"Well--I wor; I suppose, Mr. Thady, you're not going to threaten me with the magisthrate again. I wor wishing it--an' I do wish it; he was the hardest man on the poor--an' the cruelest ruffian I iver knew. Isn't there my brother, that niver even acted agin the laws in the laste thing in life,--the quietest boy, as you know, Mr. Thady, anywhere in the counthry, an' who knew no more about stilling than the babe that's unborn; isn't he lying in gaol this night all along of him? an' it an't only him; isn't there more? many more in the same way, in gaol all through the counthry; an' who but him put 'em there? I do wish he was for-a-nens't me this moment, an' that I might lave him here as cowld a corpse as iver wor stretched upon the ground!" "I tell you, Joe, av you had your wish--av you struck the blow, and the man you so hate was dead beneath your feet, you'd give all you had--you'd give your own life to see him agin, standing alive upon the ground, and to feel for one moment that you'd not his blood to answer for." "By G----d! no, Mr. Thady; I'm not so wake; and as for answering for his blood, by the blessed Virgin, but I'd think it war a good deed to rid the counthry of such a tyrant." "He'll niver act the tyrant again, Joe, for he is dead. I struck him down with my stick in the avenue at Ballycloran, this night, and he niver moved agin afther I hit him." "The holy Virgin save us! But are you in arnest, Mr. Thady? D'ye main to say he's dead--that you killed him?" And after walking on a little, he said,--"By the holy Virgin, I'd sooner it had been myself; for I could have borne the thoughts of having done it better than you are like to do. An' what did you do with the body?" "Brady took it into Carrick." "And does Brady know it war you did it?" "Yes, they all know it--father and all; what was the use of telling a lie about? Feemy was with him when I struck him." "And war she going off with him? Niver mind, Mr. Thady, niver mind; it's a comfort to think you've saved your sisther from him, an' you know what a ruffian he was. By all the powers of glory there's a weight off my mind now I know he's not escaped from the counthry, where he caused so much misery, and did so much ill. But I'd a deal sooner it had been I that done it than yourself." "I wish it war not done at all--I wish he were alive this day. What will I do now, Joe?" "Faix, that's the question; any way, this is not the place for you any longer; they'd have you in Carrick Gaol before to-morrow night, av you were not out of this, an' far out of this too."