266 WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



from the chase, Cormac and his followers were surprised 

 by a band of Catterans, and a fierce and desperate 

 skirmish ensued. The outlaws were defeated, but the 

 Lord of Iveagh was shot clean through the body with 

 a three-foot arrow : and how could he have better 

 luck? 



Then it was that the sinful Knight was tortured with 

 remorse and unavailing sorrow. He cursed the evil 

 counsellors who tempted him to insult Saint Ursula 

 and her adopted daughter, and, determining to be 

 reconciled to his wife and the church together, directed 

 his followers to carry him to the Abbey of Balleek. His 

 orders were obeyed, and the Lady Abbess consented 

 to admit the dying noble. He was laid before the 

 altar, and his injured wife, forgetting past resentment, 

 was the first to rush from her cell, and minister to his 

 relief. In the fatal emergency, coif and veil were left 

 behind ; her raven tresses fell below her shoulders, 

 and reached to her very waist, and Cormac was con- 

 vinced too late that his ill-used consort had the finest 

 hair in Christendom. Alas 1 those ebon locks had been 

 the admiration of the whole sisterhood ; and, for pene- 

 tential purposes, the Dominican had enjoined their con- 

 cealment for three years, when he gave spiritual counsel, 

 in their hour of tribulation, to the Abbess, the Baron, 

 and Rose Roche. 



To make atonement for his former unkindness, he 

 willed his rich domains to his beautiful widow. The 

 Prior of the Dominicans indicted the deed, which dis- 

 posed of his possessions ; and the church, of course, 

 was not forgotten. Surrounded by all the emblems of 

 religion, and with a splinter of the true cross in his 

 right hand, the penitent Baron breathed his last. He 



