Page:Irish assassin, or, The misfortunes of the family of O'Donnel (3).pdf/3

 returned thanks for the opportunity given him of perpetrating the horrid deed. The sound of voices within the house now filled his guilty bosom with alarm, and, with the swiftness of lightning, he flew towards the country.

Towards the latter end of the summer of 1793, our hero arrived at his eighteenth year, a season when the heart of youth is most susceptible of the softer impressions. As he was riding one evening at this period, through the lands in the vicinity of his father's estate, oppressed by the heat, he entered under the refreshing shade of a neighbouring wood, which clothed the sides of a steep mountain that reared its head before him. The appearance of the spot was bewitchingly picturesque; the verdure of the meadows, the grouping of the cattle, with here and there a cottage embosomed in the foliage of the wood, and the varying shrubs which climbed along the occasional rugged projections of the crag, all tended to heighten the beauty of the scene. The sombre shades of night were fast approaching, the setting sun smiled with a farewell lustre on the summits of the hills, and the water of a neighbouring stream, which flowed slowly over its sandy bed, received a deeper gloom from the lengthening shadows of the mountains. The night closed in ere he could tear himself from the enchanting region, which he promised to visit once more on the ensuing morning.

The succeeding day was excessively hot; but as evening approached, nature again assumed her mellow conjuring, and again did Arthur dwell with rapture on the scenes he had viewed with so much pleasure the night before. He entered the wood, and pursued a path that on in an oblique direction, gently winding up the hill; was soft as moss, and of a vivid green, and through any little openings in the wood, the crags, the adjacent village, and the meandering stream were seen to great vantage He had not proceeded far, before a neat white cottage, built on a little level, on the side of a hill,