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90 country in his shirt and trousers; that he had killed a child up at the top of the townland; and that after that he had gone up the mountain like a yellow deer from Mangerton; that he had gone off to the Madmen's Glen, and that it was supposed to be unknown when he would come back; that there was a batch of people in every one of the seven townlands cutting splinters of wood to make torches for the night to go in search of him, and that no doubt he would be found stuck head downwards in some hole and drowned, or in some rock-cave, perished with cold and hunger.

—That is true, Kate. But anyhow they hadn't much advantage over Shiana himself in that respect. He was the boy that wouldn't have been much concerned about their labours or their preparations if he had known they were going on—which he did not know.

No sooner did Shiana reach home, than he sat down to work, and he had not put in three stitches before the "Bristly Hag" was going on as merrily as ever she was, so that the men looked at each other, and Michael drove his awl deep into the eye of his thumb.