ox who came lurking
about her poultry-yard. Nor was there a gentleman who owned a
pheasant who did not feel himself animated in some degree by the same
feeling. "As there's to be an end of fox-hunting in County Galway,
we can do what we like with our own coverts." "I shall go in for
shooting," Sir Nicholas Bodkin had been heard to say.

But Black Tom Daly sat alone gloomily in his room at Ahaseragh, where
it suited him still to be present and look after the hounds, and told
himself that the occupation of his life was gone. Who would want to
buy a horse even, now that the chief object for horses was at an end?

CHAPTER XIII.

EDITH'S ELOQUENCE.

Thus they lived through the months of January and February, 1881, at
Morony Castle, and Florian had not as yet told his secret. As a boy
his nature had seemed to be entirely altered during the last six
months. He was thoughtful, morose, and obstinate to a degree, which
his father was unable to fathom. But during these last two months
there had been no intercourse between them. It may almost be said
that no word had been addressed by either to the other. No further
kind of punishment had been inflicted. Indeed, the boy enjoyed a much
wider liberty than had been given to him before, or than was good for
him. For his father not only gave no orders to him, but seldom spoke
concerning him. It was, however, a terrible trouble to his mind, the
fact that his own son should be thus possessed of his own peculiar
secret, and should continue from month to month hiding it within
his own bosom. With Father Malachi Mr. Jones was on good terms, but
to him he could say nothing on the subject. The absurdity of the
conversion, or perversion, of the boy, in reference to his religion,
made Mr. Jones unwilling to speak of him to any Roman Catholic
priest. Father Malachi would no doubt have owned that the boy had
been altogether unable to see, by his own light, the difference
between the two religions. But he would have attributed the change
to the direct interposition of God. He would not have declared in so
many words that a miracle had been performed in the boy's favour, but
this would have been the meaning of the argument he would have used.
In fact, the gaining of a proselyte under any circumstances would
have been an advantage too great to jeopardise by any arguments in
the matter. The Protestant clergyman at Headford, in whose parish
Morony Castle was supposed to have been situated,