be found in the
haunts of such men as Joe Reynolds and Dan Kennedy. However, this he
would have to tell him; for the door was now open, and there stood
the priest, with his eyes fixed on Thady's sad face and soiled
appearance.

Thady had not had his clothes off for the last two nights, and they
now bore all the soil and stains of his two midnight walks; his
countenance was pale in the extreme, and, never full or healthy,
now seemed more thin and wan, than forty-eight hours' sorrow could
possibly have made it. He was much fatigued, for his shoes had
become soaked with water in the moist grounds through which he had
passed and repassed, and his feet were blistered with his long and
unaccustomed walks.

When Father John saw him, his heart melted within him at the sight of
the young man's sad and melancholy figure. We already know that from
the moment he had first heard of the catastrophe, he had made excuses
in his own heart for Thady; and when he had heard, as he did at
the inquest, that his sister had been with Ussher when he lifted
his stick against him, he had not only acquitted him in his own
estimation, from anything like the crime of murder, but he also
felt certain that had he been in the same situation, he would most
assuredly have done the same as Thady had done. He had been much
surprised at the Coroner's verdict; he could not think how twelve men
on their oath could call Ussher's death murder, when it so evidently
appeared to him that the man stigmatised by that verdict as a
murderer, had only been actuated by the praiseworthy purpose of
defending his sister from disgrace and violence; and when, moreover,
it was so plain that Thady's presence on the scene at the moment was
accidental, and that the attack could not have been premeditated.

The jurors, however, had not been Thady's friends, as Father John
was, nor were they inclined to look upon such a deed with the same
lenient eyes. It appeared to them that Ussher was not using any
violence to the young lady, who had herself admitted in her evidence,
that she was a willing party to Ussher's proceedings. Doubtless,
there might be circumstances, which at the prisoner's trial would be
properly put forward in palliation of the murder, by his counsel; but
with that the jury before the Coroner could have nothing to do; and
on these considerations, the jurors with very little delay had come
to the conclusion which had so surprised and grieved Father John.
Still,