Michael Kelly, gentleman, agent to half a dozen estates, and attorney at
law. In the two last capacities be had given, it seems, great umbrage to
the neighboring peasantry, and they had caught him that night as he
returned home, intending to put him to death with that ingenuity of
torture for which the fine, warm-hearted fellows are justly celebrated.

They did not wish to hurry over the entertainment, so confined him in an
upper chamber, while they called their friends and neighbors to rejoice
with them, carousing meantime jovially below. The victim contrived to
let himself down from the window, and ran for his life to the nearest
house, which, unluckily, happened to be the Lodge. Two boys, however,
saw and recognized him as he entered the demesne, and raised a whoop, to
show that they knew where the fox had gone to ground.

This we made out from a string of incoherent interjections; and then he
lay panting and contorting himself in an agony of fear.

Mohun sat on the hall table, swinging his foot and regarding the
spectacle with the indolent curiosity that one might exhibit toward the
gambols of some ugly new importation of the Zoological Society. When the
story was told he pointed coolly to the door.

The shriek that the miserable creature set up on seeing that gesture I
shall never forget.

"Do you think I shall turn my house into a refuge for destitute
attorneys?" Ralph said, answering my look of inquiry. "If there were no
other reason, I would not risk it, with your wife under my roof. A
night-attack in the West is no child's play."