Now I tell you, once for all, that I will not force my child." "This change, Mr.Folliard," observed the baronet, "is somewhat of the suddenest.

Has any thing occurred on my part to occasion it ?" "Perhaps I may have other views for her, Sir Robert." "That may be; but is such conduct either fair or honorable towards me, Mr.Folliard?
Have I got a rival, and if so, who is he ?" "Oh, I wouldn't tell you that for the world." "And why not, pray ?" "Because," replied the squire, "if you found out who he was, you'd be hanged for cannibalism." "I really don't understand you, Mr.Folliard.Excuse me, but it would seem to me that something has put you into no very agreeable humor to-day." "You don't understand me! Why, Sir Robert," replied the other, "I know you so well that if you heard the name of your rival you would first kill him, then powder him, and, lastly, eat him.

You are such a terrible fellow that you care about no man's life, not even about mine." Now it was to this very point that the calculating baronet wished to bring him.

The old man, he knew, was whimsical, capricious, and in the habit of taking all his strongest and most enduring resolutions from sudden contrasts produced by some mistake of his own, or from some discovery made to him on the part of others.
"As to your life, Mr.Folliard, let me assure you," replied Sir Robert, "that there is no man living prizes it, and, let me add, you character too, more highly than I do; but, my dear sir, your life was never in danger." "Never in danger! what do you mean, Sir Robert?
I tell you, sir, that the murdering miscreant, the Red Rapparee, had a loaded gun levelled at me last evening, after dark." "I know it," replied the other; "I am well aware of it, and you were rescued just in the nick of time." "True enough," said the squire, "just in the nick of time; by that glorious young fellow--a--a--yes--Reilly--Willy Reilly." "This Willy Reilly, sir, is a very accomplished person, I think." "A gentleman, Sir Robert, every inch of him, and as handsome and fine-looking a young fellow as ever I laid my eyes upon." "He was educated on the Continent by the Jesuits." "No!" replied the squire, dreadfully alarmed at this piece of information, "he was not; by the great Boyne, he wasn't." This mighty asseveration, however, was exceedingly feeble in moral strength and energy, for, in point of fact, it came out of the squire's lips more in the shape of a question than an oath.
"It is unquestionably true, sir," said the baronet; "ask himself, and he will admit it." "Well, and granting that he was," replied the squire, "what else could he do, when the laws would not permit of his being educated here?
I speak not against the laws, God forbid, but of his individual case." "We are travelling from the point, sir," returned the baronet.

"I was observing that Reilly is an accomplished person, as indeed every Jesuit is.