ble, after all, that were it not for the accidental fall of Owen
upon his body, he might not have survived the wound, inasmuch as the
medical skill, which contributed to restore him, would not have been
called in.

Though old Frank M'Kenna and his family felt an oppressive load of
misery taken off their hearts by the prospect of Reillaghan's recovery,
yet it was impossible for them to be insensible to the fate of their
son, knowing as they did, that he must have been out among the mountains
during the storm. His unhappy mother and Rody sat up the whole night,
expecting his return, but morning arrived without bringing him home.
For six days afterwards the search for him was general and strict; his
friends and neighbors traversed the mountain wastes until they left
scarcely an acre of them unexplored. On the sixth day there came a thaw,
and towards the close of the seventh he was found a "stiffened corpse,"
_upon the very spot where he had shot his rival_, and on which he had
challenged the Almighty to stretch him in death, without priest or
prayer, if he were guilty of the crime with which he had been charged.
He was found lying with a, circle drawn round him, his head pillowed
upon the innocent blood which he had shed with the intention of murder,
and a bloody cross marked upon his breast and forehead. It was thought
that in the dread of approaching death he had formed it with his hand,
which came accidentally in contact with the blood that lay in clots
about him.

[Illustration: PAGE 886-- Upon the very spot where he had shot his
rival]

The manner of his death excited a profound and wholesome feeling among
the people, with respect to the crime which he attempted to commit. The
circumstances attending it, and his oath upon the spot where he shot
Reillaghan, are still spoken of by the fathers of the neighboring
villages, and even by some who were present at the search for his body,
it was also doubly remarkable on account of a case of spectral illusion
which it produced, and which was ascribed to the effect of M'Kenna's
supernatural appearance at the time. The daughter of a herdsman in the
mountains was strongly affected by the spectacle of his dead body borne
past her father's door. In about a fortnight afterwards she assured
her family that he appeared to her. She saw the apparition, in the
beginning, only at night; but ere long it ventured, as she imagined,
to appear in day-light. Many imaginary conversations took