After a tender good-night, given in a truly poetical manner under the breaking light of a May moon, he found it necessary to retrace his steps by a path which wound round the orchard, and terminated in the public entrance to the town.  Along this suburban street he had advanced but a short way, when he found himself overtaken and arrested by his bitter and determined foe, Meehaul Neil.  The connection betwixt the promise that Ellen had extorted from him and this rencounter with her brother flashed upon him forcibly:  he resolved, however, to be guided by her wishes, and with this purpose on his part, the following dialogue took place between the heads of the rival factions.  When we say, however, that Lamh Laudher was the head of his party, we beg to be understood as alluding only to his personal courage and prowess; for there were in it men of far greater wealth and of higher respectability, so far as mere wealth could confer the latter.

“Lamh Laudher,” said Meehaul, “whenever a Neil spakes to you, you may know it’s hot in friendship.”

“I know that, Meehaul Neil, without hearin’ it from you.  Spake, what have you to say?”

“There was a time,” observed the other, “when you and I were enemies only because our cleaveens were enemies but now there is, an’ you know it, a blacker hatred between us.”

“I would rather there was not, Meehaul; for my own part, I have no ill-will against either you or yours, all you know that; so when you talk of hatred, spake only for yourself.”

“Don’t be mane, man,” said Neil; “don’t make them that hates you despise you into the bargain.”

Lamh Laudher turned towards him fiercely, and his eye gleamed with passion; but he immediately recollected himself, and simply said—­

“What is your business with me this night, Meehaul Neil?”

“You’ll know that soon enough—­sooner, maybe, than you wish.  I now ask you to tell me, if you are an honest man, where you have been?”

“I am as honest, Meehaul, as any man that ever carried the name of Neil upon him, an’ yet I won’t tell you that, till you show me what right you have to ask me.”

“I b’lieve you forget that I’m Ellen Neil’s brother:  now, Lamh Laudher, as her brother, I choose to insist on your answering me.”

“Is it by her wish?”

“Suppose I say it is.”

“Ay! but I won’t suppose that, till you lay your right hand on your heart, and declare as an honest man, that—­tut, man—­this is nonsense.  Meehaul, go home—­I would rather there was friendship between us.”

“You were with Ellen, this night in the!  Grassy Quarry.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“I saw you both—­I watched you both; you left her beyond the Pedlar’s Cairn, an’ you’re now on your way home.”

“An’ the more mane you, Meehaul, to become a spy upon a girl that you know is as pure as the light from heaven.  You ought to blush for doubtin’ sich a sister, or thinkin’ it your duty to watch her as you do.”