Art M'Morrough O'Cavanagh, Prince of Leinster; an historical romance of the fourteenth century

Front matter

ART M'MOEEOUGH O'CAVANAGH frhta 0s gfrinster ART M'MORROUGH O'CAVANAGH prince of Spinster AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. BY M. L. (.'BYRNE AUTHOR OF "THE PALE AND THE SEPTS," " LEIXLIP CASTLE," AND "ILL- AVON PEERAGES; OR, FOUR EPOCHS OF IRELAND'S HISTORY." " Yet never in thy days of pride, 'Midst all the pomp of power, Couldst thou so touch the musing soul As in this thrilling hour ; More lovely now in thy decay, All desolate and lone, Than when the trumpet shook thy tower, Aud kings were on thy throne." " Palmyra." — Bourf.gard. DUBLIN M. H. GILL AND SON 50 UPPER SACKVILLE STREET l885 M. II. (.11.1. AM. IO]!, I'lMNTKHH, Ij! KLIN. CONTENTS. rAGB Introduction . . . . . .vii Chap. I. Fitz Eoland . . . . .1 II. King Richard in Ireland . . . .10 III. Art O'Cavanagh . . . . .23 IV.

Earl Mowbray and 0 Cavanagh . . .33 V. Richard marches against M'Morrough . . 47 VI. The king and army caught in a trap . . 63 VII. Envoys at Idrone Castle . . . .76 VIU. The Fomorian and Danaan Chiefs . . .97 IX. King Richard permitted to retreat to Dublin . . 109 X. Guests of the Baron and Baroness of Eilmainham . 120 XI. O'Cavanagh visits Eing Richard in Dublin . .131 XII. The Banquet . . . ■ -144 XIII. The Party on Hoggen-green . • 157 XIV. A Mysterious Adventure . ... 170 XV. O'Cavanagh confers with the Cistercian Abbot . 182 XVI. The Lagenian Chiefs betrayed and imprisoned . 192 XVII. A scene of mystery and dread . . • 203 XVIII. The Chieftains liberated . . • -214 XIX. O'Cavanagh escapes from Kilmainham . • 223 XX. An interregnum of peace . . • . • 23_i XXI. The Bridal Day . . . • -242 XXII.

A crisis of peril . . . ■ ■ 250 XXIII. Light is thrown upon a Mystery . • • 260 XXIV. Grace Dieu . . • -273 XXV. The Visitors to Grace Dieu . • .282 XXVI. Sir Hugh de Burgh escapes from the Commandery . 291 XXVII. The Journey to Glenmalure . • .302 XXVIII. Sir Hugh at Glenmalure . • • • 312 XXIX. A strange revelation— Fitz Roland disappointed ■ 323 XXX. The Chief of Idrone in arms.— Earl of March takes the field . . • ■ * CONTENTS, VI ..Mr. ']'■' XXXI. Tho Prisoners sent to Glenmaluru . . ■"•"' XXII. Emon OgeO'Hyme in trouble . . 889 XXXIII. The Round Tower of Clondallun . • '•>'* XXXIV. An Adventure ou Ostmantown -green . • 887 XXXV. The Cav. in Ostmantown-grecn . • • 395 XXXVI. The Earl of March's Prisoners . . • '108 XXXVH. The Prisoners' Rescue . . • .417 XXXVIH. Irenc-ni-Byrue declines to becomo an inmate of Craco Dieu " 42S XXXIX.

Introduction

. — ♦ — " What good can come out of Galilee ?" " But I tell thee Of a most generous and devoted land — A land of kindling energies, a land Of glorious recollections .' proudly true To the high memory of her ancient kings, And rising in majestic scorn to cast Her alien bondage off ." " Vespers of Palermo." — Hemans.

At the period of our story — the close of the fourteentli and beginning of the fifteenth centuries — Ireland yet remained, for the most part, a terra incognita to the inhabitants of Great Britain, who were wont to regard it as a wild country, divided into two sections of population, one of which they designated, in the self-sufficiency of ignorance, as that of the semi-savage aborigines, who, entrenched among their primeval hills, maintained by means of ceaseless warfare their native independence ; and the second portion, that of the Pale, as the reclaimed territory of the invading colonists, and stronghold of English dominion in the island, whicb thus presented the twofold aspect of a vast military depot for their arms, and a sort of Botany Bay at the same time, the free rendezvous of waifs and strays, felons and outlaws of every class of lXTROIU'CTION. their own soil, " who had left their country for their country's good," as well as for their OAvn ; bold adven turers of ruined fortune, who had all to gain and nought to lose by the exchange ; turbulent and profligate charac ters of evil antecedents, and often of obsouro origin, not a few of whoso career had possibly at homo boen cut short by tlie gibbet or branded by the pillory, and avIio, in vast droves, SAvarming through the gates of the Green Isle, throAvn open for them by the Norman invasion, had so speedily thereon engraved their impress, that those not pos sessed of sufficient discernment to draw an impartial lino betAveen race and race, lapsed into the error of confounding under one head the licentious colonist with the hostile Mile sian.* Hence, what good can come out of Galilee? was a sentiment that long prevailed in the mind of tho uninformed, and prejudiced their opinions of the nation at large.

