de you
plase."

"It's a bargain," said Bartle; "I don't care a trawneen; I'll stay where
I am, thin, an' do you go beyant; let us hurry, too, for, if I'm not
mistaken, it's too sultry to be long without rain, the sky, too, is
gettin' dark."

"I observed as much myself," said Connor; "an' that was what made me
spake."

Both then continued their labor with redoubled energy, nor ceased for
a moment until the task was executed, and the business of the day
concluded.

Flanagan's observation was indeed correct, as to the change in the
day and the appearance of the sky. From the hour of five o'clock the
darkness gradually deepened, until a dead black shadow, fearfully
still and solemn, wrapped the whole horizon. The sun had altogether
disappeared, and nothing was visible in the sky but one unbroken mass of
darkness, unrelieved even by a single pile of clouds. The animals, where
they could, had betaken themselves to shelter; the fowls of the air
sought the covert of the hedges, and ceased their songs; the larks fled
from the mid-heaven; and occasionally might be seen a straggling bee
hurrying homewards, careless of the flowers which tempted him in his
path, and only anxious to reach his hive before the deluge should
overtake him. The stillness indeed was awful, as was the gloomy veil
which darkened the face of nature, and filled the mind with that ominous
terror which presses upon the heart like a consciousness of guilt. In
such a time, and under the aspect of a sky so much resembling the pall
of death, there is neither mirth nor laughter, but that individuality
of apprehension, which, whilst it throws the conscience in upon its own
records, and suspends conversation, yet draws man to his fellows, as if
mere contiguity were a safeguard against danger.

The conversation between the two young men as they returned from their
labor, was short but expressive.

"Bartle," said Connor, "are you afeard of thundher? The rason I ask," he
added, "is, bekase your face is as white as a sheet."

"I have it from my mother," replied Flanagan, "but at all evints such an
evenin' as this is enough to make the heart of any man quake."

I'll feel my spirits low, by rason of the darkness, but I'm not afraid.
It's well for them that have a clear conscience; they say that a stormy
sky is the face of an angry God--"

"An' the thundher His voice," added Bartle; "but why are the brute
bastes an' the birds afraid, that commit no sin?"

"That'