riding boots. When they
appeared, he started forward with open mouth and eyes, and stared wildly
in their faces. They gathered around the poplar-trunks, and waited with
some uneasiness to see what would follow.

Slowly and gravely, with the half-broken ban of silence still hanging
over them, the people issued from the house. The strange man stood,
leaning forward, and seemed to devour each, in turn, with his eager
eyes. After the young men came the fathers of families, and lastly the
old men from the gallery seats. Last of these came Henry Donnelly.
In the meantime, all had seen and wondered at the waiting figure; its
attitude was too intense and self-forgetting to be misinterpreted. The
greetings and remarks were suspended until the people had seen for whom
the man waited, and why.

Henry Donnelly had no sooner set his foot upon the door-step than,
with something between a shout and a howl, the stranger darted forward,
seized his hand, and fell upon one knee, crying: "O my lord! my lord!
Glory be to God that I've found ye at last!"

If these words burst like a bomb on the ears of the people, what was
their consternation when Henry Donnelly exclaimed, "The Divel! Jack
O'Neil, can that be you?"

"It's me, meself, my lord! When we heard the letters went wrong last
year, I said 'I'll trust no such good news to their blasted mail-posts:
I'll go meself and carry it to his lordship,--if it is t'other side o'
the say. Him and my lady and all the children went, and sure I can go
too. And as I was the one that went with you from Dunleigh Castle, I'll
go back with you to that same, for it stands awaitin', and blessed be
the day that sees you back in your ould place!"

"All clear, Jack? All mine again?"

"You may believe it, my lord! And money in the chest beside. But where's
my lady, bless her sweet face! Among yon women, belike, and you'll help
me to find her, for it's herself must have the news next, and then the
young master--"

With that word Henry Donnelly awoke to a sense of time and place. He
found himself within a ring of staring, wondering, scandalized eyes. He
met them boldly, with a proud, though rather grim smile, took hold of
O'Neil's arm and led him towards the women's end of the house, where the
sight of Susan in her scoop bonnet so moved the servant's heart that he
melted into tears. Both husband and wife were eager to get home and
hear O'Neil's news in private; so they set out at once in their plain
carr