To be an Irishman of native descent, or of Irish graft, or even to have been a naturalised sojourner, was considered sufficient to taint with the leprosy of barbarism ; consequently, Britons of a better grade, generally holding aloof, resigned the arena of enterprise rather than compete for glory or fortuue in the ranks of ill-conditioned buccaneers, crafty, unprincipled, and sordid, whose aversion was worth or * At thc close of the fifteenth oentury complaints were so numerous respecting Um misruleof the Viceroys in Dublin, that Henry VIII. sum- I \\ alter, thc archbishop, to give him an account of tho state of the country and couse of the disturbances existing therein. The archbishop replied, with prevarication, " That the people were naturally tin hulint and idle." Had the English prelate, lets solicitous to shield his countrymen at the expense of truth, honestly stated plain facts, he could have proved that the dissensions which embroiled the land were originated in the Pale by internecine quarrels between the colo nists themselves, or fomented strife engendered by their machinations among the native inhabitants to facilitate designs of pillage and exter mination of the race.

The reply has been stereotyped to the present hour os account sufficient for every expression of discontent or emeute provoked by unjust laws and tyrannical oppression of the people.

INTRODUCTION.

. IX genius, whose contempt for code of honour was supreme, and who, conscious of no ancestral prestige in themselves, derided the possessors of the high heir-looms, and with jealous hatred of such pretension among her sons, laboured zealously to efface from the land they thought to usurp every vestige of the proud records of arts, science, literature, and civilisation, their pride and boast. Thus, unawed by restraining influence, unourbed by superior authority swayed by justice and wisdom, the speculators of later influx, intent on plunder, and who found none to gainsay their proceedings, banded in compact to sever the bonds of good understanding in which a couple of centuries of association, intermarriage, and identity of interest, was fast merging the Norman and the Gael in one race, and tending thereby to consolidate at no remote period a powerful nation, capable of maintaining its place and recovering its prestige in the eyes of the world.

Such a climax, incom patible with their views, which were not of fame or glory, must be averted. Those singular anomalies, clinging to a motherland that scorned her base offspring, rather than dwell as princes among princes in the new land of their adoption, chose more to preside, whip in hand, as overseers of slaves, whom they would stir up to rage and mutiny, in the interest of their said motherland, which, she in this graciously aiding and abetting, would, they speculated, result in tenfold interest to their own coffers. And in 1367, in a parliament convened in Kilkenny — for the purpose of disjointing the nation and preclude all possibility of a united country, prosperous, wealthy, and independent — was passed the statute or penal code of race, by which it was enacted that intermarriage, fosterage, buying, selling, or any dealing

INTRODUCTION.

. X with the Irish enemy shall be accounted treason ; that English names, fashions, and manners shall bo used under penalty of con6scation ; that Brehon laws are illegal : there shall be no law but English law ; that no more Irishman shall be admitted to profess in any religious house within the English district, &o.* Strangely, the Norman barons, whose interneoine feuds had too often filled the land with strife, and ombroiled the Celtio chiefs in every contention, passively acquiesced in these enactments, to all of which they were more or less amenable in penalty themselves ; but upon the Irish toparchs whom the intent of tho statute was to obliterate Avith their nation, the result produced consequences that had well-nigh exterminated the invader from tho soil. Indignantly rending the bonds of friendly affinities, and snatching from the sheath the sword awhile wreathed with myrtle, they fell in their banded wrath like a volcanio eruption upon tho Pale, drove in the outposts, hunted the barons, and coalesced in active hostility against the common foe.

