"It isn't them as is poorest, is always the worst. But any how, Father John, if you'd come back, and yer riverence wouldn't mind for the onst jist sitting it out--jist dhrinking a dhrop at an odd time, or colloguing a bit with owld Mr. Tierney, till we get the Captain out of that, shure they'd never be doing anything out of the way as long as yer riverence is in it." "It isn't here--in the house, where there are so many together--they'd attack him, even if they meant to do so; and I don't think they mean it to-night; but it's on his way home--and my going back would not in any way prevent that. But why don't you at once tell Captain Ussher, and warn him that you fear he is not safe among those fellows at night." "That's jist what I did then; but he's so foolish, and so bowld, there's no making him mind what one would say. I did tell him, Father John, that I was afeared that there would be some lads in it wouldn't be his well-wishers. But he laughed at me, and towld me there were none of the boys through the counthry war so fond of him as those Reynoldses and Byrnes, and all them others down at Drumleesh." "Well, Denis, and what can I do more; if he laughs at you, why wouldn't he also laugh at me?" "Why, yer riverence, you and he are frinds like; besides, he wouldn't trate the like of you as he would such a one as I; why I believe he don't think the poor are Christians at all." "It's true enough for some of them; but what would you have me do? I couldn't walk back to Mohill by his horse's side;--and I tell you if they attack him at all, it will not be at the house there, but on his way home." "'Deed then. Father John, any way I wish he was well out of that." "It seems, Denis, it's yourself you're thinking of, more than the Captain." "Shure, and why wouldn't I--and I just married? A purty thing for me just now, to be took up among a lot of blackguard ruffians for murthering a king's officer." "Well, Denis, I won't go back now,--it would look odd and do no good; so do you go back and drink a tumbler of punch with the men, and dance a turn or two with the girls, as you should on your wedding night; and by and by I'll come down again as if to see what was going on--and to walk home with Miss Feemy. The Captain must go back to Ballycloran for his horse; and if he can be persuaded that there is any danger, he can go up and sleep at the cottage; for I tell you, if they mean to hurt him at all, it's on the road home to Mohill they'd make the attempt. Do you go in and say nothing about it, and I'll be down by and by." Father John walked away towards his house, and Denis McGovery went back with a heavy heart to dance at his own wedding; for though his solicitude for the "king's officer" would not have been of the most intense kind, had he thought that he was to be murdered anywhere else, he had a great horror at the idea of any evil happening to that important personage, when it could in any way affect his own comfort.