was it he did to deserve that?’ ‘Himself and another that had been out fowling,’ says he, ’and they came in here and they began to dispute, and the one of them killed the other, and he will be hung to-morrow.’  ‘He will not,’ says O’Connell.  ‘I tell you he will,’ says the other, ’for the Judge is come to give the sentence.’  Well, O’Connell kept to it that he would not, and they made a bet, and the hotel man bet all he had on the man being hung.  In the morning O’Connell was in no hurry out of bed, and when the two of them walked into the Court, the Judge was after giving the sentence, and the man was to be hung. ‘Maisead,’ says the judge when he saw O’Connell, ’I wish you had been here a half an hour ago, where there is a man going to be hung.’  ‘He is not,’ says O’Connell.  ‘He is,’ says the judge.  ‘If he is,’ says O’Connell, ’that one will never let anyone go living out of his hotel, and he making money out of the hanging.’  ’What do you mean saying that?’ says the judge.  Then O’Connell took the instrument out of his pocket where it was written down all the hotel-keeper had put on the hanging.  And when the judge saw that, he set the man free, and he was not hanged.”

THE CUP OF THE SASSANACH

“He was over in England one time, and he was brought to a party, and tea was made ready and cups.  And as they were sitting at the table, a servant girl that was in it, and that was Irish, came to O’Connell and she said, ‘Do you understand Irish?’ [Irish:  ’An tuigeann tu Gaedilge, O’Connell?’ ‘Tuigim,’] says he, ‘I understand it.’  ‘Have a care,’ says she, ‘for there is in your cup what would poison the whole nation!’ ’If that is true, girl, you will get a good fortune,’ said he.  It was in Irish they said all that, and the people that were in it had no ears.  Then O’Connell quenched the candle, and he changed his cup for the cup of the man that was next him.  And it was not long till the man fell dead.  They were always trying to kill O’Connell, because he was a good man.  The Sassanach it was were against him.  Terrible wicked they were, and God save us, I believe they are every bit as wicked yet!”

THE THOUSAND FISHERS

“O’Connell came to Galway one time, and he sent for all the trades to come out with the sign of their trade in their hand, and he would see which was the best.  And there came ten hundred fishers, having all white flannel clothes and black hats and white scarves about them, and he gave the sway to them.  It wasn’t a year after that, the half of them were lost, going through the fogs at Newfoundland, where they went for a better way of living.”

WHAT THE OLD WOMEN SAW

“The greatest thing I ever saw was O’Connell driving through Gort, very plain, and an oiled cap on him, and having only one horse; and there was no house in Gort without his picture in it.”  “O’Connell rode up Crow Lane and to Church Street on a single horse, and he stopped there and took a view of Gort.”  “I saw O’Connell after he left Gort going on the road to Kinvara, and seven horses in the coach—­they could not get in the eighth.  He stopped, and he was talking to Hickman that was with me.  Shiel was in the coach along with him.”