were hunting them like beasts of prey for their destruction.  Perhaps they deserved it, and this consideration may still more strongly account for their fierce and relentless-looking aspect.  There is, in the meantime, no doubt that, however wild, ferocious, and savage they may have appeared, the strong and terrible hand of injustice and oppression had much, too much, to do with the crimes which they had committed, and which drove them out of the pale of civilized life.  Altogether the spectacle of their appearance there on that night was a melancholy, as well as a fearful one, and ought to teach statesmen that it is not by oppressive laws that the heart of man can be improved, but that, on the contrary, when those who project and enact them come to reap the harvest of their policy, they uniformly find it one of violence and crime.  So it has been since the world began, and so it will be so long as it lasts, unless a more genial and humane principle of legislation shall become the general system of managing, and consequently, of improving society.

“Now, my friends,” said Shawn-na-Middogue, “you all know why we are here.  Unfortunate Granua Davoren has disappeared, and I have brought you together that we may set about the task of recovering her, whether she is living or dead.  Even her heart-broken parents would feel it a consolation to have her corpse in order that they might give it Christian burial.  It will be a shame and a disgrace to us if she is not found, as I said, living or dead.  Will you all promise to rest neither night nor day till she is found?  In that case swear it on your skeans.”

In a moment every skean was out, and, with one voice, they said, “By the contents of this blessed iron, that has been sharpened for the hearts of our oppressors, we will never rest, either by night or by day, till we find her, living or dead”—­every man then crossed himself and kissed his skean—­“and, what is more,” they added, “we will take vengeance upon the villain that ruined her.”

“Hould,” said Shawn; “do you know who he is?”

“By all accounts,” they replied, “the man that you struck.”

“No!” exclaimed Shawn, “I struck the wrong man; and poor Granua was right when she screamed out that I had murdered the innocent.  But now,” he added, “why am I here among you?  I will tell you, although I suppose the most of you know it already:  it was good and generous Mr. Lindsay’s she-devil of a wife that did it; and it was her he-devil of a son, Harry Woodward, that ruined Granua Davoren.  My mother happened to say that she was a heartless and tyrannical woman, that she had the Evil Eye, and that a devil, under the name of Shan-dhinne-dhuv, belonged to her family, and put her up to every kind of wickedness.  This, which was only the common report, reached her ears, and the consequence was that because we were-behind in the rent only a single gale, she sent in her bailiffs without the knowledge of her husband, who was from