about Keegan, then, to those men yesterday?"

"I don't know what I said--I don't know I said anything; they were
threatening him, if he came on Drumleesh for rent; if they have a
plot, I don't know it."

"But, Thady, are you to join them again? do you mean again to renew
your revellings of last night? have you agreed to see them again?"

"I have."

"And where?"

"At Mulready's in Mohill."

"And when?"

"They sent to-day to say it was to-morrow night, but I have refused
to go."

"You have refused?"

"Yes, Father John. I got the message from them just before dinner,
and I said I'd not go to-morrow."

"But have you said you'd never join them again? have you sent to them
to say you'd never put your foot in that hole of sin? did you say
you were mad when you promised it, and that you would never keep
that promise? did you say, Thady, that you would not come? or are you
still, in their opinion, one of their accursed set?"

"I'll niver go there, Father John. I've not had one moment's ase
since I said I would; it's been on my heart like lead all the
morning; indeed, indeed, Father John, I'll niver go there."

"I will not doubt you, Thady; but still, that you may feel how
solemnly you are bound not to peril your life and soul by joining
them who can only wish to lead you into crime, give me your honour,
on the sacred word of God, that you will never go to that place;--or
join those men in any lawless plans or secret meetings."

And Thady swore most solemnly, on the sacred volume, that he would do
as the priest directed him respecting these men.

Father John then gradually drew from him in conversation what had
really taken place. He told him what he had heard from McGovery--how
he had quieted that man and Cullen--and advised him by his own
demeanour to his tenants, to pass over what had been said, as though
it had been a drunken frolic. He asked him, however, whether he
considered that Mr. Keegan or Ussher were in any real danger; and
Thady assured him that he did not think they were--that there was
no plot laid--that the men were angry and violent, but that, unless
further instigated, he did not think they would commit any act of
absolute violence. These opinions were not given spontaneously, but
in answer to various questions from the priest, who at last satisfied
himself that in confirming the horror with which Thady evidently
regarded what he had already done, and in preventing him from
following any fur