“Then,” said she, “go an’ thank God that has taken the edge, the bitther, keen edge off of our sufferin’; an’ the best way, in my opinion, for you to do it, is to go to the barn by yourself, an’ strive to put your whole heart into your prayers.  You’ll pray betther by yourself than wid me.  An’ in the name of God I’ll do the same as well as I can in the house here.  To-morrow, too, is Friday, an’, plaise our Saviour, we’ll both fast in honor of His goodness to us an’ to our son.”

“We will, Honor,” said he, “we will, indeed; for now I have spirits to fast, and spirits to pray, too.  What will I say, now?  Will I say the five Decades or the whole Rosary?”

“If you can keep your mind in the prayers, I think you ought to say the whole of it; but if you wandher don’t say more than the five.”

Fardorougha then went to the bam, rather because his wife desired him, than from a higher motive, whilst she withdrew to her own apartment, there humbly to worship God in thanksgiving.

The next day had made the commutation of Connor’s punishment a matter of notoriety through the whole parish, and very sincere indeed was the gratification it conveyed to all who heard it.  Public fame, it is true, took her usual liberties with the facts.  Some said he had got a free pardon, others that he was to be liberated after six months’ imprisonment; and a third report asserted that the lord lieutenant sent him down a hundred pounds to fit him out for marriage with Una; and it further added that his excellency wrote a letter with his own hand, to Bodagh Buie, desiring him to give his daughter to Connor on receipt of it, or if not, that the Knight of the Black Rod would come down, strip him of his property, and bestow it upon Connor and his daughter.

The young man himself was almost one of the first who heard of this favorable change in his dreadful sentence.

He was seated on his bedside reading, when the sheriff and jailer entered his cell, anxious to lay before him the reply which had that morning arrived from government.

“I’m inclined to think, O’Donovan, that your case is likely to turn out more favorably than we expected,” said the humane sheriff.

“I hope, with all my heart, it may,” replied the other; “there is no denying, sir, that I’d wish it.  Life is sweet, especially to a young man of my years.”

“But if we should fail,” observed the jailer, “I trust you will act the part of a man.”

“I hope, at all events, that I will act the part of a Christian,” returned O’Donovan.  “I certainly would rather live; but I’m not afeard of death, and if it comes, I trust I will meet it humbly but firmly.”

“I believe,” said the sheriff, “you need entertain little apprehension of death; I’m inclined to think that that part of your sentence is not likely to be put in execution.  I have heard as much.”

“I think, sir, by your manner, that you have,” returned Connor; “but I beg you to tell me without goin’ about.  Don’t be afeared, sir, that I’m too wake to hear either good news or bad.”