“You will be told, gentlemen of the jury,” continued he, “how, after a day spent in continued differences of opinion, they separated at evening,--one to return to Tubbermore by the road; the other, by the less travelled path that led over the mountains. And here it is worthy of remark that Mr. Cashel, although ignorant of the way, a stranger, for the first time in his life in the district, positively refuses all offers of accompaniment, and will not even take a guide to show him the road. Mr. Kennyfeck continues for some time to transact business with the tenantry, and leaves Drumcoologan, at last, just as night was closing in. Now, about halfway between the manor-house of Tubbermore and the village of Drumcoologan, the road has been so much injured by the passage of a mountain-torrent, that when the travellers passed in the morning they found themselves obliged to descend from the carriage and proceed for some distance on foot,--a precaution that Mr. Kennyfeck was compelled also to take on his return, ordering the servant to wait for him on the crest of the hill. That spot he was never destined to reach! The groom waited long and anxiously for his coming; he could not leave his horses to go back and find out the reasons of his delay,--he was alone. The distance to Tubbermore was too great to permit of his proceeding thither to give the alarm; he waited, therefore, with that anxiety which the sad condition of our country is but too often calculated to inspire even among the most courageous, when, at last, footsteps were heard approaching, he called out aloud his master's name, but, instead of hearing the well-known voice in answer, he was accosted in Irish by an old man, who told him, in the forcible accents of his native tongue, 'that a murdered man was lying on the roadside.' The groom at once hurried back, and at the foot of the ascent discovered the lifeless but still warm body of his master; a bullet-wound was found in the back of the skull, and the marks of some severe blows across the face. On investigating further, at a little distance off, a pistol was picked up from a small drain, where it seemed to have been thrown in haste; the bore corresponded exactly with the bullet taken from the body; but more important still, this pistol appears to be the fellow of another belonging to Mr. Cashel, and will be identified by a competent witness as having been his property.