you, before it is too late."

"Never! I will sell my life dearly, but my grave at least shall be where
you can sometimes visit it and remember"----

"Unkind, dark, inhuman man! was it _all_ my fault? My poor father, what
will he say? give me at least a day or two to think"----

"It is now of no use, the night has half past, my doom is fixed."

"No! again no! you will drive me mad! Oh fly, fly, but this once, and I
will, at least I promise--I must see him--my father--before--fly now and
return, and I will do all you desire--only, only, save your life at once."

The man replied not for some minutes, he then resumed--"I have here that
copy of the Gospels you gave me--will you swear on that gift that when we
next meet you will be prepared to share life, be it happiness or horror,
with me?"

"Yes, I do--I will--any thing; but fly and save yourself."

"Swear then," he said, as with one arm around her he prepared with the
other to place the sacred Book upon her lips, when at that very moment an
aspersion of cold water was dashed with such ample profusion in the
impassioned faces of the pair as to cause them to spring asunder with a
start that had very nearly as much the character of discomfort as alarm.

"Hell and"----half-exclaimed the man, as he tore open his coat and grasped
one of several pistols it now appeared he was armed with.

"_Dhieu, a's Marudha, a's Phaidhrig, a's_"[23]----said a voice, following
up the lustration with a blessing, cut short, however, by the Stranger's
clutching the throat of the pious intruder, and dragging forward from
beneath the trees which had hitherto overshadowed their way a little
Bundle of some dark coloured cloth, surmounted by a straw bonnet, so
battered in its outlines that to fix it there it must have been flattened
down with no ordinary emphasis, and from beneath which guttural shrieks
now arose, whose extent of volume was out of all proportion to the
diminutive object from which they proceeded.

"Hold! let go, for goodness sake!" cried Miss Tyrrel, "it is only poor
Sally-the-tin, the Holy-Water woman."

"A--a--a! my windpipe!" cried the Bundle, as soon as that interesting
organ had been extricated. "A--a--Miss Katey, take the bushblunder out ov
his hand 'fore he blows my brains out," and the shrieks were renewed with
more vociferation than before.

"She will raise the country. I must stop her, were I to kill her," said
the stranger furiously.

"No, no, dear friend, she