“This is my first night to be out,” replied the youth.

“Well, then,” rejoined our friend, “it’s in the expectation of meetin’ an enemy, especially some one that’s marked.”

“An’ what would they do if they did?”

“Do? said the other; “do for him!.  If they met sich a one, they’d take care his supper wouldn’t cost him much.”

“Blood alive!” exclaimed the young fellow.  “I’m afeard this is a bad business.”

“Faith, an’ if it is, it’s only beginnin’,” said the other, “but whether good or bad the counthry requires it, an’ the Millstone must be got rid of.”

“What’s the Millstone?”

“The Protestant church.  The man that won’t join us to put it down, must be looked upon and treated as an enemy to his country—­that is, if he is a Catholic.”

“I have no objection to that,” replied the youth, “but I don’t like to see lives taken or blood shed; murdher’s awful.”

“You must set it down, then,” replied the other, “that both will happen, ay, an’ that you must yourself shed blood and take life when it come your turn.  Howanever, that will soon come aisy to you; a little practice, and two or three opportunities of seeing the thing done, an’ you’ll begin to take delight in it.”

“And do you now?” asked the unsophisticated boy, with a quivering of the voice which proceeded from a shudder.

“Why, no,” replied the other, still in a whisper, for in this tone the dialogue was necessarily continued; “not yet, at any rate; but if it came my turn to take a life I should either do it, or lose my own some fine night.”

“Upon my conscience,” whispered the lad, “I can’t help thinkin’ that it’s a bad business, and won’t end well.”

“Ay, but the general opinion is, that if we get the Millstone from about our necks, a few lives taken on their side, and a few boys hanged on ours, won’t make much difference one way or other, and then everything will end well.  That’s the way of it.”

This muffled dialogue, if we may use the expression, was now interrupted by a change in their route.  At a Rath, which here capped an eminence of the road, a narrow bridle-way diverged to the right, and after a gradual ascent for about a mile and a half, was lost upon a rough upland, that might be almost termed a moor.  Here they halted for a few minutes, in deliberation as to whether they should then proceed across the moor, or wait until the moon should rise and enable them to see their way.

It was shortly resolved upon to advance, in order that they might lose as little time as possible, in consequence of having, as it appeared, two or three little affairs to execute in the course of the night.  They immediately struck across the rough ground which lay before them, and as they did so, the conversation began to be indulged in more freely, in consequence of their remoteness from any human dwelling or the chances of being overheard.  The whole body now fell into groups, each headed by a certain individual who acted as leader, but so varied were the topics of discourse, some using Irish, others the English language, that it was rather difficult to catch the general purport of what they said.