ts, and say Miss
Amelia Kiljoy is going to be married.'

'O heavens!' sighed out that young lady.

The carriage drove swiftly on, and the poor little nobleman was left
alone on the heath, just as the morning began to break. He was fairly
frightened; and no wonder. He thought of running after the coach; but
his courage and his little legs failed him: so he sat down upon a stone
and cried for vexation.

It was in this way that Ulick Brady made what I call a Sabine marriage.
When he halted with his two groomsmen at the cottage where the ceremony
was to be performed, Mr. Runt, the chaplain, at first declined to
perform it. But a pistol was held at the head of that unfortunate
preceptor, and he was told, with dreadful oaths, that his miserable
brains would be blown out; when he consented to read the service. The
lovely Amelia had, very likely, a similar inducement held out to her,
but of that I know nothing; for I drove back to town with the coachman
as soon as we had set the bridal party down, and had the satisfaction
of finding Fritz, my German, arrived before me: he had come back in my
carriage in my dress, having left the masquerade undiscovered, and done
everything there according to my orders.

Poor Runt came back the next day in a piteous plight, keeping silence as
to his share in the occurrences of the evening, and with a dismal story
of having been drunk, of having been waylaid and bound, of having been
left on the road and picked up by a Wicklow cart, which was coming in
with provisions to Dublin, and found him helpless on the road. There was
no possible means of fixing any share of the conspiracy upon him. Little
Bullingdon, who, too, found his way home, was unable in any way to
identify me. But Lady Lyndon knew that I was concerned in the plot, for
I met her hurrying the next day to the Castle; all the town being up
about the enlevement. And I saluted her with a smile so diabolical,
that I knew she was aware that I had been concerned in the daring and
ingenious scheme.

Thus it was that I repaid Ulick Brady's kindness to me in early days;
and had the satisfaction of restoring the fallen fortunes of a deserving
branch of my family. He took his bride into Wicklow, where he lived
with her in the strictest seclusion until the affair was blown over; the
Kiljoys striving everywhere in vain to discover his retreat. They did
not for a while even know who was the lucky man who had carried off
the heiress; nor was it