“Here Denis was overpowered by his feelings, and after hastily wiping away one or two natural drops from his cheek, continued. “‘I was now questioned about united men, and arms, and as I also refused to make any discovery, they took and bound my hands behind me, and then, taking the halter from the mare’s head, they placed it round my neck, and raising the car up, hung me out of the back-band. They were too cruel to let me die a natural death, and so cut me down a few minutes afore I went to Paradise. I can’t tell anything about that time, but my ould mother told me that my face was as black as a pot, and my tongue a _bandle_ long. The first thing I recollect, after being hanged, was to see the poor ould house in flames, the soldiers having set fire to it, to get my sisters out, but they were disappointed, as the girls had made their escape while they were hanging me. “‘To make a long story short,’ continued Denis, ‘my father, myself, and two brothers, were thrown into the cart, and marched off to Ferns. Next day my father died in the guard-house; and after a week’s confinement, my brothers and I were turned out with pitched caps upon our heads.[3] We had now no house, no home, for my father’s life being the term of the lease, the landlord had seized on our little all, and so we went to service, as did my sisters, my mother having died in a month after my father. My brothers were long before they recovered; and for myself, I’ll feel the effects of that bloody night to the day of my death.’ “The tale of this untutored peasant, told in his own vulgar, but expressive language, produced a painful interest on my feelings, while it excited my indignation to that degree of frenzy, which made me instantly determine upon the Quixotic resolution of finding out the office under whose command the family of Howlan had been tortured, and call him to an account or, at least, expose him to the world. Filled with this extravagant notion, I inquired of Denis, as we walked along, where the North Cork were now stationed. “‘Lord bless your honour,’ replied Denis, ‘there’s not a man of them in the land o’ the living, for I was at the killing of them all myself—and quick work we made of it—on Oulard Hill.’ “‘Oh, I remember,’ said I, ‘Mr. J—— spoke of your generalship there. How was that?’