place at all?"

"No, Mr. Thady, there is not," said he, without moving; "what is it
you want to-night?"

"Come out, and bring a lighted candle, if you can."

Brady now saw from his master's pale face, and fear-struck
expression, that something extraordinary had happened, and he
followed him with a candle under his hat; but the precaution was
useless, the wind blew it out at once.

"Pat," said Thady, as soon as the two were out before the front door;
"Pat," and he didn't know how to pronounce the thing he wished to
tell.

"Good God! Mr. Thady, what's the matther? has anything happened the
owld man?"

"What owld man?"

"Your father."

"No, nothing's happened him; but--but Captain Ussher is dead!"

"Gracious glory--no! why he was laving this for good and all this
night. And how did he die?"--and he whispered in his master's
ear--"did the boys do for him?"

"I killed him by myself," answered Thady, in a whisper.

"You killed him, Mr. Thady ah! now, you're joking."

"Stop!" said Thady--for they were now in the avenue--"joking or not,
his body is somewhere here;--and he had Feemy here, dragging her
along the road, and I struck him with my stick across the head, and
now they'll say I've murdhered him."

Brady soon touched the body with his foot; and the two raised it
together, and put it off the path on the grass, and then held a
council together, as to what steps had better be taken.

Brady, after his first surprise and awe at hearing of Ussher's death
was over, spoke of it very unconcernedly, and rather as a good thing
done than otherwise. He recommended his master to get out of the
way; he advised him at once to go down to Drumleesh and find out Joe
Reynolds; he assured Thady that the man would even now be willing
to befriend him and get him out of harm's way. He told him that
Reynolds and others had places up in the mountains where he might lie
concealed, and where the police would never be able to find him; and
that if he only got out of the way for a time, it might probably not
be found murder by the Coroner, and that in that case he could return
quietly to Ballycloran.

Thady listened sadly to Brady's advice, but he did not know what
better to propose to himself. He remembered the last words which
Reynolds had said to him, and he made up his mind to go down at once
to Corney Dolan's, who was a tenant of his own, and from him find out
where Reynolds was.

"But, Pat," said Thady, when he had made up