over.' I knew well that no
circumstance was more calculated than this to call forth all that
is best and worst in Irish character, and thought, as I walked along
through the dense crowd, I could trace in the features around me the
several emotions by which they were moved.

Here was an old grey-headed man leaning on a staff, his lack-lustre eyes
gazing in wonder at some speaker who narrated a portion of the trial,
his face all eagerness, and his hands tremulous with anxiety; but I felt
I could read the deep sorrow of his heart as he listened to the deed of
blood, and wondered how men would risk their tenure of a life which in
a few days more, perhaps, he himself was to leave for ever. Here beside
him was a tall and powerfully-built countryman, his hat drawn upon his
eyes, that peered forth from their shadow dark, lustrous, and almost
wild in their expression; his face, tanned by season and exposure, was
haggard and care-worn, and in his firmly-clenched lips and fast-locked
jaw you could read the resolute purpose of one who could listen
to nothing save the promptings of the spirit of vengeance, and his
determination that blood should have blood. Some there were whose
passionate tones and violent gestures showed that all their sympathy for
the prisoners was merged in the absorbing feeling of detestation for
the informer; and you could mark in such groups as these that more women
were mingled, whose bloodshot eyes and convulsed features made them
appear the very demons of strife itself. But the most painful sight of
all was the children who were assembled around every knot of speakers,
their eyes staring and their ears eagerly drinking in each word that
dropped; no trace of childhood's happy carelessness was there, no sign
of that light-hearted youth that knows no lasting sorrow. No: theirs
were the rigid features of intense passion, in which fear, suspicion,
craft, but above all, the thirst for revenge, were writ. There were some
whose clenched hand and darkened brow betokened the gloomy purpose of
their hearts; there were others whose outpoured wrath heaped curses on
him who had betrayed his fellows. There was grief, violent, wild, and
frantic; there was mute and speechless suffering; but not a tear did I
see, not even on the cheek of childhood or of woman. No! their seared
and withered sorrow no dew of tears had ever watered; like a blighting
simoon the spirit of revenge had passed over them, and scorched and
scathed al