n miles or more from Newcastlewest, and up towards the mountains.
He listened and listened, and again heard the mysterious sounds. He
says he "thought it was the fairies." He stole from the byre and went
to the house. A horrible dread had crept over him, and father and
mother were there. As he opened the door a terrible blow from behind
struck him down. He was not stunned, though felled by the butt-end of
a gun. They beat and kicked him as he lay. He gave an anguished cry.
The mother heard and recognised her boy's voice, and, waking the
father, said "Go down, they're killing my lad." The old man, for he is
an old man, went down the stairs naked and unarmed. The foul marauders
met him half-way up, and served him as they had served the boy,
throwing him down, kicking him, and beating him with butt-ends of
guns; with one terrible blow breaking three of his ribs; and saying,
"Give it up, give it up." He said he would "give it up"; promised by
all he held sacred, begged hard for his life, and implored them at
least to spare the young lad. Their reply to this was to fire a charge
of shot into the boy's legs, a portion of the charge entering the
limbs of an old woman--his grandmother, I think--who was feebly trying
to shield the lad. This was such excellent sport that more was thought
expedient. A charge of shot was fired into the father's legs, and as
one knee-joint is injured, the elder Quirke's condition is precarious
even without his broken ribs and other injuries. The cowardly hounds
then left, in their horrid disguise adding a new terror to the lonely
night. The evening's entertainment was not yet over. They crossed a
couple of fields to a house where dwelt Quirke's married son. They
burst open the door of his cottage and dragged the young fellow--he is
about twenty-five--from his bed, beating him sorely, and in the
presence of his wife firing a charge of shot into his legs. Then they
went home, each man to his virtuous couch, to dream fair dreams of the
coming Paradise, when they and their kind may work their own sweet
will, free from the fear of a hireling constabulary, and under the
aegis of a truly national senate, given to a grateful country by a
Grand Old Man.

The Quirkes know their assailants, but they will not tell. "What good
would it do me to have men imprisoned?" says William Quirke, senior.
"My lad's life might pay for it, and perhaps my own." The most
influential people of the district have remonstrated wit