“Very well, I shall; but what has become of our lunch? Touch the bell.” This hint sent Lanigan downstairs, who met the butler coming up with it. “Why, Pat,” said he, “what kept you so long with the lunch?” “I was just thinking,” replied Pat, “how it would be possible to poison that ugly, ill-made, long-legged scoundrel, without poisoning my master. What's to be done, Lanigan? He will marry this darlin' in spite of us. And sure, now we have our privileges once more, since this great Earl came to rule over us; and sure, they say, he's a greater gentleman than the king himself. All I can say is, that if this same Sir Robert forces the Cooleen Baum to such an unnatural marriage, I'll try a dose, hit or miss, for a cowheel anyway.” Lanigan laughed, and the butler passed on with the lunch. We may state here that the squire, notwithstanding his outspoken manner against Popery, like a terrible reverend baronet not long deceased, who, notwithstanding his discovery of the most awful Popish plots, and notwithstanding the most extravagant denunciations against Popery, like him, we say, the old squire seldom had more than one or two Protestant servants under his roof. Pat hated Longshanks, as he termed him, as did all the household, which, indeed, was very natural, as he was such a notorious persecutor of their religion and their clergy. Lanigan lost no time in acquainting Reilly with what he had heard, and the heart of the latter palpitated with alarm on hearing that the next day but one was likely to join his _Cooleen Bawn_, by violent and unnatural proceedings, to the man whom she so much detested. He felt that it was now time to act in order to save her. Arrangements were consequently made between them as to the time and manner of their escape, and those arrangements, together with the dialogue he had overheard, Lanigan communicated to the _Cooleen Bawn_. The squire on that day experienced strange alternations of feeling. His spirits seemed to rise and sink, as the quicksilver in the glass is affected by the state of the atmosphere. He looked into the future with terror, and again became, to the astonishment of his guest--we now talk of their conduct after dinner--actuated by some thought or impulse that put him into high spirits. Whitecraft, cool and cautious, resolved to let him have his way; for the squire was drinking deeply, and the Burgundy was good and strong.