Notwithstanding the hospitable invitation of Mr. Frettlby, Brian refused to stay at Yabba Yallook that night, but after saying good-bye to Madge, mounted his horse and rode slowly away in the moonlight.  He felt very happy, and letting the reins lie on his horse’s neck, he gave himself up unreservedly to his thoughts.  ATRA Cura certainly did not sit behind the horseman on this night; and Brian, to his surprise, found himself singing “Kitty of Coleraine,” as he rode along in the silver moonlight.  And was he not right to sing when the future seemed so bright and pleasant?  Oh, yes! they would live on the ocean, and she would find how much pleasanter it was on the restless waters, with their solemn sense of mystery, than on the crowded land.

“Was not the sea
Made for the free—­
Land for courts and slaves alone?”

Moore was perfectly right.  She would learn that when with a fair wind, and all sail set, they were flying over the blue Pacific waters.

And then they would go home to Ireland to the ancestral home of the Fitzgeralds, where he would lead her in under the arch, with “CEAD Mille FAILTHE” on it, and everyone would bless the fair young bride.  Why should he trouble himself about the crime of another?  No!  He had made a resolve. and intended to keep it; he would put this secret with which he had been entrusted behind his back, and would wander about the world with Madge and—­her father.  He felt a sudden chill come over him as he murmured the last words to himself “her father.”

“I’m a fool,” he said, impatiently, as he gathered up the reins, and spurred his horse into a canter.  “It can make no difference to me so long as Madge remains ignorant; but to sit beside him, to eat with him, to have him always present like a skeleton at a feast—­God help me!”

He urged his horse into a gallop, and as he rushed over the turf, with the fresh, cool night wind blowing keenly against his face, he felt a sense of relief, as though he were leaving some dark spectre behind.  On he galloped, with the blood throbbing in his young veins, over miles of plain, with the dark-blue, star-studded sky above, and the pale moon shining down on him—­past a silent shepherd’s hut, which stood near a wide creek; splashing through the cool water, which wound through the dark plain like a thread of silver in the moonlight—­then, again, the wide, grassy plain, dotted here and there with tall clumps of shadowy trees, and on either side he could see the sheep skurrying away like fantastic spectres—­on—­on—­ever on, until his own homestead appears, and he sees the star-like light shining brightly in the distance—­a long avenue of tall trees, over whose wavering shadows his horse thundered, and then the wide grassy space in front of the house, with the clamorous barking of dogs.  A groom, roused by the clatter of hoofs up the avenue, comes round the side of the house, and Brian leaps off his horse, and flinging the reins