made a blunder of some kind, or he would not have taken away her fellow-servant instead of herself; and it was the bitterness which weak minds always feel when their own wishes happen to be disappointed, that prompted her resentment against poor Biddy, who was unconsciously its object.  Flanagan’s primary intention was still, however, in some degree, effected, so far as it regarded the abduction.  The short space of an hour gave him time to cool and collect himself sufficiently to form the best mode of action under the circumstances.  He resolved, therefore, to plead mistake, and to produce Kitty Lowry to prove that his visit that night to the Bodagh’s house was merely to fulfil their mutual promise of eloping together.

But there was the robbery staring him in the face; and how was he to manage that?  This, indeed, was the point on which the accomplished villain felt by the sinking of his heart that he had overshot his mark.  When he looked closely into it, his whole frame became cold and feeble from despair, the hard paleness of mental suffering settled upon his face, and his brain was stunned by a stupor which almost destroyed the power of thinking.

All this, however, availed him not.  Before twelve o’clock the next day informations had been sworn against him, and at the hour of three he found himself in the very room which had been assigned to Connor O’Donovan, sinking under the double charge of abduction and robbery.

And now once more did the mutability of public feeling and opinion as usual become apparent.  No sooner had fame spread abroad the report of Flanagan’s two-fold crime, and his imprisonment, than those very people who had only a day or two before inferred that Connor O’Donovan was guilty, because his accuser’s conduct continued correct and blameless, now changed their tone, and insisted that the hand of God was visible in Flanagan’s punishment.  Again were all the dark traits of his character dragged forward and exposed; and this man reminded that man, as that man did some other man, that he had said more than once that Bartle Flanagan would be hanged for swearing away an innocent young man’s life.  Such, however, without reference to truth or justice, is public opinion among a great body of the people, who are swayed by their feelings only, instead of their judgment.  The lower public will, as a matter of course, feel at random upon everything, and like a fortuneteller, it will for that reason, and for that only, sometimes be found on the right side.  From the time which elapsed between the period of Bartle’s imprisonment and that of his trial, many strange circumstances occurred in connection with it, of which the public at large were completely ignorant.  Bartle was now at the mercy of a man who had been long looked upon with a spirit of detestation and vengeance by those illegal confederations with which he had uniformly declined to associate himself.  Flanagan’s party, therefore, had now only two methods of serving him, one was intimidation, and the other a general subscription among the various lodges of the district, to raise funds for his defence.  To both of these means they were resolved to have recourse.