making a
pivot of the two fingers which protruded through the hole, thought that
he had never seen a chin quite like it. Or perhaps, on second thoughts,
was it that dimple at the side of the mouth, in which an arch mockery
seemed to be lurking, which struck him more? He resolved to think this
out. It seemed now more important than the little matter of the hole in
the hat.

"You had better go away," said the young girl suddenly.

"And why?" asked the young man.

"Because my father does not like strangers!" she said.

Again the explanation appeared inadequate, but again the youth was
satisfied, finding reason enough for the dislike, mayhap, either in the
dimple on the prominent chin, or in the hole by which he twirled his
hat.

"Do you come from England?" he asked, referring to her accent.

The girl rose from her seat as she answered--

"Oh, no, I come from the 'Back o' Beyont'! What is your name?"

"My name," said the young man stolidly, "is Hugh Kennedy; and I am
coming soon to the 'Back o' Beyont,' father or no father!"

* * * * *

It was a dark night in August, brightening with the uncertain light of a
waning moon, which had just risen. High up on a mountain-side a man was
hastening along, running with all his might whenever he reached a dozen
yards of fairly level ground, desperately clinging at other times with
fingers and knees and feet to the niches in the bare slates which formed
the slippery roofing of the mountain-side. As he paused for a long
moment, the moon turned a scarred and weird face towards him, one-half
of it apparently eaten away. Panting, he resumed his course, and the
pebbles that he started rattled noisily down the mountain-side. But as
he drew near the top of the ridge up which he had been climbing, he
became more cautious. He raced no more wildly, and took care that he
loosened no more boulders to go trundling and thundering down into the
valley. Here he crawled carefully among the bare granite slabs which lay
in hideous confusion--the weather-blanched bones of the mountain, each
casting an ebony shadow on its neighbour. He looked over the ridge into
the gulf through which the streams sped westward towards the Atlantic. A
deep glen lay beneath him--over it on the other side a wilderness of
rugged screes and sheer precipices. Opposite, to the east, rose the
solemn array of the Range of Kells, deep indigo-blue under the gibbous
moon. There were the ridge