OVERCOME by the varied feelings of the moment, MacDermott stood over the corpse of his humble friend, forgetful of everything but the self-devotion that had saved his life.

"There is no time for useless regrets," said the Parliamentarian officer, again addressing him; "you are not yet safe. Take charge of this lady, to whom you owe more than you are aware of. I will be with you again when the work I have on hands is finished."

So speaking, he consigned to MacDermott's care the rather embarrassing burden which he carried before him on his saddle.

The prisoner, with a heedless air, received these injunctions; there was no indication that he recognised his benefactor, or interested himself to discover the motives which prompted the kindness shown him.

"You do not recognise me, MacDermott," said the Parliamentarian, half reproachfully.

The prisoner shook his head.

"And yet, when we parted at Benburb, I bade you remember Arthur Montgomery."

A look of glad surprise lit up the dejected features of the captive. "You are too generous," he answered; "you risk too much for me. Let things take their course. I have seen friends enough sacrificed to-day."

"Talk not so," returned the Parliamentarian; "while one of yonder troopers, who are your sworn foes, can hold a sword, you are safe. But I must not stay longer. Look to the lady. You seem to have the art of making friends wherever you go. Expect me again in a few minutes."

He turned his horse away, and passing slowly along the line of his followers, advanced towards the spot where Ormsby and his comrade officers were standing engaged in vehement discussion.

MacDermott was not a little embarrassed by the charge entrusted to him. With his uninjured arm he supported the trembling form which leaned upon him, and to which consciousness now began to return. The hood of the cloak concealed the features of this benefactress, whose services to himself he could not clearly understand.

One dark lock of hair, escaping from beneath the head-dress, rested on the white, upturned throat, and MacDermott observed with a start how much it resembled the dark tresses of which his memory preserved a faithful picture since his last visit to Lough Ree. He might

have satisfied his curiosity had his disengaged arm not been powerless. As it was, he watched with impatience the signs of reviving consciousness in the slender figure he supported. At length, a delicate hand was raised from beneath the folds of the mantle, the hood was pushed aside, and Mary Dillon looked up into the soldier's face. She started to her feet in surprise, as she met his gaze. One glance about her served to remind her of her position, and she hastily drew the covering again over her face.

"You are saved! Thank heaven!" she said, in her low, sweet voice, to the wounded soldier. "I could never have been consoled, had I arrived too late."

"I have no words to express my indebtedness. I fear the life you have saved is not worth all it has cost to-day."

His eye, as he spoke, sought the corpse at his feet. The lady's glance followed his till it rested on the motionless though still bleeding body of the dead trooper.

"Good God!" she whispered, shuddering with horror. death you have escaped !"

"What a

"Thanks to the self-devotion of my poor trumpeter," he answered; "he stepped before me at the moment they fired, and received in his breast the bullets that were intended for mine. Miss Dillon, may I beg a favour ?"

"Any it is in my power to grant."

"O'Neill will take speedy vengeance for the trick these demons have played us to-day. They know him too well to doubt it. They will be wise enough not to delay here beyond a few hours. When we are gone cause decent burial to be given to the body of my poor comrade."

A tear glistened in her eye as she answered, with trembling voice: "I would willingly render you the sad service you ask, but I must probably quit this place almost as soon as yourself."

MacDermott looked down into her face with half curious, half alarmed look.

"They do not mean to carry you away with them ?”

"No. I am not their prisoner. I almost wish I were. I am now under the guardianship of my cousin, Mr. Plunkett, and he has resolved to take us to-morrow to his home in Louth."

A deep flush of anger overspread MacDermott's face.

"And you would not go ?" he asked.

"I should almost prefer to die."

She made no attempt to conceal her dislike for her cousin, and this display of feeling was far from being disagreeable to MacDermott. "You are wise in doubting him," he whispered; 66 we owe him all

the misfortunes of this unlucky day. In removing you thus, he is acting contrary to your father's last wishes. I heard Mr. Dillon with his latest breath implore him to see you safe to your mother's relatives in Limerick."

"And it was by the use of my father's name that he silenced our protests against this journey. Captain MacDermott, you have conferred on me one favour more by telling me this."

"Let me hope I shall be able to do you yet a greater. I now know Lucas Plunkett well enough to say that he will not stop at any villainy to accomplish his plans. There is little use in protesting against his arrangements; he will remove you, if necessary, by force. Take this ring from my finger; I cannot pull it off myself, my left arm is broken. Send the trinket to O'Neill-it was given me by himself after a hard-fought fight-and let your messenger ask him, in remembrance of the circumstances under which it was given, to despatch instant aid to the sender. Delay your departure till our troopers arrive, and you are safe. And now, farewell. Montgomery comes hither again. He will see you safe within Duneevin walls. My kindest greeting and my warmest sympathy to Kathleen. May we meet again."

"If your business is settled, MacDermott," said a voice beside him, "I have brought Ormsby and his colleagues to reason. You see I lead these Enniskillen lancers. Poor Hamilton, who commanded us to-day, has fared rather badly. Your fellows turned upon us out on these cursed moors. I must say they behaved gallantly. Hamilton was unhorsed, and, as we were obliged to withdraw, your friends took him with them to their own quarters. I have just pointed out to Ormsby that to injure you would insure Hamilton's being shot as soon as O'Neill hears of the proceeding; and I hinted pretty clearly that the sabres of these Enniskilleners would spoil the aim of any man who cocked a pistol at you. He understood the arguments and the hints. You are now my prisoner, and shall continue such till I can exchange you for Hamilton. I quit this cursed place and Ormsby's cursed service in a few hours. I shall send one of my troopers who is a tolerable leech, to see to your arm. When you are rested and properly bandaged we shall start. And now, if she will permit me, I will escort the lady to her home. This place and these scenes are not suitable for her."

