s way to
discover that the old comrade was forsaken for the new, and that the
humble star of the sailor boy had been snuffed out by the gay sun of the
gentleman soldier?

Then as my eye travelled further north and caught the bluff headlands
towards the lough mouth, other doubts seized me. My mother's message
had burned holes in my pocket ever since I set foot again on Irish soil.
And that sacred duty done, what fate awaited me among the secret rebels
from whose clutches, when last I saw the Swilly, I was fleeing for my
life, but who now, if I was to believe what I had heard, counted Tim, my
own brother, in their ranks?

Late as it was, I was too impatient to postpone my fate by a night's
rest at the inn, and hired a boat for a sail down the lough.

Few men were about, and those who were could never have recognised in
the tall, bronzed, bearded boatswain the poor, uncouth lad who four
years ago rowed his honour's boat. One or two that I saw I fancied I
knew, one particularly, who had changed little since he held his gun to
my head that night on the hills when I half took the oath of the
society.

It was market day, and many boats were on the water, so that little
notice was taken of me as I hoisted my sail and ran down on the familiar
tack for the point below Knockowen.

The light soon fell, and I watched eagerly for the window lights. Once
or twice on the road north I had heard of the travellers in the private
carriage, and knew they had reached home a day or two ago; and to this
news one gossip that I encountered on the road to Rathmullan added that
Mistress Gorman, my little lady's mother, had died two years ago, and
that the maid was now her father's only companion and housekeeper.

Presently the well-known twinkle of light shot out, and towards it, with
a heart that throbbed more restlessly than my boat, I turned my keel.

When I came up level with the house it was all I could do to refrain
from running my boat alongside the landing-place as of yore. I lowered
my sail and let her drift as close under the bank as possible. No one
was stirring. There were lights in the upper room, and one above the
hall-door. Towards the former I strained my eyes longingly for a
glimpse even of her shadow. How long I waited I knew not--it might have
been a minute or an hour--but presently she came, her figure, more
womanly than when I last saw it, dark against the light within, and her
hair falling in waves upon her sh