Both accordingly struck off the highway, and took a short path across the fields, while at every step the water spurted up out of the spongy soil, so that they were soon wet nearly to their knees, so thoroughly saturated was the ground with the rain which had incessantly fallen.  After toiling thro’ plashy fields, they at length went up, as Sullivan had said, by an old unfrequented footpath, that ran behind his garden, the back of which consisted of a thick elder hedge, through which scarcely the heaviest rain could penetrate.  At one end of this garden, through a small angle, forming a cul de sac, or point, where the hedge was joined by one of white thorn, ran the little obsolete pathway alluded to, and as another angle brought them at once upon the spot we are describing, it would so happen that if any one had been found there when they appeared, it would be impossible to leave it if they wished to do so, without directly meeting them, there being no other mode of egress from it except by the footpath in question.

In that sheltered nook, then, our travellers found a young man about two or three and twenty, holding the unresisting hand of a very beautiful and bashful-looking girl, not more than nineteen, between his.  From their position, and the earnestness with which the young peasant addressed her, there could be but little doubt as to the subject matter of their conversation.  If a bolt from the thunder which had been rolling a little back among the mountains, and which was still faintly heard in the distance, had fallen at the feet of the young persons in question, it could not have filled them with more alarm than the appearance of Sullivan and the prophet.  The girl, who became pale and red by turns, hung her head, then covered her face with her hands; and after a short and ineffectual struggle, burst into tears, exclaiming—­

“Oh, my God, it is my father!”

The youth, for he seemed scarcely to have reached maturity, after a hesitating glance at Sullivan, seemed at once to have determined the course of conduct he should pursue.  His eye assumed a bold and resolute look—­he held himself more erect—­and, turning towards the girl, without removing his gaze from her father, he said in a loud and manly tone—­

“Dear Mave, it is foolish to be frightened.  What have you done that ought to make you aither ashamed or afeared?  If there’s blame anywhere, it’s mine, not yours, and I’ll bear it.”

Sullivan, on discovering this stolen interview—­for such it was—­felt precisely as a man would feel, who found himself unexpectedly within the dart of a rattlesnake, with but one chance of safety in his favor and a thousand against him.  His whole frame literally shook with the deadly depth of his resentment; and in a voice which fully betrayed its vehemence, he replied—­

“Blame! ay, shame an’ blame—­sin an’ sorrow there is an’ ought to rest upon her for this unnatural and cursed meetin’!  Blame! surely, an’ as I stand here to witness her shame, I tell her that there would not be a just God in Heaven, if she’s not yet punished for holdin’ this guilty discoorse with the son of the man that has her uncle’s blood—­my brother’s blood—­on his hand of murdher—­”