o enjoy the glad prospect, unconscious, for a
moment, of the fate that tracked our footsteps. At length we descended
the eastern slope of the hill; and after proceeding some distance,
through cornfields and meadows, we reached the mansion of the clergyman,
wayworn and half-famished. He, whom we sought, had won a character for
truth, manliness and courage, and we calculated upon his unrestrained
sympathies, if not generous hospitality. He was absent from his house,
which is situate in a lonely gorge of the Comeraghs.

We waited his arrival for more than an hour, and, through delicacy for
his position, we remained concealed in a grove some distance from the
door. He at length appeared, and I proceeded alone to meet him and make
known my name. He started involuntarily and retreated a few paces from
me. After repeating my name for a few seconds, he said, "Surely you are
not so unmanly as to compromise me?" I replied, that so sensible was I
of the danger of committing him, that I refused to enter his house,
though we all, and particularly my female companion, sadly needed rest
and shelter. After some time, he began to pace up and down in front of
his door, repeating at every turn that it was indiscreet and
dishonourable to compromise him. Among the many trials to which fate had
doomed me, through hours of gloom, of peril and disaster, and even
during reveries of still darker chances, which fear or fancy often
evoked, I never felt a pang so keen as that which those unfeeling words
sent through my heart. For a while I was unable to articulate, but at
length I said: "You are one of those who urged us to this fate. You gave
us every assurance that, in any crisis, you would be at our side. We
made the desperate trial which you recommended. We have failed, because
we were abandoned by those who were foremost in urging us on; and even
now--here, where God alone sees us--you meet with reproaches one who has
sacrificed his all on earth in a cause you pretended to bless. Is not
that fate worse than defeat--than flight--than death?" "Tis a sad fate,
no doubt," said he. My object, I said, was to escape to France, and I
called on him, believing he could assist me, as he must be acquainted
with the boatmen around that part of the coast. He answered it was
possible he could, but not then; asked how he could communicate with me;
pointed to a shorter route across the mountains than that by which we
had descended, and turned in to his dinner,