' the sin off o' me that has been committed in
this house."

Val, for years, knew his father's disposition too well to form any
expectations whatsoever from him, and, indeed, it is but just to say
that old Deaker took care not to allow him an opportunity of falling
into a single misconception on the subject. As a natural consequence,
Val hated him, and would have come long before to an open rupture with
him, were it not that he feared to make him his enemy. He also thought
it possible that Deaker, out of respect for his villany, might in some
capricious moment have thought of rewarding it; and so probably he might
have done, were it not for two traits in his character which his worthy
father especially detested--viz., cowardice and hypocrisy.

Val, on his return home, found fewer carts than he had calculated upon
even among his blood-hounds. Orangemen, in the social and civil duties
of life, are sterling and excellent men in general. It is only when
brought together for the discharge of political duties, by such
miscreants as M'Clutchy, or when met in their Lodges under the united
influence of liquor and mad prejudices; or when banded together in fairs
and markets under the same stimulants, and probably provoked and dared
by masses of less open and more treacherous opponents; it is only then
we say that their most licentious outrages were committed. Meet the
Orangeman, however, in his field, or in his house and he will aid and
assist you in your struggles or difficulties, as far as he can; no
matter how widely you may differ from him in creed.

The fact was that on understanding the nature of the duty Val expected
from them--and which the reader may perceive was not an official one,
most of them absolutely refused to come. M'Loughlin, they said, had
given extensive employment, and circulated large sums of money annually
in the neighborhood, and they did not see why an Absentee landlord, or
his Agent, should wish to throw so many hands out of employment, and to
ruin so many families. They wern't on duty now, which was a different
thing; but they had their own opinions on the subject--they knew Captain
Phil's conduct--and d--n them, if M'Loughlin was a Papish twenty times
over, if they'd lend a hand in any sense to carry away his furniture.
It was all well enough when they were drunk or on duty, but they weren't
drunk or on duty now.

Three or four cars and carts were all that Val found at home on his
arrival there--a