[Willy Reilly by William Carleton]@TWC D-Link book
Willy Reilly

CHAPTER XXIV
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The servant, however, whistled, and his whistle was answered; a party of men, of freebooters, of robbers, headed by a person called the Red Rapparee, who has been convicted at these assizes, and who has been the scourge of the country for years, came up to them, and as the Rapparee had borne this respectable gentleman a deadly and implacable enmity for some time past, he was about to murder both master and man, and actually had his musket levelled at him, as others of his gang had at his aged servant, when a person, a gentleman named Reilly--[there there was a loud cheer throughout the court, which, however, was soon repressed, and the Attorney-General proceeded]--this person started out from an old ruin, met the robber face to face, and, in short, not only saved the lives of the gentleman and his servant, but conducted them safely home.

This act of courage and humanity, by a Roman Catholic to a Protestant, had such an effect upon the old gentleman's daughter, a lady whose name has gone far and wide for her many virtues and wonderful beauty, that an attachment was formed between the young gentleman and her.

The prisoner at the bar, gentlemen, was a suitor for her hand; but as the young and amiable lady was acquainted with his character as a priest-hunter and persecutor, she, though herself a Protestant, could look upon him only with abhorrence.

At all events, after the rescue of her father's life, and her acquaintance with Mr.Reilly, the prisoner at the bar was rejected with disdain, as he would have been, it seems, if Reilly never had existed.

Now, gentlemen I of the jury, observe that Reilly was a Catholic, which was bad enough in the eyes of the prisoner at the bar; but he was more; he was a rival, and were it not for the state of the law, would, it appears, for there is no doubt of it now, have been a successful one.


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