no
steps could anything be done, he was sure; but still the attempt was
necessary. He had, however, paused a minute or two at the open gate
when he was rebuked by Peter. "Shure yer honour is going up to the
house to get the constables to scour the counthry."

"Scour the country!" said the father. "All the country will turn out
to defend the murderer of my boy." But he drove up to the front, and
Peter knocked at the door.

"Good heaven, Jones!" said Mr. Blake, as he looked at the car and its
occupant. The poor boy's head was supported on the pillow behind the
driver's seat, on which no one sat. Peter held him by both his feet,
and Mr. Jones had his hand within his grasp.

"So it is," said the father. "You know where they have cut the road
just where your property meres with Bodkin's. There was a man above
there who had loop-holed the wall. I saw his face wearing a mask as
plain as I can see yours. And he had a double-barrelled gun. He fired
the two shots, and my boy was killed by the first."

"They have struck you too on the collar of your coat."

"I got into the field with the murderer, and I could have caught the
man had I been younger. But what would have been the use? No jury
would have found him guilty. What am I to do? Oh, God! what am I to
do?" Mrs. Blake and her daughter were now out upon the steps, and
were filling the hall with their wailings. "Tell me, Blake, what had
I better do?" Then Mr. Blake decided that the body should remain
there that night, and Mr. Jones also, and that the police should be
sent for to do whatever might seem fitting to the policemen's mind.
Peter was sent off to Morony Castle with such a letter as Miss Blake
was able to write to the two Jones girls. The police came from Tuam,
but the result of their enquiries on that night need not be told
here.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE GALWAY COURT HOUSE.

There was a feeling very general in the county that the murder had
been committed by the man named Lax, who was known to have been in
the neighbourhood lately, and was declared by his friends at Headford
to be now in Galway, waiting for the trial of Pat Carroll. But there
seemed to be a feeling about the country that Florian Jones had
deserved his fate. He had, it was said, been untrue to his religion.
He had given a solemn promise to Father Brosnan,--of what nature was
not generally known,--and had broken it. "The bittherness of the
Orange feud was in his blood," said Father Brosnan.