diately threw their guns into the ditch, lest they should put our
friends upon their guard and cause them to escape if they could. Reilly
could have readily done so; but having, only a few minutes before heard
from the poor old priest that he had, for some months past, been branded
and pursued us a felon, he could not think of abandoning him now that
he was feeble and jaded with fatigue as well as with age. Now it so
happened that one of these fellows had been a Roman Catholic, and having
committed some breach of the law, found it as safe as it was convenient
to change his creed, and as he spoke the Irish language fluently--indeed
there were scarcely any other then spoken by the peasantry--he commenced
clipping his hands on seeing the two men, and expressing the deepest
sorrow for the loss of his wife, from whose funeral, it appeared from
his lamentations, he was then returning.

"We have nothing to apprehend, here," said Reilly; "this poor fellow is
in sorrow, it seems--God help him! Let us proceed."

"Oh!" exclaimed the treacherous villain, clapping his hands--[we
translate his words]--"Oh, Yeeah. Yeeah! (God, God!) what a bitther loss
you'll be, my darlin' Madge, to me and your orphan childher, now and for
evermore! Oh, where was there sich a wife, neighbors? who ever heard
her harsh word, or her loud voice? And from mornin' till night ever, ever
busy in keepin' every thing tight and clane and regular! Let me alone,
will yez? I'll go back and sleep upon her grave this night--so I
will; and if all the blasted sogers in Ireland--may sweet bad luck
to them!--were to come to prevent me, I'd not allow them. Oh, Madge,
darlin', but I'm the lonely and heartbroken man widout you this night!"

"Come, come," said the priest, "have firmness, poor man; other people
have these calamities to bear as well as yourself. Be a man."

"Oh, are you a priest, sir? bekase if you are I want consolation if ever
a sorrowful man did."

"I am a priest," replied the unsuspecting I man, "and any thing I can do
to calm your mind, I'll do it."

He had scarcely uttered these words when! Reilly felt his two arms
strongly pinioned, and as the men who had seized him were | powerful,
the struggle between him and them was dreadful. The poor priest at the
same moment found himself also a prisoner in the hands of the bereaved
widower, to whom he proved an easy victim, as he was incapable of making
resistance, which, indeed, he declined to attempt. If