"I got into the field with the murderer, and I could have caught the man had I been younger. But what would have been the use? No jury would have found him guilty. What am I to do? Oh, God! what am I to do?" Mrs. Blake and her daughter were now out upon the steps, and were filling the hall with their wailings. "Tell me, Blake, what had I better do?" Then Mr. Blake decided that the body should remain there that night, and Mr. Jones also, and that the police should be sent for to do whatever might seem fitting to the policemen's mind. Peter was sent off to Morony Castle with such a letter as Miss Blake was able to write to the two Jones girls. The police came from Tuam, but the result of their enquiries on that night need not be told here. CHAPTER XXXI. THE GALWAY COURT HOUSE. There was a feeling very general in the county that the murder had been committed by the man named Lax, who was known to have been in the neighbourhood lately, and was declared by his friends at Headford to be now in Galway, waiting for the trial of Pat Carroll. But there seemed to be a feeling about the country that Florian Jones had deserved his fate. He had, it was said, been untrue to his religion. He had given a solemn promise to Father Brosnan,--of what nature was not generally known,--and had broken it. "The bittherness of the Orange feud was in his blood," said Father Brosnan. But neither did he explain the meaning of what he said, as none of the Jones family had ever been Orangemen. But the idea was common about Tuam and Headford that Pat Carroll was a martyr, and that Florian had been persuaded to turn Protestant in order that he might give false evidence against him. The reader, however, must understand that Florian still professed the Catholic religion at the moment of his death, and that all Headford was aware that Pat Carroll had broken the sluice gate at Ballintubber.