feet, and gazed about him uncertainly, as if scarce conscious yet what had befallen him. "Ha! would that you had slain me rather! True! true!-you have saved me!"

The gloomy tone and yet gloomier expression of his fine features, as he spoke, showed that his words came straight from his heart, and were true to the very letter. But if he did indeed regret the obligation under which he was placed to one who seemed so hateful to him as the stranger, he was soon in a position in some sort to requite, if not efface it; for at this moment, the earth was shaken by the clang and clatter of a dozen horses at full gallop-and with a wild, fierce shout the retainers of the great O'Brien, as his rescuer had called him, came tearing over stock and stone to the spot, and in an instant's time, five or six brandished blades were glittering above the stranger's head, and as many pistols were cocked and levelled within a hand's-breadth of his resolute, unaltered features.

But with a strange, wan, bitter smile, the O'Brien waved his hand on high, and exclaimed:

"Hold! hold! Evil betide! He has saved my life, and must not lose his own, were he fiend himself, as he is blacker and more hideous!"

CHAPTER II.

"Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,

And welcome home again discarded faith."

SHAKSPEARE.

Ar the words of the young cavalier, the points and muzzles of the threatening weapons were lowered, it is true; but the pistol-locks were not uncocked, nor were the swords put up into their scabbards. The brows, too, which looked of late

so balefully upon the stranger, still gloomed upon him darkly, while a deep angry murmur passed from lip to lip of the wild vassals of the great O'Brien.

Bold as he was, the grim-visaged soldier gazed around him with an anxious eye on the lowering countenances and ready weapons of the clansmen, and turned from them to note the expression of their leader's noble features.

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"Must I speak twice?" cried Dermot, in answer, it would seem, to this mute appeal, or is the life of the O'Brien so small a matter in the eyes of his kindred, that they would pay the saving of it with the blood of the savior? And thou, be thy name what it may, fear nothing! The word of the O'Brien is pledged for thy safety; and thou art as safe as if thou hadst tasted of my bread and salt, and wert standing on my hearthstone."

"Ireland is changed somewhat since I left her,” replied the other-who, if he had indeed been alarmed, had ceased to feel any apprehension, as in truth he had no farther cause; for at the words of the youthful chief, every weapon was returned to the sheath or the girdle, and many of the company applied themselves to couple up the bloodhounds, to drag the carcass of the hart royal from the stream, and to fetch their chieftain's horse across the water by an easy ford a little way below the scene of action. "Sorely changed, I may say, since I left her. For in my day something more than mere safety had been the return for a life preserved, even by an enemy-much more by a kinsman and a friend. There were such words in old Erin as gratitude and guerdon, whatever there may be in the new."

"If thou wouldst have reward, O'Neil," answered the young man, his countenance lighting up with a quick, eager lustre ; "if any price or gift can wipe out this ungrateful debt of gratitude, name it, and have it, were it half my earldom. For the rest, no enemy of the king is a friend to O'Brien !—no apostate from his God is Dermot's kinsman! Name thy reward, and take it, I say, Hugh O'Neil! And then, if thou be wise, as men

say thou art, thou wilt remove thyself as speedily as may be from this neighborhood. The air of Wexford is not wholesome, I have heard men say, for heretics or regicides; and sith thou hast saved my life, how thanklessly soever, I would not have it said thou hadst lost thine at my people's hands; which might well be, I trow, were my back once turned."

"I would have reward, O'Brien, since I may not have gratitude. But, I tell thee, fair cousin; seeing a great earl's life, such as thine, is of no small value, so do I look for no small guerdon."

"Cousin me not-for cousin am I none of thine, O'Neil; nor cousin will be called; for the rest, name thy price-the price of blood; in truth and deed art thou a second Judas! Name thy price, I say, man, and thou shalt have it, be it what it may; but I deemed not that even thou hadst been so baseminded!"

"And were I even as thou callest me, a second Judas," replied O'Neil, with a downcast visage, full of self-humiliation and self-abasement, "thou art wise, Dermot, and knowest that even he repented!"

