3i6 GARRYOWEN 



came and nothing spoke of tragedy save the gleam 

 from the lantern, a topaz pencil of light that 

 shone through the latch hole of the door and 

 dissolved in the moonlight of the ya^rd. 



" Put your fut agin the door, Andy," said 

 Moriarty, when Piper, knowing himself in a trap, 

 and knowing the uselessness of calHng out or 

 resisting, was safely inside the loose-box. 



He hung the lantern on a hook, and then, point- 

 ing to three buckets that stood upside down close 

 to the heap of straw in the corner : 



" Take a sate," said Moriarty. 



Piper took a seat on the end bucket near the 

 door. 



" Not that wan," said Moriarty. " The middle 

 wan; then Andy and I'll be able to sit on either 

 side of you, and the bottle'll pass more convanient.' 



He produced a bottle, a jug and a glass. It 

 was a bottle of Copper's " Old Highland Mountain 

 Dew." Andy had fetched it from the inn at 

 Crowsnest. This old Highland Mountain Dew 

 was a fine old-fashioned, fusel-oil-tinctured fighting 

 spirit. In any properly-constituted community 

 the man who distilled and sold it would be exe- 

 cuted, instead of raised to the peerage as Copper 

 was the other day. It is this stuff that makes 

 murders down at the docks, wrecks little homes 

 in Hackney, casts men on the streets and ships 

 on the rocks, and souls on Perdition. 



" Look here," said Mr Piper, when he saw these 

 preparations for conviviaHty, " I don't know 



