“And where the devil have you been this fortnight? What rascally treachery have you been hatching since I saw you? No long stories, my friend, and no lies. What have you been at?” “I was never on any other errand than your honor's service, so help me--” “Don't swear, old fellow, if you want me to believe you. Perjury has a sort of bird-lime attraction for scoundrels like you; so just keep away from an oath.” O'Reardon laughed. “His honor was droll,--he was always droll,--and though not an Irishman himself, sorrow man living knew them better;” and with this double compliment to his patron and his country, the fellow went on to show that he had been on “the tracks of the ould man” since the day they parted. He had got a “case against him,”--the finest and fullest ever was seen. Mr. Spencer declared that “better informations never was sworn;” and on this they arrested him, together with his diary, his traps, his drawings, his arms, and his bullet-mould. There were grave reasons for secrecy in the case, and great secrecy was observed. The examination was in private, and the prisoner was sent to the Richmond Jail, with a blank for his name. To the very circumstantial and prolix detail which O'Reardon gave with all the “onction” of a genuine informer, Sewell listened with a forced patience. Perhaps the thought of all the indignities that were heaped upon his enemy compensated him for the wearisomeness of the narrative. At last he stopped him in his story, and said, “And how much of this accusation do you believe?” “All of it,--every word.” “You mean to say that he is engaged in this rebellion, and a sworn member of the Celt association?” “I do. There 's more than thirty already off to transportation not so deep in it as him.” “And if it should turn out that he is a man of station, and who once had a great fortune, and that in his whole life he never meddled with politics,--that he has friends amongst the first families of England, and has only to ask to have men of rank and position his sureties,--what then?” “He 'll have to show what he was 'at' a year ago when he lodged in my house at Cullen's Wood, and would n't give his name, nor the name of the young man that was with him, nor ever went out till it was dark night, and stole away at last with all sorts of tools and combustibles. He 'll have to show that I did n't give his description up at the Castle, and get Mr. Balfour's orders to watch him close; and what's more, that he did n't get a private visit one night from the Lord-Lieutenant himself, warning him to be off as quick as he could. I heard their words as I listened at the door.” “So that, according to your veracious story, Mr. O'Rear-don, the Viceroy himself is a Celt and a rebel, eh?” “It's none of my business to put the things together, and say what shows this, and what disproves that; that's for Mr. Hacket and the people up at the Castle. I 'm to get the facts,--nothing but the facts,--and them's facts that I tell you.”