masking their disgust. The man who slapped his leg
and shaped his lips to a silent whistle, was Major Payton of the --th.
The men who looked at him, and cursed the unlucky star which had
brought him thither, were Luke Asgill and The McMurrough.

"Faith, and I should have thought," Asgill said, with a clouded face,
"that my presence here, Major, and I, a Justice----"

"True for you!" Payton said, with a grin.

"Should have been enough by itself, and the least taste more than
enough, to prove the absurdity of the Castle's story."

"True for you again," Payton replied. "And ain't I saying that but for
your presence here, and a friend at court that I'll not name, it's not
your humble servant this gentleman would be entertaining"--he turned to
The McMurrough--"but half a company and a sergeant's guard!"

"I'm allowing it."

"You've no cause to do other."

"Devil a bit I'm denying it," Asgill replied more amicably; and, as far
as he could, he cleared his face. "It's not that you're not welcome.
Not at all, Major! Sure, and I'll answer for it, my friend, The
McMurrough is glad to welcome any English gentleman, much more one of
your reputation."

"Truth, and I am," The McMurrough assented. But he had not Asgill's
self-control, and his sulky tone belied his words.

"Still--I come at an awkward time, perhaps?" Payton answered, looking
with a grin from one to the other.

For the first time it struck him that the suspicions at headquarters
might be well-founded; in that case he had been rash to put his head in
the lion's mouth. For it had been wholly his own notion. Partly to
tease Asgill, whom he did not love the more because he owed him money,
and partly to see the rustic beauty whom, rumour had it, Asgill was
courting in the wilds--a little, too, because life at Tralee was dull,
he had volunteered to do with three or four troopers what otherwise a
half-company would have been sent to do. That he could at the same time
put his creditor under an obligation, and annoy him, had not been the
least part of the temptation; while no one at Tralee believed the story
sent down from Dublin.

He did not credit it even now for more than two seconds. Then common
sense, and his knowledge of Luke Asgill reassured him. "Eh! An awkward
time, perhaps?" he repeated, looking at The McMurrough. "Sorry, I'm
sure, but----"

"I'd have entertained you better, I'm thinking," James McMurrough said,
"if I'd known you were coming before you c