n strung by the energy of despair to a
capability of bearing any fatigue, or rather to an utter insensibility
of all bodily suffering.

We must leave the scene which ensued to the reader's imagination, merely
observing, that as neither the oath which young Frank had taken on
the preceding night, nor indeed the peculiar bitterness of his enmity
towards the deceased, was known by the Reillaghans, they did not,
therefore, discredit the account of his death which they had heard.

Their grief was exclamatory and full of horror: consisting of prolonged
shrieks on the part of the women, and frantic howlings on that of
the men. The only words they uttered were his name, with epithets and
ejaculations. _Oh a Vichaul dheelish--a Vichaul dheelish--a bouchal
bane machree--wuil thu marra--wuil thu marra?_ "Oh, Michael, the
beloved--Michael, the beloved--fair boy of our heart--are you dead?--are
you dead?" From M'Kenna's the crowd, at the head of which was Darby
More, proceeded towards the mountains, many of them bearing torches,
such as had been used on their way to the Midnight Mass. The moon had
disappeared, the darkness was deepening, and the sky was overhung with
black heavy clouds, that gave a stormy character to scenery in itself re
wild and gloomy.

Young M'Kenna and the pilgrim led them to the dreary waste in which the
corpse lay. It was certainly an awful spectacle to behold these unhappy
people toiling up the mountain solitude at such an hour, their convulsed
faces thrown into striking relief by the light of the torches, and their
cries rising in wild irregular cadences upon the blast which swept over
them with a dismal howl, in perfect character with their affliction, and
the circumstances which produced it.

On arriving within view of the corpse, there was a slight pause;
for, notwithstanding the dreadful paroxysms of their grief, there was
something still more startling and terrible in contemplating the body
thus stretched out in the stillness of death, on the lonely mountain.
The impression it produced was peculiarly solemn: the grief was hushed
for a moment, but only for a moment; it rose again wilder than before,
and in a few minutes the friends of Reillaghan were about to throw
themselves upon the body, under the strong impulse of sorrow and
affection.

The mendicant, however, stepped forward "Hould back," said he; "it's
hard to ax yez to do it, but still you must. Let the neighbors about us
here examine the b