he young O'Donoghue.

"Here, then," cried Mark, rising, while the wine trickled over his hand
from a brimming goblet--"I'll give it--are you ready?"

"All ready, Mark," said the O'Donoghue, laughing heartily at the serious
gravity of Mark's countenance.

"Confound it," cried the youth, passionately; "I forget the jingle."

"Never mind--never mind," interposed Talbot, slily; "we'll pledge it
with as good a mind."

"That's--that's it," shouted Mark, as the last word clinked upon his
memory. "I have it now," and his eyes sparkled, and his brows were met,
as he called out--

"A stout heart and mind,
And an easterly wind,
And the devil behind The Saxon."

Sir Archy laid down his glass untasted, while Talbot, bursting forth
into a well-acted laugh, cried out, "You must excuse me from repeating
your amiable sentiment, which, for aught I can guess, may be a sarcasm
on my own country."

"I'd like to hear the same toast explained," said Sir Archy, cautiously,
while his looks wandered alternately from Mark to Talbot.

"So you shall, then," replied Mark, sternly, "and this very moment too."

"Come, that's fair," chimed in Talbot, while he fixed his eyes on the
youth, with such a steady gaze as seemed actually to have pierced the
dull vapour of his clouded intellect, and flashed light upon his addled
brain. "Let us hear your explanation."

Mark, for a second or two, looked like one suddenly awakened from a
deep sleep, and trying to collect his wandering faculties, while, as if
instinctively seeking the clue to his bewilderment from Talbot, he never
turned his eyes from him. As he sat thus, he looked the very ideal of
half-drunken stupidity.

"I'm afraid we have no right to ask the explanation," whispered Talbot
into M'Nab's ear. "We ought to be satisfied, if he give us the rhyme,
even though he forgot the reason."

"I'm thinking you're right, sir," replied M'Nab; "but I suspect we hae
na the poet before us, ony mair than the interpreter."

Mark's faculties, in slow pursuit of Talbot's meaning, had just at this
instant overtaken their object, and he burst forth into a boisterous
fit of laughter, which, whatever sentiment it might have excited in the
others, relieved Talbot, at least, from all his former embarrassment: he
saw that Mark had, though late, recognised his warning, and was at once
relieved from any uneasiness on the score of his imprudence.

Sir Archy was, however, very far from feeling sa