It was now dark, but the night was calm and agreeable.  M’Kenna’s family felt the keen affliction which we have endeavored to describe; the dinner was put hastily aside, and the festive spirit peculiar to this night became changed into one of gloom and sorrow.  In this state they sat, when the voice of grief was heard loud in the distance; the strong cry of men, broken and abrupt, mingled with the shrieking wail of female lamentation.

The M’Kennas started, and Frank’s countenance assumed an expression which it would be difficult to describe.  There was, joined to his extreme paleness, a restless, apprehensive, and determined look; each trait apparently struggling for the ascendancy in his character, and attempting’ to stamp his countenance with its own expression.

“Do you hear that?” said his father.  “Oh, musha, Father of heaven, look down an’ support that family this night!  Frank if you take my advice, you’ll lave their sight; for surely if they brain you on the spot, who could blame them?”

“Why ought I lave their sight?” replied Frank.  “I tell you all that I had no hand in his death.  The gun went off by accident as he was crassin’ a wreath o’ snow.  I was afore him, and when I heard the report, an’ turned round, there he lay, shot an’ bleedin’.  I thought it mightn’t signify, but on lookin’ at him closely, I found him quite dead.  I then ran home, never touchin’ the gun at all, till his family and the neighbors ’ud see him.  Surely, it’s no wondher I’d be distracted in my mind; but that’s no rason you should all open upon me as if I had murdhered the boy!”

“Well,” said the father, “I’m glad to hear you say even that much.  I hope it maybe betther wid you than we all think; an’ oh! grant it, sweet mother o’ Heaven, this day!  Now carry yourself quietly afore the people.  If they abuse you, don’t fly into a passion, but make allowance for their grief and misery.”

In the mean time, the tumult was deepening as it approached M’Kenna’s house.  The report had almost instantly spread through in the village which Reillaghan lived; and the loud cries of his father and brothers, who, in the wildness of their despair, continually called upon his name, had been heard at the houses which lay scattered over the neighborhood.  Their inmates, on listening to such unusual sounds, sought the direction from which they proceeded, for it was quite evident that some terrible calamity had befallen the Reillaghans, in consequence of the son’s name being borne on the blasts of night with such loud and overwhelming tones of grief and anguish.  The assembly, on reaching M’Kenna’s, might, therefore, be numbered at thirty, including the females of Reillaghan’s immediate family, who had been strung by the energy of despair to a capability of bearing any fatigue, or rather to an utter insensibility of all bodily suffering.

We must leave the scene which ensued to the reader’s imagination, merely observing, that as neither the oath which young Frank had taken on the preceding night, nor indeed the peculiar bitterness of his enmity towards the deceased, was known by the Reillaghans, they did not, therefore, discredit the account of his death which they had heard.