sank, and for about half a minute became invisible. The
spectators from the shore now gave them both over for lost; one of
them only emerged with the fatal middogue in his hand, but his opponent
appeared not, and for the best reason in the world: he was on his way
to the bottom of the lake. Shawn's exhaustion after such a struggle now
rendered his situation hopeless. He was on the point of going down when
he exclaimed:

"It is all in vain now; I am sinking, and me so near the only slip that
is in the lake. Finn and Oonah, save me; I am drowning."

The words were scarcely out of his lips when he felt the two faithful,
powerful, and noble animals, one at each side of him--seeing as they
did, his sinking state--seizing him by his dress, and dragging him
forward to the slip we have mentioned. With great difficulty he got
upon land, but, having done so, he sat down; and when his dogs, in
the gambols of their joy at his safety, caressed him, he wept like an
infant--this proscribed outlaw and tory. He was now safe, however, and
his pursuers returned in a spirit of sullen and bitter disappointment,
finding that it was useless to continue the hunt any longer.

CHAPTER XIX. Plans and Negotiations.

We have already said that Woodward was a man of personal courage, and
without fear of anything either living or dead, yet, notwithstanding
all this, he felt a terror of _Shawn-na-Middogue_ which he could not I
overcome. The escape--the extraordinary escape of that celebrated young
tory--depressed and vexed him to the heart. He was conscious, however,
of his own villany and of his conduct to Grace Davoren, whom Shawn had
loved, and, as Shakespeare says, "conscience makes cowards of us all."
One thing, however, afforded him some consolation, which was that his
disguise prevented him from from being known as the principal person
engaged in the attempt to hunt down the outlaw. He knew that after the
solemn promise he had given Miss Riddle, any knowledge on her part of
his participation in the pursuit of that generous but unfortunate young
man would have so completely sunk him in her opinion, as an individual
professing to be a man of honor, that she would have treated his
proposals with contempt, and rejected him with disdain. At all events,
his chief object now was to lose no time in prosecuting his suit with
her. For this purpose he urged his mother to pay Lord Cockletown another
visit, in order to make a formal proposal for t