erick, sir," said the man.

"Drive on, b------t you," cried a deep voice from the other side of the
vehicle; and the fellow's whip descended with a heavy slash, and the
beast struck out into a gallop, and speedily was out of sight.

"Did n't you see who it was?" muttered the speaker to the man beside
him.

"No."

"It was Cashel himself,--I knew him at once; and I tell you, Jones, he
would have known _me_, too, for all this disguise, when a gleam of day
came to shine."

As for Cashel, he stood gazing after the departing vehicle, with a
strange chaos of thought working within.

"Am I then infamous?" said he at last, "that these men will not travel
in my company? Is it to this the mere accusation of crime has brought
me!" And, slight as the incident was, it told upon him as some acrid
substance would irritate and corrode an open wound,--festering the
tender surface.

"Better thus dreaded than the 'dupe' I have been!" said he, boldly,
and entered the inn, where now the preparations for the coming day had
begun. He ordered his breakfast, and post-horses for Killaloe, resolved
to see Tubbermore once again, ere he left it forever.

It was a bright morning in the early spring as Cashel drove through the
wide-spreading park of Tubbermore. Dewdrops spangled the grass, amid
which crocus and daffodil flowers were scattered. The trees were topped
with fresh buds; the birds were chirping and twittering on the branches;
the noiseless river, too, flowed past, its circling eddies looking like
blossoms on the stream. All was joyous and redolent of promise, save
him whose humbled spirit beheld in everything around him the signs of
self-reproach.

"These," thought he, "were the rich gifts of fortune that I have
squandered. This was the paradise I have laid waste! Here, where I might
have lived happy, honored, and respected, I see myself wretched and
shunned! The defeats we meet with in hardy and hazardous enterprise are
softened down by having dared danger fearlessly,--by having combated
manfully with the enemy. But what solace is there for him whose reverses
spring from childlike weakness and imbecility,--whose life becomes the
plaything of parasites and flatterers! Could I ever have thought I
would become this? What should I have once said of him who would have
prophesied me such as I now am?"

These gloomy reveries grew deeper and darker as he wandered from place
to place, and marked the stealthy glances and timid reverence