all of them in doing their duty. But we mustn't talk
of these things, lad. Tell me, what brings you here?"

"Need you ask?" said Neal. "I am come to fight it out to the last."

"Take my advice and slip off home. There's no good to be done by
stopping with us. Things are desperate. Most of our people are going
home to-day. M'Cracken and a handful--not more than a hundred--are going
to Slievemis in the hope of being able to join Monro in County Down, or
perhaps to get through to the Wexford men."

"I will go with you."

"No, no, lad, you've done enough. You've done a man's part. Go home
now."

"What are you going to do?"

"I? Oh, I'm only a poor weaver. It doesn't matter what I do. I'm going
on with M'Cracken."

"So am I. Listen to me, James Hope, till I tell you what is in my
mind--till I tell you what has happened to me since yesterday."

They sat on the grassy slope of the old rath. The wide plain stretched
before them--green, well wooded, beautiful. There lay Adair's
plantations, the Six Mile Water winding like a serpent among the fields,
the woods of Castle Upton, and the young trees on Lyle Hill, with the
distant water of Lough Neagh glistening in the sunlight. Nearer at hand
thatched farmhouses smoked, signs that the yeomen were enjoying the
fruits of victory. Hope pointed to Farranshane, where William Orr's
house was burning--a witness to a malignity so bitter that it wreaked
the vengeance from which the dead man was safe on his widow and his
orphans.

Neal told his story, and spoke of the passionate desire for revenge
which burned in him. Hope listened patiently to every word. Then he
spoke.

"If I were to tell you now, Neal, as I told you once before, that
vengeance belongeth only unto the Lord, you would turn away and listen
to me no more. Therefore, I shall not speak to you in that way at all,
or appeal to those higher feelings which the great God has planted
in the breasts of even the humblest of His servants. I will, instead,
appeal to that which is lower and smaller than the religion of Christ,
and which yet may be in its way a noble thing. I will speak to you as to
a man of honour. I am not fond of the title of gentleman, but I think I
know what is meant by honour. Sometimes it is no more than a fantastic
image bred of prejudice and pride; but sometimes it is high and holy,
next to God. I think, Neal, that you would like to reckon yourself a man
of honour."

Already James Hope's words were