to raise much clamour about the straw,
and loaded it back as best I could, wondering if all his Majesty's
servants were as wide-awake as the smuggler-catchers of Donegal.

This was my only adventure till about seven o'clock when I sighted the
lights of Knockowen, and knew this tedious journey was at an end.

His honour, I was told, was not at home. He had crossed to Fanad to be
present at the wake of my poor mother, who, I heard, had died long
before my father and Mr Gorman could reach her yesterday. She was to
be buried, they told me, on the next day at Kilgorman; and I could guess
why there was all this haste. My father was needed to steer the
_Cigale_ out of the lough, and his honour would be keen enough to get
the funeral over for that reason.

With a very heavy heart I left the weary horse in the stable and betook
myself to his honour's harbour. Only one boat lay there, a little one
with a clumsy lug-sail, ill-enough fitted for a treacherous lough like
the Swilly. I knew her of old, however, and was soon bounding over the
waves, with the dim outline of Fanad standing out ahead in the
moonlight.

My heart sank to my boots as I drew nearer and discerned an unusual glow
of light from the cabin window, and heard, carried across the water on
the breeze, the sounds of singing and the wail of a fiddle. I dreaded
to think of the dear body that lay there heedless of all the noise,
whose eyes I should never see and whose voice I should never hear more.
I could not help calling to mind again the strange words she had last
spoken--of her longing to see his honour, of her wandering talk about a
dead lassie and the hearthstone, and of some danger that threatened my
father. It was all a mystery to me. Yet it was a mystery which, boy as
I was, I resolved some day to explain.

The landing-place was full of boats, by which I knew that all the lough-
side and many from the opposite shore had come to the wake. His
honour's boat was there among them. So was one belonging to the
_Cigale_.

I felt tempted, instead of entering the cabin, to wander up on to the
headland and lie there, looking out to the open sea, and so forget my
troubles. But the thought of Tim and my father hindered me, and I
clambered up to the cabin.

The door stood open, because, as I thought, so many folk were about it
that it would not shut. As I made my way among them I was barely
heeded--indeed there were many who did not even know me. I push