t is not only a duty but a virtue--and any man who acts out
of this feeling, either as a juror, a witness, or an elector--for the
principle is the same--must expect to meet such retribution as was
suggested by a heart like Nogher M'Cormick's, which was otherwise
affectionate and honest. In the secret code of perverted honor by which
Irishmen are guided, he is undoubtedly the most heroic and manly, and
the most worthy also of imitation, who indulges in, and executes
his vengeance for injuries whether real or supposed, with the most
determined and unshrinking spirit; but the man who is capable of braving
death, by quoting his own innocence as an argument against the justice
of law, even when notoriously guilty, is looked upon by the people, not
as an innocent man--for his accomplices and friends know he is not--but
as one who is a hero in his rank of life; and it is unfortunately a kind
of ambition among too many of our ill-thinking but generous countrymen,
to propose such men as the best models for imitation, not only in their
lives, but in that hardened hypocrisy which defies and triumphs over the
ordeal of death itself.

Connor O'Donovan was a happy representation of all that is noble and
pious in the Irish character, without one tinge of the crimes which
darken or discolor it. But the heart that is full of generosity and
fortitude, is generally most susceptible of the kinder and more amiable
affections. The noble boy, who could hear the sentence of death without
the commotion of a nerve, was forced to weep on the neck of an old and
faithful follower who loved him, when he remembered that, after that
melancholy visit, he should see his familiar face no more. When Nogher
left him, a train of painful reflections passed through his mind. He
thought of Una, of his father, of his mother, and for some time was
more depressed than usual. But the gift of life to the young is ever a
counterbalance to every evil that is less than death. In a short time he
reflected that the same Providence which had interposed between him and
his recorded sentence, had his future fate in its hands; and that he had
health, and youth, and strength--and, above all, a good conscience--to
bear him through the future vicissitudes of his appointed fate.

PART VI.

To those whose minds and bodies are of active habits, there can be
scarcely anything more trying than a position in which the latter is
deprived of its usual occupation, and the for