here with us."

"Never mind that, Joe, but come out; I want to spake to you."

"Did you hear the news about Ussher?" continued Joe without moving,
and in a whisper which the old woman could not hear. "That blackguard
Ussher has escaped out of the counthry afther all, without paying any
of us the debt that he owed us, for all the evils he's done. He went
away out of Mohill this night, an' he's not to be back agin; av I'd
known it afore he started I'd have stopped him in the road, an' by
G----d he should niver have got alive out of the barony."

"But did you hear he was gone?" said Corney.

"I did," replied Thady: "but Joe I want to spake to you, and there's
no time to spare; come here," and Joe followed him to the door. "Come
further; I don't want him to hear what I've to say to you;" and he
walked on some little way before he continued,--"you were wishing
just now that you had shed Ussher's blood?"

"Well--I wor; I suppose, Mr. Thady, you're not going to threaten me
with the magisthrate again. I wor wishing it--an' I do wish it; he
was the hardest man on the poor--an' the cruelest ruffian I iver
knew. Isn't there my brother, that niver even acted agin the laws in
the laste thing in life,--the quietest boy, as you know, Mr. Thady,
anywhere in the counthry, an' who knew no more about stilling than
the babe that's unborn; isn't he lying in gaol this night all along
of him? an' it an't only him; isn't there more? many more in the same
way, in gaol all through the counthry; an' who but him put 'em there?
I do wish he was for-a-nens't me this moment, an' that I might lave
him here as cowld a corpse as iver wor stretched upon the ground!"

"I tell you, Joe, av you had your wish--av you struck the blow, and
the man you so hate was dead beneath your feet, you'd give all you
had--you'd give your own life to see him agin, standing alive upon
the ground, and to feel for one moment that you'd not his blood to
answer for."

"By G----d! no, Mr. Thady; I'm not so wake; and as for answering for
his blood, by the blessed Virgin, but I'd think it war a good deed to
rid the counthry of such a tyrant."

"He'll niver act the tyrant again, Joe, for he is dead. I struck him
down with my stick in the avenue at Ballycloran, this night, and he
niver moved agin afther I hit him."

"The holy Virgin save us! But are you in arnest, Mr. Thady? D'ye
main to say he's dead--that you killed him?" And after walking on a
little, he said,--"By the