“But that’s not the best of it, Dandy.  Sure, blood alive, I can tell you a sacret—­may dipind?  Honor bright!  The Bodagh’s daughter, man, is to give her a portion, in regard to her bein’ so thrue to Connor O’Donovan.  Bad luck to the oath she’d swear aginst him if they’d made a queen of her, but outdone the counsellors and lawyers, an’ all the whole bobbery o’ them, whin they wanted her to turn king’s evidence.  Now, it’s not but I’d do anything to serve the purty Bodagh’s daughter widout it; but you see, Dandy, if white-liver takes her off, I may stand a bad chance for the portion.”

“Say no more; I’ll go wid you; but how will you get in, Ned?”

“Never you mind that; here, take a pull out of this flask before you go any further.  Blood an’ flummery! what a night; divil a my finger I can see before me.  Here—­where’s your hand?—­that’s it; warm your heart, my boy.”

“You intind thin, Ned, to give Biddy the hard word about Flanagan?”

“Why, to bid her put them on their guard; sure there can be no harm in that.”

“They say, Ned, it’s not safe to trust a woman; what if you’d ax to see the Bodagh’s son, the young soggarth?”

“I’d trust my life to Biddy—­she that was so honest to the Donovans wouldn’t be desateful to her sweetheart that—­he—­hem—­she’s far gone in consate wid—­your sowl.  Her brother Alick’s to meet me at the Bodagh’s on his way from their lodge, for they hould a meetin to-night too.”

“Never say it again.  I’ll stick to you; so push an, for it’s late.  You’ll be apt to make up the match before you part, I suppose.”

“That won’t be hard to do any time, Dandy.”

Both then proceeded down the same field, which we have already said was called the Black Park, in consequence of its dark and mossy soil.  Having, with some difficulty, found the stile at the lower end of it, they passed into a short car track, which they were barely able to follow.

The night, considering that it was the month of November, was close and foggy—­such as frequently follows a calm day of incessant rain.  The bottoms were plashing, the drams all full, and the small rivulets and streams about the country were above their hanks, whilst the larger rivers swept along with the hoarse continuous murmurs of an unusual flood.  The sky was one sheet of blackness—­for not a cloud could be seen, or anything, except the passing gleam of a cottage taper, lessened by the haziness of the night into a mere point of faint light, and thrown by the same cause into a distance which appeared to the eye much more remote than that of reality.

After having threaded their way for nearly a mile, the water spouting almost at every step up to their knees, they at length came to an old bridle—­way, deeply shaded with hedges on each side.  They had not spoken much since the close of their last dialogue; for, the truth is, each had enough to do, independently of dialogue, to keep himself out of drains and quagmires.  An occasional “hanamondioul, I’m into the hinches;” “holy St. Peter, I’m stuck;” “tun—­dher an’ turf, where are you at all?” or, “by this an’ by that, I dunno where I am,” were the only words that passed between them, until they reached the little road we are speaking, of, which, in fact, was one unbroken rut, and on such a night almost impassable.