"Never fear," said Father Mooney, laughing; "I'll go bail he'll hear me."
"Well—the word for the night is—'Bloody end to the Pope,'—don't forget, now, 'Bloody end to the Pope,'" and with these words he banged the door between him and the unfortunate priests; and, as bolt was fastened after bolt, they heard him laughing to himself like a fiend over his vengeance.
"And big bad luck to ye, Major Jones, for the same, every day ye see a paving stone," was the faint sub-audible ejaculation of Father Luke, when he was recovered enough to speak.
"Sacristi! Que nous sommes attrappes," said the Abbe, scarcely able to avoid laughing at the situation in which they were placed.
"Well, there's the quarter chiming now; we've no time to lose—Major Jones! Major, darling! Don't now, ah, don't! sure ye know we'll be ruined entirely—there now, just change it, like a dacent fellow—the devil's luck to him, he's gone. Well, we can't stay here in the rain all night, and be expelled in the morning afterwards—so come along."
They jogged on for a few minutes in silence, till they came to that part of the "Duke's" demesne wall, where the first sentry was stationed. By this time the officers, headed by the major, had quietly slipped out of the gate, and were following their steps at a convenient distance.
The fathers had stopped to consult together, what they should do in this trying emergency—when their whisper being overheard, the sentinel called out gruffly, in the genuine dialect of his country, "who goes that?"
"Father Luke Mooney, and the Abbe D'Array," said the former, in his most bland and insinuating tone of voice, a quality he most eminently possessed.
"Stand and give the countersign."
"We are coming from the mess, and going home to the college," said Father Mooney, evading the question, and gradually advancing as he spoke.