Mike Reillaghan and Peggy Gartland were among the last who sought the “green;” as lovers, they probably preferred walking apart, to the inconvenience of being jostled by the multitude.  As they sauntered on slowly after the rest, Mike felt himself touched on the shoulder, and on turning round, found Darby More beside him.

“It’s painful to my feelin’s,” observed the mendicant, “to have to say this blessed night that your father’s son should act so shabby an’ ondacent.”

“Saints above! how, Darby?”

“Why, don’t you know that only for me—­for what I heard, an’ what I tould you—­you’d not have the purty girl here at your elbow?  Wasn’t it, as I said, his intintion to come and whip down the colleen to Kilnaheery while the family ’ud be at mass; sure only for this, I say, you bosthoon, an’ that I made you bring her to mass, where ’ud the purty colleen be? why half way to Kilnaheery, an’ the girl disgraced for ever!”

“Thrue for you, Darby, I grant it:  but what do you want me to do?”

“Oh, for that matther, nothin’ at all, Mike; only I suppose that when your tailor made the clothes an you, he put no pockets to them?”

“Oh, I see where you are, Darby! well, here’s a crown for you; an’ when Peggy an’ I’s made man and wife, you’ll get another.”

“Mike, achora, I see you are your father’s son still; now listen to me:  first you needn’t fear sudden death while you keep that blessed Carol about you; next get your friends together goin’ home, for Frank might jist take the liberty, wid about a score of his ‘boys,’ to lift her from you even thin.  Do the thing, I say—­don’t thrust him; an’ moreover, watch in her father’s house tonight wid your friends.  Thirdly, make it up wid Frank; there’s an oath upon you both, you persave?  Make it up wid him, if he axes you:  don’t have a broken oath upon you; for if you refuse, he’ll put you out o’ connection, (* That is, out of connection with Ribbonism) an’ that ’ud plase him to the back-bone.”

Mike felt the truth and shrewdness of this advice, and determined to follow it.  Both young men had been members of an illegal society, and in yielding to their passions so far as to assault each other, had been guilty of perjury.  The following Christmas-day had been appointed by their parish Delegates to take the quarrel into consideration; and the best means of escaping censure was certainly to express regret for what had occurred, and to terminate the hostility by an amicable adjustment of their disputes.

They had now reached the chapel-green, where the scene that presented itself was so striking and strange, that we will give the reader an imperfect sketch of its appearance.  He who stood at midnight upon a little mount which rose behind the chapel, might see between five and six thousand torches, all blazing together, and forming a level mass of red dusky light, burning against the dark horizon.  These torches were so close to each other that their light seemed