MacCarthy more, or, The fortunes of an Irish chief in the reign of ...

10 MacCaliHT Mobe; or,
and bis people were indignant at the vacillating? con«
duct of their chief, which left them thus exposed, so
to say, between two fires.
Things could not go on in this way. There came
a time when the Earl of Clancarthy found it neces-
sary to justify himself to the government, and to
disclaim by letter all connection with his unfortunate
relative, then reduced to the last extremity. His
letter of excuse and submission was graciously re-
ceived ;
he was ostentatiously admitted to renewed
favor, but his country was immediately placed
under English protection, viz :—the gentle care of
such men as Sir Warham St. Leger, and the military
authorities generally. Still the land was nominally his
own, his renewed submission of it and himself to the
Queen having saved it from the claws of the vultures
who were in those evil days ever hovering over the
" countries," of the great Irish lords.
Now, this lirst Earl of Clancarthy had, at this
time, but one legitimate child remaining, a daughter
who was still under twenty, and of such goodly
presence as might be expected from the daughter of
MacCarthy More, and the niece of the princely Geraldine.
Trained by her lady mother in the womanly
accomplishments befitting her rank, Lady Ellen Mac-
Carthy had grown up to early womanhood in the
seclusion of her father's chief castle of Pallioe on
the lovely banks of the Laune, in the romantic soli-
tudes of Killarney, close by the Lower Lake.
A few short years before, and a bright-faced boy,
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