As he would through the moorland fern,
And ne'er let the gentle Norman bluid
Grow cauld for the Highland kerne."
It was in the beginning of December, 184-(said Fred. Carew); we were sitting down to dinner after a capital day's cock-shooting—besides myself there were Lord Clontarf, Mohun, and Kate, my wife—when we were disturbed by a perfect hail of knocks at the hall door. Old Dan Tucker, or the Spectre Horseman, never clamored more loudly for admittance. Fritz, Mohun's old Austrian servant, went down to see what was up, and, on opening the door, was instantly borne down by the tumultuous rush of Michael Kelly, gentleman, agent to half a dozen estates, and attorney at law. In the two last capacities be had given, it seems, great umbrage to the neighboring peasantry, and they had caught him that night as he returned home, intending to put him to death with that ingenuity of torture for which the fine, warm-hearted fellows are justly celebrated.
They did not wish to hurry over the entertainment, so confined him in an upper chamber, while they called their friends and neighbors to rejoice with them, carousing meantime jovially below. The victim contrived to let himself down from the window, and ran for his life to the nearest house, which, unluckily, happened to be the Lodge. Two boys, however, saw and recognized him as he entered the demesne, and raised a whoop, to show that they knew where the fox had gone to ground.
This we made out from a string of incoherent interjections; and then he lay panting and contorting himself in an agony of fear.
Mohun sat on the hall table, swinging his foot and regarding the spectacle with the indolent curiosity that one might exhibit toward the gambols of some ugly new importation of the Zoological Society. When the story was told he pointed coolly to the door.
The shriek that the miserable creature set up on seeing that gesture I shall never forget.
"Do you think I shall turn my house into a refuge for destitute attorneys?" Ralph said, answering my look of inquiry. "If there were no other reason, I would not risk it, with your wife under my roof. A night-attack in the West is no child's play."
Kate had come out, and was leaning over the gallery. She heard the last words, and spoke, flushing scarlet with anger.