rs?'

"It was not like Tim O'Connell to refuse, and, calling his assistant in
the forge, young Larry Callaghan, he lighted a tallow candle, which he
placed in a battered tin lantern, and hastened out on his neighborly
errand, while Katty was easily persuaded by Mrs. O'Connell to 'stay by
the fire' until the men returned.

"The party saw nothing of the team or its owner until the dangerous road
led into a narrow but deep ravine, at whose bottom an ill-made causeway
led across a dangerous slough.

"'Holy Virgin, boys, but he's been upset! There's the cart across the
road, and one of the bastes in the wather; but where's the masther at
all? Come on, b'ys; we'll thry and save the _garrons_ any way.'

"They found the cart upset as described, and one of the horses exhausted
with struggling under the pole. The other, saved only from drowning by
the fact that its collar had held its head against the bank, had
evidently kicked and splashed until the water was thick with the black
muck stirred up from the bottom.

"It was only the work of a few moments to free the horse in the road,
and then the three proceeded to unloose the other, and draw him to a
less steep part of the embankment, where, making a sudden effort, with a
mighty plunge, he gained the road, and stood trembling and shaking
beside his companion.

"'Well done, our side,' said Tim, exultingly. 'Now for the masther.
They've run away I doubt, and he's.--What's the matter with you, Andy,
at all? What do you see? Mother of Heaven! it's himself, sure enough!'

"Tossed up from the shallows by the convulsive plunge of the steed,
whose heavy hoofs, in his first mad struggles, had beaten the head out
of all shape of humanity, in the narrow lane of light cast through the
door of the open lantern, lay the dead farmer, with his worn frieze coat
torn and blackened, and his black hair knotted with pond weeds, and
clotted with gore.

"It was scarce an hour later that the emptied cart, slowly drawn by its
exhausted span, bore to the little cottage a dead body, amid the wails
of scores of the simple peasants, and the hysterical and passionate
grief of the bereaved wife. It was with the greatest difficulty that she
was induced to refrain from looking at the dead body; although so
terribly was it mangled that the coroner's jury performed their duties
with the greatest reluctance, and the obsequies were ordered for the
very next day.

"The body was accordingly placed in a coff