"Thou art free again, lady," he cried, in good English, "thanks to the Virgin and Saint Columbkill! Nay, fear not,"-for she shrunk from his extended hand, involuntarily drawing her mantle closer round her, but turning her eyes full of appealing supplication on his face, -"fear nothing, lady, unworthy of thy condition and mine. I am a Scottish gentleman, and will with my life protect thee from all discourtesy."

Blushing deeply, she drew back her mantle, and offered her hand; the Scot raised it to his lips, for, as her face betokened a gentle spirit, so did her white and jewelled fingers evince a gentle birth and condition.

"Forgive me, noble sir," she said, in a low and tremulous voice," that I only now thank thee for my deliverance-I have been in doubt of life and honour since before sunrise, and am a helpless girl, far from my native country and my father's house."

Her tears flowed abundantly as she spoke, and the Scot was touched to the heart by her distress; he aided her from her uneasy place beside the mast, to a more comfortable seat in the stern, and spread the mantles of the Irish under her feet,-telling her, with all the kindliness of sincerity, that she should be protected and cared for like a sister, till he might restore her to her home, or leave her in some place of honourable safety. They swept on before the wind till all danger of pursuit was past; and the Scot, intrusting the helm to his fair companion, began to contract his sail by such rude contrivances as came to hand; for the eastern sky was momentarily putting on a gloomier aspect, and the wind was still increasing. His glances at the darkening horizon were so anxious, that his companion also turned her head, and looked in alarm in the same direction.

"Noble sir," said she, "dost thou see any one in pursuit? I see but our own sail on the lake, and one far distant towards the north; our enemies seem to stand idly on the point of the island."

"We are not pursued, dear lady," replied the Scot, "but tell me, wert thou ever on this lake before?"

"Alas! no," she said, "but it has been shown to me from the top of the mountain behind a kinsman's dwelling in the Claneboy."

"Canst thou tell me then," he eagerly enquired, “in which direction the great river Bann lieth?" She mused a moment in silence—" for," continued the Scot in explanation, "I was never before beyond the seacoast of this country, and can only guess our situation by some vague recollections of what I have heard in my youth."

"The Bann," at length she said, "runs to the sea from this extremity of the lake," pointing northward across the waters, now glittering in the hazy light of sunset; " for that mountain on the right before us is Slieve Galeen; and I remember the mist of the river's course lay between that mountain and us, when we stood on a high hill beyond these woods which we are now leaving."

"Then," said the Scot, "let us sail down the Bann, for one of my kinsmen has a castle, called Dunluce, not far from the mouth of the river on the sea-shore; and were we there, I could easily protect thee whither thou wouldst."

"Alas," she replied, "we must not venture on the Bann, for I have heard my father say that the fierce rebel, Hugh MacMurrogh, is in arms on both banks next the lake, and that between him and the sea are the O'Kanes and MacQuillens, both cruel tribes, and hostile to the English."

"Ha!" cried the Scot," if the MacQuillens stand in our way, I have little chance of passage; it is almost the only tidings I have heard of my kinsmen here of late, that they and the MacQuillens are at mortal feud."

"Their castle of Innislochlin stands in the very middle of the river," said she.

"Then," replied he, "we must not attempt the Bann. Yet be not cast down. Could we reach Armagh, we were safe; the Archbishop is my mother's cousin, and, though a heretic, would shelter us for her sake. Knowest thou where Armagh lies, lady?"

"Far to the south," she replied, "and many miles from the shore of the lake; but, my friend, why not return to the coast from which we

have been forced away, and endeavour to find a passage to Carrickfergus through the woods?"

"Would that we could!" said he; "but, alas! under such a sky, and in such a vessel, we dare not face this wind from the east. I would to God I knew somewhat more of this country; but I have been in France since my boyhood, and now when returning, after many years, to seek my kinsmen and friends, I have scarce put foot on shore, when these banditti, from whom we are but now escaped, seize and convey me hither, as thou, lady, hast partly seen; for I was a whole day in their fetters before they laid their accursed hands on thee."

