news for the man he thought was now a happy bridegroom. Owing to an
indiscreet word dropped by our simple-minded hero, a gang of smugglers,
who ran an illicit still on the moors, had gathered something about Andy
stealing the letters from the post-office and Squire Egan burning them.
They had already begun to blackmail the squire, and in order to defeat
them it was necessary to get Andy out of the country for some time. So
nothing could be done against Casey.

And, on going home to prepare for a journey to England with a friend of
the squire's, Andy found his mother in a sad state of anxiety. His
pretty cousin, Oonah, was crying in a corner of the room, and Ragged
Nance, an unkempt beggar-woman, to whom the Rooneys had done many a good
turn, was screaming, "I tell you Shan More means to carry off Oonah
to-night. I heard them laying the plan for it."

"We'll go to the squire," sobbed Mrs. Rooney. "The villain durst not!"

"He's got the squire under his thumb, I tell you," replied Ragged Nance.
"You must look after yourselves. I've got it," she said, turning to
Andy. "We'll dress him as a girl, and let the smugglers take him."

Andy roared with laughter at the notion of being made a girl of. Though
Shan More was the blackguardly leader of the smugglers who were giving
the squire trouble, Andy was too taken up with the fun of being
transformed into the very rough likeness of a pleasing young woman to
think of the danger. It was difficult to give his angular form the
necessary roundness of outline; but Ragged Nance at last padded him out
with straw, and tied a bonnet on his head to shade his face, saying,
"That'll deceive them. Shan More won't come himself. He'll send some of
his men, and they're all dhrunk already."

"But they'll murdher my boy when they find out the chate," said Mrs.
Rooney.

"Suppose they did," exclaimed Andy stoutly; "I'd rather die, sure, than
the disgrace should fall upon Oonah there."

"God bless you, Andy dear!" said Oonah.

The tramp of approaching horses rang through the stillness of the night,
and Oonah and Nance ran out and crouched in the potato tops in the
garden. Four drunken vagabonds broke into the cottage, and, seeing Andy
in the dim light clinging to his mother, they dragged him away and
lifted him on a horse, and galloped off with him.

As it happened, luck favoured Andy. When he came to the smugglers' den,
Shan More was lying on the ground stunned, and his sister, Red Bridget,