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"I tould you I had sworn to be revenged on either him, M'Loughlin, or his; and so I was may God forgive me! but one day that my poor foolish son undertook to convey Hugh Roe O'Regan's wife across the ford of Drum Dhu river while in a flood, he lost his footing, and never would breathe the breath of life again, only that God sent John M'Loughlin to the spot, and at the risk of his own life, he saved poor Raymond's.
Most of those in whose houses these papers were placed, fled the country, among whom was O'Regan, whose dying son Deaker's Dashers treated with such indefensible barbarity; and what made everything appear to fall in with his good fortune, it was much about this period that Grimes, the unfeeling man whom O'Regan appeared to have in his eye when he uttered such an awful vow of vengeance, was found murdered not far from his own house, with a slip of paper pinned to his coat, on which were written, in a disguised hand the words "Remember O'Regan's son, and let tyrants tremble."
Then, as before in O'Regan's sheeling, all the fury of the savage came upon him; his eyes blazed fearfully the white froth of passion, or rather of madness, appeared upon his lips, and his bowlings resembled the roaring of some beast of prey, while tearing up its quivering victim in the furious agonies of protracted hunger.
Father Roche was again advancing to remonstrate with him, for the man's determination seemed likely to get stronger by opposition when, just as the bayonet which had already passed under the woman's arm, was within a few inches of O'Regan's body, he felt himself dragged forcibly back, and Raymond-na-hattha stood before him, having seized both carbine and bayonet with a strong grip.
O'Regan's return with the neighbors from the lower country, was somewhat, and yet not much, more protracted than Father Roche had expected. Considering everything, however, there was little time lost, for he had brought about a dozen and a half of the villagers with him.
At this moment, Sharpe, who saw at once the man was indeed lifeless, raised his gun about to take aim at Raymond, when a blow from Harman felled him to the earth. "And here's for your kindness, Mister Harman," shouted Steele; but ere the words were uttered, O'Regan's wife threw herself upon him so effectually, that he felt it impossible to avail himself of his fire-arms.
Steele, to whom this was addressed, drew his bayonet, and commenced screwing it on, for the purpose of executing his orders. "A devilish good trick, too," said he; "and the first of the kind that has been practised on us yet here goes " Up until this moment O'Regan's wife sat beside the dead body of her husband, without either word or motion.
Now, it is due to this man to say, that, on looking back at the outrage which occurred in O'Regan's cottage, and reflecting upon the melancholy consequences it produced not forgetting the heart-rending insanity of O'Regan's wife he felt deep regret, amounting almost to remorse, for the part which he bore in it.
Both victories were achieved much about the same time; Raymond's opponent being far the more severely punished of the two. "What, however, was their surprise after each had expelled his man from the cabin, to find Steele down, his gun lying on one side. O'Regan's wife fastened on his throat, and himself panting and almost black in the face!
In O'Regan's house there was, indeed, the terrible union of a most bitter and twofold misery. The boy was literally dying, and to this was added the consciousness that M'Clutchy would work his way in spite of storm, tempest, and sickness, nay, even death itself.
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