This lake, as my informant told me, once formed a part of the boundary between the possessions of O’Rourke the Left-handed and M’Diarmod the Dark-faced, as they were respectively distinguished, two small rival chiefs, petty in property but pre-eminent in passion, to whom a most magnificent mutual hatred had been from generations back “bequeathed from bleeding sire to son”--a legacy constantly swelled by accruing outrages, for their paramount pursuits were plotting each other’s detriment or destruction, planning or parrying plundering inroads, inflicting or avenging injuries by open violence or secret subtlety, as seemed more likely to promote their purposes. At the name of an O’Rourke, M’Diarmod would clutch his battle-axe, and brandish it as if one of the detested clan were within its sweep: and his rival, nothing behind in hatred, would make the air echo to his deep-drawn imprecation on M’Diarmod and all his abominated breed when any thing like an opportunity was afforded him. Their retainers of course shared the same spirit of mutual abhorrence, exaggerated indeed, if that were possible, by their more frequent exposure to loss in cattle and in crops, for, as is wont to be the case, the cottage was incontinently ravaged when the stronghold was prudentially respected. O’Rourke had a son, an only one, who promised to sustain or even raise the reputation of the clan, for the youth knew not what it was to blench before flesh and blood--his feet were over foremost, in the wolf-hunt or the foray, and in agility, in valour, or in vigour, none within the compass of a long day’s travel could stand in comparison with young Connor O’Rourke. Detestation of the M’Diarmods had been studiously instilled from infancy, of course; but although the youth’s cheek would flush and his heart beat high when any perilous adventure was the theme, yet, so far at least, it sprang more from the love of prowess and applause than from the deadly hostility that thrilled in the pulses of his father and his followers. In the necessary intervals of forbearance, as in seed-time, harvest, or other brief breathing-spaces, he would follow the somewhat analogous and bracing pleasures of the chase; and often would the wolf or the stag--for shaggy forests then clothed these bare and desert hills--fall before his spear or his dogs, as he fleetly urged the sport afoot. It chanced one evening that in the ardour of pursuit he had followed a tough, long-winded stag into the dangerous territory of M’Diarmod. The chase had taken to the water of the lake, and he with his dogs had plunged in after in the hope of heading it; but having failed in this, and in the hot flush of a hunter’s blood scorning to turn back, he pressed it till brought down within a few spear-casts of the M’Diarmod’s dwelling. Proud of having killed his venison under the very nose of the latter, he turned homeward with rapid steps; for, the fire of the chase abated, he felt how fatal