into a more detailed account of the attempted
assassination, and heard from them, in reply, a history of their
intelligence and adventure at Murderer's Corner with Hacket and Bryan,
for so the fellows were named.

"Well," said the proctor, "thank God, things are not so bad as they
report, after all; but, in the meantime, the plot appears to be
thickening--here's more comfort," he added, handing him the notice which
Mogue told him he had found upon the steps of the hall-doer, where,
certainly, he had himself left it. John took the document and read as
follows:--

"TO PROCTOR PURCEL AND HIS HORSE-WHIPPIN' SONS.

"This is to give you notice, that nothing can save yez. Look back upon
your work an' see what yez desarve from the counthry. You began with a
farm of sixty acres, and you took farm afther farm over the heads of the
poor an' them that wor strugglin', until you now have six hundre' acres
in your clutches. You made use of the strong purse against the wake man;
an' if any one ventured to complain, he was sure to come in for a
dose of the horsewhip from your tyrannical sons, or a dose of law from
yourself. Now all that I've mentioned might be overlooked an' forgiven,
for the sake of your wife and daughters, but it is for your conduct as
a Tithe Proctor that you and your sons must die. Don't think to escape
me, for it can't be done. There is not a day in the week, nor an hour in
the day, but I have you at my command. Be prepared, then, for your fate
is sealed; and no earthly power can save you. There is the sign [three
coffins] and the blood that marks my name is from my own veins. You and
your sons must die.

"Captain Terror,

"The Millstone-breaker."

"Tut," said Alick, "w