no disposition to hunt him down. The young ladies' charges on the little
forfeited property were paid without any dispute, and no vexatious
inquiries were raised as to what had become of the furniture and other
personal property which had been carried away from the forfeited house.

The haunted reputation of the castle--for in those days, in matters of
the marvellous, the oldest were children--secured the little family in
the seclusion they coveted. Once, or sometimes twice a week, old
Laurence, with a shaggy little pony, made a secret expedition to the
city of Limerick, starting before dawn, and returning under the cover of
the night, with his purchases. There was beside an occasional sly
moonlit visit from the old parish priest, and a midnight mass in the old
castle for the little outlawed congregation.

As the alarm and inquiry subsided, their father made them, now and then,
a brief and stealthy visit. At first these were but of a night's
duration, and with great precaution; but gradually they were extended
and less guarded. Still he was, as the phrase is in Munster, "on his
keeping." He had firearms always by his bed, and had arranged places of
concealment in the castle in the event of a surprise. But no attempt nor
any disposition to molest him appearing, he grew more at ease, if not
more cheerful.

It came, at last, that he would sometimes stay so long as two whole
months at a time, and then depart as suddenly and mysteriously as he
came. I suppose he had always some promising plot on hand, and his head
full of ingenious treason, and lived on the sickly and exciting dietary
of hope deferred.

Was there a poetical justice in this, that the little _ménage_ thus