e had come
forward, and inquiries were made of Mr. Jones which distressed him
much. For though he was ready to sacrifice his meadows, and his
tenant, and his rent, he was most unwilling to do it if he should be
called upon at the same time to sacrifice his boy's character for
loyalty.

There had been a man stationed at Castlerea for some months past, who
in celebrity had almost beaten the notorious Pat Carroll. This was
one Captain Yorke Clayton, who for nearly twelve months had been in
the County Mayo. It was supposed that he had first shown himself
there as a constabulary officer, and had then very suddenly been
appointed resident magistrate. Why he was Captain nobody knew. It
was the fact, indeed, that he had been employed as adjutant in a
volunteer regiment in England, having gone over there from the police
force in the north of Ireland. His title had gone with him by no
fault or no virtue of his own, and he had blossomed forth to the
world of Connaught as Captain Clayton before he knew why he was about
to become famous. Famous, however, he did become.

He had two attributes which, if Fortune helps, may serve to make any
man famous. They were recklessness of life and devotion to an idea.
If Fortune do not help, recklessness of life amidst such dangers
as those which surrounded Captain Clayton will soon bring a man to
his end, so that there will be no question of fame. But we see men
occasionally who seem to find it impossible to encounter death. It
is not at all probable that this man wished to die. Life seemed to
him to be pleasant enough: he was no forlorn lover; he had fairly
good health and strength; people said of him that he had small but
comfortable private means; he was remarkable among all men for his
good looks; and he lacked nothing necessary to make life happy.
But he appeared to be always in a hurry to leave it. A hundred men
in Mayo had sworn that he should die. This was told to him very
freely; but he had only laughed at it, and was generally called "the
woodcock," as he rode about among his daily employments. The ordinary
life of a woodcock calls upon him to be shot at; but yet a woodcock
is not an easy bird to hit.

Then there was his devotion to an idea! I will not call it loyalty,
lest I should seem to praise the man too vehemently for that which
probably was simply an instinct in his own heart. He lived upon his
hatred of a Landleaguer. It was probably some conviction on his own
part that th