I was just about twenty years of age. I had entered Trinity three years before, and had fallen in with a Roystering set. In those days the fights between the college lads and the townsfolk were more frequent and furious than they have been of recent years, and I took my share of the cuts and bruises that were almost always the portion of the combatants on either side. On one occasion when we had a pretty stiff battle with the butcher boys from around St. Patrick’s, I was felled by a blow. In the crush I was unable to rise, and would have been in a fair way of being trampled out of existence but for the gallant exertions of one of my companions, Jack Langrishe. He fought like a devil, and, knocking over his nearest foes, cleared a space which enabled me to get up.

Jack, in trying to save me, got an ugly cut on his left arm, which cost him some trouble. The butchers were put to flight, and Jack carried off as a trophy a villainous looking knife which he had captured from one of his assailants. Intimate as we had been before, the service which he had rendered to me made us just sworn friends for life, and I felt bound to do him any service it was in my power to render him.

It was not long, however, until Jack’s outrageous conduct brought him into collision with the college authorities. Having gone near blowing up one of the college porters, by slipping in the most playful manner, a small bag of powder into his coat pocket, Jack was sent down to the country, and I missed his companionship for several months; but, indeed, I had pretty well forgotten him when just about the 1st of December, 1759, I received a letter from him, saying that he was running up to town for a few days, and that he would put up at the “Robin Hood” in Dame-street, and would be glad if I could call on him there on the evening of the 1st of December, and dine and make a night of it. He told me to be sure to ask for Mr. Sugrue. Jack gave me no hint as to why he had adopted another’s name; but this did not surprise me very much. I suspected he was up to one of his old tricks.

When the evening of the 1st of December arrived I left my rooms in college and walked leisurely across Dame Street, stopping for a few minutes at King William’s Statue to watch a match of fisticuffs between a chairman and a driver of a hackney coach, in which the chairy got the best of it.

I reached the “Robin Hood” just in time to witness the arrival of the coach from Kilkenny, which should have brought Jack. I saw the passengers descend from the coach; but although I scanned their faces as closely as the light of the lanterns and that coming from the windows and open door of the tavern allowed, I could see no trace of Jack. “He must have missed the coach,” said I to myself, and I went on up towards the top of the street. Then it occurred to me that as he was coming under an assumed name he might have taken some other mode of conveyance, as he would be well known to the guard and the driver of the coach, so I retraced my steps, and entering the tavern inquired for Mr. Sugrue.

“He’s just come, sir,” said the waiter.

“How did he come?” I asked carelessly.

“By the Kilkenny coach.”

“Curious I did not notice him,” thought I.

“Yes, sir; he’s in No. 4 Room, sir, first floor to your right, and will be happy to see you, if you’re the gentleman that was to call for him, sir.”

I knocked at the door of No. 4.

“Come in,” said a gruff voice, very unlike Jack’s.

I pushed open the door and entered, and found myself in the presence of an old man wearing spectacles, and having a curious resemblance to one of the Deans of Trinity.

“What the devil is up with you, Langrishe?”

“Sugrue, Tom, if you love me,” said Jack in his natural voice.

“And what is it all about, Jack?”

“My dear fellow, I’m as ravenous as a hawk, and mind, there’s not to be a word about business till we’re in the middle of the third bottle. The port here is first rate. But my mind is never equal to business until I have fairly moistened my palate.”

Jack had secured a private room, and it was evident that he had ordered the dinner beforehand, for it left nothing to be desired.

I felt there was no use in pressing him for any explanation until the time arrived when he would be willing to give it, but I could not help looking curiously now and then at his remarkable get up.

“I knew ’twould surprise you, Tom,” said Jack, evidently delighted.

“It has, I must confess,” said I.

Jack gave me little opportunity of questioning him, as he insisted on my giving him full information of all that had happened in college during his enforced absence. Of course, I was nothing loth to tell him, having a lad’s delight in narrating the various pranks and scrapes in which I had taken part, and I rather think we had got well into the fifth bottle when he said unexpectedly;

“Tom, my boy, I’m ready now.”

