ts which
them boys were making for his death. But who can wonder that I hated
him! God knows I have forgiven him for all that he has brought on
us--both me and Feemy; but who can wonder that I didn't love him
then? I knew in my heart he never meant to marry her. And oh! Father
John, av I hadn't seen her that night, what would she have been now?
I did hate him then;--and hadn't I cause? And for that one night at
the wedding, when I was mad with the name they had called my sisther;
I did think I'd be glad av the boys that hated him so should murther
him at last. But when I woke in the morning and remembered that the
sounds of murther had been in my ears, I felt as though I could never
more be quiet or at ase in this world. And I never was; every man's
hand was against me since then, Father John, except yours. I felt, as
I walked through the fields that morning, that it was here I should
spend my last days, and here I am. And I was warned of it too; I was
warned of what would come of it, av I meddled with them boys that
night at Mrs. Mehan's. He himself called me out that night when I
first got there, and tould me what it was Brady was afther. And I
believed him, and yet I went; for my heart was full of hatred for the
man who warned me. Oh! why, Father John, could he not let us alone.
We were poor, but we were no worse; but there's an end of us now
altogether, and perhaps it's for the betther as it is!"

He then earnestly begged Father John to attend to his sister's
burial, and to take some little heed of his father during his few
remaining years; and all this the priest promised. He spoke of the
property, and of the chance there might be of saving something out of
it for the old man's support. Father John, however, told him that for
his, Thady's sake, and for the love he bore him, his father should
never want till he wanted himself; and though this promise, for many
long months, entailed a heavy burden on the priest, he most
religiously kept his word.

Thady then spoke of his own coming death; and though he had made up
his mind to die, and could think, without regret, of leaving the
world where he had known so many sorrows and so few joys, still he
shuddered when he remembered the gaping crowd which would be
assembled to see his expiring convulsions, and the horror which he
could not but feel, when the executioner's hands should touch his
neck, and the dreadful cap should be drawn over his eyes. Oh! that
that horrid mo