sarcastic bitterness that
made him look like a fiend--'unless your reverence is going to set the
police on our track.'

'God forgive you, Hugh, and turn your heart,' said the priest, as he
shook his outstretched hands at the old man. As the father spoke these
words he took me by the arm, and led me within the house. I could feel
his hand tremble as it leaned upon me, and the big tears rolled down his
cheeks in silence.

We sat down in the little cabin, but neither of us spoke. After some
time we heard the noise of the cartwheels and the sound of voices, which
grew fainter and fainter as they passed up the glen, and at length all
became still.

'And the poor wife,' said I, 'what, think you, has become of her?'

'Gone home to her people, most likely,' answered the priest. 'Her
misfortunes will make her a home in every cabin. None so poor, none so
wretched, as not to succour and shelter her. But let us hence.'

We walked forth from the hovel, and the priest closing the door after
him fastened it with a padlock that he had found within, and then,
placing the key upon the door-sill, he turned to depart; but suddenly
stopping, he took my hand in both of his, and said, in a voice of
touching earnestness--

'This has been a sad scene. Would to God you had not witnessed it! Would
to God, rather, that it might not have occurred! But promise me, on the
faith of a man of honour and the word of a gentleman, that what you
have seen this night you will reveal to no man, until I have passed away
myself, and stand before that judgment to which we all are coming.'

'I promise you faithfully,' said I. 'And now let us leave a spot
that has thrown a gloom upon my heart which a long life will never
obliterate.'

CHAPTER XXXV. THE JOURNEY

As we issued from the glen the country became more open; patches of
cultivation presented themselves, and an air of comfort and condition
superior to what we had hitherto seen was observable in the dwellings of
the country-people. The road lead through a broad valley bounded on one
side by a chain of lofty mountains, and on the other separated by
the Shannon from the swelling hills of Munster. Deeply engaged in our
thoughts, we travelled along for some miles without speaking. The scene
we had witnessed was of that kind that seemed to forbid our recurrence
to it, save in our own gloomy reflections. We had not gone far when the
noise of horsemen on the road behind us induced us to turn our h