answer that truly. Now the
question is, can you remember what you were doing when the blow was
struck? Tell me now, Feemy, can you remember?"

"No, Father John, I remember nothing; from the time when he took me
by the arm, as I sat upon the tree, till Thady told me he was dead, I
remember nothing. If they kill me, I can tell them nothing."

"Feemy, dear, don't sob so! That's all you'll have to say. Merely say
that--merely say that you were sitting on a tree. Were you waiting
for Captain Ussher there?"

"Yes."

"And that whilst you were there you saw Thady; isn't that so?"

"Yes."

"And Ussher then raised you by the arm, and then you fainted?"

"I don't know what happened to me; but I heard nothing, and saw
nothing, till Thady lifted me from the ground, and told me he was
dead."

"That's all, Feemy. Surely there's no great difficulty in saying
that--when it'll save your own brother's life to say so; and it's
only the truth. You can say as much in court as you've just said to
me, can't you? Mrs. McKeon 'll be there with you--and I'll be there
with you. You'll only have to say in court what you've just said to
me."

"I'll try, Father John. But you don't know what it is for one like
me to be talking with so many horrid faces round one--with the
heart dead within--to be asked such horrid questions, and everybody
listening. I'll do as you bid me; I'll go with them when they fetch
me--but I know I'll die before I've said all they will want me to
say."

Father John tried to comfort and strengthen her, but she was in great
bodily pain, and he soon saw that he had better leave her; she had at
any rate shown him by her answers to his questions, that the evidence
she could give would be such as would most tend to Thady's acquittal;
and, moreover, he perceived from her manner, that though the feelings
which she entertained towards her brother were of a most painful
description, she would, nevertheless, not be actuated by them in any
of the answers she might give.

On the Thursday following Mrs. McKeon and one of her daughters called
at Ballycloran, and in spite of the bars and bolts with which the
front door was barricaded, they contrived to make their way into
Feemy's room. She remembered that Father John had told her that they
would call on that day, and she was therefore prepared to receive
them. Mrs. McKeon brought her some little comforts from Drumsna,
of which she was sadly in want; for there was literally noth