"Lead on, Sir, I'll follow you-ay, to the world's end, if you deceive me.'

66

'Well, your honour, sure it'll only be ketch him who can, betuxt us."

But Sir William's doubts were unnecessary: his guide had stated but the facts. Having ascertained, with yells of baffled revenge, the timely flight of the yeoman Captain, the Insurgents, venting their rage solely upon his property, had driven the ladies of the house into a garret room. While the work of plunder and devastation went on below, they had been there locked in, unmolested at their hands, save by the party execrations which would have been lavished upon Saint Bridget, or any other female saint in the caleadar, if she or any one of them were an Orangewoman.

The man unlocked and flung the door open, and with a chuckling laugh hastily returned to a scene of more interest. Sir William saw four ladies in the room, who, at his appearance, started from trembling terror into still greater horror. His eye scanned the group. One seemed the lady of the house; two others, her daughters; the fourth was not his wife, but Miss Alicia Hartley.

The pallid faces, the clasped hands, the crouching postures, and the beseeching eyes of the three first-mentioned ladies, conveyed no meaning to Sir William Judkin. His wife did not appear-he comprehended nothing else.

As he stood motionless at the door, Miss Alicia, seated on the floor, at one side, and supporting her back against the wall, seemingly in an exhausted state, slowly recognised him and pronounced his name. He sprang to her.

"Where is Eliza, madam ?-where is she?" growing impatient of the old lady's tearful silence, as he bent over her.

"Oh, Sir William!" answered the suffering Miss Alicia, “I wish I could inform you!"

"And you cannot, madam !"

for

"Alas! no ;—if I could-kneeling, as you do, before me, in his eagerness he had dropped on his knees before her" so like

"Absurd, madam !" he cried with roughness. "Surely this at least you can answer-where did you part from her?-when ?" "I have not seen my poor child since about ten o'clock yester evening."

"Eternal powers!" Sir William exclaimed, as he sprang to his feet. "How ?-where?-in what manner were you separated ?— Aud could you leave her side, Miss Alicia Hartley? Could you leave

her unprotected? You must account with me, madam, why you have done this!" His eyes turned in fierce rage even upon the helpless object stretched beneath them.

"Heaven can witness!" answered the trembling old lady, in bitter and terrified anguish, "I am sufficiently wretched, without the additional misery of your anger, Sir William. It is not necessary, indeed it is not, to overwhelm me. Grant me fortitude, O my God! to bear my sufferings as a Christian should!"

"But your answer, madam!"

"I will, I will, Sir William. Do not look so fiercely on me, and I will answer you :-as well, at least, as my shattered and distracted recollection enables me. Oh! dismal, bleak, and pitiful, are now my recollections of all the past. Oh, my poor brother!-oh, Thomas, Thomas !-The Lord strengthen me! the Lord pity me!" and she relapsed into a feeble paroxysm of weeping, from which Sir William, at length somewhat moved, refrained to rouse her.

But finally, in broken words, half of sorrowful ejaculation, and of continued prayers to Heaven for the strength she was but too conscious of not possessing, Miss Alicia began to recount the occurrences of the previous night.

Some time after she and her niece had arrived in Enniscorthy, while they were weeping together, and starting at every sound, in expectation of the arrival of a messenger dispatched to gather tidings of the proceedings at the castle, when a tall woman entered the apartment.

"A tall woman, madam!" her listener broke in, with a start. "Did you remark her features ?"

"No; they were either hidden from me, or else my dim eyes could not observe them at the distance at which she stood." Sir William made a gesture of impatience.

"Well, madam ?”

"This unannounced visitant requested a private interview with Miss Hartley, who seemed willing to grant it. I was excluded from their conference. They spoke together a considerable time. At her departure I found our Eliza much agitated by some new feelings. She told me that the woman had been the bearer of a letter from her Father."

"From her Father, Miss Alicia ?”

"Alas! yes! And though, at the moment, this allayed my doubts and fears, I have since but too truly become aware that the alleged letter must have been a forgery. For scarce did I arrive

in this house, when the people informed me that, at the time it was said to have been written, my poor Brother was-was not alive to write it."

Sir William underwent the test of a fresh fit of weeping.

"The woman also pretended to bear to my dear child a letter from you, Sir William.”

"The Devil, madam!"

"Though I need not ask you if this, too, was not a base forgery." "I certainly did send her a note, Madam. But as certainly not by such a messenger. The keeper of Enniscorthy prison promised, for a bribe, to forward it."

"Well, this note came to our Eliza's hand-if, indeed, it was the same you sent—”

"Mine was written with a pencil."

"So was this, for I read it."

The old lady continued to say that the contents of the other letter were withheld from her by Eliza. That, some time after, overcome by grief and feebleness, she had sunk into a slumber, upon awaking from which her nicce was not to be seen; nor had Miss Alicia since heard of her.

