[Illustration:  PAGE 899—­ Have I murdhered my daughter?]

At length a loud and agonizing cry burst from the lips of Meehan—­“Oh, God!—­God of heaven an’ earth!—­have I murdhered my daughter?” and he cast down the fatal weapon with a force which buried it some inches into the wet clay.

The crowd had closed upon Anne; but with the strength of a giant he flung them aside, caught the girl in his arms, and pressed her bleeding to his bosom.  He gasped for breath:  “Anne,” said he, “Anne, I am without hope, an’ there’s none to forgive me except you;—­none at all:  from God, to the poorest of his creatures, I am hated an’ cursed, by all, except you!  Don’t curse me, Anne; don’t curse me!  Oh, isn’t it enough, darlin’, that my sowl is now stained with your blood, along with my other crimes?  In hell, on earth, an’ in heaven, there’s none to forgive your father but yourself!—­none! none!  Oh, what’s comin’ over me!  I’m dizzy an’ shiverin’!  How cowld the day’s got of a sudden!  Hould up, avourneen machree!  I was a bad man; but to you Anne, I was not as I was to every one!  Darlin’, oh look at me with forgiveness in your eye, or any way don’t curse me!  Oh!  I’m far cowlder now!  Tell me that you forgive me, acushla oge machree!—­Manim asthee ha, darlin’, say it.  I darn’t look to God! but oh! do you say the forgivin’ word to your father before you die!”

“Father,” said she, “I deserve this—­it’s only just:  I have plotted with that divilish Martin to betray them all, except yourself, an’ to get the reward; an’ then we intended to go—­an’—­live at a distance—­an’ in wickedness—­where we—­might not be known—­he’s at our house—­let him be—­secured.  Forgive me, father; you said so often that there was no thruth in religion—­that I began to—­think so.  Oh!—­God! have mercy upon me!” And with these words she expired.

Meehan’s countenance, on hearing this, was overspread with a ghastly look of the most desolating agony:  he staggered back, and the body of his daughter, which he strove to hold, would have fallen from his arms, had it not been caught by the bystanders.  His eye sought out his brother, but not in resentment.  “Oh! she died, but didn’t say ’I forgive you!’ Denis,” said he, “Denis, bring me home—­I’m sick—­very sick—­oh, but it’s eowld—­everything’s reeling—­how cowld—­cowld it is!”—­and as he uttered the last words, he shuddered, fell down in a fit of apoplexy, never to rise again; and the bodies of his daughter and himself were both waked and buried together.

The result is brief.  The rest of the gang were secured:  Denis became approver, by whose evidence they suffered that punishment decreed by law to the crimes of which they had been guilty.  The two events which I we have just related, of course added to the supernatural fear and reverence previously entertained for this terrible relic.  It is still used as an ordeal of expurgation, in cases of stolen property; and we are not wrong in asserting, that many of those misguided creatures, who too frequently hesitate not to swear falsely on the Word of God, would suffer death itself sooner than commit a perjury on the Donagh.