.

-- Self-sacrifice--Villany.
Time passes now as it did on the night recorded in the preceding chapter.

About the hour of two o'clock, on the same night, a chaise was standing at the cross roads of Tulnavert, in which a gentleman, a little but not much the worse of liquor, sat in a mood redolent of anything but patience.

Many ejaculations did he utter, and some oaths, in consequence of the delay of certain parties whom he expected to meet there.

At length the noise of many feet was heard, and in the course of a few minutes a body of men advanced in the darkness, one of whom approached the chaise, and asked--"Is that Masther Dick ?" "Master Dick, sirrah: no, it's not." "Then there must be some mistake," replied the fellow, who was a stranger; "and as it's a runaway match, by gorra, it would never do to give the girl to the wrong person.