In fact, the intended meeting, and the object of it, were already notorious; and much conversation was held upon its probable result, and the measures which might be taken against those who should refuse to swear.  Of the latter, description there was but one opinion, which was that their refusal in such a case would be tantamount to guilt.  The innocent were anxious to vindicate themselves from suspicion:  and, as the suspected did not amount to more than a dozen, of course, the whole body of the people, including the thieves themselves, who applauded it as loudly as the other, all expressed their satisfaction at the measures about to be adopted.  A day was therefore appointed, on which the inhabitants of the neighborhood, particularly the suspected persons, should come to assemble at Cassidy’s house, in order to have the characters of the innocent cleared up, and the guilty, if possible, made known.

On the evening before this took place, were assembled in Meehan’s cottage, the elder Meehan, and the rest of the gang, including Denis, who had absconded, on the night of the theft.

“Well, well, Denny,” said Anthony, who forced his rugged nature into an appearance of better temper, that he might strengthen the timid spirit of his brother against the scrutiny about to take place on the morrow—­perhaps, too, he dreaded him—­“Well, well.  Denny, I thought, sure enough, that it was some new piece of cowardice came over you.  Just think of him,” he added, “shabbin’ off, only because he made, with a bit of a rod, three strokes in the ashes that he thought resembled a coffin!—­ha, ha, ha!”

This produced a peal of derision at Denis’s pusillanimous terror.

“Ay!” said the Big Mower, “he was makin’ a coffin, was he?  I wondher it wasn’t a rope you drew, Denny.  If any one dies in the coil, it will be the greatest coward, an’ that’s yourself.”

“You may all laugh,” replied Denis, “but I know such things to have a manin’.  When my mother died, didn’t my father, the heavens be his bed! see a black coach about a week before it? an’ sure from the first day she tuck ill, the dead-watch was heard in the house every night:  and what was more nor that, she kept warm until she went into her grave; * an’ accordingly, didn’t my sisther Shibby die within a year afther?”

* It is supposed in Ireland, when a corpse retains, for a longer space of time than usual, any thing like animal heat, that some person belonging to the family of the deceased will die within a year.

“It’s no matther about thim things,” replied Anthony; “it’s thruth about the dead-watch, my mother keepin’ warm, an’ Shibby’s death, any way, But on the night we tuck Cassidy’s horse, I thought you were goin’ to betray us:  I was surely in a murdherin’ passion, an’ would have done harm, only things turned out as they did.”

“Why,” said Denis, “the truth is, I was afeard some of us would be shot, an’ that the lot would fall on myself; for the coffin, thinks I, was sent as a warnin’.  How-and-ever, I spied about Cassidy’s stable, till I seen that the coast was clear; so whin I heard the low cry of the patrich that Anthony and I agreed on, I joined yez.”