till we give him his due?' and so saying he flourished a large blackthorn stick over his head.

6

'Here I am, gentlemen,' said O'Sulevan calmly, as he stepped down upon the road from beneath the shadow of the rock. Here I am, and the man that calls me a traitor is a false liar. Let him meet me here now, hand to hand, with equal weapons, and I will cram the lie down his throat.'

'Bedad, that's fair!' cried many of the bystanders. Here's a stick as good as any O'Glyn ever had in his hand-ye may depend your life on it, O'Sulevan,' shouted a slashing tall young fellow as he made his way through the crowd, and handed his knotted heavy stick to the young chieftain. The true ould O'Sulevan blood never had a traitor amongst them, tho' there's many that bears the name bad enough. To it, O'Sulevan, and if ye fall, by the powers I'll challenge the best man amongst them myself, and bate him to pieces over your body!'

'Hold hard there,' cried the general, 'we can't allow a row to take place here to-night, as if it was two country boys fighting at a fair or market. We met for a different purpose. Put

on your coat, O'Sulevan, and cease wheeling your shillelagh, O'Glyn. Have done, I say, and fall into line there again. I'll have no such random fighting on the mountain side.'

'I beg pardon, general,' replied O'Sulevan ; 'I may perhaps have been a little rash in my challenge when my blood was up at being called a traitor. But now that I have said it, I'll not go back of my word. Here, Teague,' turning to his faithful foster-brother who never left his side for a moment, though he did not venture to interfere. Take these things and keep them safely, and if I fall have all brought home, and there will be no want of hands I warrant to carry the body of a true-born O'Sulevan to its last resting-place. Give me the stick, young friend, and let me handle it a bit till I see if it's all sound, and has the right balance in my grasp. It's the right sort, my fine fellow, and I'm much obliged to you for lending it,' he continued, as he gave it a whirl through the air that sounded like the flight of a bird; and now, O'Glyn, I'm your man.'

6

O'Glyn's admirers were by no means slack, and Long Turret having taken charge of his coat and hat, and tied a thick cotton handkerchief round his champion's head, as he said,

'to deaden the strokes,' he led him out to where O'Sulevan stood calmly waiting his approach.

Clear the course, clear the course!' was shouted on all sides; and the delight of the crowd at seeing two such champions commence a duel of the kind was unbounded; and many a quart of whisky was bet on either side, rather according as their wishes led them, than with reference to the chances of success.

66

'Well now,' whispered Teague to a man standing near him, may I never, but I didn't think the young master would go do the like of that with a low-bred thief of a chap like O'Glyn, but faix if it isn't that the moonlight comes agin him, I'm not one bit afeared. Not a one of them knows that he's been practising single stick," as he calls it, in Paris, and the swoord exercise too, till he's as good at it as the best man at a wake or pattern. He and I took a turn at it the other day for practice, and troth he surprised me by giving me two or three taps before I knew where I was, that if he was in airnest would have left me on the broad of my back; wait awhile now and ye'll see sport if ye never saw it before.'

'The course,' as they called it, was now cleared, and a flat spot on the road was chosen

for the combat; each man had his backer. Our young friend, who lent the blackthorn stick, backed O'Sulevan, and Long Turret backed O'Glyn; and with sundry directions and admonitions given to each, with strict injunctions from the officers that no one should interfere, the combat began.

O'Sulevan held his blackthorn stick with apparent carelessness in one hand, grasping it almost in its centre, and thus awaited calmly the onset of his antagonist. He did not wait long, for O'Glyn, a powerful thick-set man with an arm of iron, made at him with all his strength, endeavouring to break down O'Sulevan's guard by the force and rapidity of his blows. But he had not counted on the foreign training of his adversary, who with the dexterity of a well-trained stickman, and with an eye as quick as lightning, sometimes holding his hand aloft, and sometimes guarding himself below-shifting his hands rapidly from one part of the stick to the other, parried with apparent ease the furious attacks of O'Glyn. The clatter made by these rapid strokes and parries was marvellous, and no one at a distance could have believed that only two champions were engaged in the contest.

O'Glyn finding all his efforts fruitless to break down his adversary's guard, became almost frantic, and panting with rage and exertion he suddenly drew down both his hands to the lower end of his weapon, so as to give the fullest force to the blow, and with all his might brought his heavy blackthorn to bear right down, as it were, on the head of his adversary. O'Sulevan saw the O'Sulevan saw the danger, and instantly raising his stick horizontally above his head, and rapidly slipping his right hand from the centre to the end, whilst with his left he held the other end, he received the full weight of the blow on the middle of his extended stick. O'Glyn's stroke was so severe, and his blackthorn so heavy, that thus exposed to its weight, the hitherto trusty weapon of O'Sulevan yielded to the blow, and broke almost in two right over his head. A shout of triumphant rage resounded from the friends of O'Glyn; whilst O'Glyn himself, scarcely believing in the success of his blow, stood still for a moment to recover his weapon and his surprise.

'Hit him again, his stick's broke in two,' shouted Long Turret; level him nowdown with him, I say, with another stroke like that!'