Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 1, 2025
"At Galway I could make out nothing more than the word I sent you by messenger, so I came north after O'Donnell Dubh, taking very good care that he saw nothing of me." "I'll warrant that," laughed Brian. "We met your man at Swineford." "Then no need to tell what passed there.
"We cannot well ride around," said Turlough, when they had ridden back a little, leaving dead men on the road. "But a little way back is a path that leads out and around Swineford. Put ten men here to keep these O'Donnells from following us, and we will make a short cut to the Moy near Kiltanmugh. It was a clever trick, this!"
However, they had gained to within five miles of Swineford and had halted to blow the horses, when one of the scouts came riding back to say that a score of farmers with three carts were approaching from the town. Presently they came on them a black mass swinging down the road, which was very boggy on either hand.
Governor Swineford, appointed over the Territory in 1885, declared that throughout Southern Alaska and the Aleutian Islands the climate was moderate, even in winter; and he gave records of thermometrical observations which seemed to prove this. He further maintained that, in the parts named, all our hardier plants and crops grew to maturity in summer, and attained extraordinary luxuriance.
Knowing that he must return again by the same way, he avoided the larger towns and pushed hard for Swineford, where he would find word from Turlough. More than once he met parties of men on the road, but these were not anxious to question him, and it was not until he was riding around Claremorris that men began to feel his heavy hand.
These doings are set down briefly in the chronicle; but when Brian turned east again, with Swineford a hard day's ride away, he once more had a hundred and fifty men at his back, with a good store of all things, while his name was one that spread fear. He left his men camped two miles out of Swineford, on the Moy, and rode next morning into the town with a dozen horsemen only.
"There are Maguires in Swineford, master," said old Turlough with a cunning, sidelong look. "I met them coming north," laughed Brian softly. "They will prove good men to avoid, so I think that we shall ride around that burg." Brian thought that he could get through the Maguires, but he intended to take no chances.
"For worse in body no; he is much better," replied the domestic; "but he is clean mazed as it were eats and drinks as he was wont but sleeps not, or rather wakes not, for he is ever in a sort of twilight, that is neither sleeping nor waking. Dame Swineford thought it was like the dead palsy. But no, no, dame, said I, it is the heart, it is the heart."
Six days before this the Dark Master had arrived at Swineford, with Turlough an hour behind him. The old Wolf, whose cunning made up for his lack of courage, had made shift to get two of O'Donnell's dozen men embroiled with the Maguires.
So the Dark Master was going to the north to get him men in Sligo, as Turlough had predicted he would do, and his plan was to raise a force, bring down those Donegal pirates with whom he was in alliance, and set on Bertragh by sea and land, as Brian himself had aimed at doing. Turlough said that he was following, but would leave men at Swineford and Tobercurry with further news of what happed.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking