"They are ever about," I replied; "sometimes in large bodies, sometimes creeping through the grass and the woods like snakes. When they are together they will attack villages and townships, and when alone, will carry off children or girls--there are many of both, who have been carried away, living amongst them now, and have themselves become savages--or they will steal cattle or shoot a solitary man for his pistol or his sword." "Faith," said the captain, "a pleasant part of the world to reside in! Yet 'tis indeed a noble estate you have here--it reminds me somewhat of my own in the Wicklow Mountains." "But, sir," said Mary, "what are the chances of Lord St. Amande obtaining his rights, now that the Marquis has declared for him? Surely his uncle can do nothing against the truth!" The captain mused a moment, shaking his head meditatively and as though pondering sadly on all the wickedness that had been wrought against that poor youth, and then he said: "'Tis hard to tell. I fear me his uncle is a bad man--he has, indeed, deceived me who trusted and believed in him, for he has over and over again sworn that Gerald was not his brother's child. And I trusted him, I say, tho' now I begin to doubt. Yet 'tis ever so in this world. We who are of an innocent and confiding nature are made the sport of the unscrupulous and designing." "But," I exclaimed, "surely there is law and justice at home, and upright judges, especially with so good a king as ours on the throne, tho', under the wicked Stuarts, it might have been different. And the judges of England and Ireland, with whom you doubtless are well acquainted, would not let so base a villain as his uncle prevail."