ion of a virtuous and
admirable girl, because she spurned your scoundrelly addresses.'

"'He never paid his addresses to her,' said Val;--'never.'

"'No I didn't,'said Phil. 'At any rate I never had any notion of
marrying her.'

"'You are a dastardly liar, sir,' responded Hartley. 'You know you had.
How can your father and you look each other in the face, when you say
so?'

"'Go on,' said Phil, 'you're a fire-eater: so you may say what you
like.'

"'Didn't your father, in your name, propose for her upon some former
occasion, in the fair of Castle Cumber, and he remembers the answer he
got.'

"'Go on,' said Phil, 'you're a fire-eater; that's all I have to say to
you.'

"'And now, having ruined her reputation by a base and cowardly plot
concocted with a wicked old woman, who would blast the whole family if
she could, because M'Loughlin transported her felon son; you, now,
like a paltry clown as you are, skulk out of the consequences of your
treachery, and refuse to give satisfaction for the diabolical injury you
have inflicted on the whole family.'

"'Go on,' said Phil, 'you're a fire-eater.'

"'You forget,' said Val, 'that I am a magistrate, and what the
consequences may be to yourself for carrying a hostile message.'

"'Ah,' said Hartley, 'you are a magistrate, and shame on the government
that can stoop to the degradation of raising such rascals as you are to
become dispensers of justice; it is you and the like of you, that are a
curse to the country. As for you, Phil M'Clutchy, I now know, and always
suspected, the stuff you are made of. You are a disgrace to the very
Orangemen you associate with; for they are, in general, brave fellows,
although too often cruel and oppressive when hunted on and stimulated by
such as you and your rascally upstart of a father.'

"'Go on,' said Phil, 'you are a fire-eater.'

"'I now leave you both,' continued the young Hotspur, with a blazing
eye and flushed cheek, 'with the greatest portion of scorn and contempt
which one man can bestow upon another.'

"'Go off,' said Phil, 'you are a fire-eater.'

"'Phil,' said the father, 'send for M'Murt, and let him get the
ejectments from M'Slime--we shall not, at all events, be insulted and
bearded by Papists, or their emissaries, so long as I can clear one of
them off the estate.'

"'But, good God, Mr. M'Clutchy, surely these other Papists you speak of,
have not participated in the offences, if such they are, of M'Loughlin
an