‘It is true, sir, I am very nearly so long here; but my aunt, whose guest I am, told me I must be called on first; that--I’m sure I can’t say for whose benefit it was supposed to be--I should not make the first visit; in fact, there was some rule about the matter, and that I must not contravene it. And although I yielded with a very bad grace, I was in a measure under orders, and dared not resist.’ ‘She told you, of course, that we were not on our old terms: that there was a coldness between the families, and we had seen nothing of each other lately?’ ‘Not a word of it, sir.’ ‘Nor of any reason why you should not come here as of old?’ ‘None, on my honour; beyond this piece of stupid etiquette, I never heard of anything like a reason.’ ‘I am all the better pleased with my old neighbour,’ said Kearney, in his more genial tone. ‘Not, indeed, that I ought ever to have distrusted her, but for all that--Well, never mind,’ muttered he, as though debating the question with himself, and unable to decide it, ‘you are here now--eh! You are here now.’ ‘You almost make me suspect, sir, that I ought not to be here now.’ ‘At all events, if you were waiting for me you wouldn’t be here. Is not that true, young gentleman?’ ‘Quite true, sir, but not impossible to explain.’ And he now flung himself to the ground, and with the rein over his arm, came up to Kearney’s side. ‘I suppose, but for an accident, I should have gone on waiting for that visit you had no intention to make me, and canvassing with myself how long you were taking to make up your mind to call on me, when I heard only last night that some noted rebel--I’ll remember his name in a minute or two--was seen in the neighbourhood, and that the police were on his track with a warrant, and even intended to search for him here.’ ‘In my house--in Kilgobbin Castle?’ ‘Yes, here in your house, where, from a sure information, he had been harboured for some days. This fellow--a head-centre, or leader, with a large sum on his head--has, they say, got away; but the hope of finding some papers, some clue to him here, will certainly lead them to search the castle, and I thought I’d come over and apprise you of it at all events, lest the surprise should prove too much for your temper.’ ‘Do they forget I’m in the commission of the peace?’ said Kearney, in a voice trembling with passion. ‘You know far better than me how far party spirit tempers life in this country, and are better able to say whether some private intention to insult is couched under this attempt.’ ‘That’s true,’ cried the old man, ever ready to regard himself as the object of some secret malevolence. ‘You cannot remember this rebel’s name, can you?’ ‘It was Daniel something--that’s all I know.’