Foremost in many a sanguinary engagement was O'Cavanagh of Idrone, O'llart of Tara, O'More of Rheban, O'Byrne of Glenmalure, O'Toole of Imale, and many others who carried warfare and dismay to the walls of Athcliath. Such was the state of the country and the condition of affairs when Richard II., giving favourable ear to the supplication of his distressed Irish lieges, landed in Waterford, 1394, with an army of 30,000 bowmen and In the eleventh century, Donogh, Bishop of Dublin, founded the Convent of the- Holy Trinity, and the Church of St. Michael in High street. In 1380 the Colonial Knglish Parliament passed a law that no native Irish should be auflered to profess in the institutions founded bv their ancestors.

INTRODUCTION.

. XI 4,000 men-at-arms transported across in a fleet of 300 ships, along with the Earl of March, Lord Henry of Lancaster, the Duke of Gloucester, Earl Mowbray, and a long train of prelates, peers, and nobles, intent upon winning fame and fortune in the grand achievement of effacing the Western Isle. Reader, attend, while from olden traditions and glean ings from ancient family and national MSS. I reproduce in storied chapter a panoramic vista of this mediæval epoch of our history, resuscitate the forms that figured then on the busy stage of life, rekindle the vital flame in the long pulseless heart, recall to the silent tongue the sound of voices that still keep echoing with tlie moan of time from the gulf of ages, command each actor in the scene of former being once more rehearse his part, live act and speak as surrounded still by the former influences and associations connected with his sphere ; and let the accents shaped by the mainsprings of passions, hopes, fears, cares, joy and sorrows' energising motive in action for good or evil, awaken once again an echo in human bosoms.

Many of the events narrated in this story are supplied from tradition. The Book of the O'Byrnes, entitled " The Yellow Book of Drumlait," having, like the " Book of Dun Aengus," and many another family archive in which were recorded the events of their time, been destroyed by the English invaders upon the dispersion of the clans. — Note by the Author. Erin, come forth and toll thy tale, Why Mttr.-t thou by the wayside weeping P Thine eye is dim, thy cheek is pale, What mournful vigils art thou keeping P Loud swell the notes ot joyous song, From jubilant nations round thee sweeping ; Forth from the whirl of the reeling throng, Echoes for thee no voice of greeting. Rent is thy robe of many dyes, Thy tresses nil dishevelled dying; On every galo is borne thy sighs, Thy broken harp beside thee lying.

From earth to sky ascends tho storm Of revellers in Avild exultation ; A voice I heard amid the SAvarm, Apostrophise thee — Degraded Nation ! F.rin, come forth and tell thy tale, Where Justice, crowned with power, attends thee, Nor, suppliant, fear thy suit may fail, A girded host-iii-arms befriends thee. AUT M'MORROUGH O'CAVANAGH.

Chapter I. Fitz Roland

" On that great day when first the martial train. Big with the fate of Ilion, ploughed the main Iliad.'' The short-lived, brilliant sun of an October day had gone down in a sky overcast and grand with banners of blood-red clouds, streaming along the western horizon, and masses of sable hue, piled ridge over ridge, waiting, in motionless tranquillity, the voice of the spirit that rules the storm to shape their course at his behest. The night was heavy, and, viewed in the gloaming, halfinvolved in dusky shade. Where the river flows soft and dark through lawns of ver dure dotted with forest timber, in a distriot now known as the Phœnix Park, a solitary figure on horseback sits so motionless that he might be mistaken for an equestrian statue cast in bronze, set to mount guard over what then had been the spacious demesne of the Knights of St. John of Kilmainham.

Before him, swept in all the charm of its many-tinted russet robe, woven in loom of autumn, a rich landscape spreading to view on every side ; but far away his eye was turned towards a blue zone of distant hills that bounded the horizon, where, in the wild freedom of primeval solitude, yet bounded the antlered red deer, monarch of the solitude, and the gaunt gray wolf prowled through deep ravines, and the eagle and broad-winged heron soared from eyries inaccessible to human foot. As mutely he gazed, riveted in thought, upon the great mountain barrier between the Pale and that inviolable district which the sharp sceins of native clans had still maintained a mysterious terra incognita to the dAvellors in Fingal, a shower of leaves, once green as emerald, but by nature's alchymy converted to tinted gold, dropped silently round him ; clusters of broAvn hazel nuts drooped abovo his head ; the river swept along with a nmrmurod Avhispor, and from afar — mellowed by space — SAvellod upon the oar the tuneful harmony of a flute, played to some pathotio ballad or sweetly mournful lay, conceived of passion and born of pain.

