I can not do better than give it, as near as I can, in the
words of one who was an actor in the scene.
CHAPTER XVII.
"Now what wouldst thou do, good my squire,
That rides beside my rein,
Wert thou Glenallan's earl to-day,
And I were Roland Cheyne?
* * * * *
My horse should ride through their ranks sae rude,
As he would through the moorland fern,
And ne'er let the gentle Norman bluid
Grow cauld for the Highland kerne."
It was in the beginning of December, 184-(said Fred. Carew); we were
sitting down to dinner after a capital day's cock-shooting--besides
myself there were Lord Clontarf, Mohun, and Kate, my wife--when we were
disturbed by a perfect hail of knocks at the hall door. Old Dan Tucker,
or the Spectre Horseman, never clamored more loudly for admittance.
Fritz, Mohun's old Austrian servant, went down to see what was up, and,
on opening the door, was instantly borne down by the tumultuous rush of
Michael Kelly, gentleman, agent to half a dozen estates, and attorney at
law. In the two last capacities be had given, it seems, great umbrage to
the neighboring peasantry, and they had caught him that night as he
returned home, intending to put him to death with that ingenuity of
torture for which the fine, warm-hearted fellows are justly celebrated.
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