CHAPTER VII .-- An Accidental Incident favorable to Reilly.
-- And a Curious Conversation We return to the party from whom Fergus Reilly had so narrow an escape.
As our readers may expect, they bent their steps to the magnificent residence of Sir Robert Whitecraft.

That gentleman was alone in his library, surrounded by an immense collection of books which he never read.

He had also a fine collection of paintings, of which he knew no more than his butler, nor perhaps so much.

At once sensual, penurious, and bigoted, he spent his whole time in private profligacy--for he was a hypocrite, too--in racking his tenantry, and exhibiting himself as a champion for Protestant principles.

Whenever an unfortunate Roman Catholic, whether priest or layman, happened to infringe a harsh and cruel law of which probably he had never heard, who so active in collecting his myrmidons, in order to uncover, hunt, and run down his luckless victim?
And yet he was not popular.