"Shoulder arms--well done. Present arms. Where is--is--this rascal? Oh,
yes, here he is. Well, you are there--are you?"

"I'm here, captain."

"Well blow me, that's not--not--bad, my good fellow; if I'm not a
captain, worse men have been so (hiccough); that's what I say."

"Hadn't we better make a prisoner of him at once, and bring him to Sir
Robert's?" observed another.

"Simpson, hold--old--your tongue, I say. Curse me if I'll suffer any man
to in--intherfere with me in the discharge of my duty."

"How do we know," said another, "but I he's a Rapparee in disguise?--for
that matter, he may be Reilly himself."

"Captain and gentlemen," said Fergus, "if you have any suspicion of me,
I'm willin' to go anywhere you like; and, above all things, I'd like to
go to Sir Robert's, bekaise they know me there--many a good bit and sup
I got in his kitchen."

"Ho, ho!" exclaimed the sergeant; "now I have you--now I know whether
you can tell truth or not. Answer me this. Did ever Sir Robert himself
give you charity? Come, now."

Fergus perceived the drift of the question at once. The penurious
character of the baronet was so well known throughout the whole barony
that if he had replied in the affirmative every man of them would have