“‘For God’s sake, Paddy, don’t attimpt it,’ they exclaimed, ’except you wish to lose your own life, without being able to save hers:  no man could swim in that flood, and it upwards of ten feet deep.’

“Their arguments, however, were lost upon him; for, in fact, he was insensible to everything but his child’s preservation.  He, therefore, only answered their remonstrances by attempting to make another plunge into the river.

“‘Let me alone, will yez,’ said he—­’let me alone!  I’ll either save my child, Rose, or die along with her!  How could I live after her?  Merciful God, any of them but her!  Oh!  Rose, darling,’ he exclaimed, ’the favorite of my heart—­will no one save you?’ All this passed in less than a minute.

“’Just as these words were uttered, a plunge was heard a few yards below the bridge, and a man appeared in the flood, making his way with rapid strokes to the drowning girl.  Another cry now arose from the spectators:  ‘It’s John O’Callaghan,’ they shouted—­’it’s John O’Callaghan, and they’ll both be lost.’  ‘No,’ exclaimed others; ’if it’s in the power of man to save her, he will!’ ‘O, blessed father, she’s lost!’ now burst from all present; for, after having struggled and been kept floating for some time by her garments, she at length sunk, apparently exhausted and senseless, and the thief of a flood flowed over her, as if she had not been under it’s surface.

“When O’Callaghan saw that she went down, he raised himself up in the water, and cast his eye towards that part of the bank opposite which she disappeared, evidently, as it proved, that he might have a mark to guide him in fixing on the proper spot where to plunge after her.  When he came to the place, he raised himself again in the stream, and, calculating that she must by this time have been borne some distance from the spot where she sank, he gave a stroke or two down the river, and disappeared after her.  This was followed by another cry of horror and despair, for somehow, the idea of desolation which marks, at all times, a deep, over-swollen torrent, heightened by the bleak mountain scenery around them, and the dark, angry voracity of the river where they had sunk, might have impressed the spectators with utter hopelessness as to the fate of those now engulfed in its vortex.  This, however, I leave to those who are deeper read in philosophy than I am.

“An awful silence succeeded the last shrill exclamation, broken only by the hoarse rushing of the waters, whose wild, continuous roar, booming hollowly and dismally in the ear, might be heard at a great distance over all the country.  But a new sensation soon invaded the multitude; for after the lapse of about half a minute, John O’Callaghan emerged from the flood, bearing in his sinister hand the body of his own Rose Galh—­for it’s he that loved her tenderly.  A peal of joy congratulated them from the assembled crowd; hundreds of directions were given to him how to act to the best advantage.  Two young men in especial, who were both dying about the lovely creature that he held, were quite anxious to give advice.