“Who is she, Jack?”

“You are out, Tom,” said Jack, severely.

“So is that medallion portrait, Jack, which has just escaped from your clerical coat.”

Jack caught up the medallion, and looking at it fondly, rose to his not over steady feet.

“Tom,” he said, “fill!”

I filled.

“Here’s to the flower of all maidens for beauty; the incomparable! the divine! Dorothy Jacob. Dorothy of my soul and heart.”

“She’s a Quaker, then,” said I.

“She’s a goddess, sir.”

And when we had drunk her health as often as there were letters in her name, which proceeding was the result of what Jack called “a sweet suggestion of his own,” I gathered from him, not without some effort, the following particulars regarding the lady and how he became acquainted with her. I do not, of course, attempt to give them in Jack’s own words, for he was frequently breaking out into exclamations about her beauty, and as frequently insisting on my once more drinking her health.

Dorothy’s father was a merchant of Kilkenny. She was his only child. Her mother had died young, and she was left in the care of a maiden aunt, who had died a few years previous to Jack’s first meeting with the young lady.

The father was a very wealthy merchant, whose riches were partly inherited and partly acquired. He was desperately fond of his money, but still fonder of his daughter. He knew that he was growing old and always dreaded the day when she might leave him for another. He had kept her very much to himself and allowed her to see very little company.

She was very beautiful, so beautiful, as I afterwards discovered, as to fully justify Jack’s panegyric. And many an amorous eye was cast upon her as she passed with her father through the streets on her way to church or market, for he seldom allowed her to go out alone. But the maiden never returned a glance, and did not seem to know how many hearts she was setting on fire.

Jack Langrishe lived with his uncle a few miles outside the town of Kilkenny, and was a frequent visitor to the town, and to the club which was the resort of all the young bloods and bucks of the day.

He had heard from them of the pretty Quakeress, had seen her several times, and since he had been sent down from college had fallen over head and ears in love with her.

Over and over he had heard the bucks suggesting that she should be carried off. But Jack always indignantly denounced any suggestion of the kind, and with such heat that he had in consequence to cross swords with one or two of his club associates, and with such effect that he came to be regarded as too formidable an antagonist to be trifled with.

Abductions were common enough then, to be sure, although the Government made strong efforts to put them down, and for that reason, there was, in the opinion of most of the young bloods, an added argument in favour of them. But Jack Langrishe had an argument of his own. It was, “That a woman that was worth winning could be won, and that the man who could not win her was unworthy of her,” and he used to add, “that any yokel with sufficient force at his back might effect an abduction, but that a gentleman unaided should be able to capture a woman’s heart.”

Whereupon his companions concluded that Jack Langrishe was very much in love with the pretty Quakeress, and was a fool for his pains.

Jack knew he was in love, and was not quite sure that he was not a fool, for he had watched the comings and goings of the lady, and although he threw himself in the way as much as possible he had never obtained the slightest glance of recognition.

But fortune, which always favours the brave, sometimes favours the faithful.

On a certain fair day in Kilkenny old Jacob and his daughter were coming down the street towards their house, and Jack Langrishe by a fortunate accident, was coming in the opposite direction, when suddenly, up through a by-street almost in line with the place at which father and daughter had arrived, a spirited young horse, which had broken away from its groom, came galloping madly and was almost down on the old man when Jack threw himself between. The old man staggered back into the arms of his daughter and Jack fell under the horse’s hoofs.

Some onlookers rushed to his assistance and picked up Jack, apparently helpless, and he uttered a groan which would stir a heart of iron. The rascal all the time was no more hurt than you or I, but he caught a glimpse of the pale, questioning face of the maiden, and he thought he had discovered a way to her heart.

The old man, having recovered from his fright, could not refuse to thank his deliverer, although he was eager to get away from the crowd that was pressing around him and his fair charge.

