placed on a heap of turf. Young
Smith went for it, and it read. YOU'LL NOT GO HOME ALIVE THIS NIGHT.
'Drive on, Tom,' said the father. 'We'll do our work, whether we go
home alive or dead.' Coming back the same evening the father was
driving, the son, this young lad, sitting at the side of the car,
which was furnished with a couple of repeating rifles and a revolver.
Suddenly three men spring up from behind a fence and fire a volley at
the two Smiths, but as they rose the horse shied and plunged forward,
and hang me! if they didn't all miss. The elder Smith still struggled
with the frightened horse, which the shooting had made ungovernable,
but the boy slipped off the car, and, seizing one of the rifles,
looked out for a shot in return. It was growing dusk, and the bog was
full of trenches and ups and downs, of which the three fugitives
cleverly availed themselves. Besides, to be shot at from a point-blank
range of three or four yards, scrambling down afterwards from behind a
frantic horse, is not the best Wimbledon method of steadying the
nerves. The boy put the rifle to his shoulder, and bided his time.
Presently up came one of the running heroes, and young Smith shot him
through the heart, as neat a kill as ever you saw. The dead man was
identified as a militiaman from Crossmolina, up Sligo way. The League
always brought its marksmen from a distance, and it is known that most
of them were persons who had received some military training. Then the
youngster covered another, but missed, and was about to fire again when
his father shouted, 'Hold hard, Tom, that's enough sport for one day.'"

My friend was wrong. The second shot lacerated the man's shoulder, and
laid him up for many a long week. I had the fact, which is now first
recorded, on _undoubted authority_. Young Smith may be gratified to
learn, for the first time, that his second bullet was not altogether
thrown away. This may console him for the loss of the third reprobate,
whom he had got "exactly between the shoulders," when the elder Smith
ordered him to desist. The occurrence was such a lesson to the Land
League assassins that they for ever after forswore Achil and its
immediate surroundings. As Dennis Mulcahy remarked, "The ruffians only
want shtandin' up to, an' they'll not come nixt or near ye." Mr.
Morley would do well to apply this moral to the County Clare.

The best authority in Achil said:--"The hat is always going round for
the islanders, who are m