“No,” he replied; “but I was given to undherstand last night, that if I’d come this night to the Grey Stone, I’d find out a saicret that I’d give a great deal to know.”

“Very well,” she replied, we’ll see that; an’ now, raise your spirits.  Here we’re in the moonlight, thank goodness, such as it is.  Dear me, thin, but it’s an awful night, and the wind’s risin’; and listen to the flood, how it roars in the glen below, like a thousand bulls!”

“It is,” he replied; “but hould your tongue now for a little, and as you’re here stop wid me for a while, although I don’t see how I’m likely to come by much knowledge in sich a place as this.”

They now approached the Grey Stone, and as they did the moon came out a little from her dark shrine of clouds, but merely with that dim and feeble light which was calculated to add ghastliness and horror to the wildness and desolation of the place.

Sally could now observe that her companion was exceedingly pale and agitated, his voice, as he spoke, became disturbed and infirm; and as he laid his hand upon the Grey Stone he immediately withdrew it, and taking off his hat he blessed himself, and muttered a short prayer with an earnestness and solemnity for which she could not account.  Having concluded it, both stood in silence for a short time, he awaiting the promised information—­for which on this occasion he appeared likely to wait in vain;—­and she without any particular purpose beyond her natural curiosity to watch and know the event.

The place at that moment was, indeed, a lonely one, and it was by no means surprising that, apart from the occurrence of two murders, one on, and the other near, the spot where they stood, the neighboring peasantry should feel great reluctance in passing it at night.  The light of the moon was just sufficient to expose the natural wildness of the adjacent scenery.  The glen itself lay in the shadow of the hill, and seemed to the eye so dark that nothing but the huge outlines of the projecting crags, whose shapes appeared in the indistinctness like gigantic spectres, could been seen; while all around, and where the pale light of! the moon fell, nothing was visible but the muddy gleams of the yellow flood as it rushed, with its hoarse and incessant roar, through a flat country on whose features the storm and the hour had impressed a character of gloom, and the most dismal desolation.  Nay, the still appearance of the Grey Stone, or rock, at which they stood, had, when contrasted with the moving elements about them, and associated with the murder committed at its very foot, a solemn appearance that was of itself calculated to fill the mind with awe and terror.  Hanlon felt this, as, indeed, his whole manner indicated.

“Well,” said his companion, alluding to the short prayer he had just concluded, “I didn’t expect to see you at your prayers like a voteen this night at any rate.  Is it fear that makes you so pious upon our hands?  Troth, I doubt there’s a white feather,—­a cowardly dhrop—­in you, still an’ all.”