246 THE DAWN VONE. 



my window open night and day. I fancy I hear the sounds from 

 that horrid spot where he hangs oh God ! hangs in death. Monsters! 

 monsters ! In heart he was no murderer, and God only punishes the 

 deeds of the heart. I'll prove it to you from the Bible, Ma'am 

 listen to me." 



She said this sinking from the very madness of her feelings into 

 the calmness of almost ordinary conversation. 



When she had finished one of those numerous passages, which in- 

 deed fully proved her belief, she relapsed again into her former 

 strain. "I could listen, and listen, although listening sets me mad. 

 I know I am getting mad." 



Ailleen kept rocking the cradle with a violence which showed how 

 strongly she was moved. Her eyes were blinded with tears. 



" Do not say what would be a sin, 1 ' observed Mrs. H . " Your 



reason will be preserved you ; and you ought to pray for a better 

 frame of mind, if only for the sake of that infant which depends upon 

 you." 



" And don't I pray ? Ailleen you know it. And don't I pray for 

 that dear orphan of a murdered father?" 



She sprang out of bed, and, throwing herself on her knees, uttered 

 a prayer wildly and fervently. 



Mrs. H., when she had done, knelt solemnly, and poured forth a 

 prayer so subduing, so touching, that when she had done she found 

 her poor Mary so rational and so passive in her hands that she lite- 

 rally dressed her with her own hands, wrapped up the sleeping infant 

 (whom she kissed) in Ailleen's cloak, and saw them up to the avenue 

 which led to her own house. 



She hastily returned ; and in a short time after the friar, Brien, and 

 the Bawn Vone, were at the foot of the gibbet, where swung in the 

 night blast all that remained of the murderer. 



I wish to pass over the details of this transaction. For no person, 

 perhaps, on earth, but for Mrs. H , who tended his own " Jenny 

 Murphy's daughter" in her accouchement, and danced at the christen- 

 ing of his son and heir, could daicent Mickey Brien have so subdued 

 his superstitious fears as to mount in a wild October night the gibbet 

 of a murderer, with his troubled ghost howling over him like an 

 eagle over its killed young, and thence remove the tainted corpse. 

 For no one but the friend of the Conwent would friar Flannery have 

 brought out his favourite ass and harnessed it to a car, that it might 

 convey the body to the grave which was decently prepared for it in 

 the abbey burial-yard. While af any time, to relieve a distressed mind 

 and bind up a broken herat, to answer the promptness of duty and of 

 generous feeling, would Mrs. H have done the same thing. 



That night the bones of the gibbeted criminal, despite the terrors 

 of the law, in this case alone perhaps not unjustly violated, were con- 

 signed to a Christian grave ; and there was one there that good 

 woman who sufficed in herself for all the honours which numbers 

 might have conferred by her presence alone. 



When it was surmised whose was the hand that deceived the law, 

 no means were taken to bring the delinquent to justice ; and the bones 

 of James Lacy rested in peace. 



