es!" It was their intention to
murder him on the spot where, a few weeks before, a distress for rent
had been executed against some of his tenants. He grasped the banisters
with a despairing clutch, while fixing his eyes upon his servant, who
had lived with him for some years past, he called out to him in his
agony to save him; but the fellow came deliberately forward and held the
flame of a candle beneath the dying man's fingers, until he relaxed his
hold and fell back among his murderers. Yes, yes, father, Henry Tarleton
saw it with his own eyes, for while his brother was stretched senseless
on the floor, he was struggling with the others at the head of the
staircase; and, strange enough too, they never hurt the boys, but when
they had wreaked their vengeance on the father, bound them back to back,
and left them.'

'Can you identify any of them?' said the priest, with intense emotion in
his voice and manner.

'Scarcely, I fear; their faces were blackened, and they wore shirts over
their coats. Henry thinks he could swear to two or three of the number;
but our best chance of discovery lies in the fact that several of them
were badly wounded, and one in particular, whom he saw cut down by
his father's sabre, was carried downstairs by his comrades, bathed in
blood.'

'He didn't recognise him?' said the priest eagerly.

'No; but here comes the poor boy, so I'll wish you good-morning.'

He put spurs to his horse as he spoke and dashed forward, followed by
the dragoons; while at the same moment, on the opposite side of the
road, a young man--pale, with his dress disordered, his arm in a
sling--rode by. He never turned a look aside; his filmy eye was fixed,
as it were, on some far-off object, and he seemed scarce to guide his
horse as he galloped onward over the rugged road.

The priest relaxed his pace to permit the crowd of horsemen to pass
on, while his countenance once more assumed its drooping and despondent
look, and he relapsed into his former silence.

'You see that high mountain to the left there?' said he after a long
pause. 'Well, our road lies around the foot of it; and, please God,
by to-morrow evening we 'll be some five-and-twenty miles on the other
side, in the heart of my own wild country, with the big mountains behind
you, and the great blue Atlantic rearing its frothing waves at your
feet.' He stopped for an instant, and then grasping my arm with his
strong hand, continued in a low, distinct voice: