s your honor's self!" a woman's voice answers
timidly. "I am Patsy McCann, Mr. Launce. Ye mind me?"

"To be sure, Patsy! But what on earth brings you here at this hour, and
in such a storm too? I hope you don't come so far from home to do your
courting, Patsy?"

"Troth, an coorting's not in my head, yer honor! I've other and blacker
thoughts to trouble me!"

"I'm sorry for that, Patsy."

He speaks kindly--it is his nature to speak kindly to a woman--but he
is impatient to get home.

"Whist!" the girl whispers, pressing closer to him, till he can see her
eyes raised eagerly to his. "Don't go for to cross the bog to-night,
Misther Launce. Shure the longest way round is the shortest way home!
Don't press a poor girl to speak plainer, but turn back, as you vally
your life, Misther Launce!"

"Tut, tut, my girl! I'm far too tired to walk round by Drum at this
hour."

"Walk till yer drop, Misther Blake, but don't cross the bog this night."

"Then you must tell why."

But the girl only wrings her hands and moans. She had not expected to
meet with opposition of this kind. She took it for granted that when he
heard it would not be safe to cross the bog he would go back. She did
not know the temper of the Blakes of Donaghmore.

"There, get home, Patsy," he says at last, out of patience; and he is
feeling tired after his long day's sport too. "It's time all honest
girls were at their own firesides."

"Sorra an inch will I stir till yez promise not to put yer foot on the
bog this night! Shure the boys are out, not by twos nor threes, but by
scores; yez would be shot down before yez could get half-way over!"

"Ah!" he says, and draws a deep breath. It is not a pleasant prospect,
but the hot blood of a fighting race is running fiercely in his veins.

At this moment the sound of men marching in step comes through the
stillness. Yielding to an impulse for which he could find no reason,
Launce draws back a step--the girl has disappeared as if the earth had
opened and swallowed her--and in another second a small party of men,
walking two abreast, is close beside him--county police unmistakably;
and a tall, upright man is a little in advance of the rest. He is
speaking in a low voice as they come up, but Launce hears every word.

"Good idea to think of following young Blake. They are sure to assault
him; they have been waiting for a chance like this for weeks past. Then
we must just close in and catch as many of the rascal