Now all these circumstances were noted by Hennessy, who had been on the lookout, to make a present of this good old man to his new patron, Sir Robert.

At length having discovered--by; what means it is impossible to conjecture--that the Abbe was to go on the day in question to relieve a poor sick family, at about a distance of two miles from Castle ------, the intelligence was communicated by Hennessy to Sir Robert, who immediately set out for the place, attended by a party of his myrmidons, conducted to it by the Red Rapparee, who, as we have said, was now one of Whitecraft's band.

There is often a stupid infatuation in villany which amounts to what they call in Scotland fey--that is, when a man goes on doggedly to commit some act of wickedness, or rush upon some impracticable enterprise, the danger and folly of which must be evident to every person but himself, and that it will end in the loss of his life.

Sir Robert, however, had run a long and prosperous career of persecution--a career by which he enriched himself by the spoils he had torn, and the property he had wrested from his victims, generally under the sanction of Government, but very frequently under no other sanction than his own.

At all events the party, consisting of about thirty men, remained in a deep and narrow lane, surrounded by high whitethorn hedges, which prevented the horsemen--for they were all dragoons--from being noticed by the country people.