the Scotch call _fey_--that is, to act as if he were moved by some
impulse that leads to death, and from the influence of which a man
cannot withdraw himself. At length, on finding him invincibly
obstinate, they left him pursuing the hare directly into the heart of
the mountains, and returned to their respective homes.
In the meantime one of the most terrible snow-storms ever remembered
in that part of the country came on, and the consequence was, that the
self-willed young man, who had equally trampled on the sanctities of
religion and parental authority, was given over for lost. As soon as
the tempest became still, the neighbours assembled in a body and
proceeded to look for him. The snow, however, had fallen so heavily
that not a single mark of a footstep could be seen. Nothing but one
wide waste of white undulating hills met the eye wherever it turned,
and of M'Kenna no trace whatever was visible or could be found. His
father, now remembering the unnatural character of his imprecation,
was nearly distracted; for although the body had not yet been found,
still by every one who witnessed the sudden rage of the storm and who
knew the mountains, escape or survival was felt to be impossible.
Every day for about a week large parties were out among the
hill-ranges seeking him, but to no purpose. At length there came a
thaw, and his body was found on a snow-wreath, lying in a supine
posture within a circle which he had drawn around him with his
cock-stick. His prayer-book lay opened upon his mouth, and his hat was
pulled down so as to cover it and his face. It is unnecessary to say
that the rumour of his death, and of the circumstances under which he
left home, created a most extraordinary sensation in the country--a
sensation that was the greater in proportion to the uncertainty
occasioned by his not having been found either alive or dead. Some
affirmed that he had crossed the mountains, and was seen in Monaghan;
others, that he had been seen in Clones, in Emyvale, in
Five-mile-town; but despite of all these agreeable reports, the
melancholy truth was at length made clear by the appearance of the
body as just stated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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