The thrilling cadenco of the fairy-like num bers seemed to impart a glamour of magio to tho scene already enchanting, and, as one spellbound, tho ontrauoed listener continued to gaze aud listen, as though ho could thus dream away his lifo, when his roverio was intorrn.pt i-d by sounds of approaching footsteps, aud au exolamation rendered in good baritone voice : " Tilly sally, ho ! How now, friend ; in what musing of Elysi rapt, boots it to inquire ?" Listing from his brow the casque, the knightly youth, upon whose Milan armour the rising moonbeams began to glint and quiver, slowly turued and acoosted the intruder upon his solitary lucubrations in acoent cheery and melli fluous. " Qui va-la ? Thou, De Burgh ! Whither bound ? " "To tho Commandery,* on embassy from the king to the Grand Prior.

Spying thee, I diverged from my route. Say, what deemest thou of this land of Eire, whose chiefs fetch their ancestry in a direct line from Noah, and hold us of Anjou— and Plantagenet, to wit — of slight account in heraldic page, and with whom, coming to rough conclu sion, on score of meum and tuum, it is Avritten in the stars, we shall be ere long ? " Tho two personages thus met — one sheathed from head to foot in steel, and mounted upon a noble charger, Avell accoutred for battle ; the other on foot, habited in a surtout of sable velvet, the neck, sleeves, and skirt trimmed with black fur, ornamented with gold clasps in front, and bound • The house of the Knight* of St. John was so called. round the waist with a baldrick or belt of ruby and seed pearl ; short mantle of fine crimson cloth, also trimmed with blaok fur, and lined with white cendal, a rich fabrio of silk and wool, resembling taffitas ; and a dark beaver, decorated with plume and jewel, were in external appearance strikingly dissimilar.

Courtney Fitz Eustace, but lately arrived in the royal train from England, showed in every lineament traits of his Anglo-Norman pedigree — broad visage, fair complexion, clear blue eye, light brown hair, softly curling round an open, resolute brow, and frame whose robust proportions abstracted from his actual height, causing him to seem less than his stature of six feet. On the other hand, Sir Hugh de Burgh, whose progenitors descended from the Red Earl, and for nearly two centuries allied with the dark Florentine Fitzgeralds, the O'Connors, O'Briens, and others of sombre Milesian type, exhibited all the characteristics of the stock on which they had engrafted sharply defined physiognomy, high intellectual brow, eyes dark and animated, nose slightly aquiline, lips firm and flexible with humour and expression, hair black as the raven's plumage, complexion swarthy, figure tall, lithe, and sinewy.

The grave, yet gracious aspect, and free deportment of each, more than their fair equipment, denoted that they belonged pre-eminently to the aristooratio olass. Patting the arching neck of his horse, Fitz Eustace, smiling, replied to the query of his friend : " Par ma foi ! The country, so far as I have descried it on our march from Waterford, is, to my poor judgment, fair to view. Sooth, what may we dream of scene more sad and sweet than that we gaze on by this wan moon ? Good hunting, I trow, one might have on yonder hills." Sir Hugh de Burgh rested his hand on the pommel of his sword, looked towards the point indicated, and made answer : "Ay, marry! — but what game? Slief, I warrant thee more ticklish to chase than wolf or red deer." " Ay, marry, ay, marry — the ill neighbours we be galled with of the clans.

Beshrew my heart, if it yearn not to counter the brigands who, with merry march, make boot upon the Pale. Wist ye what aspeot they bear ?" FITZ ROI. \\T> " Most evil by repute ; for, beshrew tho statutes of Clarence's parliament that have so sundered our line*, it hath befallen I haA*e never set eye since the day I was born— thirty Avinters come next yule-tide — upon any, save a straggler haphazard, not the meetest sample to judge from; — but, bruit also, corroborated by many a ■harp tilt in which wo were not tho winners, proolaims them to be no maidenly men-at-arms — an' the king hath, to my mind, not misreckoned in fetching a force to moot such foe." •■ Mort tic ma vie ! Not having inkling of tho sort of ogres and genii hidden away in their seoret caves and woods, I weened not but that the king.

Avrought upon by raw-head and bloody-bone stories, had brought with him, for the reduction of a small island and a few obstreperous clans that shun tbe light, an army moro than enow to huniblo Franco and cow the Saracen on Paynimland." " So deems not Richard and his council ; hence am I despatched to the Lord Prior of St. John, to summon him to their presence, that tho matter may be debated, and the aid of his counsel enlisted. Wilt thou accompany me Y" " Cheerily ! — ho ! move on." Fitz Eustace drew bridle, and they directed their course towards the massive pile, whose battlements and towers rose solemnly in fitful light and shadow against tho dark, incumbent sky, the illuminated church and cloisters gleaming through the intervening foliage of forest timber that magnifioently canopied it with their wide-spreading arms and trailiug festoons of ivy and moss, waving lan guidly to the sob and sigh of tlie rising breeze : to complete the imposing sublimity of the scene, the bell of the monastery tolled, and the deep echoes were answered in booming reverberations from the firmament.

