n thoroughly convinced
that his son had accomplished the destruction of Peter Rorke's
hayrick, could not now restrain his indignation on learning that he
had been wrongfully accused; and in the intervals of proclaiming at
the top of his voice more energetically than even "Herself" in the
past that "anybody wid a grain o' sense 'ud know poor Mike 'ud be the
last one in the world to go disgracing himself that way," was shaking
Judy backwards and forwards till, as she subsequently declared, she
nearly lost her life.

"'Pon me word," he cried, when with some difficulty and a certain
amount of physical force he had been separated from his victim,
"that's the ould scut yez ought to be clappin' into gaol! Did anybody
ever hear the like? She must go smokin' her dirty ould pipe under the
loveliest rick in the country--sure, that rick is worth its weight in
gould these times--an' settin' it on fire an' bringin' ruination an'
destruction on her misthress as well as on me poor innocent boy! I
declare hangin' 'ud be too good for her!"

"Didn't I tell ye," cried Mrs. Clancy triumphantly, "that Mike never
went next or nigh that rick?"

"Of course ye did. Anybody 'ud know that. Bedad, Mike 'ud know better
nor do anythin' that senseless an' mischeevious. Sure, what good 'ud
it do anybody to go burnin' that beautiful hay? 'Pon me word, Roseen,
if I was you I'd walk that lady straight off to the magisthrate."

Judy, meanwhile, with shrill wails and much rocking backwards and
forwards, was incoherently declaring that she wouldn't sit there to be
murdhered, an' she didn't know why they was all shoutin' at her that
way, an' that--as the culmination of woe--she'd lost her lovely pipe.

After some time Roseen succeeded in calming the belligerents, and in
gathering the sense of their various statements.

Trembling with eagerness and excitement, she led Judy to the
stackyard, and there, after much coaxing and persuasion, induced her
to describe her position on the fateful night in question.

"I was sittin' here," announced Judy, pointing to a certain spot.

"You had your back to the rick then?" said Roseen, "ye can't see the
haggard gate at all from here. No wonder ye didn't see Mike."

"I was tired waitin' for him," said Judy. "I just put me pipe out o'
me hand," she added meditatively. "I was thinkin' of goin' to look for
him--and when I woke up it was black night an' I couldn't find--"

Suddenly she uttered a shrill scream, and dar