"About Mr. M'Carthy?" she asked, sadly puzzled as to the tendency and
object of his conversation, but at the same time somewhat awakened to an
indistinct interest, respecting this secret concerning her lover.

"Yes, miss; listen hether, Miss Julia; would you believe it that he, Mr.
M'Carthy, is sworn, or any way as good as sworn, to take your father's
life away?"

"No, Mogue," she replied firmly, but with good humor, "not a syllable."

"Well then," he proceeded, "if he did not swear to do it in plain words,
he did as good. You won't braithe a syllable of this, Miss Julia; but
listen still--You know the ruction that's through, the counthry aginst
tides?"

"I do, I am sorry to say."

"An' that the whole counthry is sworn Whiteboys, and that all the
Whiteboys in sworn, of coorse, to put an end to them. That's the oath
they take now, miss, by all accounts."

"So they say Mogue."

"Well, miss, would you believe it, that that fellow, the ungrateful
hound that he is, that same Francis M'Carthy, is at the head of them, is
one of their great leaders, and is often out at night wid the villains,
leadin' them on to disturbances, and directin' them how to act; ay, an'
he doesn't like a bone in Mr. O'Driscol's body, any more than in your
father's."

"Ha!--ha!--ha! very good, Mogue, but make it short--ha!--ha!--ha!--and
who's your authority for all this?"

"Himself, miss, for a great part of it; it was this day, he wanted
myself to become a White-boy; but I had the grace o' God about me, I
hope, an' resisted the temptation. 'Mogue,' says he, 'you are a good
Catholic, an' ought to join us; we're sworn to put down the tides
altogether, an' to banish Protestantism out o' the counthry.'"

"But is not M'Carthy himself a Protestant?" said Julia.

"Not he, miss, he only turned to get a lob o' money from the Great
College in Dublin above; sure they provide for any one that will turn,
but he's a true Catholic at heart; air when the time comes he'll show
it."

"And you say he joins their meetings at night, Mogue?"

"That I may be blest, but he does, miss; and since you must know the
truth, he's at one o' them this very night."

"Then you have told me a falsehood with respect to his fatigue?"

"He put me up to it, miss; and bid me say it; howandever my mind wasn't
aisy undher it; and now you know the truth."

"And does he blacken his face as well as the other Whiteboys?"

"That hurt or harm may never come near me but he d