on harps, the wild war cry and the merry hunt's up. But let it
pass, boy; I am glad thou art losing thy quarrelsome fashions. Eat
thy breakfast, any way, as I have that to employ thee which requires
haste."

"I have breakfasted already, and am in haste myself. I am for the
hills. Have you any message to my father?"

"None," replied the glover, in some surprise; "but art thou beside
thyself, boy? or what a vengeance takes thee from the city, like
the wing of the whirlwind?"

"My warning has been sudden," said Conachar, speaking with difficulty;
but whether arising from the hesitation incidental to the use of a
foreign language, or whether from some other cause, could not easily
be distinguished. "There is to be a meeting--a great hunting--"
Here he stopped.

"And when are you to return from this blessed hunting?" said the
master; "that is, if I may make so bold as to ask."

"I cannot exactly answer," replied the apprentice. "Perhaps never,
if such be my father's pleasure," continued Conachar, with assumed
indifference.

"I thought," said Simon Glover, rather seriously, "that all this
was to be laid aside, when at earnest intercession I took you under
my roof. I thought that when I undertook, being very loth to do so,
to teach you an honest trade, we were to hear no more of hunting,
or hosting, or clan gatherings, or any matters of the kind?"