boy, named James Rispin, were the chief
witnesses.

In that lone house on the bog, they are busy
at work, or sitting singing and laughing round
the fire, while supper is preparing: Lynch and
his wife, his brave son-in-law James Rispin,
another labourer, Elizabeth Richards a servant,
and another woman, and a child.

Devan and Malone, the captains of the two
bands, have spread their men, according to order,
to the right and left round the hill on which
the doomed house is; they are closing in upon
their victims, with guns and pistols ready. The
lighted peat, roused by the wind and waving to
and fro, breaks into a blaze, and is a moving
signal for the circle of Ribbonmen. Their cruel
object is to prevent any of the hated Lynches from
running down to the water and escaping in the
darkness by swimming and wading to land,
or hiding in the heather clumps on the bog.
Gologly and other men, left in the lane to hold
the horses, laugh and dance as they see the circle
formed. M'Elarney has refused to help hold the
horses, saying he is as fit to go to the burning
as any man there.

The sound of voices has by this time aroused
the Lynch family. They look out, they see the
moving light and near the threatening sounds that
can only mean mischief. They guess in an
instant that the Ribbonmen are on them, to
revenge their three dead comrades. Rooney
snatches down his gun and prepares for defence.
Some rush and bolt the hall door. The assailants
make a charge at it with their gun-butts and
strong shoulders. A voice from within cries:

"The first that comes in or out, I'll shoot
him!"

Devan answers hoarsely through the darkness,
the fire glaring on his face, so that it even more
than usually resembles an evil spirit's:

"Don't think it is old times with you,
Rooney; this night is your DOOM."

There is no more said, but several shots flash
from the windows, and a man named Keeran is
burned in the face by the powder of one
discharge. The Ribbonmen fall back, and do not
again attempt to force an entrance by blowing
open the lock or hewing their way. Devan and
Malone then cry out to fire the house at the
back. With a savage eagerness the wretches
run to the hay-yard, and collect great heaps of
dry flax, unthrashed oats, and straw. The two
men who fetched fire from Halfpenny's—
determined men, and one of them a robber by
profession—are ordered to light a bundle of flax
and thrust it into the thatch of the roof.
There is a crackling, a glare, a blaze, that
shows at once the ring of red howling faces,
and makes the bayonets and gun-barrels gleam
crimson. Devan cries:

"We will show the country boys that there
shall be no informers allowed in it."

The fire spreads over the roof with dreadful
rapidity, flashing from end to end, with a
crackling roar and fierce volumes of reddened
smoke. In a moment a sheet of water, which
almost insulates the house, seems turned into
a sea of blood, the windows glitter in the
blaze, and the glass snaps and falls. Through
the horrible glare, the ring of rejoicing wretches
must seem to the unhappy creatures within like
a circle of exulting devils.

Nothing but God's voice from heaven or the
avenging hands of Angels can save the Lynches
now. Devan's party know it, and dance and toss
up their brimless hats, and wave their guns and
pitchforks, with the ferocity of cannibals. The
poor women, too, and the children, what have
they done? What do they know of prosecutions
and Ribbonmen conspiracies—they who were
defended so bravely by Lynch and Rooney when
they fought for their lives against the midnight
thieves? Perhaps, even now, tearing themselves
from the groaning women and screaming children,
Lynch, Rooney, Rispin, and his fellow-servant,
may load their guns to the muzzle, sharpen some
knives for their belts, and, throwing open the
door, turn mad and rush down on these
murderers. If they fail to break through the circle,
they may at least kill some, and die bravely.

But there is no time for this; the farmer has
his wife in his arms, Rooney has his little child
crying for help, the farm-servants have their
sweethearts clinging to them, and praying
hysterically for mercy—clinging with the agony and
despair of drowning creatures. The burning
timbers of the roof and the masses of blazing
thatch fall on them, and set their clothes on fire,
the house glows like a furnace, the fire starts
in at the windows, the walls are growing
red hot, the beds and chairs and floors are breaking
out into flames. The men and women fly
past the windows, from this corner to that, like
terrified animals in a burning forest; their cries
pierce and rend the air.

The only answer their murderers give, is a
shout: "Let none survive; not one must live
to tell of it!" And they pile more straw on the
roof. The sky over the lonesome swamp gets
redder—redder, and men far away at Andee
and Enniskeen see it and know what is being
done.

Bryan Lemmon, one of Devan's gang, springs
forward with a ponderous sledge-hammer, and
toiling like a Titan, drives in and shatters the
hall door with a dozen crushing blows. The
bayonets and guns move nearer; will Devan's
men rush into this furnace, and slay all they
meet? No, their hatred is now too intense and
fiendish for such a shortening of their sport. A
dozen of them bring armfuls of flax and oat
straw, and push them blazing into the rooms.
The hay-yard furnishes the funeral pile for its
unhappy owner. So do the stables, where the
horses kick and plunge, maddened by the heat
and noise and glare.

The women and children fly from room to
room, up-stairs and down. They crouch, they
hide, they pray, they scream, and their screams
are heard far beyond the flame, far into the
darkness, scaring the heron and the fox. The
wretched Lynch's well-known form is seen crossing
a window, and Devan gives orders to fire
at him. He cannot resist that order, though