The affair was to come off in the County Roscommon, about a mile and a half from Carrick, at the edge of a small copse, about a mile on the left-hand side of the Boyle road. A message had been conveyed to Doctor Blake to be near the spot with the different instruments that had been so freely named on the previous evening. At the hour appointed, the military Major and his friend arrived in the Brown Hall chariot, and a few minutes afterwards the ex-military Major and his man appeared on the Counsellor's car. Had any one walked about the ground with very scrutinising eyes, he might have espied Doctor Blake snugly ensconced under a bank with a cigar in his mouth, and a small mahogany box lying at his feet. The carriages had been left a few hundred yards distant, and the two servants, well knowing what was going to happen, discussed cosily and leisurely the chance they either of them had of carrying home a dead master. "Faix, Barney," said the Brown Hall whip, "I believe we stand a baddish chance; they do be saying the Counsellor's mighty handy with the powdher; would you plaze to try a blast this cowld morning?" and he handed him his pipe. "And thank ye kindly too, Dan; it's a mighty cowld place. Why thin it's thrue for you,--the masther is handy with the powdher; more power to his elbow this morning." "But whisper now, Barney, did he iver shoot many now to your knowing? did he shoot 'em dead? I wonder whether Mr. Fred will be keeping on the chariot; he's more taste in the gig way, I'm fearing." "Why thin, the Counsellor mayn't shoot him dead; that is, av he behaves himself, and don't have no blusthering. Was old Jonas much afeard, now, Dan?" "Afeard, is it! the divil wouldn't fright him. Maybe, after all, it's the Counsellor 'll be shot first." "Oh, in course he may," said Barney; "oh musha, musha, wirrasthrue, how'd I ever be looking the misthress and the young ladies in the face, av I was taking him home dead and buried as he's likely to be, av he don't hit that owld masther of yours in the very first go off;" and then the man's air of triumph at the idea of his master's shooting Jonas Brown, turned to despondency as the thought struck him that the Counsellor might be shot himself. But he soon cheered up again at a brighter reflection. "But that'd be the wake, Dan! My; there'd have been nothing like that in the counthry, since old Peyton was waked up at Castleboy; not a man in the county but would be there, nor a woman neither; and signs on, there's not another in the counthry at all like the masther for a poor man." At this moment two shots were heard. "Virgin Mary!--there they are at it," said Dan; "now they're oncet began in arnest, they'll not lave it till they're both dead, or there's not a grain of powdher left. Bad cess to them Majors for bringing thim together; couldn't they be fighting theyselles av they plazed, and not be setting the real gentry of the counthry at each other like game cocks?"