“Oh, he’s murdered, sir—he’s murdered, Mr. Jacob,” said one of the crowd.

“Don’t you think we ought to bring him home, father?” whispered Dorothy in the old man’s ear.

The whispered suggestion brought the old man to himself as if a cold shower bath had unexpectedly fallen upon him.

“No, child; prithee, heed me. The young man must have friends. See, they know who he is.”

The last remark was justified by an observation from one of the persons who were lifting up Jack, and who said:

“He’s young Mr. Langrishe, of the Grange.”

“Let’s take him to the club.”

“We better take him to the doctor’s,” said another; and to the doctor’s—which, fortunately, was close at hand, otherwise Jack, as the rogue afterwards confessed to me, would not have been able to stand it any longer—he was brought.

His kind, but somewhat rough, aiders and sympathisers came very much nearer by their excited efforts to carry him through the crowd, which was pressing on them with all kinds of inquiries, doing him a greater harm than they imagined the runaway colt had done him. The doctor, who was the apothecary of the town, felt all Jack’s limbs, while that gentleman groaned as if every bone in his body was broken. But the astute disciple of Æsculapius having shaken his head, solemnly declared that he was very badly bruised, and that there might be possibly some internal complications.

He gave Jack a restorative which worked wonders. It caused him not only to regain his full consciousness, but had almost the effect of making him use some very vigorous language, but as he felt this would have been out of character, he discreetly checked himself.

He was taken to the hotel, the Ormond Arms, where he spent that night and the next day and night, and then allowed himself to be taken home to his uncle’s at the Grange.

Old William Jacob called several times at the hotel, and was profuse in his thanks to the preserver of his life, and also conveyed the thanks of his daughter. Mistress Dorothy. Jack had lingered, hoping that the old gentleman would bring the damsel to see him, but finding his hopes were vain, he became well enough to be removed.

After lying up at home for a week or more, Jack returned into the town, and by well contrived “accident” he met the pretty Quakeress as she was walking alone. As he approached he affected not to see her, and wore the woe-begone expression of an invalid. He kept looking up towards the sky in an apparently aimless sort of a way, until he came within a few feet of her. Then he suddenly dropped his eyes, and found, as he expected, that she was looking at his face.

She flushed all over as she saw that she was detected. Jack endeavoured to pretend that he was quite surprised at seeing her, and walking as if he would pass on, when he was just in front of her he lifted his hat, and was about to address her when her father appeared unexpectedly beside her, but fortunately Jack was able to convert the salute which he intended for the lady into a courteous recognition of the old gentleman, while with a covert glance he was able to convey to her that she was included in it.

“How dost thou do, friend?” said the old gentleman, “I am very pleased to see thee able to be about again.”

“Thank you, sir, you are very kind,” said Jack, “I was about to call on you to inquire if you had completely recovered from the shock.”

They had moved along as they were talking, and the merchant’s warehouse was close at hand. He felt that he couldn’t well refuse to ask Jack to come in with him, but if he could he would have avoided doing so.

He had a hearty dread of the young bloods and bucks of the time, and he would not, if possible, have allowed his precious Dorothy to make the acquaintance of any of them.

But then, this was an exceptional case, he said to himself. The young man had saved his life, and, in doing so, had met with a serious injury. And it would not have been gracious if, meeting him accidentally so close to his own house, he had not asked him in.

Jack, quite innocent of the old gentleman’s thoughts, and learning them only after from the little Quakeress, gladly accepted the invitation.

He spent an hour with them that evening, and had the satisfaction of persuading himself that he was not quite unacceptable to the maiden. He did not fail to perceive that the old gentleman found his company somewhat irksome, but his motto always was, “Make hay while the sun shines,” and he saw it shining out of the maiden’s eyes.

When he had at last to leave, he did so, assuring the old gentleman that it would give him the greatest pleasure to call again, and spoke quite like one who was yielding to an invitation.

