To all this he made no reply, but having dressed himself, he deliberately, and with great caution, raised the latch, and proceeded out at that dismal and lonely hour.  Sarah, for a time, knew not how to act.  She had often heard of sleep-walking, and she feared now, that if she awakened him, he might imagine that she had heard matters which he wished no ears whatever to hear; for the truth was, that some vague suspicions of a dreadful nature had lately entered her mind; suspicions, which his broken slumbers—­his starts, and frequent exclamations during sleep, had only tended to confirm.

“I will watch him at all events,” said she to herself, “and see that he comes to no ganger.”  She accordingly shut the door after her, and followed him pretty closely into the deep gloom of the silent and solitary glen.  With cautious, but steady and unerring steps, he proceeded in the direction of the loneliest spot of it, which having reached, he went by a narrow and untrodden circuit—­a kind of broken, but natural pathway—­to the identical spot where the body, which Nelly had discovered, lay.

He then raised his hand, as if in caution, and whispered—­“Whisht! here is where the murdhered man’s body lies.”

“I’ll not do it,” said Sarah, “I’ll not do it; it would be mane and ungenerous to ax him a question that might make him betray himself.”

At this moment the moon which had been for some time risen, presented a strange and alarming aspect.  She seemed red as blood; and directly across her centre there went a black bar—­a bar so ominously and intensely black, that it was impossible to look upon it without experiencing something like what one might be supposed to feel in the presence of a supernatural appearance; at the performance of some magic or unnatural rite, where the sorcerer, by the wickedness of his spell, forced her, as it were, thus to lend a dreadful and reluctant sanction to his proceedings.

Her father, however, proceeded:  “Ay—­who murdhered him, my lord?  Why, my lord—­hem—­it was—­Condy Dalton, an’ I have another man to prove it along wid myself—­one Rody Duncan; now Rody answer strong; swear home; mind yourself, Rody.”

These words were spoken aside, precisely as one would address them when instructing any person to give a particular line of evidence.  He then stooped down, and placed his hand upon the grave said, as if he were addressing the dead man: 

“Ha! you sleep cool there, you guilty Villain! an’ it wasn’t my fault that the unfaithful an’ dishonest sthrap that you got that for, didn’t get as much herself.  There you are, an’ you’ll tell no tales at all events!  You know, Rody,” he proceeded, “it was Dalton that murdhered him; mind that—­but you’re a coward at heart; as for myself there’s nothing troubles me but that Tobaccy-Box; but you know nothing about that; may the divil confound me, at any rate, for not destroyin’ it! an’ that ould sthrap, Nelly, suspects something; for she’s always ringin Providence into my ears; but if I had that box destroyed, I’d disregard Providence; if there is a Providence.”