CHAPTER XXI .-- Sir Robert Accepts of an Invitation.
The next morning rumor had, as they say, her hands and tongues very full of business.

Reilly and the Red Rapparee were lodged in Sligo jail that night, and the next morning the fact was carried by the aforesaid rumor far and wide over the whole country.

One of the first whose ears it reached was the gallant and virtuous Sir Robert Whitecraft, who no sooner heard it than he ordered his horse and rode at a rapid rate to see Mr.Folliard, in order, now that Reilly was out of the way, to propose an instant marriage with the _Cooleen Bawn_.

He found the old man in a state very difficult to be described, for he had only just returned to the drawing-room from the strongly sentinelled chamber of his daughter.

Indignation against Reilly seemed now nearly lost in the melancholy situation of the wretched _Cooleen Bawn_.