“Good-night, Helen—­good-night, darling!  I am not well; I had something to tell you about the discovery of—­but I will let you know it to-morrow at breakfast.  For your sake I shall let him escape:  there now, go to bed, my love.”

“Sir,” said Cummiskey, “I hope you’ll excuse me for disturbing you.”

“What? who? who’s there?  I thought it was my daughter.”

“No, sir, I wish it was; I’m come to tell you that Miss Folliard can’t be found:  we have searched every nook and corner of the house to no purpose:  wherever she is, she’s not undher this roof.  I came to tell you, and to bid you get up, that we may see what’s to be done.”

“What,” he exclaimed, starting up, “my child!—­my child—­my child gone!  God of heaven!  God of heaven, support me!—­my darling! my treasure! my delight!—­Oh, Cummiskey!—­but it can’t be—­to desert me!—­to leave me in misery and sorrow, brokenhearted, distracted!—­she that was the prop of my age, that loved me as never child loved a, father!  Begone, Cummiskey, it is not so, it can’t be, I say:  search again; she is somewhere in the house; you don’t know, sirra, how she loved me:  why, it was only this night that, on taking her good-night kiss, she—­ha—­what? what?—­she wept, she wept bitterly, and bade me farewell! and said—­Here, Cummiskey, assist me to dress.  Oh, I see it, Cummiskey, I see it! she is gone! she is gone! yes, she bade me farewell; but I was unsteady and unsettled after too much drink, and did not comprehend her meaning.”

It is impossible to describe the almost frantic distraction of that loving father, who, as he said, had no prop to lean upon but his Cooleen Bawn, for he himself often loved to call her by that appellation.

“Cummiskey,” he proceeded, “we will pursue them—­we must have my darling back:  yes, and I will forgive her, for what is she but a child, Cummiskey, not yet twenty.  But in the meantime I will shoot him dead—­dead—­dead—­if he had a thousand lives; and from this night out I shall pursue Popery, in all its shapes and disguises; I will imprison it, transport it, hang it—­hang it, Cummiskey, as round as a hoop.  Ring the bell, and let Lanigan unload, and then reload my pistols; he always does it; his father was my grandfather’s gamekeeper, and he understands fire-arms.  Here, though, help me on with my boots first, and then I will be dressed immediately.  After giving the pistols to Lanigan, desire the grooms and hostlers to saddle all the horses in the stables.  We must set out and pursue them.  It is possible we may overtake them yet.  I will not level a pistol against my child; but, by the great Boyne! if we meet them, come up with them, overtake them, his guilty spirit will stand before the throne of judgment this night.  Go now, give the pistols to Lanigan, and tell him to reload them steadily.”