he conduct of
this hardened convict that the audience could not resist it, especially
when it is remembered that the sympathies of the lower Irish are always
with such culprits.

"Well," continued the judge, when silence was again restored, "your
unparalleled obduracy has gained one point; it was my intention to have
ordered you for execution tomorrow at the hour of twelve o'clock; but,
as a Christian man, I could not think for a moment of hurrying you into
eternity in your present state. The sentence of the court then is that
you be taken from the dock in which you now stand to the prison from
whence you came, and that from thence you be brought to the place of
execution on next Saturday, and there be hanged by the neck until you be
dead, and may God have mercy on your soul!"

The Rapparee gazed at him with a look of the most hardened effrontery,
and exclaimed, "Is it in earnest you are?" after which he was once mor|e
committed to his cell, loaded with heavy chains, which he wore, by the I
way, during his trial.

Now, in order to account for his outrageous conduct, we must make a
disclosure to the reader. There is in and about all jails a certain
officer yclept a hangman--an officer who is permitted a freer ingress
and egress than almost any other person connected with those gloomy
establishments. This hangman, who resided in the prison, had a brother
whom Sir Robert Whitecraft had hanged, and, it was thought, innocently.
Be this as it may, the man in question was heard to utter strong threats
of vengeance against Sir Robert for having his brother, whose innocence
he asserted, brought to execution. In some time after this a pistol was
fired one night at Sir Robert from behind a hedge, which missed him; but
as his myrmidons were with him, and the night was light, a pursuit took
place, and the guilty wretch was taken prisoner, with the pistol on his
person, still warm after having been discharged. The consequence was
that he was condemned to death. But it so happened that at this period,
although there were five or six executions to take place, yet there was
no hangman to be had, that officer having died suddenly, after a fit of
liquor, and the sheriff would have been obliged to discharge the office
with his own hands unless a finisher of the law could be found. In
brief, he was found, and in the person of the individual alluded to,
who, in consequence of his consenting to accept the office, got a
pardon from the Crow