ure and habiliments suited for travelling, they left by stealth
their father's palace, mounted on six white palfreys, and attended by
six maidens on asses, intending to find out the victorious and renowned
Champion of Scotland, or to end their lives in single blessedness in
some pious retirement in a foreign land.

No sooner did the news of his daughters' flight reach the King of
Georgia, than attiring himself in homely russet, like a pilgrim, with an
ebony staff in his hand, tipped with silver, he took his departure, all
alone, from his palace, resolved to recover his beloved children, or to
lay his bones to rest in some unknown spot, where, forgotten, he might
rest at peace.

When his councillors, ministers of state, and other great lords heard of
his sudden and secret departure, grief intolerable struck their hearts,
the palace gates were covered with sable cloth, all pleasures were at an
end, and ladies and courtly dames sat sighing in their chambers; where,
for the present, we will leave them to speak of other themes.

CHAPTER NINE.

THE ADVENTURES OF SAINT PATRICK OF IRELAND.

The noble, illustrious, and wonderful deeds of Saint Patrick, the
far-famed and renowned Champion of Old Ireland, that gem of the ocean,
are now to be recounted--not forgetting those of his faithful and
attached squire, Terence O'Grady; though of the latter many less partial
histories are somewhat unaccountably silent.

After they quitted the brazen pillar, they, too, traversed that sea so
famed in ancient story. But their ship being wrecked as they were
approaching the land, and sinking beneath their feet, they mounted on
the backs of two huge dolphins, which were swimming by at the time, and
which Saint Patrick caught with cunningly-devised hooks; and thus towing
their steeds, they reached in safety the sandy shores of Africa. There
landing, while they sat by the sea-side burnishing their arms, which
were slightly rusty from the salt air, the sweetest strains of music
struck upon their ears. The Squire listened, and rising from the rock
on which he sat, he wandered on to discover whence they proceeded.

What was his astonishment, as he looked into a cavern half filled with
water, to behold a dozen lovely nymphs, almost immersed in the crystal
sea, combing their golden locks, while from their throats came forth
those warbling sounds.

The Squire gazed enravished. "Och, but you are beautiful creatures!" he
exclaimed, forgett