about Ballaghadamore had not been general, and the terror and trouble were proportionately less there than in other parts of the country. But a few arrests were made, and among the first to be taken was the Whisperer. It would seem that in his faring up and down the county on his business he had had the opportunity and had used it for purposes of organization, and it was not his fault that the countryside was not in such a blaze as was Kildare, or Wicklow, or Wexford.

He was spirited away one night at the dead of the night from his little room above the Blackbird's stable, and it was only the next morning that Lord Cashel heard what had happened. He was in the utmost despair, and sat with his head in his hands two hours by the clock. Then he sprang up, and, calling for his horse, rode hard to Wharncliffe Tower. The Duke, who was not an early riser, was just finishing his morning cup of chocolate. My Lord burst in on him, hardly waiting to be announced.

"I am come to tell you," he cried, "that our match must be off."

"Not so far as I am concerned," said his Grace, coolly; "but my Pegasus is the better horse."

My Lord cursed the Duke's horse for answer. Then, he went on, more quietly:

"My Blackbird's mount is in the county jail among the croppies, and he will let no one else ride him."

"Ah!" said the Duke, contemplating his handsome calf in its silk stocking, "many a better man is in like case. There is poor Edward Fitzgerald, with a festering shoulder, to keep him company in his cell. Ah, Cashel, what a man !"

Worth many of you or me," said my Lord shortly. "But our match, Wharncliffe ?"

"Ah, our match. I don't want to die till I beat you or yield to you. And they say there will be many a pair of bright eyes to wish success to the colours of one or the other of us."

"But I tell you my Blackbird will never go to the post without his mount. He would not budge an inch, or he would break his back or his rider's."

"Tut!" said the Duke contemptuously. "What good is a mere peasant in this bog that it should interfere with the sport of gentlemen? Musgrave will lend him to us for the race. You'll guarantee that he'll ride your race, and not give Blackbird his head and show the law a clean pair of heels ?"

He'll ride the race," said Lord Cashel with conviction. "Then consider the matter done."

Captain Musgrave, the Governor of the County Jail, was a gallant officer, more at home in the field than in the keeping of

rebels. However, a wound in his knee had finished his soldiering for ever, and he had had to accept the veteran's lot while not yet much over thirty, and the government of a jail rather than fields of renown. He had but the slightest acquaintanceship with the young beauty of the county, and it was with a deep sense of gratification that he received a note from Lady Mabel the morning after the prisoners were lodged in jail.

"Would Captain Musgrave so far pleasure a woman," it ran as to let her maid who bears this have speech of a friend, one Miles Keon, now lying in his Majesty's jail in Captain Musgrave's keeping ?"

"I wish she had asked me something less easy," said the soldier as he gave orders that the bearer of the note should be admitted to see the prisoner.

Miles was sitting with his head in his hands on the foot of his low pallet. Of his own danger he was not thinking at all. His thoughts were on the race that now could not be run, for he knew the Blackbird would bear no other rider. The trouble of it had weighed heavily on him, and a sleepless night had drawn dark rings about his eyes. If it were not that he was failing his beloved master, he need care for nothing. He had neither kith nor kin, and as for Gracie-it was as if something had compressed his heart tightly for an instant-Gracie would never care.

There was a jangling of the big key in the lock of his cell and the door was jerked open. A warder put in his head, and withdrew it to admit a woman, deeply veiled. Miles stood up in surprise as she came forward through the obscurity of his cell. When she had come close to him, she threw back her veil :

"Gracie !" he cried in such a joyful voice that the warder, who had retired and was pacing up and down outside the door, stopped in amazement. It was not a place where the voice of joy

often sounded.

"Miles!" she answered, calling him by his name for the first time, and blushing through her tears. "Did you think I would not come ?"

“Oh, Gracie, Gracie," he said, "why should you come to me here except you love me? And sure I never lifted my eyes to you, asthoreen.”

"It wasn't my fault then," she said laughing, in spite of the place they were in," you left it all to me, Miles Keon."

He read the invitation in her eyes, and answered it with his lips on hers and his arms about her. Then he put her away a little bit and looked at her sorrowfully.

"I shouldn't have done it, Gracie Oge Machree. It is for another man you are, and not for Miles Keon."

Never," she said. "I gave you my heart from the beginning, and I will never look at another man."

"Do you

"Gracie," he said, drawing her to his shoulder. know it's a hanging matter for me? If I was in Kildare or Wicklow to-day, 'tis out of a branch of a tree I'd be swinging by this."

Oh, no, no!" she cried shuddering. "Your Lord has powerful friends, and my Lady will do anything for us. It is through her I am here. And she has only to say a word, and the Duke will move heaven and earth for her."

"Well, well, we will hope, avourneen. I want to live now," he said, "only God send that the orders don't come to dispose of us before my Lord and your Lady have had time to do anything."

The orders did not come and the day of the race drew nigh. They seemed to have forgotten in Dublin Castle that a handful of peasants were lying in jail in this remote south-west corner of Munster. And meanwhile the Duke had approached Captain Musgrave on the matter of lending him Miles Keon for the race.

"But what is there to prevent him," objected Musgrave, "when he tops the stone wall, whither my mounted men cannot follow him, from heading his horse for the Dingle Hills? Once among the mountains he might snap his fingers at all the soldiers we could send in pursuit."