But the old gentleman had given no invitation, and when Jack was gone he warned his daughter of the danger of having any connection with gentlemen of Jack’s stamp.

It is not necessary to go over the conversation between father and daughter, which she subsequently retailed to Jack, and which he repeated to me. Enough to say, that Jack resolved on calling, and that the old gentleman finally received him with such coldness, and always alone, that Jack, except for the glance of the young girl’s eye through the partially drawn curtain of the glass door that separated the living-room from the shop and counting house, might as well have met him in the street. He saw there was little use of continuing visits of this kind.

Whenever Jack entered the shop, he found the fair Dorothy, acting under her father’s orders, escaping from it. He continued, nevertheless, to correspond with her through the aid of an old domestic, who quickly discovered the character of the relation between Jack and her young mistress, and whose almost withered heart had a green spot in it, in which bloomed the flower of sympathy with the passion of youthful lovers.

But this did not satisfy Jack. He longed for a sight of his lady love, who was kept a close prisoner in the house by her father, who suspected Jack’s intentions, and saw in him a possible robber of his daughter’s affections.

At length, after a good deal of cogitation, he hit upon the expedient of adopting the disguise in which I saw him. It was so perfect that his most intimate friends could not penetrate it, and as he was a first rate mimic, he never allowed his voice to betray him, and in order to prevent any possibility of suspicion, he had in his own proper character set out for Dublin, and when a few days after, he returned disguised to Kilkenny, it was as an antiquarian who had come down to spend some weeks there, in studying its ruins. He secured lodgings in the house of an old lady not far from the Quaker’s place of business, which he found it necessary to visit every day to make some trivial purchase, such as gloves, hat bands, kerchiefs, etc.

The old Quaker, suspecting nothing, saw him come in day after day, and never thought it necessary to ask Dorothy to retire. On the contrary, he often quitted the shop, leaving Dorothy talking to the clerical looking old gentleman, and she and Jack continued to have some very agreeable talk together.

Jack had urged his suit with considerable success, but he could not induce the lady to take the only step by which his hopes could be realised—namely, to run away with him; for it was quite certain the old man would never consent to his marriage with his daughter.

Jack had almost begun to despair when he learned that the old gentleman was about to visit Dublin, accompanied by Dorothy, for the purpose of attending a private, but very important, meeting of the Society of Friends in reference to the harsh treatment to which some members of that body had been subjected by the authorities.

Jack also learned that they intended to put up at the “Robin Hood,” at which the coach from Kilkenny used to set down, and he took care to inform the old man that his business in Kilkenny was at an end, and that he intended to set out for Dublin on the day which the Quaker had fixed for his journey. The old man, still wholly unsuspicious, expressed himself delighted that he and his daughter should have him as a companion on the journey to Dublin, and so it came to pass that they were fellow-passengers.

But Jack, although of course, well satisfied with the opportunity of spending a few hours in the society of Dorothy, had not been able to hope for anything definite coming from it, and it was chiefly for the purpose of talking over the matter and getting my advice that he had asked me to dinner with him.

I suggested carrying the girl off, and as she liked Jack I did not hesitate to offer my services. But Jack was adverse to this, as he was unwilling to do violence to the young lady’s feelings. At length, after talking over all kinds of expedients, Jack, tired after his journey and somewhat somnolent from his potations, retired to his room, and I made the best of my way back to college, and awoke next morning to find myself lying in my clothes on the hearthrug, while my cap and boots and cane were placed in the nicest order on the quilt of my undisturbed bed.

It was four of the clock in the afternoon of the next day when I called again on Jack. He was in pretty good spirits. The old man had gone out to attend the meeting, and Jack contrived to have an interview with the maiden, who was nothing loth. But, all the same, he was unable to get her consent to elope with him, although the opportunity was most favourable. Still she showed some signs of relenting. Anyway, she no longer resented the suggestion as something wholly unnatural.

