“It is useless to detail my adventures, but they are true. I can bring many undoubted witnesses of their truth: and there yet lives an unhappy mother, a lonely widow, to recount them. It was one accursed night, when the dæmons of hell thought fit to assist their agent—after having travelled far, I stopt at an inn by the road-side, in the village of Maryvale, in the County of Tyrone. I called for a horse; my own was worn out with fatigue: I alighted, and drank deep of the spirits that were brought me, for they drove away all disturbing thoughts—but, as I lifted the cup a second time to my lips, my eyes fixed themselves upon a child; and I trembled with agitation, for I saw my prey before me. The woman of the house spoke but little English; but she approached me, and expressed her fear that I was not well. Sensible that my emotion had betrayed me, I affected to be in pain, offered her money, and abruptly took leave. There was a wood not far from the town. “On a subsequent evening I allured her to it: the baby was at her breast. I asked her its name.—‘Billy Kendal,’ she answered, ‘for the love of its father who fights now for us at a distance.’ ‘I will be its father,’ I said. But she chid me from her, and was angrily about to leave me: striking her to the earth, I seized the child. The age, the size—every thing corresponded. I had bartered my soul for gold, and difficulties and failures had not shaken me. I had made every necessary preparation; and all being ready and secure, I fled; nor stopped, nor staid, nor spoke to man, nor shewed myself in village or in town, till I arrived at my journey’s end. “I arrived in the neighbourhood of Castle Delaval, and continued to see my master, without being recognized by any other. He appeared much agitated when he first beheld me. I cannot forget his smile. He desired me to keep the boy with me out at sea that night; and directing me to climb from the wherry up the steep path of the western cliff (where but yesterday I stood when the colonel sent for me), he promised to place food, and all that was requisite for us, near the chapel. ‘But trust no one with your secret,’ he said: ‘let not the eye of man glance upon you. Meet me in the night, in the forest near the moor, and bring the child. Mind that _you_ do not utter one word, and let _it_ not have the power of disturbing us. Do you understand me?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, and shuddered because I did so. My master saw me shrink, and reminded me of the reward. I undertook punctually to fulfil every injunction: it was now too late to repent. But, oh, my lord! when I think of that night, that accursed night, what horror comes over me!