'Expect he'll make me a compliment,' repeated Lord Colambre, 'to make a discovery!'
Ay, plase your honour; for the law is,' said Larry, 'that, if an unlawful still, that is, a still without license for whisky, is found, half the benefit of the fine that's put upon the parish goes to him that made the discovery; that's what that man is after, for he's an informer.'
'I should not have thought, from what I see of you,' said Lord Colambre, smiling, 'that you, Larry, would have offered an informer a lift.'
'Oh, plase your honour!' said Larry, smiling archly, 'would not I give the laws a lift, when in my power?'
Scarcely had he uttered these words, and scarcely was the informer out of sight, when across the same bog, and over the ditch, came another man, a half kind of gentleman, with a red silk handkerchief about his neck, and a silver-handled whip in his hand.
'Did you see any man pass the road, friend?' said he to the postillion.
'Oh! who would I see? or why would I tell?' replied Larry, in a sulky tone.
'Came, come, be smart!' said the man with the silver whip, offering to put half a crown into the postillion's hand; 'point me which way he took.'
'I'll have none a' your silver! don't touch me with it!' said Larry. 'But, if you'll take my advice, you'll strike across back, and follow the fields, out to Killogenesawee.'
The exciseman set out again immediately, in an opposite direction to that which the man who carried the still had taken. Lord Colambre now perceived that the pretended informer had been running off to conceal a still of his own.