“It’s beyant anything ever known!” some exclaimed, “to come back an’ tell the deed upon his murdherer!  God presarve us, an’ save us, this night!  I wish we wor at home out o’ this wild place!”

Others said they had heard of such things; but this having happened before their own eyes, surpassed anything that could be conceived.

The mendicant now advanced, and once more mysteriously held up his crucifix.

“Keep silence!” said he, in a solemn, sonorous voice:  “Keep silence, I say, an’ kneel I down all o’ yez before what I’ve in my hand.  If you want to know who or what the voice came from, I can tell yez:—­it was the crucifix THAT SPOKE!!”

This communication was received with a feeling of devotion too deep for words.  His injunction was instantly complied with:  they knelt, and bent down in worship before it in the mountain wilds.

“Ay,” said he, “little ye know the virtues of that crucifix!  It was consecrated by a friar so holy that it was well known there was but the shadow of him upon the earth, the other part of him bein’ night an’ day in heaven among the archangels.  It shows the power of this Crass, any way; an you may tell your frinds, that I’ll sell bades touched wid it to the faithful at sixpence apiece.  They can be put an your padareens as Dicades, wid a blessin’.  Oxis Doxis Glorioxis—­Amin!  Let us now bear the corpse home, antil it’s dressed and laid out dacently as it ought to be.”

The body was then placed upon an easy litter, formed of great-coats buttoned together, and supported by the strongest men present, who held it one or two at each corner.  In this manner they advanced at a slow pace, until they reached Owen Reillaghan’s house, where they found several of the country-people assembled, waiting for their return.

It was not until the body had been placed in an inner room, where none were admitted until it should be laid out, that the members of the family first noticed the prolonged absence of Reillaghan’s other son.  The moment it had been alluded to, they were seized with new alarm and consternation.

“Hanim an diouol!” said Reillaghan, bitterly, in Irish, “but I doubt the red-handed villain has cut short the lives of my two brave sons!  I only hope he may stop in the country:  I’m not widout friends an’ followers that ’ud think it no sin in a just cause to pay him in his own coin, an’ to take from him an’ his a pound o’ blood for every ounce of ours they shed.”

A number of his friends instantly volunteered to retrace their way to the mountains, and search for the other son.  “There’s little danger of his life,” said a relation; “it’s a short time Frank ’ud stand him particularly as the gun wasn’t charged.  We’ll go, at any rate, for ‘fraid he might lose himself in the mountains, or walk into some o’ the lochs on his way home.  We had as good bring some whiskey wid us, for he may want it badly.”

While they had been speaking, however, the snow began to fall and the wind to blow in a manner that promised a heavy and violent storm.  They proceeded, notwithstanding, on their search, and on whistling for the dog, discovered that he was not to be found.