way
homeward.

It was the afternoon of a sharp, clear winter's day, when the bracing
air and the crisp atmosphere elevate the spirits, and make exercise the
most pleasurable of stimulants; and as Cashel went along, he began to
feel a return of that buoyancy of heart which had been so peculiarly
his own in former days. The future, to which his hope already lent its
bright colors, was rapidly erasing the past, and in the confidence of
his youth he was fashioning a hundred schemes of life to come.

The path along which he travelled lay between two bleak and barren
mountains, and followed the course of a little rivulet for several
miles. There was not a cabin to be seen; not a trace of vegetation
brightened the dreary picture; not a sheep, nor even a goat, wandered
over the wild expanse. It was a solitude the most perfect that could be
conceived. Roland often halted to look around him, and each time his eye
wandered to a lofty peak of rock on the very summit of the mountain, and
where something stood which he fancied might be a human figure. Although
gifted with strong power of vision, the great height prevented his
feeling any degree of certainty; so that he abandoned the effort, and
proceeded on his way for miles without again thinking on the subject.
At last, as he was nearing the exit of the glen, he looked up once more;
the cliff was now perceptible in its entire extent, and the figure was
gone! He gave no further thought to the circumstance, but seeing that
the day was declining fast, increased his speed, in order to reach the
high-road before night closed in. Scarcely had he proceeded thus more
than half a mile, when he perceived, full in front of him, about a
couple of hundred yards distant, a man seated upon a stone beside the
pathway. Cashel had been too long a wanderer in the wild regions of the
"Far West," not to regard each new-comer as at least a possible enemy.
His prairie experience had taught him that men do not take their stand
in lonely and unfrequented spots without an object; and so, without
halting, which might have awakened suspicion in the other, he managed to
slacken his pace somewhat, and thus gave himself more time for thought.
He well knew that, in certain parts of Ireland, landlord murder had
become frequent; and although he could not charge himself with any act
which should point him out as a victim, his was not a mind to waste in
casuistry the moments that should be devoted more practically.