"The Earl of Bellamont will return from Kinsale in the morning, and 'tis said that before noon she will be under weigh."
"The sooner the better. Go at once on board, nor let the rising sun find thee on the land. Farewell."
"Farewell, Elpsy. Don't forget the poor old man!"
"He shall never want while Elpsy lives. Now fare thee well, and—remember!" she added, impressively.
They now separated; the young man rapidly retracing his way to his hut, with a buoyant tread and lightness of spirit, his imagination filled with dazzling visions of the future; Elpsy bending her steps steadily in the direction of Castle More, her soul exulting in the master-stroke of policy she had effected. When he was no longer visible, she stopped, and, opening the packet, by the light of the moon curiously examined the locket and its device, the application of which, without understanding its motto, she intuitively comprehended, and then read the contents of the billet with a loud, scornful laugh.
"And would she meet him now with love? Ha, ha! The haughty maiden would toss her head, did he bear this to her, she knowing his birth. Oh!" she added, with a malignant chuckle, "that I had let him married her ere this secret had let out—would it not have been a brave thing then to have brought down the pride of these gentles! If I could have kept the secret till their honeymoon was over! Fiends!" she exclaimed, with maddened disappointment, "what precious revenge I have lost! Shall I not have a taste of what is left me? Shall I not yet tell her who and what he is? Oh, will it not be joy to my soul to witness her ravings! I'll do't! I'll do't! There's something left yet to live for! There's mischief yet to do in the earth. But I must first watch this sprout of Lester—this fisher's boy! I shall not have to touch his life if he'll get off before he learns his true rank; but I'll follow him like his shadow, nor will I take eyes off him till the ship he sails in goes out of my sight beyond the ocean's edge. Then will I to Castle Cor, and see if Lady Kate will receive me, the bearer of this locket, 'with love!' Haven't I a tale for her delicate ear! Oh, there is yet something to live for! Elpsy'll not die while there's devil's work to do! So! methinks I feel a little giddy for walking," she continued, tottering against the trunk of a tree; "but I'll soon fall into my old gait. A little bloodletting of a moonshiny night is ever good for the health."
Thus muttering to herself, she turned back towards the ruin, and began to walk in the direction taken by Mark, at first slowly; but, gradually gathering strength with motion and excitement, she soon strode through the long, dark glades of the forest at a rate that soon brought her in sight of him. Keeping so far in the rear as not to be discovered by him should he chance to turn his head, she followed him out of the wood, then down to the seaside and along the beach, till she saw him, just as the day broke, lift the latch of the door of his humble cot and disappear within. She then sought a recess in the cliff in the rear of the hut, where, secreting herself in a clump of low bushes that grew about it, she remained concealed until some time after sunrise, when she saw him reappear accompanied by the fisherman, and beheld both go together to the beach, launch their little fisher's bark, hoist the sail, and leave the shore. She eagerly watched them as they stood off from the land, and with unspeakable triumph saw them run alongside of the yacht. With emotions of malignant joy, she beheld Mark take leave of his grandsire and get on board, and the solitary old man quit the vessel alone and steer in shore towards his desolate hut. As his skiff grated upon the beach, she met him.
"So ho, father Meredith! thou hast been selling thy fish to a good market. The English have the silver coin, which thou wilt scarce find at the Cove ayond. What price gave these warsmen for thy herring the morn, gossip?" she inquired, assisting him with her arm from the boat as she spoke.
"It was no sale o' the herring at all, woman Elpsy," said the old man, shaking his head mournfully, and placing the stone kedge of his boat in a crevice in the rocks so as to secure it against being borne off by the ebbing tide; "it's no a sale o' the fish, woman dear, but o' my own flesh and blood. Och hone! och hone! and it's the ould gray-headed man'll never see his face more!"
He turned towards the yacht as he spoke, and stretching forth his hands towards it, wailed aloud: at length his lament ceased, or, rather, changed to a flood of tender epithets, eloquent with the depth of Irish sorrow, which he applied to the youth, while his dim eyes were vainly strained towards the vessel, to distinguish once more his beloved form.