"Ah, Arrah Neil!" he cried, "my poor Arrah Neil, is that you come back? Where is your grandfather, poor child? have they set him free?" And he, too sprang from his horse, taking the girl's hand with a look of tender compassion. "No, he is not free," replied Arrah Neil; "he never will be free." "Oh, yes," answered the gentleman; "these things cannot last for ever, Arrah. Time will bring about changes, I doubt not, which will deliver him from whatever prison they have taken him to." "Not from that prison," answered the girl, with tears rising in her eyes; "it is a low and narrow prison, Lord Walton. I told them he would die when they took him, and he only reached Devizes. But they are happy who sleep--they are happy who sleep;" and sitting down by the side of the well, she fell into thought again. The stranger stood and gazed at her for a moment without uttering a word. There are times when silence is more eloquent of sympathy than the choicest words of condolence. One of the servants, however, who had ridden up, and was holding his lord's horse, burst forth with an oath, "The Roundhead rascals! I wish I had my sword in their stomachs! The good old man was worth a score of them." "Hush!" said his master, sternly; "hush! no such words in my hearing, Langan!" "Then, faith, my lord, I must speak them behind your back," murmured the man; but his master had taken a step forward, and was bending down his head to speak to the poor girl. "Come up to the house Arrah," he said; "you must not stay here alone, nor go back to the cottage either. Come up to the house, and my sister will comfort and be kind to you." The girl gazed in his face for a moment, and then, suddenly starting up, as if some remembrance flashed across her mind, she exclaimed, "No, no! do not go home, sir! Do not go there. Misfortune will happen to you if you go there--I am sure it will--I am quite sure it will." "But why, Arrah?" asked her companion, with an incredulous smile; "what makes you think that there is any danger? Have you seen any of the parliament people there?" "There was Dry, of Longsoaken," replied Arrah Neil; "but he came down again, and it is not that. But I must not say what it is. Yet do not go up--do not go up! kind, good Charles Walton, do not go up!" The young nobleman looked at her with an expression of much commiseration for her sorrows, but no reliance on her words. "I must go, Arrah," he said; "you know my sister is there; and even if there be danger I most go. Come up, Arrah, there's a good girl, and we will do the best we can for you in these sad times."