“To save my uncle from the gallows. They told me that witnesses who must convict him and others were sheltered in this house; and that could they but be carried off and concealed until after the assizes, then the prisoners’ lives were safe. They stated that they only wanted the arms deposited in Knockloftie;--that they would swear you to quit the country--and thus intimidate those who had followed your example and ventured to remain. Before I consented to carry the letter which my brother wished to have conveyed to Hackett, he swore upon the chapel-altar where the party had collected, that not one hair of your head should suffer injury. May God forgive him!” “To that prayer, Mary, I add a sincere amen! He is gone to his account--a perjurer!” “Gone to his account!” exclaimed the girl. “Is he dead? Who killed him?” “He fell by the hand of one whom he would have more than murdered!” “Then am I now indeed alone upon the world!” A long and liar-rowing silence followed. “Denis,” she said, “I dare not curse, and cannot bless you. Four short years have passed. How bitterly have all things changed?” “Stop, Mary! From my soul, I pity and believe you. You tell me that you did not know the purport of this night attack!” “God knows, I did not. You wrecked my happiness; but still I would not--could not subdue feelings now best forgotten. Forgotten, said I?--never!” Mary Halligan had spoken to my father in her native tongue; and those who are intimate with that portion of the kingdom where the Celtic language is still retained, will remember with what poetic imagery, the Irish peasantry at times detail their mingled story of grief and joy, wrong and suffering. Mary was one of those on whom nature stamps the grace which art idly or imperfectly can simulate. Her voice had all “The sweetness of the mountain-tongue and more affecting still, all that it uttered seemed to come directly from the heart.”