“The fellow that killed her!—­the fellow that killed her!”

Upon the present occasion, Mave was surprised by meeting him and the miser, whom he must have met accidentally, walking side by side, but in a position which gave fearful intimation of Dalton’s purpose respecting him.  Around the unfortunate wretch’s neck was the halter aforesaid, made into a running noose, while, striding beside him, went his wild and formidable companion, holding the end of it in his hand, and eyeing him from time to time with a look of stupid but determined ferocity.  Skinadre’s appearance and position were ludicrously and painfully helpless.  His face was so pale and thin that it was difficult to see, even in those frightfuf times of sickness and famine, a countenance from which they were more significantly reflected.  He was absolutely shrunk up with terror into half his size, his little thin, corded neck appearing as if it were striving unsuccessfully to work its way down into his trunk, and his small ferret eyes looking about in every direction for some one to extricate him out of the deadly thrall in which he was held.  Mave, who had been aware of the enmity which his companion bore him, as well as of its cause, and fearing that the halter was intended to hang the luckless mealman, probably upon the next tree they came to, did not, as many another female would do, avoid or run away from the madman.  On the contrary, she approached him with an expression singularly winning and sweet on her countenance, and in a voice of great kindness, laid her hand upon his arm to arrest his attention, asked him how he did.  He paused a moment, and looking upon her with a dull but turbid eye, exclaimed with an insane laugh, pointing at the same time, to the miser—­“This is the fellow that killed her—­ha, ha, ha, but I have him now—­here he is in the noose; in the noose.  Ay, an’ I swore it, an’ there’s another, too, that’s to get it, but I won’t rob any body, nor join in that at all; I’ll hang him here, though—­ha, Darby, I have you now.”

As he spoke, poor Skinadre received a chuck of the halter which almost brought his tongue out as far as in the throttling process which we have before described.

“Mave, achora,” said he, looking at her after his recovery from the powerful jerk he had just got, “for the sake of heaven, try an’ save my life; if you don’t he’ll never let me out of his hands a livin’ man.”

“Don’t be alarmed, Darby,” she replied, “poor Tom won’t injure you; so far from that, he’ll take the halter from about your neck, an’ let you go.  Won’t you let poor Darby go, Tom?”

“I will,” he replied, “after I hang him—­ha, ha, ha; ’twas he that killed her; he let her die wid hunger, but now he’ll swing for it, ha, ha!”

These words were accompanied by another chuck, which pulled miserable Skinadre almost off his legs.

“Tom, for shame,” said Mave, “why would you do sich an unmanly thing with this poor ould crature?—­be a man, and let him go.”