“Certainly I will,” Captain Donovan said.  “I need not disturb the colonel, at this time of the evening, but will take it on myself.  There are just that number quartered in the storehouse, close to the gate.  I will go down with you, at once, and turn them out and give them orders.  It will be a good thing for the rapparees to have a lesson.  They bring disgrace upon our cause by their doings.”

In a few minutes the men, who had not retired to bed, were turned out.

“You have got a four-mile march before you, boys,” Walter said, when they were drawn up; “but there will be a pint of good wine, and some supper for you, when you get there.  So step out as briskly as you can.”

After a cordial goodnight to Captain Donovan, Walter placed himself at the head of the infantry, and, in little over an hour, arrived at the house.  He knocked loudly at the door.  A minute later, Larry put his head out of the window above.

“Who is there?  What do you want knocking at a peaceful house at this time of night?  You had best go away, boys, for the house is chock full of soldiers.  We are only waiting for orders to blow you to smithereens.”

Walter burst into a laugh.

“Very well done, Larry.  It is I, with some soldiers.  So you needn’t give orders to the men to fire.”

Larry gave a cry of satisfaction, and ran down to open the door.

“It’s glad I am to see you, Master Walter, entirely.  I have been listening ever since you went, and, when I heard the tramp of feet, I made sure it was the boys.”

“But I gave orders that there was to be no resistance, Larry.”

“And I wasn’t going to resist, your honour; but I thought I might just frighten them away.”

“Now, Larry, get up a pint of wine for each of these good fellows, and what victuals you can find in the house.  We need have no fear of an attack tonight.”

When the soldiers had finished their supper, they lay down in the hall.  Walter placed a sentry at a window, at each side of the house, and he then lay down on a sofa, for the ride to Limerick and back had greatly fatigued him, much to his surprise, for he had no idea how far his strength had been pulled down.

He was aroused, just as day was breaking, by a loud knocking at the door, and at the same moment a shot was fired from a window above.  The soldiers had started to their feet, and seized their arms as he ran out and bade them follow him upstairs.  He threw up a window.

“Who are you?  And what do you want?”

“Never mind who we are,” a voice replied.  “We want the door opened, and you had best do it quick.”

“Look here, my man,” Walter said in a loud, steady voice, “there are thirty soldiers in this house, and, if I give the word, you will get such a volley among you, that half of you will never go home to tell about it, so I warn you to depart quietly.”

“It’s a lie,” the man said.  “If you are the officer, you have got only four men, and you know it.  We want to do you no harm, and we don’t want to harm the ladies; but what’s in the house is ours—­that’s the law of William’s troops, and we mean to act up to it.”