“Where am I to drive, Sir Robert?”

“To Sligo jail,” replied one of the constables, “as quick as you can too.”

The horses got a lash or two, and bounded on, whilst an escort of cavalry, with swords drawn, attended the coach until it reached its gloomy destination, where we will leave it for the present.

The next morning, as matters approached to a crisis, the unsteady old squire began to feel less comfortable in his mind than he could have expected.  To say truth, he had often felt it rather an unnatural process to marry so lovely a girl to “such an ugly stork of a man as Whitecraft was, and a knave to boot.  I cannot forget how he took me in by the ‘Hop-and-go-constant’ affair.  But then he’s a good Protestant—­not that I mean he has a single spark of religion in his nondescript carcass; but in those times it’s not canting and psalm-singing we want, but good political Protestantism, that will enable us to maintain our ascendancy by other means than praying.  Curse the hound that keeps him?  Is this a day for him to be late on? and it now half past ten o’clock; however, he must come soon; but, upon my honor, I dread what will happen when he does.  A scene there will be no doubt of it; however, we must only struggle through it as well as we can.  I’ll go and see Helen, and try to reconcile her to this chap, or, at all events, to let her know at once that, be the consequences what they may, she must marry him, if I were myself to hold her at the altar.”

When he had concluded this soliloquy, Ellen Connor, without whose society Helen could now scarcely live, and who, on this account, had not been discharged after her elopement, she, we say, entered the room, her eye resolute with determination, and sparkling with a feeling which evinced an indignant sense of his cruelty in enforcing this odious match.  The old man looked at her with surprise, for, it was the first time she had ever ventured to obtrude her conversation upon him,or to speak, unless when spoken to.

“Well, madam,” said he, “what do you want?  Have you any message from your mistress? if not, what brings you here?”

“I have no message from my mistress,” she replied in a loud, if not in a vehement, voice; “I don’t think my mistress is capable of sending a message; but I came to tell you that the God of heaven will soon send you a message, and a black one too, if you allow this cursed marriage to go on.”

“Get out, you jade—­leave the room; how is it your affair?”

“Because I have what you want—­a heart of pity and affection in my breast.  Do you want to drive your daughter mad, or to take her life?”

“Begone, you impudent hussy; why do you dare to come here on such an occasion, only to annoy me?”

“I will not begone,” she replied, with a glowing cheek, “unless I am put out by force—­until I point out the consequences of your selfish tyranny and weakness.  I don’t come to annoy you, but I come to warn you, and to tell you, that I know your daughter better than you do yourself.  This marriage must not go on; or, if it does, send without delay to a lunatic asylum for a keeper for that only daughter.  I know her well, and I tell you that that’s what it’ll come to.”