CHAPTER VIII .-- A Conflagration--An Escape--And an Adventure.
We have said that Sir Robert Whitecraft was anything but a popular man--and we might have added that, unless among his own clique of bigots and persecutors, he was decidedly unpopular among Protestants in general.

In a few days after the events of the night we have described, Reilly, by the advice of Mr.Brown's brother, an able and distinguished lawyer, gave up the possession of his immense farm, dwelling-house, and offices to the landlord.

In point of fact, this man had taken the farm for Reilly's father, in his own name, a step which many of the liberal and generous Protestants of that period were in the habit of taking, to protect the property for the Roman Catholics, from such rapacious scoundrels as Whitecraft, and others like him, who had accumulated the greater portion of their wealth and estates by the blackest and most iniquitous political profligacy and oppression.

For about a month after the first night of the unsuccessful pursuit after Reilly, the whole country was overrun with military parties, and such miserable inefficient police as then existed.

In the meantime, Reilly escaped every toil and snare that had been laid for him.