'Yes, your honour,' replied the man, lowering his voice as he glanced around. 'But they didn't find much. Phil, Masther Terence's man, came down from the Abbey to give the office, and most of the pike-heads were tossed over the wall, till we can put 'em back to-night. Wake up, Jug, and spake with the lady. Sure the shock has druv the collough crazy. When the thatch was all ablaze we went up to Madam Gillin, who always has the kind word and bit and sup; but she said she could do nothing, and bade us come to you.' 'To me!' echoed Doreen, bitterly. 'Am I not too a Catholic, and helpless?' 'But it's your father's the great gintleman,' urged the fellow coaxingly, as he twisted his corbeen between his horny hands. 'If ye'd spake the word, acushla----' 'My father!' Doreen groaned, breaking abruptly through the knot of suppliants. 'What can he do? He is sending me away. I'll pray to God for you; but He has been deaf this long while.' CHAPTER IV. WE PIPED UNTO YOU. So the "Irish Slave" was destroyed by fire, and its hapless occupant, finding that no redress might be obtained through, Miss Wolfe, crawled to the Little House, where she was taken in by its kind mistress, who in her turn received, a few minutes later, a visit from Major Sirr. He pointed out with deferential politeness to the good-humoured dame that, as a Catholic possessing property, it was scarcely wise to harbour traitors, whereat the stout lady broke into her hearty laugh and invited him to lunch. 'Is it me, meejor, that causes the Secret Council to shiver in their shoes,' she asked, 'with a Protestant daughter to go bail for me, and meeself, all but the fine airs, an aristocrat? Not but what Ollam Fodlah, mee ancestor, was better than the best of the stuck-up crathers! I'm a "no-party woman," as all the world knows, just as the buckramed bag-o'-bones at the Abbey foreninst us is a "no-popery woman." Let my ould collough be; she was my nurse, and won't trouble any one for long. Come in. Ye shall taste a gulp of my fine claret just to show there's no spite betune us--the very same, on my word of honour, as Justice Carleton and Judge Clonmel have such a tooth for.' And Major Sirr pledged his hostess in his best manner, with a smirk on his thin features and a worldly twinkle glimmering from under his bushy brows, and departed presently to report at the Castle that Madam Gillin was a staunch loyalist who had miraculously escaped the taint which poisoned most ladies of her creed. When he had departed, the good lady's face lost its dimples and grew long.