as
the suspected did not amount to more than a dozen, of course, the whole
body of the people, including the thieves themselves, who applauded it
as loudly as the other, all expressed their satisfaction at the measures
about to be adopted. A day was therefore appointed, on which the
inhabitants of the neighborhood, particularly the suspected persons,
should come to assemble at Cassidy's house, in order to have the
characters of the innocent cleared up, and the guilty, if possible, made
known.

On the evening before this took place, were assembled in Meehan's
cottage, the elder Meehan, and the rest of the gang, including Denis,
who had absconded, on the night of the theft.

"Well, well, Denny," said Anthony, who forced his rugged nature into an
appearance of better temper, that he might strengthen the timid
spirit of his brother against the scrutiny about to take place on the
morrow--perhaps, too, he dreaded him--"Well, well. Denny, I thought,
sure enough, that it was some new piece of cowardice came over you. Just
think of him," he added, "shabbin' off, only because he made, with a
bit of a rod, three strokes in the ashes that he thought resembled a
coffin!--ha, ha, ha!"

This produced a peal of derision at Denis's pusillanimous terror.

"Ay!" said the Big Mower, "he was makin' a coffin, was he? I wondher it
wasn't a rope you drew, Denny. If any one dies in the coil, it will be
the greatest coward, an' that's yourself."

"You may all laugh," replied Denis, "but I know such things to have a
manin'. When my mother died, didn't my father, the heavens be his bed!
see a black coach about a week before it? an' sure from the first day
she tuck ill, the dead-watch was heard in the house every night: and
what was more nor that, she kept warm until she went into her grave; *
an' accordingly, didn't my sisther Shibby die within a year afther?"

* It is supposed in Ireland, when a corpse retains, for
a longer space of time than usual, any thing like
animal heat, that some person belonging to the family
of the deceased will die within a year.

"It's no matther about thim things," replied Anthony; "it's thruth about
the dead-watch, my mother keepin' warm, an' Shibby's death, any way, But
on the night we tuck Cassidy's horse, I thought you were goin' to betray
us: I was surely in a murdherin' passion, an' would have done harm, only
things turned out as they did."

"Why," said Denis, "the truth is, I was a