“And another from me, Letty, to buy anything you fancy.”
The girl looked at them with surprise, and for a moment or two seemed at a loss how to account for such evident excitement. At length she exclaimed: “By dad, I have it; you won the hunt, gintlemen.”
“Better than that, Letty,” they replied, nodding, and immediately entering the parlor.
“Well, boys,” said the father, “a good day's sport?”
“Capital, father! are you long home!”
“Since about two o'clock.”
“How did you come?”
“Why, boys, ye must know that either Dr. Turbot or I was fired at to-day. A bullet—a pistol bullet—whistled right between us in the parsonage garden, and the poor frightened doctor refused to come by the usual way, and, in consequence, I was obliged to take the lower road.”
He then entered into a more detailed account of the attempted assassination, and heard from them, in reply, a history of their intelligence and adventure at Murderer's Corner with Hacket and Bryan, for so the fellows were named.
“Well,” said the proctor, “thank God, things are not so bad as they report, after all; but, in the meantime, the plot appears to be thickening—here's more comfort,” he added, handing him the notice which Mogue told him he had found upon the steps of the hall-doer, where, certainly, he had himself left it. John took the document and read as follows:—