"I don't want your supposition. Did the prisoner tell you why he was going to Aughacashel?" "There war some of the tinants there, I b'lieve, and he thought he'd be safe may be." "Did the prisoner tell you that he was going to Aughacashel because he thought he'd be safe there?" "I'll tell you how it war thin. We were jist talking together about what he'd betther be doing, which was nathural, and he with the dead body there, he'd been jist afther killing. Wid that, says he, 'Pat,' says he, 'where's the stills mostly at work now?' 'Faith,' says I, 'I don't exactly be knowing;' for, yer honour, I niver turned a penny that way myself--'but,' says I, 'sich a one'll tell you,' and I mintioned one of the tinants; 'and where's he?' said the masther; 'why I heard tell,' says I, 'that he's in Aughacashel, but av you'll go down to Drumleesh, you'll find out,' and wid that he went down the road to Drumleesh, and I druv the body off to Carrick." "That'll do," said Mr. Allewinde. "I've done with this witness, my lord." CHAPTER XXX. THE PRISONER'S DEFENCE. Mr. O'Malley then rose, but before he began to cross-examine the witness, he addressed the judge. "There's a witness in court, my lord, whom I shall have to examine by and by on the defence, and I must request that he may be directed to absent himself during my examination of the witness now in the chair. It is material that he should not hear the answers which this witness may give, I mean Mr. Hyacinth Keegan, my lord, who is sitting beneath me." Keegan was sitting on the bench immediately under that of the barrister, among the attorneys employed in court. When he heard Mr. O'Malley's request to the judge, he rose up on his one leg, and the judge having ordered him to leave the court, he hobbled out with the assistance of his crutch. "Your name is Pat Brady, I think," commenced Mr. O'Malley. Pat did not reply. "Why don't you answer my question, sir?" said the counsellor angrily. "Why I towld what my name war afore. Thim gintlemen up there knows it well enough, and yourself knows it; why'd I be saying it agin?" "Well, my friend, I tell you to begin with, I shall ask you many questions you'll find considerably more difficult to answer than that, and you'd better make up your mind to answer them; for I mean to get an answer to the questions I shall ask, and you'll sit in that chair till you do answer them, unless you're moved from it into gaol." "Fire away, sir; I'm very well where I am, and I'm thinking I can howld out agin the hunger longer nor yer honer." "Your name is Pat Brady?" "It is." "Whose servant are you?" "Whose servant?" "Don't you understand what I say? whose servant are you?" "Faix thin, I don't call myself a servant at all." "Who's your master then?" "Mr. Macdermot here was my masther afore this affair." "I didn't ask who was your master; who is your master now?" "Why, Mr. Keegan." "Mr. Hyacinth Keegan, that's just gone out of court; he's your master, eh?"