as it was, seemed to express the mingled sentiments of mortal agony, despair, and resolution.

But, nothing daunted or irresolute, the youth rushed on to meet him, while the hounds, rallying again at the sight and presence of their master, bayed fiercely round his flanks and in his rear, although they dared not yet again to tackle him. Just as they were closing in the mortal strife-for be it known that a stag at bay is no easy or contemptible antagonist, and a thrust from his antlers no child's play-the quick sharp clatter of a horse's hoofs upon the rocky ground came up against the wind from the south-eastward, in a direction exactly opposite to the approach of the still distant hunters; and it might have been at once conjectured by the eager youth that aid was at hand, had he needed it, if the ears of his mind had not been closed by the excitement of immediate peril to be met, and the mad ardor of the chase.

But, though he saw it not, a fresh spectator, if not actor, was brought upon the scene of strife, in the shape of a tall, gaunt, thin-flanked man, with singularly broad shoulders, and wiry, muscular limbs, mounted upon a lean, ewe-necked, spur-galled garron, wretchedly accoutred with a rope bridle, and a tattered saddle, the wooden tree and straw stuffing of which were clearly visible through the worm-eaten canvass covering.

The countenance of the new comer was that of a man of some fifty-five or sixty years, harsh, resolute, and seemingly indicative of a character unchanged by time or hardship, and singularly unprepossessing, while it was purely Irish in its aspect and characteristics. The hair had been as black as the raven's wing, but was now grizzled, and as similar in color as in texture to the short bristly clothing of a badger's back-for it was clipped close after the fashion of the Puritans, who, though as yet they had gained little foothold on the west side of St. George's Channel, were absolute masters in Englandhaving a few months before perpetrated the unjust and cruel murder of one, almost the best of men, if he were also

The brow was

almost the weakest and the worst of kings. broad, furrowed, and almost knotted by the corrugation of its muscles; but, it receded villanously above the shaggy irongrey eyebrows, which overhung like pent-houses the deep cavernous hollows from the depths of which twinkled with a quick, malignant light a pair of small, dark, snake-like eyes, of which the sharp intelligence was the only redeeming feature. The nose was coarse, broad, and turned upward; and the wide, thinlipped, compressed mouth gave token of no quality of mind, unless it were iron resolution; while the square massive jaws and bull neck below were more than usually deceptive in their prognostics, if they did not indicate the cruelty and fierceness of the animal they most resembled the base and brutal bulldog.

This odious-looking and repulsive personage was dressed in a plain, close-fitting doublet of black serge, belted about his middle by a broad strap of untanned calf-skin, from which swung at his side a long steel-hilted and steel-scabbarded straight blade, or tuck, as it was then termed, which was the favorite weapon of the Parliamentarians-and that which, in the hard hands of the Ironsides, had done such fatal execution on the heights of Naseby, and the red moor of Marston. He wore a steeple-crowned black hat, with neither band nor feather, and his garb was completed by a pair of rusty leather breeches and gigantic riding-boots with funnel-shaped tops extending to the middle of his thigh. He had no pistols at his saddlebow, for it was evident at once that the beast on which he was temporarily mounted was no more a soldier's charger than the wretched pad which barely covered its galled back was a soldier's demipique; but he had a long dudgeon dagger thrust through his girdle at the left side, and a short, heavy flint-locked musquetoon-at that time a scarce and much valued weapon-slung across his shoulder from the left hand to the right haunch.

As soon as the Puritan, for such he seemed to be, (though

Puritan Irishmen were no common articles in those days,) came in sight of the animated group, composed of the man, the deer, and the hounds, crowded together in the narrow gorge of the stream between the steep and savage banks-fit scene for so mad and desperate an encounter-he pulled his wretched horse short up with an exertion of muscular force, which almost threw him on his haunches, brought down the muzzle of his piece under his right elbow, and with a quick movement of the left hand released the buckle which confined it on his breast, so that, within a second or two of his first appearance on the stage, he had his weapon in his hand, posted and cocked, and ready for prompt action.

