k his leave. In a
short time the intelligence spread. From the sovereign it passed to his
clerk, from the clerk to the other members of the corporation, and, ere
an hour, the town was in a blaze with the intelligence.

"Did you hear what's reported?" was the general question.

Lamh Laudher Oge has challenged the Dead Boxer!

The reader already knows how bitterly public opinion had set in against
our humble hero; but it would be difficult to describe, in terms
sufficiently vivid, the rapid and powerful reaction which now took place
in his favor. Every one pitied him, praised him, remembered his former
prowess, and after finding some palliative for his degrading interview
with Meehaul Neil, concluded with expressing a firm conviction that he
had undertaken a fatal task. When the rumor had reached his parents, the
blood ran cold in their veins, and their natural affection, now roused
into energy, grasped at an object that was about to be violently removed
from it. Their friends and neighbors, as we have stated, came to their
house for the purpose of dissuading their son against so rash and
terrible an undertaking.

"It musn't be," said they, "for whatever was over him wid Meehaul Neil,
we know now he's no coward, an' that's enough. We musn't see him beat
dead before our eyes, at all events, where is he?"

"He's at his aunt's," replied the father; "undher this roof he says
he will never come till his name is cleared. Heavens above! For him to
think of fighting a man that kills every one he fights wid!"

The mother's outcries were violent, as were those of his female
relations, whilst a solemn and even mournful spirit brooded upon the
countenances of his own faction. It was resolved that his parents and
friends should now wait upon, and by every argument and remonstrance in
their power, endeavor to change the rashness of his purpose:

The young man received them with a kind but somewhat sorrowful, spirit.
The father, uncovered, and with his gray locks flowing down upon his
shoulders, approached him, extended his hand, and with an infirm voice
said--

"Give me your hand, John. You're welcome to your father's heart an'
your father's roof once more."

The son put his arms across his breast, and bowed his head respectfully,
but declined receiving his father's hand.

"Not, father--father dear--not till my name is cleared."

"John," said the old man, now in tears, "will you refuse me? You are my
only son, my only chil