evermore, amin! Protect and save us!" muttered
Peggy Moran, dropping the potato she was peeling,
and turning with a face of terror to her daughter,
who whispered, without turning her head,

"Mother, darlin', don't purtend anything, for
all sakes. Chucky, chucky! Chuck, chuck,
chuck!" she went on, raising her voice gaily,
as she scattered the food.

"Servant, sir," she said, wiping her hands
and curtseying to a tall stout officer, who
strode up to the door, scattering the chickens
by the clanking of his spurs and sword.

"Is this Farmer Moran' s, my good girl?"

"Yes, sir."

"Are you his daughter?"

"Yes, sir, and this is my mother."

"Where's your husband, Mrs. Moran?" said
the officer, turning to the poor woman, who
was endeavouring to look calm.

"At the fair, sir—oh sure, 'tisn't got into any
harm Pat has, sir?"

"What harm should he get into—about this
runaway prisoner you mean?" said the officer,
trying to startle her into some admission.

"What man, sir?" cried Kate. " Law, mother,
honey! That's what that boy was telling us!"

"What boy?" said the officer, now off his
guard.

"A boy, sir—oh! a ra'al little chap—a
gossoon—run in here a while ago an' said the man
that's to be hung's got out an' run away—an
sure we didn't bleeve him!" said Kate, with
such an air of self possession and innocent
inquisitiveness that the officer was completely
deceived. A boy had come in as she had said,
and told the wonderful story, so she spoke
the truth in that part of her assertion.

"Well, Mrs. Moran," said the officer, "you've
no objection to have your premises searched, I
suppose? It is suspected that the prisoner is
hidden somewhere about here."

"Musha, what put that into yere heads?"
said Peggy Moran, angrily. " Faith! it's somethin'
else we'd be thinkin' of, an' not meddlin'
wud the law; but you're welcome to sarch
away, sir, as long as ye like, on'y its a quare
thing to have an honest man's house sarched
like a rogue's!"

"I must do my duty," said the officer.

"Sure the gintleman won't do us any hurt,
mother," said Kate. "Please don't let 'em
thrample the potatoes, sir!" she called out as
the men turned into the little garden.

Pat Moran's words were almost fulfilled, that
the pursuers would root up the ground in search
of the fugitive. Not a bush or a hollow about
the ground, not a loft or cranny in the house
or out-building but was thoroughly investigated.
At last with a sickening feeling of apprehension
Kate saw the band disperse themselves over the
fields, and three soldiers run across the ploughed
field to question the man who was ploughing.

Welsh's blood ran cold as he saw them
coming; but recollecting that they did not
know his face, he glanced over his shoulder,
and shouted in a feigned voice to the horses.

The soldiers were young and careless. They
merely asked two or three questions in an
irrelevant way, staring up at the sky, and down
at the clay, as if they expected to discover the
prisoner transformed into a spirit of earth or
air. Then they ran off again; and Welsh
breathed freely until he spied six other soldiers
advancing towards him, with the officer in
charge, and two others in dark frock-coats with
shining buttons and red collars.

"God help me! Sure I can only die!" he
murmured.

"How long have you been ploughing?" said
the officer.

"Sence daybreak, sir. Woa! An' hard work
I have had, every one runnin' to me sence
breakfast, axin' me did I see the man that run
away. Steady there!" The labourer sulkily
keeping his back towards the prison warders.

"He is supposed to have swum the river,"
said the officer; "and if so, and you have been
here since daybreak, he could not have got over
without you seeing him."

"Sorra haporte I see, sure, if he did; an'
he must be a brave swimmer to come across
that river this time o' year, ain' the wather like
ice," said the ploughboy, with an incredulous
grin; "sure he might land down farther, it's a
grad'a'al narrer, but anyhow I see nothin'—
Conshume ye, straight!" he growled at the
horses, and bending double over the plough,
furrowed on. The officer called his men
hurriedly back to the country road.

The long day drew to a close, and when Kate
came to call the ploughboy to his supper,
whispering that there was no one in but her
father and mother, he felt as if he had lived a
lifetime in the past twenty-four hours.

The farmer laughed heartily in telling some
of the stories which were rife about the
prisoner's disappearance. His body had been
picked up four miles down the river, his clothes
had been found by a turnkey under a bush, and
his handcuffs had been picked up—filed half
across—in a bog ten miles away.

"Faith I bursted laughin'," said Pat Moran,
"when I knew that Martin Leary had 'em
welded into linch-pins, an' that Katy had the
clothes buried in last year's manure hape!"

So they chatted pleasantly and securely,
while the rescued man sat silent from thankfulness
and gratitude, only casting side looks at
Kate and sighing heavily.

"Musha, man, don't be sighin'!" cried the
farmer, jocosely; "you'll be kickin' up yere heels
at your weddin' in Ameriky this time twelve-
month, plase God!"

"No, Misther Moran, I'll never marry any
one in Ameriky," answered Welsh.

Kate got up to put on fresh fuel immediately.

"Och, niver fear, you will," replied the
farmer, with good-natured obtuseness.

"Musha, Misther Moran, 'tisn't every man
'ud give his daughter to one like me," said
Welsh, in a low tone.

"Arrah, Tim, agra, who'd think the worse o'
you for havin' got into throuble an' got out
agin'?" pursued the farmer.