up. If Black
Shawn had known he would never have let an innocent man die in his
place. So said the neighbours, who had known him from his boyhood.

They will tell you this story in Munster, as they told it to me,
sitting round the open hearth in the big farmhouse kitchens of winter
nights. Down there there is not a man that won't lift his hat
reverently when they name Murty.

For long enough no one knew what became of Black Shawn, and when the
League was over and its power broken, and a better spirit was coming
back to men's hearts, many a poor boy was laid by the heels through
the use of that same name. Many in Munster will tell you of the
stranger that used to come to the farmhouses begging a rest by the
fire and a meal in the name of Black Shawn, and sitting there quietly
would listen to the rash and trustful talk of the young fellows about
fighting for their dear Dark Rosaleen, the country that holds men's
hearts more than any prosperous mother-land of them all. His name is a
name never mentioned in Ireland without a black, bitter curse, for he
was a famous informer and spy, own brother to such evil spawn as
Corydon, Massey, and Nagle. But 'tis too long a story to tell how the
spy masqueraded as Black Shawn, and I think I'll keep it for another
time.

XIII

A PRODIGAL SON

Mrs. Sheehy was blest with two sons. Of the elder she had seen little
since his early boyhood, when his love for handling tarry ropes and
sails, and his passion for the water-side, had resulted in his
shipping as cabin-boy on a China-bound ship. There was undoubted
madness in the Sheehy blood, but in this sailor son, so long as he
kept sober, there was no manifestation of it except it might be in a
dreaminess and romanticism uncommon to his class. He was an
olive-skinned, brown-eyed fellow, with such a refined face as might
have belonged to an artist or musician. He had the mellow colour
Murillo loved. The mad strain which, in the case of greatly gifted
people, has often seemed to be the motive power of genius, in him
took the form of a great cleverness,--an esoteric cleverness and
ingenuity added to the sailor's dexterity.

But it is not with Willie I have to deal, though the story of his
marriage is a little romance in itself. It was Mick was the prodigal
son. Every one about the country knew and liked Mick. He was a bit of
an omadhaun, that is to say a simpleton,--but quite unlike the
shambling idiots of whom every village pos