‘You are so ungenerous,’ cried Nina, hurrying after her; ‘I am a stranger, and would naturally like to learn all that I could of the country and the people; here is a gentleman full of the very knowledge I am seeking. He knows all about these terrible Fenians. What will they do with Donogan if they take him?’ ‘Transport him for life; they’ll not hang him, I think.’ ‘That’s worse than hanging. I mean--that is--Miss Kearney would rather they’d hang him.’ ‘I have not said so,’ replied Kate, ‘and I don’t suspect I think so, either.’ ‘Well,’ said Nina, after a pause, ‘let us go back to breakfast. You’ll see Mr. Walpole--he’s sure to be down by that time; and I’ll tell him what you wish is, that he must not think any more of the incident; that it was a piece of official stupidity, done, of course, out of the best motives; and that if he should cut a ridiculous figure at the end, he has only himself to blame for the worse than ambiguity of his private papers.’ ‘I do not know that I ‘d exactly say that,’ said Kate, who felt some difficulty in not laughing at the horror-struck expression of Mr. Curtis’s face. ‘Well, then, I’ll say--this was what I wished to tell you, but my cousin Kate interposed and suggested that a little adroit flattery of you, and some small coquetries that might make you believe you were charming, would be the readiest mode to make you forget anything disagreeable, and she would charge herself with the task.’ ‘Do so,’ said Kate calmly; ‘and let us now go back to breakfast.’ CHAPTER XLV SOME IRISHRIES That which the English irreverently call ‘chaff’ enters largely as an element into Irish life; and when Walpole stigmatised the habit to Joe Atlee as essentially that of the smaller island, he was not far wrong. I will not say that it is a high order of wit--very elegant, or very refined; but it is a strong incentive to good-humour--a vent to good spirits; and being a weapon which every Irishman can wield in some fashion or other, establishes that sort of joust which prevailed in the mêlée tournaments, and where each tilted with whom he pleased. Any one who has witnessed the progress of an Irish trial, even when the crime was of the very gravest, cannot fail to have been struck by the continual clash of smart remark and smarter rejoinder between the Bench and the Bar; showing how men feel the necessity of ready-wittedness, and a promptitude to repel attack, in which even the prisoner in the dock takes his share, and cuts his joke at the most critical moment of his existence.