mercy and salvation. As
you hope for that mercy, then, at the moment of your utmost need, I
implore, I entreat you, to show these men mercy now, and allow them to
go their way in safety."

"I agree with every word the priest has said," added Reilly; "not from
any apprehension of the threat held out against myself, but from, I
trust, a higher principle. Here are only six men, who, as his Reverence
justly said, are, after all, only in the discharge of their public duty.
On the other hand, there are at least forty or fifty of you against
them. Now I appeal to yourselves, whether it would be a manly, or
generous, or Christian act, to slaughter so poor a handful of men by the
force of numbers. No: there would be neither credit nor honor in such an
act. I assure you, my friends, it would disgrace your common name,
your common credit, and your common country. Nay, it would seem like
cowardice, and only give a handle to your enemies to tax you with it.
But I know you are not cowards, but brave and generous men, whose hearts
and spirits are above a mean action. If you were cowardly butchers, I
know we might speak to you in vain; but we know you are incapable
of imbruing your hands, and steeping your souls, in the guilt of
unresisting blood--for so I may term it--where there are so few against
so many. My friends, go home, then, in the name of God, and, as this
reverend gentleman said, allow these men to pass their way 'without
injury.'"

"But who are you?" said their huge leader, in his terrible voice, "who
presumes to lecture us?"

"I am one," replied Reilly, "who has suffered more deeply, probably,
than any man here. I am without house or home, proscribed by the
vengeance of a villain--a villain who has left me without a shelter
for my head--who, this night, has reduced my habitation, and all that
appertained to it, to a heap of ashes--who is on my trail, night and
day, and who will be on my trail, in order to glut his vengeance with my
blood. Now, my friends, listen--I take God to witness, that if that
man were here at this moment, I would plead for his life with as much
earnestness as I do for those of the men who are here at your mercy.
I feel that it would be cowardly and inhuman to take it under such
circumstances; yes, and unworthy of the name of William Reilly. Now," he
added, "these men will pass safely to their quarters."

As they were about to resume their journey, the person who seemed to
have the command of t