"Troth, it'll be no time at all before you're back, Pat, an' ye had a right to lave talkin' that way about the poorhouse, ma'am. There isn't a wan of us that 'ud ever let yez go there, bad luck to it! No, indeed, ma'am." "Aye, we'll be back yet in the ould little place," repeated Pat with conviction, "we will so; come on out o' that, Mary, an' make up your mind where it is we're goin' this night. Sure the craturs here is fightin' for the honour of havin' us. Stop turnin' your head round now; the place won't run away on ye till we're back in it." All the neighbours were indeed vying with each other in their anxiety to entertain and comfort the helpless old pair, and prove at once their sympathy with them in their trouble and their indignation with Peter Rorke. "He done it just out of spite, mind ye," they said one to the other. "Wasn't he afther promisin' Mike to let him work out the thrifle o' rent they were owin?" "Aye! he is the outrageousest ould villain that ever stepped," was the general verdict. Nevertheless, as in all communities there is generally one ill-conditioned person, even in the little village of Donoughmor there was to be found a time-server who, wishing for reasons of his own to ingratiate himself with Peter Rorke, was base enough to report to him old Pat Clancy's hasty words. "He's saying he wished Mike had burnt ye in your bed, an' more by token," added Peter's informant, "he's tellin' every wan that it'll be no time at all before he's back in his own place again the same as ever he was, an' that you may do what ye like on him, he doesn't care." "He says that, does he?" cried Peter, crimson with fury; "I'll soon show him he's makin' a bit of a mistake. 'Pon me word, did ever anybody hear the like o' that?" "Well, that's what he says," repeated the other. "'I wisht,' he says, 'that Mike had burnt the ould villain in his bed,' says he. That's the very word he said, 'the ould villain' he says; 'an' got shut of him,' says he, 'but it'll be no time at all before herself an' me is back in the ould place,' he says. He did so--it's the truth I'm tellin' ye, that's the very way he said it." "I'll show him different then," repeated Peter. "I wisht I'd thought of it first off--the way he'd have seen it." "An' what's that, sir?" "You'll soon see. 'Pon me word, I wisht I had him there now in his bed, the ould raskil, the way I could do on him what he's wishin' his spalpeen of a son had done on me. Are ye there, Pat?" he cried, raising his voice. "I am, sir," returned some one from the region of the stables. "Is Barney there?" "He is." "Bring him along wid ye then; an' call Jack McEvoy and a couple more of the boys. Bring a pick wid ye, an' a couple of them hatchets--an' Pat!" "Sir?" replied Pat, suddenly appearing from behind the stable-wall. "Run round to the kitchen an' fetch the big bottle of paraffin off o' the long shelf there." "I will, sir. Where will we be goin' to, sir?"