As he spoke both sank, and for about half a minute became invisible. The spectators from the shore now gave them both over for lost; one of them only emerged with the fatal middogue in his hand, but his opponent appeared not, and for the best reason in the world: he was on his way to the bottom of the lake. Shawn's exhaustion after such a struggle now rendered his situation hopeless. He was on the point of going down when he exclaimed: “It is all in vain now; I am sinking, and me so near the only slip that is in the lake. Finn and Oonah, save me; I am drowning.” The words were scarcely out of his lips when he felt the two faithful, powerful, and noble animals, one at each side of him--seeing as they did, his sinking state--seizing him by his dress, and dragging him forward to the slip we have mentioned. With great difficulty he got upon land, but, having done so, he sat down; and when his dogs, in the gambols of their joy at his safety, caressed him, he wept like an infant--this proscribed outlaw and tory. He was now safe, however, and his pursuers returned in a spirit of sullen and bitter disappointment, finding that it was useless to continue the hunt any longer. CHAPTER XIX. Plans and Negotiations. We have already said that Woodward was a man of personal courage, and without fear of anything either living or dead, yet, notwithstanding all this, he felt a terror of _Shawn-na-Middogue_ which he could not I overcome. The escape--the extraordinary escape of that celebrated young tory--depressed and vexed him to the heart. He was conscious, however, of his own villany and of his conduct to Grace Davoren, whom Shawn had loved, and, as Shakespeare says, “conscience makes cowards of us all.” One thing, however, afforded him some consolation, which was that his disguise prevented him from from being known as the principal person engaged in the attempt to hunt down the outlaw. He knew that after the solemn promise he had given Miss Riddle, any knowledge on her part of his participation in the pursuit of that generous but unfortunate young man would have so completely sunk him in her opinion, as an individual professing to be a man of honor, that she would have treated his proposals with contempt, and rejected him with disdain. At all events, his chief object now was to lose no time in prosecuting his suit with her. For this purpose he urged his mother to pay Lord Cockletown another visit, in order to make a formal proposal for the hand of his niece in his name, with a view of bringing the matter to an issue with as little delay as might be. His brother, who had relapsed, was in a very precarious condition, but still slightly on the recovery, a circumstance which filled him with alarm. He only went out at night occasionally, but still he went out, and, as before, did not return until about twelve, but much more frequently one, two, and sometimes three o'clock. Nobody in the house could understand the mystery of these midnight excursions,