Sullivan?  She threatened her, and spoke of her father, too, as bein’ in it.  Ah, ah!  I must watch him there; an’ you, too, my lady divil—­for it ’ill go hard wid me if either of you injure a hair of her head.  No, no, plaise God!—­none of your evil doins or unlucks prophecies for her, so long, any way, as I can presarve her from them.  How black the evenin’ is gatherin’, but God knows that it’s the awful saison all out for the harvest—­it is that—­it is that!”

Having given utterance to these sentiments, she took up the tobacco-box which Sarah had, in such an accidental manner, tumbled out of the wall, and surveying it for some moments, laid it hastily on the chest, and, clasping her hands exclaimed—­

“Saviour of life! it’s the same!  Oh, merciful God, it’s thrue! it’s thrue!—­the very same I seen wid him that evenin’:  I know it by the broken hinge and the two letthers.  The Lord forgive me my sins!—­for I see now that do what we may, or hide it as we like, God is above all!  Saviour of life, how will this end? an’ what will I do?—­or how am I to act?  But any way, I must hide this, and put it out of his reach.”

She accordingly went out, and having ascertained that no person saw her, thrust the box up under the thatch of the roof, in such a way that it was impossible to suspect, by any apparent disturbance of the roof, that it was there; after which, she sat down with sensations of dread that were new to her, and that mingled themselves as strongly with her affections as it was possible for a woman of a naturally firm and undaunted character to feel them.

CHAPTER II. —­ The Black Prophet Prophesies.

At a somewhat more advanced period of the same evening, two men were on their way from the market-town of Ballynafail, towards a fertile portion of the country, named Aughamuran, which lay in a southern direction from it.  One of them was a farmer, of middling, or rather of struggling, circumstances, as was evident from the traces of wear and tear that were visible upon a dress that had once been comfortable and decent, although now it bore the marks of careful, though rather extensive repair.  He was a thin placid looking man, with something, however, of a careworn expression in his features, unless when he smiled, and then his face beamed with a look of kindness and goodwill that could not readily be forgotten.  The other was a strongly-built man, above the middle size, whose complexion and features were such as no one could look on with indifference, so strongly were they indicative of a twofold character, or, we should rather say, calculated to make a twofold impression.  At one moment you might consider him handsome, and at another his countenance filled you with an impression of repugnance, if not of absolute aversion; so stern and inhuman were the characteristics which you read in it.  His hair, beard, and eye-brows were an ebon black, as were his eyes; his features were hard