buttoned and lined it well with thorns, we then left it covered over
with scraws for fraid anybody might find it out. So far so good. At last
the appointed night came, and we called upon him.

"'Is Mr. Callaghan in?' said one of us, knockin' at the door.

"'What's your business wid him?' said a servant girl, as she opened the
door.

"'Tis to pay some tithe I want,' says the man; and no sooner was the
word out of his mouth than in we boulted betther than a score of us; for
the rest all stayed about the place to act accordin' to circumstances.

"'How do you do, Misther Callaghan?' says our captain, 'I hope you're
well, sir,' says he, 'and in good health.'"

"'I can't say I am, sir," said Callaghan, 'I haven't been to say at all
well for the last few days, wid a pain down my back.'

"'Ah, indeed no wondher, Mr. Callaghan,' says the other; 'that's the
curse of the widows and orphans, and the poor in general, that you have
oppressed in ordher to keep up a fat an' greedy establishment,' says he,
'but in the mane time, keep a good heart--we're friends of yours, and
wishes you well; and if the curses have come down hot and heavy on your
back, we'll take them off it,' says he, 'so aisily and purtily, that if
you'll only shut your eyes, you'll think yourself in another world--I
mane of coorse the world you'll go to,' says he;--'we have got a few
nice and aisy machines here, for ticklin' sich procthors, in ordher to
laugh them into health again, and we'll now set you to rights' at wanst.
Comes, boys,' says he, turnin' to us, 'tie every sowl in the house,
barrin' the poor sick procthor that we all feel for, bekaise you see,
Misther Callaghan, in ordher to do the thing complate, we intind to have
your own family spectawthers of the cure.'

"'No,' said one of them, a determined man he was, 'that wasn't in our
agreement, nor it isn't in our hearts, to trate the innocent like the
guilty.'"

"'It must be done,' said the captain.

"'No,' said the other back to him, 'the first man that mislists a hair
of one of his family's heads, I'll put the contents of this through
him--if this onmanly act had been mentioned before, you'd a' had few
here tonight along wid you.'

"Well, sure enough, the most of us was wid the last speaker, so, instead
of cardin' the sick procthor before his own family, we tied and gagged
him so as that he neither spoke nor budged, and afther clappin' a guard
upon the family for an hour or two, we put him on