y hand within his, and letting it fall heavily, he whispered a word to
M'Keown, and turned away.

"No, no!" cried Darby, violently. "By the holy Mass! ye 'll not trate
me that way. Sit down, Master Tom," said he, as he forced me into an
old armchair beside the fire. "Here, take a drink of water. Come here,
doctor; come here, now; stop the bleeding. Stand by me this wonst, and
by this--"

Here he crossed his fingers before him, and looked fervently upwards.
But at this instant the sick man sprang up in his bed, and looked wildly
about him.

"Isn't that Darby? isn't that M'Keown there?" cried he, as he pointed
with his finger. "Darby," he continued, in a low, clear whisper, "Darby,
see here, my boy. You often said I 'd do nothing for the cause. Is this
nothing?" He threw back the bedclothes, as he spoke, and disclosed a
ghastly wound that divided his chest, exposing the cartilage of the
ribs, which stood out amid the welling blood that oozed forth with every
respiration he made. "Is it nothing that I gave up rank, and place, and
fortune; the broad acres that were in my family for three centuries; all
my hopes, all my prospects--"

"And if you did," interrupted M'Keown, hastily, "you knew what for."

"I knew what for!" repeated the sick man, as a deadly smile played upon
his livid face and curled his white lip. "I know it now, at least. To
leave my inheritance to a bastard; to brand my name with disgrace and
dishonor; to go down to the grave a traitor; and, worse still--"

He shuddered violently here, and though his mouth moved, no sound came
forth; he sank back, worn out and exhausted.

"Was he there," said Darby to the doctor, with a significant emphasis on
the word,--"was he there to-night?"

"He was," replied the other. "He thinks, too, he fired the shot that did
it; but, poor fellow! he was down before that. The boys brought him off.
That child is going fast," continued he, as his eye fell upon me.

"Look to him, then, and don't be losin' time," said Darby, fiercely.
"Look to him," he added more mildly, and "the Heavens will bless
ye! Here 's twenty goolden guineas,--it's all I've saved these eight
years,--here they 're for you, and save his life."

The old man knelt down beside me, and slipping a scissors within the
scarf that lay fastened to my side with clotted blood, he proceeded to
open and expose the situation of my wound. A cold, sick feeling, a kind
of half-fainting sensation, followed this, and I c