She had said enough, however, to produce in his bosom torments almost equal to those of the damned.  In several of their preceding dialogues, she had impressed him with a belief that young Lamh Laudher was the person who had robbed his wife; and now to the hatred that originated in a spirit of avarice, she added the deep and deadly one of jealousy.  On the other hand, the Dead Boxer had, in fact, begun to feel the influence of Ellen Neil’s beauty; and perhaps nothing would have given him greater satisfaction than the removal of a woman whom he no longer loved, except for those virtues which enabled him to accumulate money.  And now, too, had he an equal interest in the removal of his double rival, whom, besides, he considered the spoliator of his hoarded property.  The loss of this money certainly stung him to the soul, and caused his unfortunate wife to suffer a tenfold degree of persecution and misery.  When to this we add his sudden passion for Ellen Neil, we may easily conceive what she must have endured.  Nell, at all events, felt satisfied that she had shaped the strong passions of her savage dupe in the way best calculated to gratify that undying spirit of vengeance which she had so long nurtured against the family of Lamh Laudher.  The Dead Boxer, too, was determined to prosecute his amour with Ellen Neil, not more to gratify his lawless affection for her than his twofold hatred of Lamh Laudher.

At length nine o’clock arrived, and the scene must change to the northern part of Sheemus Neil’s orchard.  The Dead Boxer threw a cloak around him, and issuing through the back door of the inn, entered the garden, which was separated from the orchard only by a low clipped hedge of young whitethorn, in the middle of which stood of a small gate.  In a moment he was in the orchard, and from behind its low wall he perceived a female proceeding to the north side muffled like himself in a cloak, which he immediately recognized to be that of his wife.  His teeth became locked together with the most deadly resentment; his features twitched with the convulsive spasms of rage, and his nostrils were distended as if his victims stood already within his grasp.  He instantly threw himself over the wall, and nothing but the crashing weight of his tread could have saved the lives of the two unsuspecting persons before him.  Startled, however, by the noise of his footsteps, Lamh Laudher turned round to observe who it was that followed them, and immediately the massy and colossal black now stripped of his cloak—­for he had thrown it aside—­stood in their presence.  The female instinctively drew the cloak round her face, and Lamh Laudher was about to ask why he followed them, when the Boxer approached him in an attitude of assault.

With a calmness almost unparalleled under the circumstances, Lamh Laudher desired the female by no means to cling to him.

“If you do,” said he, “I am murdered where I stand.”

“No,” she shrieked, “you shall not.  Stand back, man, stand back, if you murder him I will take care you shall suffer for it.  Stand back.  Lamh Laudher never injured you.”