“I certainly know very well,” replied the baronet, “that I am exceedingly unpopular with the Popish party; but, in my conduct towards them, I only carried out the laws that had been passed against them.” “I know that, Sir Robert, and, as a Catholic, I am sorry that you and others were supported and egged on by such laws. Why, sir, a hangman could--give the same excuse, because if he put a rope about your neck, and tied his cursed knot nately under your left ear, what was he doin' but fulfillin' the law as you did? And now, Sir Robert, who would shake hands with a hangman, unless some unfortunate highway robber or murderer, that gives him his hand because he knows that he will never see his purty face agin. This discourse is all folly, however--you haven't a minute to lose--shall I order your horse?” “Yes, you had better, Lanigan,” replied the other, with a dogged appearance of cowardice and revenge. He could not forgive Lanigan the illustration that involved the comparison of the hangman; still his conscience and his cowardice both whispered to him that the cook was in the right. This night was an eventful one. The course of our narrative brings us and our readers to the house of Captain Smellpriest, who had for his next-door neighbor the stalwart curate of the parish, the Rev. Samson Strong, to whom some allusion has been I already made in these pages. Now the difference between Smellpriest and Whitecraft was this--Smellpriest was not a magistrate, as Whitecraft was, and in his priest-hunting expeditions only acted upon warrants issued by some bigoted and persecuting magistrate or other who lived in the district. But as his propensity to hunt those unfortunate persons was known, the execution of the warrants was almost in every instance entrusted to his hands. It was not so with Sir Robert, who, being himself a magistrate, might be said to have been in the position at once of judge and executioner. At all events, the race of blood was pretty equal between them, so far as the clergy was concerned; but in general enmity to the Catholic community at large, Whitecraft was far more cruel and comprehensive in his vengeance. It is indeed an observation founded upon truth and experience, that in all creeds, in proportion to his ignorance and bigotry, so is the violence of the persecutor. Whitecraft, the self-constituted champion of Protestantism, had about as much religion as Satan himself--or indeed less, for we are told that he believes and trembles, while Whitecraft, on the contrary, neither believed nor trembled. But if he did not fear God, he certainly feared man, and on the night in question went home with as craven a heart--thanks to Lanigan--as ever beat in a coward's bosom. Smellpriest, however, differed from Whitecraft in many points; he was brave, though cruel, and addicted to deep potations. Whitecraft, it is true, drank more deeply still than he did; but, by some idiosyncrasy of stomach or constitution,