s he took off his dingy woollen hat, or caubeen, the perspiration
rose in strong exhalations from his head.

"Michael, am I in time?" might be heard from such persons, as they
arrived: "did this business begin yit?"

"Full time, Larry; myself's here an hour ago but no appearance of
anything as yit. Father Farrell and Squire Nicholson are both in
Cassidys' waitin' till they're all gother, whin they'll begin to put
thim through their facins. You hard about what they've got?"

"No; for I'm only on my way home from the berril of a _cleaveen_ of
mine, that we put down this mornin' in the Tullyard. What is it?"

"Why man alive, it's through the whole parish _inready_;"--he then went
on, lowering his voice to a whisper, and speaking in a tone bordering on
dismay.

The other crossed himself, and betrayed symptoms of awe and
astonishment, not un-mingled with fear.

"Well," he replied, "I dunna whether I'd come here, if I'd known that;
for, innocent or guilty, I would'nt wish to be near it. Och, may God
pity thim that's to come acrass it, I espishily if they dare to do it in
a lie!"

"They needn't, I can tell yez both," observed a third person, "be a hair
afeard of it, for the best rason livin', that there's no thruth at all
in the report, nor the Cassidys never thought of sindin' for anything o'
the kind: I have it from Larry Cassidy's own lips, an' he ought to know
best." The truth is, that two reports were current among the crowd: one
that the oath was to be simply on the Bible; and the other, that a more
awful means of expurgation was resorted to by the Cassidys. The people,
consequently, not knowing which to credit, felt that most painful of all
sensations--uncertainty.

During the period which intervened between their assembling and the
commencement of the ceremony, a spectator, interested in contemplating
the workings of human nature in circumstances of deep interest, would
have had ample scope for observation. The occasion was to them a solemn
one. There was little conversation among them; for when a man is
wound up to a pitch of great interest, he is seldom disposed to relish
discourse. Every brow was anxious, every cheek blanched, and every,
arm folded: they scarcely stirred, or when they did, only with slow
abstracted movements, rather mechanical than voluntary. If an individual
made his appearance about Cassidy's door, a sluggish stir among them was
visible, and a low murmur of a peculiar character might be h