Death now took away his guardian-angel, his amiable and patient wife, leaving him a little daughter. His grief for her loss was extravagant, and amounted to little short of frenzy. After the funeral he behaved more than ever like a madman. He took to hunting by night, and hunted anything that was about after dark. In this wild chase he was always accompanied by a band of mounted servants, carrying torches, and, when the peasants were roused from their slumbers by the noise of hounds, and the cries of men, they knew that Mad Fitzgerald was abroad. When he hunted by day, he would peremptorily order home anyone to whom he had even a fancied dislike. He would tell one man to go home for he was more fitted to follow the plough than the hounds; another would be bidden to go and mind his sheep, and a third would be told to quit the field, as he was too fat for the sport. And they had to go, for their monitor would not have scrupled to have used his whip, and, if that had been objected to, there was always the _ultima ratio_ of a duel, and men were rather shy of meeting ‘Fighting Fitzgerald.’ He had a particular dislike to the family of Lord Altamont, and behaved in a most high-handed and outrageous manner towards them. For instance, he heard that a relation of my lord’s, a Mr. Browne, was out shooting on a bog near Westport, so he got together his men and dogs, and went in quest of him. When Mr. Browne saw him enter on the scene, he retired; Fitzgerald pursued, Mr. Browne increased his pace, so did Fitzgerald, until he literally hunted the offending sportsman home. Another time he rode over to Lord Altamont’s house, and asked to see the wolf-dog, which, for its size and fierceness, was the admiration and terror of the neighbourhood. No sooner was he shown the dog than he shot it, charging the servants to tell their master that, until he became more charitable to the poor, who only came to his door to be barked at and bitten, he should not allow such a beast to be kept, but that he had no objection to the three ladies of the family each keeping a lap-dog. After a time, his grief at the loss of his wife subsided, and he fell in love with the only child and heiress of a Mr. Vaughan, of Carrowmore, County Mayo, and singularly, although she well knew his reckless character, she returned his affection. We know how he ran away with his first wife; the story of his wedding with his second is yet more romantic.