For a moment the companions impressed with indefinable sense of sadness, were silent ; at length Fitz Eustace resumed : "Lack a day! How fares it with our friend, Fitz Roland ? I have seen him but a brief fytte since I came, an' methought my compeer of Westminster school looked lack-lustre and mouldy; — what ails him?" De Burgh seemed annoyed. " Save the mark ! our Walter's in love. Didst not hear him warble his ditty to the moon, an' make his plaint to the ear of the Dryads, as I joined thee ? I wot some of his tears have gone to swell the limpid urn of the Naiad that dwelleth hard by." " Ho, Mars and Venus in conjunction make not always fair weather. Who may the nymph be that hath smitten him withal ?" demanded Fitz Eustace, looking disquieted, and askance at his friend, who, not perceiving his sudden perturbation, replied with sarcastic smile : " If we believe Walter's assertion, no damsel simply endowed with mortal charms hath won his heart, but a peri or fay of elfland hath enthralled him with witching spell.

He is, I ween, in sooth, bewitched." " Gramercy ! but who is the enchantress ? — and wherefore Apollo sigh and weep, when he might, for all I know to hinder him, woo and win ? Seldom hath Fortune shown her so partial to favourite, and none to thwart his pleasure." " There thou'rt amiss," said De Burgh. " A barrier, nay, two insurmountable barriers, stand between him and the attainment of his bliss : one being that formidable statute which interdicts alliance with the Irish, who have very spiritedly turned the tables an' cut connexion with us ; secondly, the maiden, a daughter of O'Cavanagh of Drimna, is betrothed to O'More of Rheban, a chief of her own nation. Hence, Walter may lament in vain. The Fates ne'er for broken hearts relented." " I gainsay that," briskly returned Fitz Eustace, with aspect wonderfully ameliorated.

" Leastways, we may try with them brisk measure. Now, from my soul I sympathise with Fitz Roland, and, with the aid of this good band, it will go hard if I succour him not in his need. Wilt thou aid in't ?" " In what ? — to infringe the statute, and bring two hor nets' hives upon me at once ?" " Out upon thy crafty caution, Hugh ! I say, what did our barons mean by enacting such law ?" " They feared, I trow, that the Celtic element was swallowing up the Anglo-Norman, and that eftsoon we should vanish as smoke from this yclept land of the Gael." FIT/, ROLAND. " Nathless, lustly, I cry. Pox on't ! that's no justifica tion for fomenting strife betwixt Venus and Mars. Wilt thou ni'l Walter und in-' to bid them defianoe r" •• What about the Irish ohief P Wouldhe lightly brook infraction ..t his right ; and how would the damsel herself take it, think yeP' " By my halidom, we'll spear the chief, and carry off the damsel, who, belike, is constrained f • r lack of choice to ■field him favour, moro lightly woo by the honied words and comely grace of our gallant Walter.

Ho, grooms ! attendance here." " I misdoubt if our Grand Prior and tho knightly teeth ren sanction such garboyle ; and mnoh as 1 wish well to the suit of Fitz Roland, and willing though Ibe to put lance in rest to servo him, I were loth to inour tho censure of my austere brother Raymond, mid tho Order of St. John," mused De Burgh, half aloud, as they crossed tlie court of the Commandery. " Plague on't ! they'll give no heed to such garboyles so long as we restrict tin m to the Irish enemy, with whom they are sworn to hostility noAv more than ever, on the very eve ofa sanguinary engagement, in Avhicli they shall be exterminated root and branch," said Fits Eustace, casting a careless [fiance upon the solitary figure of a knight in his black habit, with Avhite cross of eight points on tho In-, sat, gliding to and fro w itliin tho court, and tho halberdiers pacing tlie ramparts.

