At this moment John, the butler, came in with a plate of hot toast; and, as he was a privileged old man, he addressed his master without much hesitation.
“That was a quare business,” he observed, using the word quare as an equivocal one, until he should see what views of the circumstance his master might take; “a quare business, sir, that happened to Mr. Reilly.”
“What business do you allude to, you old sinner?”
“The burning of his house and place, sir. All he has, or had, is in a heap of ashes.”
Helen felt not for the burning, but her eyes were fixed upon the features of the old man, as if the doom of her life depended on his words; whilst the paper on which ee write is not whiter than were her cheeks.
“What—what—how was it?” asked his master; “who did it?—and by whose authority was it done?”
“Sir Robert Whitecraft and his men did it, sir.”
“Ay, but I can't conceive he had any authority for such an act.”
“Wasn't Mr. Reilly an outlaw, sir? Didn't the Red Rapparee, who is now a good Protestant, swear insurrection against him?”
“The red devil, sirra,” replied the old squire, forgetting his animosity to Reilly in the atrocity and oppression of the deed—“the red devil, sirra! would that justify such a cowardly scoundrel as Sir Robert—ugh—ugh—ugh—that went against my breath, Helen. Well, come here, I say, you old sinner; they burned the place, you say?”