“Well, since you have been on more than one occasion so generous to me, can you not let me know who that person is?”

“No, sir; that man has a hundred—­ay, ten hundred eyes through the counthry—­in the shape of spies—­and five times as many hands any time he may wish for them.  You may thank a friend of yours for sendin’ me to save your life this night.  Your family have been friends to him and to me too, although you don’t know it.  As for me, I go with him heart an’ hand in puttin’ down the tithes, but I’ll always save the life of a friend, if I can; and indeed I have been forced to shoot these two men, in ordher to save yours to-night.  I must go now and see what state they’re in—­whether alive or dead; but before.  I go, listen:—­tell the procthor that he has a fearful account to meet, and that soon; let neither him nor his sons be fool-hardy; say to him, that the wisest thing he can do is to remove himself and his family into the town of Lisnagola; or, if he won’t do that, to keep his house half-filled with fire-arms; for I tell you now, the time is not long till he’ll need them all.  Tell them not to go out at night at all, or even by day, unless well armed; and do you yourself take the same advice; and now good-night.  But, listen again:  there, you see, is the spot below there, where the car was to meet you; but there’s no car in it, and even if there was, I wouldn’t recommend you to go on it; and if you’re goin’ to O’Driscol’s don’t go up the avenue, but by the back way, behind the garden, for it’s very likely there’s another man—­and a fearful man, on the look-out for you, in case you should be missed by us.  Farewell, for the present.”

A few minutes brought this kind-hearted Whiteboy back to the spot where Hourigan and his companion, who was also his cousin, fell.  He was a good deal surprised, but still highly gratified, at not finding them where they had fallen, as it was a ’proof to him that his aim at either had not been fatal, as he certainly had no intention of taking their lives, or of rendering them any greater injury than the infliction of such wound as might put an end to their pursuit of M’Carthy.  On advancing a little farther, he saw them proceeding, by a different but shorter path towards the inland country; and being now satisfied, from their appearance, that they had not been mortally wounded, he left them to reach home as best they might, and proceeded himself in another direction.

CHAPTER XI.—­The Sport Still Continued.

It is necessary to say here, that Moylan had not the slightest intention of sending Mr. Purcel’s car to meet our friend M’Carthy, inasmuch as he never for a moment supposed that this devoted youth was likely to leave the mountains alive.  His own egregious vanity, engrafted on a cowardly, jealous, and malignant disposition, prompted him, ever since he had been induced by the pedlar, out of a mere banter, to suppose that he had engaged the affections of Julia