n a storm, one person alone appeared to act with a
definite purpose, and that was little Joe Egan. The event had made him
like one possessed with rage and despair. To Joe, weakly and timorous
and not over-wise, his valiant, handsome, good-natured soldier cousin
had come as the most splendid apparition that had shined upon him in the
dim course of his fifteen years; and he had spent the past three months
in adoring it very devoutly. So that now to see him laid low suddenly in
this savage fashion was a sight that might well cause a burning thirst
for vengeance upon the miscreant who had dealt the stroke. Joe generally
had to get his revenges wreaked by deputy; and now, as he darted away,
his intention was to find the polis somewhere, and bring them to take up
"that great bastely murdherin' divil, Hugh McInerney," and if by any
means possible get him hung. He attained his object sooner than might
have been expected, as not far down the road a pair of constables were
run into by a small tatterdemalion figure, who, choking and stammering
and writhing in an ague fit of fury, proceeded to inform them that "Big
Hugh McInerney was just after murdherin' Denis O'Meara up above
there--takin' the head off him wid a rapin'-hook," and, further, that
"if they looked in the dirty thief's little place at the fut of the
hill, they'd find that every other stone in the walls of it was nothin'
else but a crock of poteen."

This was the cause of the police's prompt arrival on the scene, where
nobody resented Joe's action. Denis's injury, though so grave, happily
did not seem to be mortal, in fact, on this occasion young Dan O'Beirne,
albeit scarcely more than a spalpeen, displayed a handiness and resource
about bandaging and other remedies, which foreshadowed his future
reputation throughout the district for knowledgableness in surgery and
medicine. Hugh McInerney was, of course, at once arrested, without any
resistance on his part, or any sympathy from the indignant neighbours.
He appeared to be what old Will Sheridan termed, "fallen into a serious
consternation," and was heard to make only one remark. It was when
people were saying that Theresa Joyce had took a wakeness, and her
brothers had carried her indoors. "Och, the crathur," he said, "and it
might aisy have hit her, very aisy. Miself's the quare divil."

Once the police and their prisoner had gone, Denis having been brought
into the Ryans' house, a deep and melancholy hush settled do