As he spoke the paper packages burst on the rocks below, and the glittering shower of coins could be seen leaping from point to point, ever gathering velocity, while the ring of the metal upon the stones mingled with the babbling of the brook, towards which they were hastening.
With a curse the robber replaced his pistol in its holster, leaped from his horse, and began scrambling down the cliff, to try and save a part of the spoil if possible.
'He! he! he!' laughed the idiot, as he rocked and swayed at the edge of the precipice, and he giggled and slobbered and gibbered, as he pointed at the robber toiling after his elusive quest.
When the highwayman was about half-way down the descent, Barney mounted the other's fine black horse and began to ride off, leaving his own old screw behind.
'Stop, damn your soul,' cried the highwayman, starting to climb up again. 'What are ye doin', ye jape ye? Stop, or I'll shoot ye.'
'Shute away, ye blatherskite,' replied Barney cheerfully, 'haven't I got yer pistols in yer own holsters? but I'm thinkin' I'm goin' to take this illigant baste of yer 'ahner's instid av me own. Shure, fair exchange is no robbery, an' ye can make up the differ in the price foreby the lucks-penny with all them bright farthin's down there. I got them out of the bank o' purpose for yous.'
After that day the highwayman was seen no more in his accustomed haunts. But in honor of the omadhawn's stratagem the place has ever since borne the name of Barney's or Barnesmore Gap.
'MORE CRUEL THAN THE GRAVE'
There were four of them,—two men and two girls,—and they sat on the top of the outermost cliffs of Donegal, dangling their legs over the Atlantic. Behind them stretched Donegal Bay, with its rugged, mountainous shores and varied inlets, the sun throwing purple shadows on the steep sides of Slieve League. In this direction they could see the long lines of towering black-faced cliffs, clad in parts with honeysuckle and capped with heather, giving place as they marched inland to lowland stretches, where the sandy dunes with their tufted bent-grass sloped gradually to the water's edge, from which they were separated by strips of hard and silvery strand. Looking out westward in front of them there was nothing but the wide ocean between them and America.