“The old man has just returned,” said Jack to me. “His business here is concluded, and he intends to start for home to-morrow, and if she does not give way before then I am afraid I’ll either have to give her up or carry her off.”

Jack could get no other opportunity of speaking to the lady that evening, and so after dinner he altered his appearance so as to make himself look less clerical, and we went off to Smock Alley Theatre together.

The coach was to set out for Kilkenny at two o’clock the next afternoon, and I had promised to call on Jack about noon. I had slept almost up to that hour, when, having hurriedly dressed myself, I rushed off to keep my appointment, I found the college gate closed and a number of the students clamouring to get out; but the Dean was standing with his back to it, flanked at either side by the college porters.

“What’s up?” said I to one of the nearest students.

“There’s an insurrection in the streets. The Ormond and the Liberty Boys and the butchers are up, and the Viceroy is frightened out of his wits; and the Lord Mayor won’t act and there’s general ructions all over the city.”

I didn’t wait to hear any more. I rushed back to my room. The window was two stories high, but it looked on the street.

To tie the bedclothes together was the work of a minute. I fastened one end of the “rope” to the leg of the bed, which was close to the window, and dropped the other over the window sill. It did not come within several feet of the ground, and under other circumstances I would have hesitated to descend it; but a yelling excited crowd was rushing along the street, and I could hear the hoarse murmur of multitudinous voices from the direction of the Green and the quays, and, spurred by the excitement, I slid down the rope, and was caught in the arms of a stalwart Ormond Boy.

There was, of course, no love lost between the Ormond Boys and the students; but my rescuer having deposited me on the ground, pushed ahead, and I heard him joining in the cry that was rising from a thousand throats: “To the Parliament House! To the Parliament! To hell with Rigby! Down with the English!”

I was almost carried off my feet by the rush of the crowd into College Green. Here all further progress was arrested. The Green was packed, and the crowd surged up the steps against the doors of the Houses of Parliament. Hackney coaches and chairs were overturned in all directions; but right in front of the entrance to the House of Commons was the Kilkenny Coach, by which Jack Langrishe’s friends were to travel.

I pushed my way by the most strenuous efforts up towards this, and just got beside it to find Jack minus his wig and clerical coat which had been torn into ribbons, handing out Mistress Dorothy Jacob and her trembling father.

“A chair! a chair for the lady!” cried out half a dozen of the crowd; but the cry was in vain. The chairs were, as I have said, all overturned, and even if this had not been so, a new excitement had arisen which had diverted the attention of the crowd from the lady and turned it on her father. The old gentleman had the misfortune to bear a striking resemblance to the then member for Maryborough, who was a thick and thin supporter of the Government, and was believed to be in favour of merging the Irish in the English Parliament.

Rigby, who was the Viceroy’s secretary, had given notice of a motion in favour of empowering the Lord Lieutenant to call Parliament together in certain emergencies without the usual notice, and the people got it into their heads that this was a clever attempt to pass an Act of Union without giving them an opportunity of expressing an opinion on the question.

It was this fear that had brought them into the streets. They swarmed from every lane and alley of the Liberties, and they held possession not only of the Green, but also of all the approaches to it, and some one amongst them suggested that while they should make way for the members of Parliament who desired to enter the House that they should administer an oath to every one of them that he would vote against every attempt to take away the Parliament.

The proposition was received with acclamation. The first M.P. who put in an appearance after it was adopted was Rowley. When called on to take the oath he at first refused.

“Pull the wig off of him!”

“Bring him to the Liffey. Let’s wash the English taste off of him!”

“To hell with Rigby! Down with Bedford!” (Bedford was the Lord Lieutenant). “Swear him! Swear him!”

Finding expostulation useless, Rowley took the oath amid deafening cheers, and was allowed to pass on.

It was shortly after this incident that the Quaker and his daughter were taken out of the coach. The coach should have gone down Parliament Street, but the crowd which had been up at the Castle all the morning, turned back to the Green on the news that the M.P.s were assembling, and literally bore it on with them.

