M'Kevin told him that for their sakes, or at their intercession, he might find shelter and perhaps help among the kindred of the M'Connells.' Acting on this advice, O'Neill took his prisoner, 'the countess, his secretary, and fifty men to the camp of Allaster M'Connell, in the far extremity of Antrim.

He was received with dissembled gratulatory words.' For two days all went on well, and an alliance was talked of.
But the vengeance of his hosts was with difficulty suppressed.

The great chief who was now in their power, had slain their leaders in the field, had divorced James M'Connell's daughter, had kept a high-born Scottish lady as his mistress, and had asked Argyle to give him for a wife M'Connell's widow, who, to escape the dishonour, had remained in concealment at Edinburgh.

On the third evening, Monday June 2, when the wine and the whiskey had gone freely round, and the blood in Shane's veins had warmed, Gilespie M'Connell, who had watched him from the first with an ill-boding eye, turned round upon M'Kevin, and asked scornfully, 'whether it was he who had bruited abroad that the lady his aunt did offer to come from Scotland to Ireland to marry with his master ?' M'Kevin meeting scorn with scorn said, that if his aunt was Queen of Scotland she might be proud to match with the O'Neill.

'It is false,' the fierce Scot shouted; 'my aunt is too honest a woman to match with her husband's murderer.' 'Shane, who was perhaps drunk, heard the words, and forgetting where he was, flung back the lie in Gilespie's throat.