With respect to her own appearance in Wexford, she proceeded to say, that, after a night spent in vain inquiries and laments, the person to whom she ascribed all her misfortunes, namely, Captain Harry Talbot, had abruptly presented himself before her. That, not able to speak her fear or horior of him, she had fainted away. That, regaining her senses, she found herself in the family carriage, rapidly driven along, she knew not whither, and closely guarded by yeomen. That, entering Wexford, the vehicle had stopped at the door of the house in which she at present was. That the gen

tleman and lady of the house received her kindly, as a charge they had expected. That, immediately on her arrival amongst them, she had been compelled to take to her bed. Whence, an hour ago, the invasion of the cruel rebels had rendered her uprise a matter of necessity.

No farther information could Sir William obtain from the shocked and enfeebled old lady. And this, though not enough in one sense, was too much in another. If he had previously entertained any doubt as to the present position of his bride, he now became certain that she must be sought only at the hands of Talbot.

Indifferent to Miss Alicia's piteous entreaties for protection, he rushed out of the house, into the still crowded and uproarious street. Conscious of a confused stupor of brain, his first wish was

to shun the riot and the throngs around him, and to escape for a time to some silent spot, where, flinging himself on the earth, in the open, free air, his mind might grow cool enough to arm him with deliberate thought and purpose.

Yet, while he roughly pushed through all the obstruction in the crowded streets, he only experienced a return, in increased force, of the impulse before felt, to seek out Talbot in the very face of peril and death, to clutch him by the throat, demand his wife, and then-kill him, and tread upon him. Nor did this seem difficult to the feverish mind of the young Baronet. He would be more cunning and wary than he had before been. his features; he would assume a yeoman's uniform-thus he might easily gain access to Talbot's haunts. Once found, he would drag him into some private place, and then-he actually bounded at his own fancied picture of the encounter.

He would disguise

Absorbed by the greedy longing for revenge, he continued to hurry on, when some one caught him by the arm. Fiercely turning to resent the interruption, he recognised Father Rourke. The face of the reverend warrior, except where perspiration had forced a distinct way, was fearfully blotched and stained; his lips were parched; his voice sounded hoarse and exhausted. Altogether he appeared as a man who had undergone extreme toil, but yet whose constitution would not yield to toil of the severest kiad.

"Whither so fast, my young soldier ?"

"You know already, Sir!-To seek out that traitor-villain, Talbot! To seek and find him, if he be on the surface of the earth !" It seemed, as if by this desperate expression of his purpose, or rather of his impulse, he had fixed himself in his wild resolve.

"You have not yet got back the poor little wife from him, then ?"

Sir William scowled aud stamped his reply.

"Well! Suppose I can direct you where at least to meet him?" "Is he in town!-secured!"

"No. Yet is he in the hands of those who will make him answer your questions. For, if my eye did not deceive me, I saw him, upon our way to Wexford, taken prisoner, at the head of a smal number of his poor yeomen, and marched to our stationary camp on Vinegar Hill."

"You are sure, Sir?"

"Not downright positive, so as to make oath of the thing. But the prisoner certainly was a yeoman officer, in the uniform of his corps, and Talbot I am morally sure it was."

"Bless you, bless you, good friend! I will set off after him this moment."

"Had you not better take some rest and refreshment before you go? ?"

"Rest and refreshment! with this before me ?-Where shall I find a horse, Father Rourke ?"

"By the life, man, as I told you before, I am General Rourke

"Well-General Rourke-can you help me to a horse ?" 66 Why, yes, I think I can. Or sure you may easily help yourself: few stables in Wexford but are open to you, I believe." "Good-day, then-"

"Oh, a good-day to you, lad," replied the clerical hero, gazing in some wonder after Sir William, as, at the hint of his honest friend, he proceeded to possess himself of a steed by means which, under other circumstances, might have been termed horse-stealing. "A pair of bright eyes for your patriotism, after all!" continued General Rourke, with a smile and a shake of the head.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

WHAT Father Rourke has just said, as well as some former remarks we have ourselves made, will lead the reader to expect the following information.

After the great mass of the Insurgents abandoned their position on Vinegar Hill, to advance upon Wexford-(which, as we have seen, was yielded to them without a struggle)—a considerable number, attached to their cause, still remained on the rocky eminence, ostensibly as a garrison to guard the conquered town below, but really to shun the chance of open fighting, or else to gratify a malignant nature. We might indeed say, that all who acted upon either of the motives mentioned, were influenced by both. For it is generally true, that the bravest man is the least cruel, the coward most so. That he who hesitates not to expose himself in a fair field, will yet hesitate to take life treacherously, coolly, or at a disproportioned advantage over his opponent. While the boastful craven, who shrinks from following in his footsteps, glories to show a common zeal in the same cause, by imbuing his hands in the