er that!"

Whether it was the tone, the look, or the words that suddenly awoke me
from my dreamy infatuation, I know not; but coming so soon after the
Frenchman's detail of the barbarism of the party, a thorough disgust
seized me, and the atrocity of this wholesale murder lost nothing of its
blackness from being linked with the cause of liberty.

With ready quickness, Darby saw what my impression was, and hastily
remarked:--

"We 'll be all away out of this, Master Tom, you know, before that. We
'll be up in Kildare, where we 'll see the boys exercising and marching;
that's what 'ill do your heart good to look at. But before we go, you
'll have to take the oath, for I'm answerable for you all this time with
my own head; not that I care for that same, but others might mistrust
ye."

"Halloo!" cried the Frenchman, from within; "I hope you have finished
your conference there, for you seem to forget there's no fire in this
room."

"Yes, sir; and I beg a thousand pardons," said Darby, servilely. "And
Master Tom only wants to bid you goodby before he goes."

"Goes! goes where? Are you so soon tired of me?" said he, in an accent
of most winning sweetness.

"He's obliged to be at the Curragh, at the meeting there," said Darby,
answering for me.

"What meeting? I never heard of it."

"It 's a review, sir, of the throops, that 's to be by moonlight."

"A review!" said the Frenchman, with a scornful laugh. "And do you call
this midnight assembly of marauding savages a review?"

Darby's face grew dark with rage, and for a second I thought he would
have sprung on his assailant; but with a fawning, shrewd smile he lisped
out,--

"It's what they call it. Captain; sure the poor boys knows no better."

"Are you going to this review?" said the Frenchman, with an ironical
pronunciation of the word.

"I scarce know where to go, or what to do," said I, in a tone of
despairing sadness; "any certainty would be preferable to the doubts
that harass me."

"Stay with me," said the Frenchman, interrupting me and laying his hand
on my shoulder; "we shall be companions to each other. Your friend here
knows I can teach you many things that may be useful to you hereafter;
and perhaps, with all humility I may say, your stay will be as
profitable as at the camp yonder."

"I should not like to desert one who has been so kind to me as Darby;
and if he wishes--"

Before I could finish my sentence, the door was opened by a key from
w