nk that I shall be absent more than a few months."

"And where are you going, your honour, if I may make so bold as to
ask?"

"I am going to Ireland, Mike."

Mike looked at him with astonishment.

"To Ireland, your honour? Sure they will hang you, before you set
your foot a week in the country."

"I have obtained a safe conduct, Mike, from Lord Godolphin. You
remember him, the nobleman we kidnapped?"

"Sure I remember him, your honour; and he has given you a safe
conduct? It is in luck you are, to be going back to Ireland
again."

"It is not a visit of pleasure, Mike. I am going over to try to
ascertain to which branch of my family I belong."

"And what can it matter, your honour? It's a good name you have
made for yourself out here."

"I have done well enough, Mike, but I am tired of being asked, by
almost every officer I meet, about my family, when in fact I know
nothing myself."

"Well, Captain, it does not seem to me worth troubling about, for
if you don't know who they are, it is little they can have done
for you."

"It would seem so, Mike. There is a mystery about the whole
affair, and I want to get to the bottom of it."

He rode silently for some distance. He knew that Mike would go
through fire and water for him, and that, simple as he seemed, he
had no ordinary amount of shrewdness; and he determined to tell
him all he knew, especially as he intended to take him to Ireland
with him.

"Mike," he said at last, "I suppose you would like to pay a visit
to Ireland, also?"

"I should that," Mike said, emphatically. "I was but eighteen when
I came out here to enlist in the brigade--that is twelve years ago
now, and it is few people would be likely to know me again."

"Well, I am thinking of taking you with me, Mike; and, as possibly
you may be of use in my search, I will tell you my story."

And he related the history of his youth.

"He must be an unfeeling baste, to treat you like that," Mike
exclaimed indignantly. "Sure I know the name, and have heard him
spoken of as a traitor who had gone over to the enemy, and turned
Protestant to save his estate."

"That is how you would hear him spoken of, Mike, for it is true;
but as to his treatment of me, it all depends whether I was forced
upon him by threats, or was taken by him out of friendship to my
father. If it were the first of these reasons, he cannot be blamed
for keeping me at a distance. If the second, he certainly ought to
have behaved