Mary Dillon, with tears in her eyes, gave her hand to MacDermott. He raised it to his lips, murmured a hurried "good-bye," and stood watching her retreating form as she crossed the yard. He observed her stop to address a word to an uncouth figure which started up to meet her at the gate. He saw her deliver some glittering object into a thin, bony hand, and then pass on. From this he understood that his message was already on its way to O'Neill.

IN braving the anger and resisting the authority of Major Ormsby, Montgomery had not, as might appear, outraged the prevalent notions

of military obedience. A large proportion of the forces then serving in the civil war, and more particularly the troops of horse, had been raised by the officers commanding them from among their own dependents. Commissions were eagerly granted by the party to which the officers chose to offer their services. These commissions meant little more than a patent to exact contributions, or in lieu of these to perpetrate cruelties, in the name of the King or Parliament, respectively. With regard to provisions and pay, none of the belligerent. parties could offer much of either; their adherents were left to their own resources to procure both. In such a state of things it is not surprising that the allegiance of those half-feudal captains who fought in turn for the Crown and the Parliament, was measured by the advantages derivable from the service in which they were for the time engaged. There are not wanting many examples which show that a readiness to change sides was not a peculiarity of the inferior leaders, but that the same disposition was evinced by the highest functionaries, civil and military, of the time.

The detachment of horse which Arthur Montgomery now commanded had been sent to assist Major Ormsby in the execution of a certain mission entrusted to him by Sir Charles Coote. The service was little to the taste of the northern troopers. A reputation for chivalry, or even humanity, was a distinction to which they had no claim, and to which they did not advance any. But, bad as they were, they could look down on their comrades of the Connaught border, and were justified in abhorring their companionship. The annals of those "dark and evil days" record few atrocities akin to those which made the names of Hamilton and Ormsby the terror of the Irish of Leitrim and Roscommon. The Ulster officers felt a repugnance to serve by the side of the banditti who had already obtained such an unenviable renown, and this dislike was felt or assumed by their followers.

On this occasion they had an excellent opportunity of giving expression to these feelings. The usages of war gave them the principal voice in the disposal of the prisoners they had themselves made. The savage instincts of their allies had led them to violate this right. The Fermanagh men had, therefore, reasonable cause for complaint : Montgomery chose to mark his sense of the wrong done them by abandoning the society of the wrongdoers. His own followers approved his resolve, the opinions which might be formed outside of their ranks, he neither feared nor respected.

A few hours' repose sufficed to fit his troopers for the march. Day had just begun to dawn when his bugles woke the echoes of the lake. At the head of his followers, he quitted the encampment without any leave-taking. His prisoner, for whom he endeavoured by every means to diminish the inconveniences of the journey, rode by his side. As they passed an opening in the trees which gave a view of the island and castle of Duneevin, MacDermott turned to catch a last glimpse of the dark walls which loomed through the morning river-mists. "Taking leave of your heart, which, I presume, remains behind?" asked his companion.

VOL. IV.

2 A

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"No, regretting that it is all I can leave behind," replied Mac Dermott.

"Likely enough," rejoined Montgomery. "Good faith, had I succeeded in interesting yon dark-eyed beauty as powerfully in my fate as she has been in yours, the odds are, I would forswear the Covenant, and drink cups of sack to the health of his sovereign majesty King Charles. I am sorry that I have been obliged to deprive her of a devoted protector."

"You would be doubly sorry," returned MacDermott, seriously, "if you knew how much she needs one."

'Nay, nay, have no fears on that score," answered his companion. "Ormsby will not suffer the inmates of the castle to be further molested. I have it from his own lips."

"He is not their worst enemy; but he favours the schemes of the scoundrel who is. May heaven confound both of them!" And as they proceeded on their way, MacDermott related what he knew of the intrigues of Lucas Plunkett, and the results to which they had led.

Meantime, within those dark walls, now fading fast behind them, the schemes of that worthy intriguer were being pushed forward with vigour. Day had hardly broken when the remains of Arthur Dillon were committed to the grave. Not in consecrated ground; he was buried under the shadow of the castle-walls, where the waves would murmur a perpetual dirge beside his pillow. The gray-haired chaplain of the family with trembling voice read the funeral service. The wild and fantastic lamentations which usually attended the obsequies of the Irish chief, or the half-Irish Anglo-Norman lord did net resound about his grave. The tears and sobs of his children and his household accompanied the meagre funeral rites; these tokens of sincere but unostentatious sorrow were the only ones the occasion permitted, but they suited the sad ceremony better than the hired wailings of professional mourners. A death so nobly died deserved to be deplored in something better than mock lamentations.

The grave had scarcely closed over the body of Arthur Dillon when Plunkett showed his eagerness to be gone. He ordered the scanty luggage which should accompany the travellers to be transported to the shore. He himself superintended the transfer, and thus had an opportunity of satisfying himself that the escort promised by Major Ormsby was almost ready for its march. He hurried back to urge on the preparations of his fellow-travellers.

"It is piercingly cold," pleaded Mary Dillon; "can we not wait till the sun is up? The chill is too much for Kathleen to bear?" The plea for delay was a good one, but Plunkett had determined that none should weigh with him.

"She shall travel in a horse litter, and will be protected from the cold. I am sorry to expose her to this inconvenience, but our danger increases with every moment's delay, and we must risk something to escape it."

He was not in a mood to be thwarted, and Mary felt that open resistance to his wishes would avail them but little. That he would carry his point by force, if he could not do it by persuasion, was