"I have spoken with the fellow, and he is honest," answered the Duke. "The nearest thing to his heart at this moment, though he has a sweetheart, I am told, is to win his master the race. I wish there were any fellow of mine for whom I could say so much."

"Ah, poor fellow," said Musgrave, "he has a sweetheart. Yes, I have seen her, a charming creature. But, your Grace, if he slips our fingers, it will be a serious matter for me."

"Do you think I am not powerful enough to cover you in such a matter, if there were need ?" Then, with a change of voice, Ah, poor devils, it can be no pleasure jailing them, Musgrave.' "You are right, your Grace, it is no work for a soldier," answered Musgrave gloomily.

The two Englishmen shook hands and parted. The day of the race came bright and beautiful. When Miles the Whisperer faced it out of the gloom of his cell, he blinked at it like an owl. He was flung upon a horse in the midst of a band of stout fellows, and, hidden by a great coat to his heels, left the prison behind.

Lord Cashel had been with him, and had given him accounts of the horse. At first the Blackbird had looked for him and kept up a whinnying day and night, which told that he was not yet in despair of his friend's return. Later his mood grew vicious and

sullen. He would rush at the grooms who came to feed him open-mouthed, and had torn the fittings of his loose-box to pieces.

"But 'twill be all right when he sees you, Miles," said his Lordship. "You are his good genius and will drive out his devil."

The horse had preceded Miles on the racecourse. He was in one of his most vicious moods, squeaking and trumpeting and trampling the grass of his little paddock as if it were flesh and blood under his hooves. A fascinated crowd was watching him through the stout palings.

"'Tis the Devil they ought to call him," said one, “an' not the Blackbird at all. Sure the Blackbird's a decent little bit of a bird, an' nothing at all to do wid the likes o' that mad brute." Wirra, God help the poor boy's got to cross his back," said an old crone. " 'Tis myself wouldn't be puttin' my nine bones in danger for the like o' that beast."

Have done wid your foolishness," said a man better informed. "'Tis the Whisperer that's to ride him, an' he has power over any horse ever foaled. Let alone that you'd be a nice lookin' jockey to be putting your leg across the Blackbird."

The course was three miles of an undulating pastoral country. The ground on which the stand was built sloped gently, so that the course lay well within view of those who were on it or about it. It was natural racecourse, with a brook to be leaped and a rough stone wall half way from home. All the country people had tur ed out on foot, or driving or riding rough nags, and there were a few carriages, among them being the big yellow barouche from Shelton with Lady Mabel sitting in it by her stately mother. It might have been noticed that she shrank less modestly than usual from the admiring glances that fell upon her, seeming, indeed, to be rapt out of herself by some unusual excitement that lit soft fires in her cheeks and in her eyes.

Pegasus, a bay horse, was being led up and down amid an admiring throng. Though his spirit made him prance and snort so that the laughing crowds scurried from before him as children do before an advancing wave, it was a very different matter from the Blackbird. The large, limpid eyes of the bay were so full of kindness as to invite caresses, and the difficulty of his rider was to keep a thousand hands from smoothing the sleek cheeks and satin side.

Blessings and good wishes followed Pegasus, and the Duke's colours of blue and silver, whereas it seemed to be generally agreed that no luck at all could follow the Blackbird, an' sure what business had his Lordship wid the like at all, riskin' people's

lives for the sake of a brute of a horse that ought to have had a shot put in him long ago?

Yet the Blackbird swung into favour, and left Peagsus forgotten, a few minutes later. The horses, the race, and everything went clear out of men's mind when the Whisperer rode up amid his escort. It got quickly among the excited. people that Miles Keon was out of prison to ride the Blackbird, and cheer after cheer rent the air. The escort drew to one side, looking rather sullen, and lighting down from their horses pretended to turn their entire attention to feeding and washing them. Lord Cashel was standing by to hurry Miles into the dressing-room and away from the handshakes many a one was giving him. It was noticed that, as he went in, he pricked up his ears at the whinnying of the Blackbird which all at once had succeeded the shrill, unnatural squeaking.

He came out in a few minutes so fine in his colours of green and gold that his poor Gracie's heart swelled, where she stood quietly apart, with love and sorrowful pride.

He went straight to the horse, and the crowd, which had deserted Pegasus, tumbled helter skelter to see the encounter. The Whisperer ran lightly half-way down the paddock, and then stood smiling as the horse came galloping towards him, tossing his beautiful head in the air and neighing with joy. When they had met, the horse's head went into the man's bosom and the man's arms around the horse's neck. A minute they stood so in happy meeting. Then the Whisperer sprang lightly into the saddle, and the horse came stepping forth, holding his head high and seeming to spurn the earth from his delicate feet.

A moment more and the two beautiful creatures were off. Lord Cashel watched the colours flash out of sight, and then turned and mounted the stand with a noise of armies in his ears.

For a few minutes his sight failed him, so that he could not distinguish. Then it cleared a little. He could see the two brilliant specks floating away at the end of the Ten Acres by the hazel copse. The field was crossed in a flash, and the horses were coming up to the brook. Pegasus was leading, the Blackbird a couple of lengths behind. Miley is holding him in," Lord Cashel said half aloud, "he will give him his head when they have taken the jump."

"Twould be hard on us, Cashel, if your fellow were to fly now," said a voice at his side.

Ah, Wharncliffe, I had not noticed you were my neighbour. So it would be, but Miley will not fly."

He was as pale as death, and his voice trembled. The Duke was gay and smiling.