By this time the wind had increased so much, that he had again to commit the tiller to the keeping of his fair pilot, while he confined the struggling canvass to still smaller bounds; for the limber curragh yielded to the force with which she was driven through the water, till it seemed as if her sides would have been crushed together. A premature twilight was coming up on the wind; for while the sun was still red above the Tyrone hills, the east was dark, as if he had been an hour under the Atlantic. The swell of the loch grew gradually heavier, and although the curragh lay right before the blast, her prow was frequently covered with a burst of spray, that rebounded from her tense sail, as from a wall, and swept past in feathery drift at either side, sparkling with bright colours in the level sunbeams, and contrasting fearfully with the brown tumbling waters below. The Scot looked at his companion; she glanced with a despairing eye, from the rising storm behind, to the heaving waste of muddied waves before them, and shuddered as she saw the red rim of the sun already dipping behind the hazy line of hills they were approaching.

"Be of good cheer, lady," he said, "I have sailed rougher seas than this at midnight; and we shall be at the foot of yonder hills in another hour, if the good boat hold on as now. But wrap thyself up, and let me spread a couch for thee here, out of reach of the wind and the cold spray."

He rearranged the cloaks in the bottom of the boat, rolling one up for a pillow; and the terrified girl, glad

to hide her eyes from the sight of their dangers, lay down with grateful confidence at his feet. In another half hour it was dark as midnight, and blowing a full gale. The curragh bent and quivered under the patch of canvass that was still spread to steady her in her course; and the spray from the seas a-head flew over her in a ceaseless shower. The Scot sat, firmly grasping the tiller in one hand, while with the other he was ever intent on some kind office to his companion-doubling the loose skirts of her coverings over her, arranging her coarse pillow, or, when the boat's mad plunges threatened to pitch both forward to the mast, taking her unresisting hand and steadying her on her sloped and perilous bed. Another long period of suffering was past, and the black outline of the Tyrone hills was fast rising on the leaden-coloured sky. The Scot leant forward, straining his eyes through the spray and gloom, and eagerly bending his ears to listen, for he thought he had already twice distinguished the dash of breakers over the rushing tumult that surrounded him. He caught it again; the sound was close under the lee. He ventured for the first time to put down his helm. The curragh came round, with the wind upon her beam, and swooping down the trough of the sea, held southward along shore. The Scot now hung over the gunwale, watching with intense anxiety for some opening in the surf's line of dull light, already plainly distinguishable, and almost within arrow range upon his lee, for his eye had caught a break in the long chain of hills, and he judged rightly that some river fell into the lake through the valley thus marked. Every wave now swept him nearer and nearer the broken water, where to attempt a landing seemed certain death; for the roar of the breakers was like the voice of the open sea upon its rocks, and the frail basket-work of the curragh would have been crushed flat, the moment she took the ground. length, when hope was almost gone, the breakers receded; and the long swell, on which he had been swinging forward to destruction, grew short and turbulent. It was the mouth of the river. The Scot let his boat's head fall away from its unequal contest, and the curragh swept in

At

between two lines of raging surf, and through the tumult of a torrent contending with the roll of an inland sea. Every instant he expected to be impaled on the jag of a rock, or beaten flat upon a sand-bank; but the river was deep in flood, and they swept on. Half full of water, quivering and straining, the boat breast ed the stream, impelled by the force of a storm that scattered boughs of the stripped forest over the very waves she mounted. Wooded hills rose high on either hand, their waving outline of tossed tree-tops breaking the dim sky as far as the eye could reach; but the black mass suddenly seemed to open, for the curragh had come abreast of a tributary stream, and in the next instant was gliding into smooth water under the shelter of its bank. The Scot drew his breath freely again, as he felt the bottom of his boat grate gently on the gravelly slope between him and the shore, now within a leap of where he stood.

"Lady, dear lady!" he exclaimed, taking the cold hands of his companion in his, "we are safe once more-arise now, that I may bear thee to the land."

A low moan was all the reply. "Thy sufferings are now over, my poor friend," said he, stooping and raising her half lifeless form in his arms; " I see a light on shore, and thou shalt soon be dry and warm again." He placed her on the seat he had himself occupied, then stepped into the shallow water alongside, and, lifting her like a child in his arms, bore her, step by step, fathoming as he went, to land. He laid her, murmuring inarticulate thanks, among the long grass and rushes of the holm; then wrung the water from his dripping cap and hair, and climbed the bank to look around for the fire, the reflection of which on the sky he had already distinguished from the river. On an open space, immediately below, he now saw it dull and scattered, and shewing itself in several distinct piles. It was the ruin of a burned house, through the windows of which the embers of the thatch were casting their dull glow to the unstayed blast of the storm. Charred rafters still hung from the standing walls,

