es, that you have broken their bonds
asunder, and cast away their cords from you."

"I was beaten," said Neal, smiling. It did not just then seem to matter
in the least whether he got the better or the worse in any fight.

"You take it easily," said Donald. "That's right. You're blooded now,
my boy. You'll fight all the better in the future for tasting your own
blood to-night. I'm glad you are back with us. Your father has been
giving out the most terrific curses against Lord Dunseveric for having
brought the yeomen down on us and taken away his little cannons. I tell
him he ought to be thankful they went into the meeting-house instead of
coming here. They'd have made a fine haul if they'd walked in and taken
the papers he and I had before us when you came here. They'd have had
the name of every United Irishman in the district, and could have picked
them out and hanged them one by one just as they wanted them."

"They've got as much information, pretty near, as they want," said Neal.
"They are going to arrest three men to-night."

"God's curse on Eustace St. Clair, him whom men call the Lord of
Dunseveric," said Micah Ward.

"Spare your curse," said Neal. "It wasn't Lord Dunseveric who brought
the yeomen on us, and what's more, only for Lord Dunseveric you'd be
arrested yourself along with the others."

"What's that you are saying, Neal?"

"I'm saying that the yeomen brought orders from Belfast to arrest you,
and me, too, and that Lord Dunseveric refused to execute them."

"And so I owe my liberty to him! I must thank him for sparing me. I must
fawn on him as my benefactor, I suppose. But I will not. I refuse his
mercy. I scorn it. I cast it from me. I shall go out and offer myself to
the yeomen. They are to take my friends, my people, and spare me. I will
not be spared. Am I the hireling who fleeth when the wolf cometh? I go
to deliver myself into their hands."

"You'll be a bigger fool than I take you for if you do," said Donald.
"Listen to me now. From what Neal has told us it's evident that you're
wrong about Lord Dunseveric. It wasn't he who brought the yeomen on us.
There is someone else giving information, and it's someone who knows
a good deal. Come now, brother Micah, cudgel your brains; think, man,
think, who is it?"

Micah sat down at his writing-table and passed his hand over his
forehead.

"I cannot think," he said. "I cannot, I will not believe that any of our
people are traitors."

"These o