LAMH LAUDHER OGE HAD CHALLENGED THE DEAD BOXER.

True.  On that morning, at an early hour, the proscribed young man waited upon the Sovereign of the town, and requested to see him.  Immediately after his encounter with the black the preceding night, and while Ellen Neil offered to compensate him for the obloquy she had brought upon his name, he formed the dreadful resolution of sending him a challenge.  In very few words he stated his intention to the Sovereign, who looked upon him as insane.

“No, no,” replied that gentleman; “go home, O’Rorke, and banish the idea out of your head; it is madness.”

“But I say yes, yes, with great respect to you, sir,” observed Lamh Laudher.  “I’ve been banished from my father’s house, and treated with scorn by all that know me, because they think me a coward.  Now I’ll let them know I’m no coward.”

“But you will certainly be killed,” said,the Sovereign.

“That’s to be seen,” observed the young man; “at all events, I’d as soon be killed as livin’ in disgrace.  I’ll thank you, sir, as the head of the town, to let the black know that Lamh Laudher Oge will fight him.”

“For heaven’s sake, reflect a moment upon the——­”

“My mind’s made up to fight,” said the other, interrupting him.  “No power on earth will prevent me, sir.  So, if you don’t choose to send the challenge, I’ll bring it myself.”

The Sovereign shook his head, as if conscious of what the result must be.

“That is enough,” said he; “as you are fixed on your own destruction, the challenge will be given; but I trust you will think better of it.”

“Let him know, if you please,” added Lamh Laudher, “that on to-morrow at twelve o’clock we must fight.”

The magistrate nodded, and Lamh Laudher immediately took his leave.  In a short time the intelligence spread.  From the sovereign it passed to his clerk, from the clerk to the other members of the corporation, and, ere an hour, the town was in a blaze with the intelligence.

“Did you hear what’s reported?” was the general question.

Lamh Laudher Oge has challenged the Dead Boxer!

The reader already knows how bitterly public opinion had set in against our humble hero; but it would be difficult to describe, in terms sufficiently vivid, the rapid and powerful reaction which now took place in his favor.  Every one pitied him, praised him, remembered his former prowess, and after finding some palliative for his degrading interview with Meehaul Neil, concluded with expressing a firm conviction that he had undertaken a fatal task.  When the rumor had reached his parents, the blood ran cold in their veins, and their natural affection, now roused into energy, grasped at an object that was about to be violently removed from it.  Their friends and neighbors, as we have stated, came to their house for the purpose of dissuading their son against so rash and terrible an undertaking.