When the likeness between the Quaker and the member for Maryborough was discovered by one of the crowd, and when his supposed name was called out——

“Swear him! Swear the old thief. Swear him!” was heard on all sides.

The poor old Quaker, frightened out of his life and trembling in every limb, could not make head or tail of what was going on. But when at last one of the crowd produced a Testament, and, thrusting it into the old man’s face, said: “Swear, an’ be damned to ye,” he answered in a quavering voice: “Friend, I do not swear!”

“But you’ll have to swear,” answered a dozen gruff voices.

“But he won’t have to swear,” cried out Jack Langrishe, who was supporting the lovely Dorothy, and at the same time endeavouring to afford some protection to her father.

“And who the devil are you?” shouted out a score of voices.

“I’m an Irishman, boys, that’s going to stand by a young lady and an old man if all Dublin stood against me.”

“The divel doubt but ye have an Irish heart in ye.”

“He has then.”

“And now,” said Jack, encouraged by these remarks, “now listen to me. Ye are all mistaken. This honest gentleman isn’t the man ye take him for at all.”

“Will you swear that?”

“Ay, will I.”

“And will you say. ‘To hell with Rigby and the Union?’”

“With all my heart,” said Jack. For Jack, like most of us young fellows in those days, thought an Irish Parliament was worth fighting and worth dying for.

“You are a True-blue and no mistake. Let the old gentleman go,” came in chorus from the crowd.

I had got up close to Jack and his fair charge. With a knowing look to me and a word of explanation to her, he asked me to take care of her, and then he put his arm inside that of the old man, who still seemed half dazed with fright. We endeavoured to make our way towards the railing, and hoped to be able to slip back to the “Robin Hood.”

But the crowd kept surging round us, and it grew more excited every minute.

“Who’s in the carriage? Out with him—out with him!”

The cry was occasioned by a carriage that was endeavouring to force its way towards the entrance of the House.

In the press, Jack, myself, and our charges were borne towards it.

An old gentleman, with a periwig tied with red ribbon, put his head out through the window.

“Damn you, who are you? Why do you hesitate?” yelled the angry crowd.

The gentleman made an effort to speak.

“Oh, he stutters; give him time, boys.”

“Come now, old stutterin’ Bob, who are you?”

“I—I’m Lord In—Inchiquin, b-b-boys! O’B—Brien’s my n-name!”

“A cheer for him, boys, he’s all right. Pass in, your lordship, an’ good luck to ye.”

And as Lord Inchiquin passed in we endeavoured to follow in his wake.

But another shout arose and the crowd was swaying like a tumultuous sea.

“He’s the Lord Chancellor!—the bloody English Chancellor, ould Bowes! Swear him, boys, swear him! Out with ye, and take the oath.”

The disgusted Chancellor had no option but to comply, and having done so, was passing on towards the House.

“Don’t let him go,” cried out one who appeared to possess some authority with the crowd; “hold on to him. Here’s the Chief Justice, and we’ll make ould Bowes take oath before him.”

This proposition delighted the crowd, and they hauled “ould” Bowes back and confronted him with the Chief Justice.

“Swear before the Chief Justice, ye ould English naygur, that you won’t take our Parliament over to England,” and again the luckless Chancellor was compelled to swear.

“Here’s ould Anthiny Malone, boys. Oh! ould Tony, are you there? Tony the great “Patriot” that was agin the Government till they stopped your mouth with a pension. Oh, ye’re there, Tony! Swear him, boys; swear him!”

“Hould on till I shake hands with ye, Tony,” cried out another of the ringleaders, as he dipped his hand in the kennel and then thrust it into that of the “Patriot.”

“Ye might call it dirty, Tony, I suppose, but it’s not half as dirty as yer own since ye handled the Government goold.”

This sally was received with shouts of delight.

“Be the holy! who’s that? It’s ould Prendergast!”