"And when he did so," answered O'Brien, with a flashing glance of fiery scorn illuminating his dark features, "I have heard that he went and hanged himself,' as I dare say thou wilt,、 when thy time of repentance cometh. But never did I hear or read that he carried back his infamy to be a shame to his tribesmen, or his penitence to be a plea for guerdon!"

"And would it then be thy advice, O'Brien, to one who, having perchance sinned deeply, had seen the error of his ways, and been touched to his inmost soul by grace, that he should go and hang himself, like Judas ?"

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Methought that we spoke of guerdon-of the price of blood;" answered O'Brien, with unchanged contempt in both voice and manner-"and not of advice or atonement. If of the first, I say, as I said before, ask and receive! If of the latter, I am a soldier-not a preacher. Your new friends, I have

2

heard tell, are both!—and doubtless, Major General Jones, commander for the saints in Dublin, will give you good and ghostly counsel! But look to it, in seeking his advice, however; for Ormond is without the walls, and will be apt to solve your doubts, if he lay hold on you, by giving you a rope at King Charles' expense, in reward of your trusty services !"

“Faith, I am in a bad way, then,” replied O'Neil, with a grim smile. "For sure am I, that Jones, the Puritan, will do the same if he lay hold on me, whatever Ormond, the Catholic, may do!"

"In a bad way thou art then!" said O'Brien, coolly; "and very likely to be hanged, one way or other. For not Ormond only, but any true believer from Fair Head to Cape Clear, will bestow a cord on thee for old acquaintance, so surely as thy name is Hugh O'Neil! Had it not been for my stumble in the river, and the bullet from thy musquetoon, I had done so myself; and thou hadst now been wavering in the wind, from yon oak tree-top, to feed that very raven which sits there, biding for the breaking of the deer. Speak, therefore, once for all! What wilt thou have of me? Thy presence is as a shadow in the sunlight, to the eyes of honest men; thy very breath is poison to my nostrils! Take what reward thou wilt, and get thee gone. I loathe the very sight of thee, not the less that I owe thee a life!"

A long pause followed, during which the young earl looked upon the other with that air of half-scornful, half-loathing curiosity with which men are wont to regard some insignificant, but venomous and hateful reptile; while O'Neil gazed steadfastly, but gloomily, on the turf at his feet, beating the earth with his heel, as if he either felt indeed, or affected to feel, both anxiety and apprehension.

Then, after some two or three minutes had elapsed, O'Brien turned half on his heel, and called aloud to one of his attendant-sspeaking now no longer in English, but in the Erse tongue :

"Ho! Murtogh Beg!" he cried, "bring hither the red stallion; and thou, Phadraigh, hold my stirrup. If he have lost his tongue, I cannot wait till he recover it. We have full twenty miles to ride home; and I am damaged somewhat by that brow antler. I know not but I have a rib or two broken. You, cousin Con O'Brien, and all, save you, Florence Desmond, see to the breaking of the hart, and entering the young hounds. Bran and his brother did good work all day, and led the hunt the last half-hour. Follow me home as quickly as you may; I must, I fear, ride slowly. Take heed, above all

Our honor is at stake!

things, that none of the men harm him. Let not one of them tarry in the rear, or their skenes will be at wild work presently. And you, sir," he continued, turning to O'Neil, and addressing him in English; "since you will not tell me what reward you claim, take that!" And with the word he threw a heavy purse, well filled with French gold, at his recreant kinsman's feet. "And then, if you have any regard for your neck, the sooner your foot is off the shore of Ireland altogether, or within the walls of Dublin, the better for your chance of saving it! Come with me, noble Desmond."

And as he spoke, he turned away disdainfully, without giving the slightest heed to the eager vehemence with which O'Neil stepped forward to address him, set his foot in the stirrup, and grasping the mane of his fine bay blood-horse with his right hand, raised himself painfully, and not without an effort, to his demipique.

But at that moment, stimulated by the urgent necessity of making himself heard now or never, the Puritan, if Puritan he were, sprang forward, utterly neglecting the well-filled purse on which he set the heel of his heavy boot in advancing and standing right in the road, so that O'Brien could scarce ride on without overthrowing him:

"Hold!" he cried-" hold !"—in tones that bespoke the intensity of his feelings-" Dermot O'Brien, hold! As you value your plighted word-as you value the honor of your house