que folds the hideous gallows and the
frowning mass of masonry behind. An hour passed, and then a hoarse
murmur swelled upwards from the glistening rows of upturned faces.
The platform was no longer empty; three pinioned men, with white caps
drawn closely over their faces, were standing upon the drop. For a
moment the crowd was awed into stillness; for a moment the responses,
"Christ, have mercy on us," "Christ, have mercy on us," were heard
from the lips of the doomed men, towards whom the sea of faces were
turned. Then came a dull crash, and the mob swayed backwards for an
instant. The drop had fallen, and the victims were struggling in
the throes of a horrible death. The ropes jerked and swayed with
the convulsive movements of the dying men. A minute later, and the
vibrations ceased--the end had come, the swaying limbs fell rigid
and stark, and the souls of the strangled men had floated upwards
from the cursed spot--up from the hateful crowd and the sin-laden
atmosphere--to the throne of the God who made them.

So perished, in the bloom of manhood, and the flower of their
strength, three gallant sons of Ireland--so passed away the last
of the martyred band whose blood has sanctified the cause of Irish
freedom. Far from the friends whom they loved, far from the land for
which they suffered, with the scarlet-clad hirelings of England around
them, and watched by the wolfish eyes of a brutal mob, who thirsted
to see them die, the dauntless patriots, who, in our own day,
have rivalled the heroism and shared the fate of Tone, Emmett, and
Fitzgerald, looked their last upon the world. No prayer was breathed
for their parting souls--no eye was moistened with regret amongst the
multitude that stretched away in compact bodies from the foot of the
gallows; the ribald laugh and the blasphemous oath united with their
dying breath; and, callously as the Roman mob from the blood-stained
amphitheatre, the English masses turned homewards from the fatal spot.
But they did not fall unhonoured or unwept. In the churches of the
faithful in that same city, the sobs of mournful lamentation were
mingled with the solemn prayers for their eternal rest, and, from
thousands of wailing women and stricken-hearted men, the prayers for
mercy, peace, and pardon, for the souls of MICHAEL O'BRIEN, WILLIAM
PHILIP ALLEN, and MICHAEL LARKIN, rose upwards to the avenging God.
Still less were they forgotten at home. Throughout the Irish land,
from Antrim's