The exclamation was caused by the appearance of a face out of the House of Lords. It was that of Sir Thomas Prendergast, who was very obnoxious to the people. He only peeped out to see what was going on, but before he could pull back he was caught by the nose and led out to the kennel, and was rolled and rolled again until he was all mud from head to foot.

“Let’s go inside, boys. What do we want stoppin’ here?” was then blurted out by one of the ringleaders, but the crowd which had rushed up to the House of Lords when Prendergast showed himself had already begun to make its way in, and soon the whole of it began to set in that direction. The only thing for Jack and myself was to allow ourselves to be carried along with it. Dorothy clung to my arm with feverish anxiety. As for the old man he seemed as if he were scared out of his wits.

Rough as the crowd was it endeavoured to avoid the lady. Still she must have suffered considerably as we squeezed through the doorway. We arrived to find the seats of the House of Lords in possession of the mob, and the Peers crowding up behind the chair.

Lord Farnham was in the act of taking the oath, in succession to his father, who had recently died, when the crowd broke in and interrupted the ceremony.

“You must take the oath from us!—you must take the oath from us!”

The rush of the crowd and the angry cries completely nonplussed the new lord. He looked helplessly at the Chancellor and at his brother Peers, and hardly knowing what he did, he followed the words of the oath as administered to him by one of the ringleaders of the mob.

This performance provoked loud plaudits. Then for want of something else to do, the crowd began to stand on the seats and tables, and force themselves up towards the chair. The Chancellor and the other peers and some ladies had retreated behind the throne.

“Oh! there’s Biddy Simpson—there’s Biddy, boys!”

“Arrah, where else wud I be, thin?” replied Biddy, who was an old lady well known for the sharpness of her tongue in the Ormond Market.

“Put Biddy in the chair, boys! Put Biddy in the chair!” and amidst ringing cheers Miss Biddy Simpson was placed in the chair.

“Pipes and tobacco, pipes and tobacco, for Biddy Simpson!”

The pipes were got, and Biddy stuck one in her mouth and lit it amid frantic yells, and the crowd began to indulge in all kinds of antics. Snatches of songs and speeches, interlarded with oaths, were only half heard in the din. It was a motley crowd. Peers, members of the House of Commons, University students, and half the men and women from the Liberties, and some ladies who had come down to see Lord Farnham take the oath, were all mixed up in the wildest disorder.

How long this was likely to go on no one could surmise, when suddenly one of the ringleaders cried out:

“Let’s burn the records! Let’s burn the records! To the House of Commons!—To the House of Commons!”

The cry was taken up and the crowd began to force its way out and make for the House of Commons.

“Are ye goin’ to desert me, ye thieves, afther ye made a lord o’ me?” shouted Biddy, but the crowd had found a new purpose, and emptied out of the House of Lords as quickly as it had poured into it.

But for nearly an hour after, Jack and I and old Jacob and Dorothy remained where we were, and then, when the military, acting on the orders of the Lord Lieutenant, had partially cleared the streets—for the Lord Mayor had refused to interfere with the people—we made our way, not without some difficulty, to the “Robin Hood.”

Dorothy, for all her mild manners, was a brave little woman, and appeared little the worse of the ordeal through which she had passed.

Not so with her father. He was almost prostrated from fright and excitement. Jack persuaded him to take some brandy, and this restored him a little.

When he was able to collect himself sufficiently to speak, he caught Jack’s hand, and he said in the simplest tone:

“Friend, this is the second time I owe thee my life, and now I also owe thee my daughter’s.”

I thought it would be just as well if I came away, and so it proved, for on that very night when I was sitting down at the fire in my room thinking over the events of the day, the door was suddenly flung open, and in rushed Jack Langrishe.

“Old fellow, I’m the luckiest dog in the world!”

And I think he was, for the old man had at last given his consent, and Jack Langrishe found in Dorothy Jacob one of the sweetest and best little wives in the whole of Ireland.