their ends lost in a heap of smoking rubbish, half extinguished by its own weight, and by the heavy fall of scattered masses of masonry. The sight, dreadful under any other circumstances-for the scene around was stern and desolate, and the violence of the times made it more than probable that still worse horrors lay hidden under the heaped ashes-was grateful to the chilled and almost exhausted Scot. He raked a pile of red charcoal together under the shelter of the outer wall, and cast the pieces of a broken rafter on the embers, then cleared a spot beside his lonely bonfire, and for a minute stood expanding his numbed hands over the cheerful glow. His heart smote him with a painful pang of self-reproach, for he had for that minute forgotten the poor sufferer on the grass beside the river. He started from his momentary indulgence, and, by the light of the blazing fagots, threaded his way back with a fluttering heart; for when once conscious of having admitted one moment's neglect of his companion, he found his fancy teeming with a thousand images of disaster; and it was not till he had raised her in his arms, and seen her eyes reopen in the light which he was again approaching, that he began to feel assured of her safety and of his own exculpation. Her eyes opened with glances of gratitude, and her lips murmured its more articulate expression. The Scot thrilled with a delight long unknown to his bosom, as he placed his burden, pale and drooping as she was, in the warmth of the fire he had prepared for her. He knelt beside her; he chafed her hands in his; he piled log upon log till the flame blazed to the height of a man's head before them; then hung up a dripping cloak to dry, and when the strong frieze glowed, would wrap it round her feet, or dry her long hair in the folds of his own plaid. By degrees she raised her relaxed frame and sat up, the colour coming and going on her cheek in alternations of pleasure and intense shame; for the first use of her returning faculties was to reflect that a strange man had borne her in his arms, had pressed her to his breast, had fondled her hands, and was

now kneeling by her side, and gazing into her eyes with the passionate ardour of a lover. The Scot perceived her confusion; he sank his abashed eye, and half withdrew his hand from the support of her side.

"Dear friend," he said, "be not pained, I pray thee: hadst thou been the Queen of Scots, I could not have less profaned thy dignity."

Forgive me again, noble sir," she said, offering her hand, "thou art my preserver and protector. I would not pain thee by any shew of unworthy distrust-I have entire confidence in thine honour-but I no longer need thy support, my kind friend weary thyself no more in the service of one already thy debtor beyond aught she can express."

When the Scot perceived her so far recovered that she sat without support, and began to enjoy the comfortable warmth of the fire, he left her side, and again made his way to the boat, whence he returned in a few minutes, bearing a basket well stored with provisions, the preparations of the Irish for their intended banquet on Ram's Island. He also brought with him the cloak and cap of their leader, with which, at the earnest instance of his companion, he replaced his own.

"Ha, ha!" he now exclaimed, as he drew out napkin after napkin enveloping their unexpected good cheer," these knaves had promised themselves a dainty supper; white bread, venison, and, if I mistake not, wild-duck-and here, by my faith, and as I am a true Catholic, wine of Bourdeaux! Drink, lady; this will soon revive thee." He filled a wooden cup hooped with silver, and presented it to the young Englishwoman; then charged a more capa. cious horn for himself, and drained it to her health and fortunes at a stoop" Bon Dieu!" he cried, "these rogues have choice taste in their liquor-and now, lady, let us do reason to their cookery." He spread a napkin between them, and placed the choicest of the viands before her, piled up the fire anew, then stretched himself upon the glistening sward in jovial mood to his repast.

and

His companion, refreshed, and assured of her safety, now threw

back the hood of her mantle, and partially bared her neck to the genial warmth, while her colour returned, and her eyes sparkled with eager interest as she looked on the romantic scene around. They sat upon a sheltered spot between the black wall and the great fire; dark trees waving overhead, and trunk behind trunk glancing in the light, as far back as the eye could penetrate the forest. The wind sweeping past the ruined gable, fell full on the crackling brands, while it left them securely sheltered where they reclined, basking on the short sward, and casting involuntary looks of delight on one another.

"Dear friend," said the Scot, gazing with unconcealed admiration at the bright vision before him, "tell me by what evil chance thou hadst fallen into the hands of yonder banditti—an evil chance for thee, tender and unused to hardship as thou art, but a rare favour of fortune to me; for now, methinks, I would hardly exchange this grassy couch, with its canopy of driving clouds, and leafy walls of forest, for the richest banqueting-hall of Saint Germains."

