“That's the place, Godfrey; and even by this light you can judge of its strength.”
“But why is he not with us?” said the other hastily. “Has he not an inheritance to win back—a confiscation to wipe out?”
“True enough,” said the first speaker; “but eighty winters do not improve a man's nerve for an hazardous exploit. He has a son though, and, as I hear, a bold fellow.”
“Look to him, Harvey: it is of moment that we should have one so near the Bay. See to this quickly. If he be like what you say, and desires a command—” The rest was lost in the sound of their retreating hoofs, for already the party resumed their journey, and were in a few minutes hidden from his view.
With many a conflicting doubt, and many a conjecture, each wilder than the other, Mark pondered over what he had seen, nor noted the time as it slipped past, till the grey tint of day-dawn warned him of the hour. The rumbling sounds of a country cart just then attracted his attention, and he beheld a countryman, with a little load of turf, on his way to the market at Killarney. Seeing that the man must have met the procession, he called aloud—
“I say, my good man, where were they all marching, to-night—those fellows?”
“What fellows, your honour?” said the man, as he touched his hat obsequiously.
“That great crowd of people—you could not help meeting them—there was no other road they could take.”
“Sorra man, woman, or child I seen, your honour, since I left home, and that's eight miles from this,” and so saying he followed his journey, leaving Mark in greater bewilderment than before.