in his firmness
and honesty, scarcely one can be found hardy enough--to hold any
communication with him. This easily and truly accounts for the fact of
their having got this petition written and sent to government in his
name. The consequence was, that, on the day previous to that named for
his execution, his death warrant reached the sheriff, who lost no time
in apprising him of his unhappy fate.

This was a trying task to that humane and amiable gentleman, who had
already heard of the unutterable tortures which the criminal suffered
from the horror of approaching death, and the dread of eternity; for
neither by penitence nor even by remorse, was he in the slightest degree
moved.

"To die!" said he, staggering back; "to be in eternity to-morrow! to
have to face God before twelve o'clock! tarrible! tar--rible! tarrible!
Can no one save me? To die to--morrow!--tarrible!--tarrible!--tarrible!
Oh that I could sink into the earth! that the ground 'ud swlly me!"

The sheriff advised him to be a man, and told him to turn to God,--who,
if he repented, would in no wise cast him out. "Act," said he, "as
O'Donovan did, whom you yourself prosecuted and placed in the very cell
in which you now stand."

"Connor O'Donovan!" he exclaimed, "he might well bear to die; he was
innocent; it was I that burned Bodagh Buie's haggard; he had neither act
nor part in it no more than the child unborn. I swore away his life out
of revinge to his father an' jealousy of himself about Una O'Brien.
Oh, if I had as little to answer for now as he, I could die--die! Sweet
Jasus, an' must I die to-morrow--be in the flames o' hell afore twelve
o'clock? tarrible! terrible!"

It was absolutely, to use his own word, "terrible," to witness the
almost superhuman energy of his weakness. On making this last disclosure
to the sheriff, the latter stepped back from a feeling of involuntary
surprise and aversion, exclaiming as he did it,--

"Oh, God forgive you, unhappy and guilty man! you have much, indeed, to
answer for; and, as I said before, I advise you to make the most of the
short time that is allotted to you, in repenting and seeking pardon from
God."

The culprit heard him not, however, for his whole soul was fearfully
absorbed in the contemplation of eternity and punishment, and death.

"Sir," said the turnkey, "that's the way he's runnin' about the room
almost since his thrial; not, to be sure, altogether so bad as now, but
clappin' his hands, a