equally fruitless; and when the night had closed around us, on a bleak, desolate road, I determined to call on the Roman Catholic priest, and state who we were; for while, if alone, we would infinitely prefer taking such rest as we could in the nearest brake, or under shelter of a wall, we could not think of submitting our delicate companion to the trials of a night in the open air, during an exceedingly inclement season.  With some hesitation and great alarm, he procured a lodging for us at a farmer’s house in the neighbourhood.  We saw him next morning, and his most earnest injunction was that we should leave the locality, which, according to him, was altogether unsafe.  To escape arrest there for twelve hours was, he said, impossible.  Similar advice was pressed on us afterwards in many a safer asylum; but we learned to mock at others’ fears, whereas, on this occasion, we yielded to an impression we felt to be sincere.

Before venturing nearer to Dungarvan, we determined to bespeak the services of another clergyman, who lived a distance of six or seven miles in the direction of Waterford.  A ridge of the Comeraghs lay between us and his lonely dwelling.  Along this ridge lay a winding bridle-road, skirted by patches of green sward, and occasionally crossed by a sparkling mountain rill.  Above us, on the hill-side, was a considerable bog, where crowds of country people were collecting to their daily toil.  A merry laugh or boisterous joke occasionally rang clear in the morning air.  The mirth went heavily to our hearts.  The snatch of song, the unrestrained laugh, the merry glee, broke upon the ear of the wayfarers like the mocking of demons.  The consciousness that they then sped, without a beacon or a guide, over the flinty path of flight, to end perhaps at the gibbet, imparted to the voice of mirth the sound of ingratitude.  However, the day was brilliant; above us the clear, blue, unfathomable sky; around us the bracing mountain air, laden with the breath of hare-bell and heather, and far below the calm sea, sleeping in the morning light; and weariness, hunger and apprehension yielded to the influence of the scene.  Many a time, ere passed the sunny noon, did we sit down to enjoy the glad prospect, unconscious, for a moment, of the fate that tracked our footsteps.  At length we descended the eastern slope of the hill; and after proceeding some distance, through cornfields and meadows, we reached the mansion of the clergyman, wayworn and half-famished.  He, whom we sought, had won a character for truth, manliness and courage, and we calculated upon his unrestrained sympathies, if not generous hospitality.  He was absent from his house, which is situate in a lonely gorge of the Comeraghs.