Presently they entered the hall, and were conducted by a lay brother to the cell of tin- < hand Prior. At a round oaken table, in centre of the small mural ohamber, lighted with oil, blazing in a bronze cresset, and a wi od fire burning in a small grate, sat the superior ofthe Order, writing; a heap of vellum and manuscripts were placed before him, and his feet rested upon a wolf-skin rug. Past middle age, tall, square-shouldered, and muscular in frame, with close-cut, sandy hair, cold, blue, searching ey< , thin lips, sharp-pointed nose, hard, wrinkled brow, and hollow, whey-coloured cheeks, the aspect of the dignitary, Buhard White, was not prepossessing; the seve rity of his principles seemed to have banished from his ascetic, emaciated countenance every vestige of benignity ; and even when he smiled, as he did, condescendingly, but not benignly, upon the visitors, and waved them to a seat with a motion of his hand, De Burgh and Fitz Eustace felt they were in presence of one who, if he could himself endure with the stolid calm of martyr burning at the stake, would no less unrelentingly inflict nor find within his 6tern bosom a voice to plead for human weakness or temptations and passions he had never known, or else, fiercely quelled with the iron will of a despotic nature, constituted to experience actual pleasure in sus taining pain, and whose self-gratulation for victory achieved over nature might efface all the laurels that ever wreathed great Cæsar's brow !

Receiving from De Burgh the royal scroll, tied with silk, he opened and tranquilly perused, then refolded the paper, aud said in accents sharp and hard : " I shall atttend his Highness. "Tis gone eight bells; we must make speed." He rose, a signal that the visitors might depart ; for the Grand Prior was not afflicted with the weakness of loqua city. Even when at stated times he granted audience, he was chary of speech, and seldom, if ever, unbent to mirth or frivolous converse. Right glad to withdraw from presence so dread, Sir Hugh and his friend, having duly tendered lowly obeisance, effected a hasty exit, and with indecorous expedition running down the steep and winding stone stairs, attract ing the mute stare of many a dark spectral form flitting along the corridors, and in the depth of their heaven-dedicated bosoms, wondering at the reckless abandon of earth lier spirits, Sir Hugh bounded like a tennis ball in sharp collision against one of a group of knights conversing in low tone beneath an archway in the vestibule.

" Ho, qui vice ? Bacchanal or Bedlamite escaped ?" shouted the startled object of assault so rude, reeling back ward from the shock of the concussion. " Pardon, mon ami!" apologised Sir Hugh, recoiling and rubbing his arm. " Have I hurt anyone ? I missed a step, and tender condolence." " Certes! " smiled the victim, a young knight of mien most engaging. " An' it had been Fitz Eustace pitched upon me in his armour, like a stone shot from an Assyrian sling, I must have rued fractured limb." He shook hands cordially with Sir Hugh, whom another of the group, so closely resembling De Burgh that the relationship between them was apparent, gravely addressed : " Verily, Hugh, this precipitate habit and mercurial temperament of thine, if not timely corrected, will betray thee into difficulty. Hoav, an' it had been the Grand Prior, or even Mgr.

Le Bottiler, upon whom thou didst launch thee, instead of brother Gernon Fitz Rollo ? " " Soft, I pray thee, good Kaymond," groaned Sir Hugh. " My nerves are yet in a twitter, and wax faint at the suggestion. Marry, is that thyself, Fitz Roland?" he added, addressingthe personage just coming in — afine look ing man of about two-and-thirty, tall, fair oomplexioned, grey-eyed, with chestnut hair and handsome features. "I heard thee blowing a flute to 6ome dirge, and fear me, that out o' sorts with thyself and the world, thou dost meditate base desertion, an' to bestow thyself and commodities — humours, to Avit — at the service of St. John." " I fear me he is not so well inspired," said Raymond Do Burgh, drily. "What an' thou set him a laudable ex ample ?" " Ihiuci ment, mon frere, I haye not quite recovered tho shock of collision with Fitz Rollo."

" Nor the depression of spirit consequent upon a brief interview with his sublimity, the Grand Prior," laughed Fitz Eustace, cordially shaking hands with the new-comer. " I say, what bewitches you all to enlist under such a general? Perdie, Walter, I'd liefer risk an Irish spear in thy good service — yet, peradventure, thou art not thyself whetted for emprise such ? " Fitz Roland gazed earnestly at the speaker, whose shrewd look and significant words implied deep meaning ; then, as if not assured whether he rightly inter preted the speech, he made response in deep, well-modulated voice : " Thanks, noble Courtney ; anon we shall be in the field. I have had inkling from Lord Hemy of Lancaster, an' doubt not but every sword will reap its own guerdon, an' bear away its own prize." " I perceive," smiled Sir Hugh, " that the Baron of Kilmainham and the Earl of Ormond have imbued thee with their, in my opinion, very fallacious notions of the enemy pitted against us."