o act solely upon
anonymous information. I have been led too many devil's dances by it in
my time, to be gulled in my old age on the strength of it."

He immediately prepared himself for the excursion, mounted his horse,
that was caparisoned in a military saddle, the holsters furnished with a
case of pistols, which, with a double case that he had on his person and
two daggers, constituted his weapons of offence and defence.

Their path lay directly to the south for about two miles. Having
traversed this distance they reached cross-roads, one of which branched
towards the left and was soon lost in a rough brown upland, into
which it branched by several little pathways that terminated in little
villages or solitary farmer's houses. For about two miles more they were
obliged to cross a dark reach of waste moor, where the soil was strong
and well capable of cultivation. Having avoided the villages and more
public thoroughfares, they pushed upward until they came into the black
heath itself, where it was impossible that horses could travel in such
darkness as then prevailed; for it was past ten o'clock, near the close
of December. Clinton consequently left his horse in the care of two
soldiers on a bit of green meadow by the side of Ahadarra Lough--a small
tarn or mountain lake about two hundred yards in diameter. They then
pushed up a long round swelling hill, on the other side of which was
a considerable stretch of cultivated land with Bryan M'Mahon's new and
improved houses at the head of it. This they kept to their right until
they came in sight of the wild but beautiful and picturesque Glen of
Althadhawan, which however was somewhat beyond the distance they had to
go. At length, after breasting another hill which was lost in the base
of Cullimore, they dropped down rapidly into a deep glen through which
ran a little streamlet that took its rise not a quarter of a mile above
them, and which supplied the apparatus for distillation with soft clear
water. This they followed until near the head of the glen, where, in a
position which might almost escape even a gauger's eye, they found the
object of their search.

Tumbled around them in all directions were a quantity of gigantic
rocks thrown as it were at random during some Titanic war-fare or
diversion--between two of which the still-house was built in such a way,
that, were it not for the smoke in daylight, it would be impossible
to discover it, or at all events, to suppo