platters were removed, and the jug replenished.

"Now, your honour, will you tell us how you got away from the Protestant
rebels, and how was it they didn't make short work of you, when they
caught you? It's a puzzle to us entirely, for the Enniskilleners spare
neither man, woman, nor child."

Walter related the whole circumstances of his capture, imprisonment, and
escape.

"You fooled them nicely," the man said, admiringly. "Sure your honour's
the one to get out of a scrape--and you little more than a boy."

"And what are you doing here?" Walter asked, in return. "This seems a
wild place to live in."

"It's just that," the man said. "We belonged to Kilbally. The
Enniskilleners came that way, and burned it to the ground. They murdered
my wife and many another one. I was away cutting peat with my wife's
brother here. When we came back, everything was gone. A few had escaped
to the bogs, where they could not be followed; the rest was, every
mother's son of them, killed by those murdering villains. Your honour may
guess what we felt, when we got back. Thank God I had no children! We
buried the wife in the garden behind the house, and then started away and
joined a band of rapparees, and paid some of them back in their own coin.
Then, one day, the Enniskilleners fell on us, and most of us were killed.
Then we made our way back to the old village, and came up here and built
us this hut. It's a wonder to us how you got here; for there are bogs
stretching away in all directions, and how you made your way through them
bates us entirely."