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138 willing and ready and diligent, and that there was no fear that any of them would answer him back. I wouldn't be in that big man's place for anything I could name, if they come up with him."

"Such a piece of ill-luck never came on me before," said Dermot. "Here in this place I was born and reared, and my father before me, and my grandfather. Not a farthing's worth was ever laid to my charge, nor to the charge of anyone of the seven generations that came before me. Oh! Oh! Oh! That it should be my lot and my unlucky star that they should come in at my door without invitation or asking! That they should turn to this house rather than to any other in the town or near it! What will the neighbours say but that I was in league with their evil designs, and that I was helping them in them? If Cormac fails to overtake them—and if the people who have lost their money by this day have to come back here after a vain pursuit—why, everybody will say that I am to blame for it, and that unless I had given them some warning they would not have got off so quickly. They won't leave a stick over my head, or a whole bone in my body. Oh, dear, what a misfortune! What a disaster! What am I to do at all, at all? It is a hard thing to happen to me at the end of my life! Oh! I am ruined! Utterly ruined! What shall I do! What shall I do?"

"Shut your mouth and not be bothering us—that's what you'll do!" said Sive. "It is not you that are at a loss by it, but I. If I get him into my hands I'll tear the eyes out of his head. And now I think of it, what string was tying your tongue," said she to Shiana, "that you didn't speak when