sperately stained with crime, to seek peace from the English, and, as
their fellows did, find it at once and freely.

There Eustace stood, looking down on all that was left of the most
sacred personage of Ireland; the man who, as he once had hoped, was to
regenerate his native land, and bring the proud island of the West once
more beneath that gentle yoke, in which united Christendom labored for
the commonweal of the universal Church. There he was, and with him all
Eustace's dreams, in the very heart of that country which he had vowed,
and believed as he vowed, was ready to rise in arms as one man, even to
the baby at the breast (so he had said), in vengeance against the Saxon
heretic, and sweep the hated name of Englishman into the deepest abysses
of the surge which walled her coasts; with Spain and the Pope to back
him, and the wealth of the Jesuits at his command; in the midst
of faithful Catholics, valiant soldiers, noblemen who had pledged
themselves to die for the cause, serfs who worshipped him as a
demigod--starved to death in a bog! It was a pretty plain verdict on the
reasonableness of his expectations; but not to Eustace Leigh.

It was a failure, of course; but it was an accident; indeed, to have
been expected, in a wicked world whose prince and master, as all
knew, was the devil himself; indeed, proof of the righteousness of
the cause--for when had the true faith been other than persecuted and
trampled under foot? If one came to think of it with eyes purified from
the tears of carnal impatience, what was it but a glorious martyrdom?

"Blest Saunders!" murmured Eustace Leigh; "let me die the death of the
righteous, and let my last end he like this! Ora pro me, most excellent
martyr, while I dig thy grave upon this lonely moor, to wait there for
thy translation to one of those stately shrines, which, cemented by the
blood of such as thee, shall hereafter rise restored toward heaven, to
make this land once more 'The Isle of Saints.'"

The corpse was buried; a few prayers said hastily; and Eustace Leigh was
away again, not now to find Baltinglas; for it was more than his life
was worth. The girl had told him of the English soldiers who had passed,
and he knew that they would reach the earl probably before he did. The
game was up; all was lost. So he retraced his steps, as a desperate
resource, to the last place where he would be looked for, and after a
month of disguising, hiding, and other expedients, found h