"But you won't get into a scrape? Honour above all; I'd not like to have you do it unless you were sure, for the glory of the cloth."
The pledge of security being solemnly offered, Tom followed his companion through the intricate passages of the castle until he came into a small apartment, where he found a most plentiful repast before him. He had not failed to observe, that, as he was guided through the house, their path had been wholly uncrossed, for, if anybody accidentally appeared, he hastily withdrew. One person only was detained for a moment, and to him the butler spoke a few words in some unknown tongue, which Tom of course set down as part of the Jacobite treason pervading every part of the castle.
"Gad!" said he, while beginning to lay into the round of beef, "I am half inclined to think that the jabber you talked just now to the powder-monkey we met in that corridor was not treason, but beef and mustard: an't I right?"
"Quite so."
"Fall to, then, yourself. By Gad! you appear to have those lads under your thumb—for this is great eating. I suppose you often rob my lord?—speak plain, for I myself rob ould Chaytor the schoolmaster; but there's a long difference between robbing a schoolmaster and robbing a lord. I venture to say many a pound of his you have made away with."
"A great many indeed. I am ashamed to say it, that for one pound he has lost by anybody else, he has lost a hundred by me."
"Ashamed, indeed! This is beautiful beef. But let us wash it down. By the powers! is it champagne you are giving me? Well, I never drank but one glass of it in my life, and that was from a bottle that I stole out of a dozen which the master had when he was giving a great dinner to the fathers of the boys just before the Christmas holidays the year before last. My service to you. By Gor! if you do not break the Ormonds, I can't tell who should."
"Nor I. Finish your champagne. What else will you have to drink?"
"Have you the run of the cellar?"
"Certainly."