And well it was for the young hunter that his promptitude was both active and deliberate, for not a minute had elapsed before that military promptitude saved him from instant death.

eye,

He had not seen or heard, as I have stated, the approach of the stranger; and had he seen him, it is little likely he would have deigned to honor him with more than a moment's noticefor he was not only repulsive at first sight, even to a stranger's but was one who to-what the young hunter evidently was —a noble and a royalist, was likely to be individually and peculiarly odious. But, ignorant of the presence of any witness to his fiery rashness, with a repeated whoop, he dashed at the charging stag, which met him nothing loth or fearful. As the maddened and desperate beast closed his eyes, and stooped his head to strike with his terrible brow antlers, as is the habit of his breed, the young man bounded lightly to one side, intending to evade the charge, and raising his keen weapon as he leaped, with the purpose of severing his hamstring as he passed him. But, though he leaped actively, and struck with a true hand, directed by a quick, sure eye, and steadied by a resolute and fearless heart, he counted for the nonce without his host. And yet, as it was clear to see, it was to him no new or untried manœuvre, but one which had been put in practice many times, and until now, ever found available.

But such a feat of agility is one thing to practise with the good solid greensward under the booted foot, and no denser medium through which to spring than the elastic and intrindant air, and with the slippery limestone boulders of the river's bed from which to spring, and on which to descend-and the rushing volume of a stream running ten miles an hour, boiling and whirling round the limbs.

He sprang lightly, it is true, and alighted surely; but glass itself, or ice, were not more slippery than the water-worn and polished pebbles on which he landed from his quick bound; his feet flew from under him, and he fell headlong backward directly across the track of the charging stag.

Well was it for him then that he wore a garment surer proof than the ordinary Lincoln green of the hunter's frock; for the full thrust of the brow antler caught his right shoulder as he fell, and though the tough elk-skin of his stout buff coat turned it aside, that it pierced him, not as surely as it would otherwise, from side to side, the force of the blow was so great that it fairly raised him into the air, and hurled him a yard farther forward than the spot where he would have fallen.

Then with a fiend-like burst of yells, the savage hounds rushed in, and seizing the infuriate deer by the ears, the throat, the fore-shoulder, tore him down bodily into the brook, full on top of the young huntsman, biting, goring, trampling, and bleeding, now below, now above the surface of the flashing and tortured water-and for a minute all was horrible and blind confusion.

But, once again the royal hart shook of his savage foes, and with a wild strange cry-half bray, half bellow, reared himself erect on his hind legs, rampant in glorious triumph, and tossed "his horned frontlet to the skies," preparatory, as he deemed, doubtless, to swift and sure escape.

No escape was there for him, however. For, whether wisely, friendly, or no, who shall say ?-since at that moment the peril seemed at least to be over; but certainly with swift, in

stinctive coolness, and most fatal execution, the stranger discharged his musquetoon-and ere he could perceive the result of his quick aim, cast the piece from his hand, leaped down from the saddle, and drawing his long tuck, dashed to the river's edge.

But the instinctive aim had proved deadly, and the heavy fall had taken effect precisely where the matador directs the deadly thrust of his fine blade in the Spanish bull-ring-right at the juncture of the skull and spine-producing instantaneous death, and hurling the great stag, lifeless, upon the body of the stunned and half-drówned cavalier.

The stranger rested not content with the good or evil which he had done already; but plunged into the water, and dragged out the young gentleman in less time than it has taken to describe, and while the dogs tore and mangled the carcass of the dead hart unheeded, applied himself actively and skilfully to restore the suspended animation of the cavalier-though there was a strange expression in his face, which seemed to portend no good or kindly feeling to the sufferer.

Be that, however, as it may, his efforts were ere long successful, and the cavalier opened his eyes, at first with a vague and bewildered expression, which brightened in an instant, as they fell upon those hard, repulsive features, into a glance of mingled enmity and horror.

He started half up, and strove to regain his feet, while his right hand was moved with an instinctive impulse to the place where his sword should have hung-while he exclaimed, in accents of fierce energy:

"You here! you! you!-Hugh O'Neil !"

"Even I, Dermot !" replied the other, quite unmoved, and apparently unconscious of the feelings which possessed the other. "And, whatsoever ill I have done else in my day, the Lord be thanked, I have this good deed to boast, that I have saved the great O'Brien !"

"Ha!" answered the other, as he staggered feebly to his