ands, and his determination never
from that day forth to stir from his fireside, lest the horrid
myrmidons of the law should pounce upon him.

Feemy was intent on the insults which had been offered to her lover,
and her temper was somewhat soured by the remembrance that she had
not effected her purpose of questioning Ussher about his intentions.
Thady, however, was the blackest looking of the family. Everything
was dark within his breast. He thought of the ruffians with whom he
had leagued himself; and though previously he had only considered
them as poor, hard used, somewhat lawless characters, they now
appeared to him everything that was iniquitous and bad. Secret murder
was their object--black, foul, midnight murder--and he was sworn, or
soon would be sworn, not only to help them, but to lead them on. What
he had already done might hang him. He felt his life to be in the
power of each of those blackguards, with whom, in wretched equality,
he had been drinking on the previous evening. And what had led him to
this? If he had been wronged and injured, why could not he redress
himself like other injured men? If revenge were necessary to him,
why could he not avenge himself like a man, instead of leaguing with
others to commit murder in the dark, like a coward and a felon? And
then he thought of his position with Keegan and Ussher. There was
something manly in his original disposition; he would have given
anything for a stand up fight with the attorney with equal weapons;
if it had been sure death to both, he would have fought him to the
death; but he had no such opportunity; the dastardly brute had
trampled on him when he could not turn against him. And then with
rancorous hatred he thought of the blow that Keegan had struck
him,--of the manner in which he had insulted his father, and worse
than all, of the name he had applied to his sister; and, remembering
all this, he almost reconciled himself to the only means he had of
punishing the wretch that had inflicted all these injuries on him.
Then he thought of Ussher, and the scene which had passed between
them last night; he knew he had been drunk, and had but a very
confused recollection of what he had done or said. He remembered,
however, that he had insulted Ussher; this did not annoy him; but he
had a faint recollection of having committed his sister's name, by
talking of her in his drunken brawl, and of having done, or said
something, he knew not what, to Father Joh