next morning, Mr. O'Rourke being now refreshed by sleep, and exempt from the fumes of liquor, though still possessed by the maggots of folly, applied to the laird, and seriously proposed to him to relinquish his estate, and retire upon an annuity. It was, he said, much more becoming that a young man in the vigour of life should enjoy such a property, than an old man with one foot in the grave. The laird, though totally unmoved by this reasoning, yet standing in some awe of O'Rourke, very mildly informed him, that if he would open his pretensions to the colonel, or his son William, he would receive a complete answer, as they were entirely in the secret of all his plans and intentions. "I don't see," said O'Rourke, "any business they have with it. You have acted like a fool as you always do in trusting any one but me." The laird, whose quietness was the result of indo-