She blushed at his ardent declaration; but when, in answer to his question, she began to consider her forlorn condition, tears came again to her eyes, and she sighed deeply as she replied, "My name is Clara Warden; I am the daughter of an English knight serving here in the Queen's army. My unhappy story is soon told: I was in the house of a kinsman in Claneboy, when they from whom thou hast delivered me, came craving certain Irish exactions of Coyne and Cookery: they got what they demanded, and went on their way, but the lawless eye of their leader had fallen on me. They surrounded my kinsman's house this morning ere daybreak, and I was violently forced away."

"And thy father, lady?"

"Thanks to Heaven, my father was with the army now gone against the arch-rebel O'Neill."

"What!" said the Scot, "is O'Neill again in rebellion ?"

"He hath been so ever since I first heard his name," she replied, "and now of late has grown to such head and authority among the native tribes

of the north, that all the forces of the Queen are hitherto unable to control him."

"What!" again exclaimed the Scot," has the lame Earl such a spirit still?"

"Alas," said she, " thou hast not heard of our late troubles. Earl Con has perished miserably in the dungeons of his unnatural son Shane a Diomas, which means in our language, John the Proud, a cruel tyrant, who has imprisoned his father, slain his brother, and levied open war against his sovereign. He is the oppressor and scourge alike of English and Irish in the north."

"Where is his country, lady?" asked the Scot.

"If we have crossed the lake, we are even now in it," she replied, in a low voice; "all Tyrone is his, and if we have come hither before the east wind, we are now in Tyrone."

The Scot started, and looked around as if he expected an enemy to appear behind every tree; but the forest stood around them desolate and undisturbed by other footsteps than the trampling of the storm, which still raved down the leafy wilderness with undiminished fury."Where lies the traitor's camp, lady?" questioned he again, with drawing his assured glances from the skirts of the forest, and once more fixing them on the beautiful face of his companion.

"I know not its situation," she answered; "but it is named Foichnagall, and lies somewhere in the woods."

"Ha!" replied the other, "he is then that bold rebel whose fame had reached me even in Paris-he who called his camp The Stranger's Hatred, and hangs up his soldiers for eating English bread."

"Nay," replied Clara, "it is even said that an English gentleman of good birth was lately slain by one of his kern for maintaining that he was not less honourable than the tyrant's swine."

"And," rejoined the Scot, "I have heard from grave men at our court, that he is wont to quench the fever of his blood after overdeep draughts of aqua vitæ, by plunging himself to the chin in one of the peat bogs of this marshy and ill-conditioned country."

"He is in sooth a debauched and wicked tyrant," replied Clara. "It is but a year since he robbed a western chief, called O'Donnell, of his liberty and lordship, and now lives, it is reported, with the wife of his prisoner, and she too a near kinswoman of his own lady. Nay, his lawful wife herself is the daughter of one whom he slew in battle with his own hand."

"How is that," cried the Scot, "methinks the women of this rude country are as unnatural as the men!"

"She was a Scottish lady," said Clara. Her companion started and reddened as she spoke. "Her mother also gave her hand to one of the native Irish, a cousin of O'Neill, and a bitter enemy of her murdered husband."

"This is amazing and unexampled," said the Scot; " of what house were they, lady?"

Clara coloured and cast down her eyes in evident distress-"Alas, sir," she replied, "I had forgotten that thou art thyself of Scotland, else had I not distressed thee with the mention of thy unhappy countrymen's state."

"Tell me, I beseech thee," cried he, "I have been long from home, and know not but that they may be of my own blood, till thou tellest me."

"Art thou of the clan Campbell ?” said she in a low voice.

"No, no!" exclaimed he; "but tell me what has happened to the MacAllan. I have an aunt, the daughter of Argyle-I am myself of the clan Donnell-Randall of Mull."

She raised her eyes full of tears and fixed them mournfully and imploringly on his countenance-" Pity me," she said, "that I must be the bearer of such news to my benefactor; one daughter of Argyle is that lady of O'Donnell, her sister's husband, James of Kintyre, is dead."

The Scot dropped the horn from his hands-" My uncle dead!" he cried;" and my aunt-my aunt, and my cousin Catharine-what of them? Speak, speak, I beseech you!"

"Wo is me," said the poor girl; "they are the other unhappy ladies of whom, in an ill hour, I have already spoken," and she burst into tears at the sight of the pain she