sworn friend. He remembered how it had
come out on the trial, that the two had for months shared the same
bed--tilled in the same field--eat from the same mess--and had sinned
together in the same great sin. Yet this man had come forward to hang
his friend!--and Thady shuddered coldly as he thought how likely it
might be that his associates would betray him. He had not slept,
eat, and worked with them--he was not leagued to them by equal rank,
equal wants, and equal sufferings. If that wretched witness had been
induced to give evidence against the man so strongly bound to him,
how much more likely that Byrne or Reynolds should hang him! or Pat
Brady! And as Brady's name occurred to him, he remembered Ussher's
caution respecting that man, and his assurance that he was in
Keegan's pay. If this were true, he had already committed the
oversight to guard against which he had calculated that his superior
cunning would be sufficient; and then the cold perspiration trickled
from his brow, and he abruptly stopped, leaning against a bank, to
meditate again on the position in which he stood.

It was not that during this time Thady had been absolutely planning
murder. He had not been making any definite scheme, to be carried
into immediate execution against any individual. He was not a
murderer, even in mind or wish; he would have given anything to have
driven the idea from his mind, but he could not; he could not avoid
thinking what he would do, if he had resolved to do the deed--how the
crime would be most safely perpetrated--how the laws most cunningly
evaded. Then he half resolved to have nothing more to do with
Reynolds and his followers, and to quiet his conscience while yet he
possibly could; but the insolence of Keegan, the injuries of Ussher,
and the sure enmity of those whom he had sworn to join, and now
scarcely dared to desert, stifled his remorse, and destroyed the
resolution before it was half made. He thought of enlisting--but he
could not desert his sister; of going to Father John, and confessing
all; but would Father John befriend him after his late conduct to
him? Thus he wandered on, through the whole long morning. Twice he
returned to the house, and creeping in through the back door, got
himself a glass of spirits, which he swallowed, and again sallied
forth, to find if movement would give him comfort, or his thoughts
suggest anything to him in mitigation of his sorrows.

As he was returning, the third time,