HESTER'S HISTORY.

A NEW SERIAL TALE.

CHAPTER XXIV. ON A SUMMER EVENING, AT
SHANE'S CASTLE.

THERE is a little village near Dublin called
Santry. In the days of my story there was a
familiar excitement dear to the children of this
village, which was the sound of a post-horn
blown lustily from the distance, swelling nearer
and nearer, which was also the sight of a
wonderful coach coming whirling down the road,
the coachman's scarlet coat shining through
clouds of yellow dust. But one glowing May-
day there was a new excitement in store for the
children of the village of Santry. A crowd of a
thousand gloomy men came, and gathered in a
field beside the road. And the children looked
on in wonder, while car and cart, ploughshare
and barrow were dragged from shed and from
stable-yard, and placed in a strange barricade
across the road. And when the coach came
cheerily along, bringing its triumphant music
down the hill, a few of those silent men stepped
forth from the field and took possession of the
horses. The music ceased, the passengers were
escorted with courtesy to the houses of the
villagers, a light was put to the straw under
the perch where the driver had smoked his pipe
for many years, and the gay wonderful coach
became a bonfire, to the terror and admiration
of the children, and the grim satisfaction of
those gloomy men. The children did not know
what it all meant; but the nation did. Before
twenty-four hours had passed war was declared,
and the country was in arms. A week passed,
and battles had been fought and won, and fire
and sword raged through the land.

The men of the North had not yet arisen.
They waited in awful quietude the signal of
their leader. It was during this terrible pause
that Sir Archie Munro received an urgent message
from his friend Lord O'Neal. The message
was simply an invitation to dinner. A safe
message; though this was hardly a time for
giving dinners. But Sir Archie knew well that
there was something important to be said—
something which could not be trusted upon
paper. Lord O'Neal was known to be a loyal
man, and his passport in Sir Archie's hand was
sufficient protection to bring him safely from
Glenluce to Shane's Castle.

It was a glorious evening, about the first day
of June, when Sir Archie Munro rode through
Shane's Castle Park. He entered at the
Randalstown gates, by which the silver Maine dives
under its bridge at the entrance to the little
town. He turned his head to see the image of
the golden sun quivering in the water, and the
cozy village nestling among its May-flowers, and
turf-smoke, and apple-trees, away beyond the
river, across the rugged bridge. But when he
plunged into the park the river went with him;
though hidden for a time behind the primrose
dells and dingles, the green slopes and wooded
hills. Now he had miles of smooth verdure on
either hand, with, in the distance, golden bars
of sunset glowing behind files of young trees
that mustered on the upland. Now tall grand
firs rose and confronted him at a sudden turning;
directed him with their pointing fingers to
lose himself in a sombre wilderness, where their
more majestic brethren thronged together in
dusky crowds, turning the day into night under
the shadow of their foliage.

The darkness thickened. There was no sound
of the horse's feet on the soft earth in the
moist shade. A brown atmosphere of twilight
lurked under the lofty roofing of the pines, and
swept its heavy shade down their branches to
meet the lower thickets. Then the ferns and
the young saplings, the tall tufts and purple
drifts of the wild hyacinth, the snowberry and
the blackberry, the matted mosses, and the
scarlet-headed stalks of the nightshade, sprang
together in magnificent disorder, and wove
themselves into masses to enrich the splendid gloom.
Here and there fierce red sparks from the
sunset came glowering with lurid eyes through
little holes in the thicket, as if a fire had been
getting kindled in the underwood.

Now an opening shone through the dusk.
The trees stood aside, and suffered the pathway
to lead the way up to a stately bridge. Under
the arches of the bridge flowed the river,
suddenly flashing from behind the sombre pine-
forest, broader, fuller, more luminous than
when last seen. A lordly river that for ages
had laid its silver neck under the foot of the
O'Neal, gathering legends and lilies as it hurried
on its way to give its treasures to the
mysterious keeping of the storied Lough Neagh.
Now the cawing of rooks announced the neigh-