"Come this way," said the stranger; "you are Francis M'Carthy, I think?"

"Yes, that is my name--what is yours?"

"That doesn't matther," replied the voice, "stand aside here, and be
quiet as you value your life."

M'Carthy thought at the moment that he heard the noise of many feet, as
it were in the distance.

"You will not be safe," said the voice, "if you refuse to take my
advice;" and as he spoke he partly forced M'Carthy over to the side of
the road where they both stood invisible from the darkness of the night,
as well as from the shelter of a large whitethorn branch, which would,
even in daylight, almost have concealed them from view. In a few
minutes, a large body of people passed them with that tread which always
characterizes the motions of undisciplined men. There was scarcely a
word among them, but M'Carthy felt that, knowing them as he did to
be peasants, there was something dreadful in the silence which they
maintained so strictly. He could not avoid associating their movements
and designs with some act of violence and bloodshed, that was about to
add horror to the impenetrable gloom of night, whose darkness, perhaps,
they were about to light up with the roof-tree of some unsuspecting
household, ignorant of the fiery fate that was then so near them.

Several hundreds must have passed, and when the last sounds of their
tread had died away, M'Carthy and his companion left their hiding-place,
when the latter addressed him as follows:--