amazing precision of the squirting pump.

Strong hands clutched at the bridle reins, but the team was plunging and
going fast. The driver was just drunk enough for recklessness; he kept
the horses jumping all down that Orangemen's parade. Oh, what a rout it
made! And the final bucketfuls were hurled in through the window of the
Orange Lodge, just where they were needed most, as Jimmy and his five
made their escape.

The bottle now went round once more. Shrieking with laughter at their
sweeping, bloodless victory, the six Papists saw the procession
rearrayed. Kenna had recovered and wiped his face with one coat sleeve,
his Bible with the other. The six dispensers of purity could not resist
it; they must charge again. Hartigan wheeled the horses to make the turn
at a run. But with every circumstance against him--speed and reckless
driving, a rough and narrow roadway beset with stumps--the wagon
lurched, crashed, upset, and the six went sprawling in the ditch. The
horses ran away to be afterward rounded up at a farm stable three miles
off, with the fragments of a wagon trailing behind them.

The anger of the Orangemen left them as they gathered around. Five of
the raiders were badly shaken and sobered, one lay still on the stones,
a deep and bloody dent in his head. The newly arrived, newly fledged
doctor came, and when after a brief examination, he said: "He's
dead--all right," there was a low, hollow sound of sympathy among the
men who ten minutes before would gladly have killed him. One voice spoke
for all the rest.

"Poor lad! He was a broth of a bhoy! Poor little Widdy Hartigan."

CHAPTER IV

The Atmosphere of His Early Days

There were many surprises and sharp contrasting colour spots on the map
of the "Widdy's" trail for the next nine years. With herself and the
expected child to make a home for after that mad Orange Day, she had
sought employment and had been welcomed back to the hotel where she had
ever been a favourite.

The little room above the kitchen which projected over the yard was her
only resting place. The cheapest, simplest of wooden furniture was all
it held. On a tiny stand, made of a packing case, was her Bible and,
hanging over it a daguerreotype of her husband--his frank, straight gaze
and happy face looking forth with startling reality. Outside and very
near, for the building was low, the one window looked upon the yard of
the hotel, with its horses, its loafers, its hens and its