Presently, Sarah, the younger of the two, started to her feet, and fled out of the house to wash her hands and face at the river that flowed past.  Then she returned, and spoke with frankness and good nature.

“I’m sorry for what I did.  Forgive me, mother!  You know I’m a hasty divil—­for a divil’s limb I am, no doubt of it.  Forgive me, I say!  Do now; here, I’ll get something to stop the blood!”

She sprang at the moment, with the agility of a wild cat upon an old chest that stood in the corner of the hut.  By stretching herself up to her full length, she succeeded in pulling down several old cobwebs that had been undisturbed for years, and while doing so, knocked down some metallic substance which fell on the floor.

“Murdher alive, mother!” she exclaimed.  “What is this?  Hallo, a tobaccy-box!  An’ what’s this on it?  Let me see.  Two letters—­a ‘P’ and an ‘M.’  ’P.M.’—­arrah, what can that be for?  Well, divil may care.  Let it lie on the shelf there.  Here now, none of your cross looks.  I say, put these cobwebs to your face, and they’ll stop the bleedin’.  And now good-night to you, an’ let that be a warnin’ to you not to raise your hand to me again.”

The girl went off to spend the night at a dance and a wake, and the stepmother having dressed her wound as well as she could, sat down by the fire and began to ruminate.

Presently she took up the tobacco-box, and looking at it carefully, clasped her hands.

“It’s the same!” she exclaimed.  “Oh, merciful God, it’s thrue—­it’s thrue!  I know it by the broken hinge an’ the two letters!  Saviour of life, how will this end, and what will I do?  But, anyway, I must hide this, and put it out of his reach.”

She accordingly went out and thrust the box up under the thatch of the roof so that it was impossible to suspect that the roof had been disturbed.

II.—­The Prophet Schemes

That same evening Donnel was overtaken on the road from Ballynafail, the market-town, by Jerry Sullivan, a struggling farmer, and they proceeded together to the latter’s house.

“This woful saison, along wid the low prices and the high rents, houlds out a black and terrible look for the counthry, God help us!” said Sullivan.

“Ay,” returned the Black Prophet, “if you only knew it.  Isn’t the Almighty, in His wrath, this moment proclaimin’ it through the heavens and the airth?  Look about you, and say what is it you see that doesn’t foretell famine.  Doesn’t the dark, wet day, an’ the rain, rain, rain foretell it?  Doesn’t the rottin’ crops, the unhealthy air, an’ the green damp foretell it?  Doesn’t the sky without a sun, the heavy clouds, an’ the angry fire of the west foretell it?  Isn’t the airth a page of prophecy, an’ the sky a page of prophecy, where every man may read of famine, pestilence, an’ death?”

“The time was,” said Sullivan, “an’ it’s not long since, when I could give you a comfortable welcome as well as a willin’ one; but now ’tis but poor and humble tratement I can give you.  But if it was betther, you should just be as welcome to it, an’ what more can you say?”