I saw the first glimmering of the light of day, out with me and eastward again to the place where I saw her going in over the fence. There was a pool of blood on the road at the place where she was knocked down, and there was a great deal of blood on the ground over as far as the fence, and on the top of the fence where she had jumped over. I went over and followed the trail of blood through the grove to the north-east, and on again through the field which was beyond the grove, until I came to a little house, a miserable little cabin, in the north-eastern corner of the field. The trail of the blood was there on the ground, up to the door of the little house. I put my hand on the latch. The door moved in before me. I went in. I saw a woman sitting on a stool in front of the fire, swaying herself to and fro like a woman in grief, and crying under her breath.
"'God save all here!' said I. She sprang up and turned her face to me. She had her head wrapped in a cloth, except one of her eyes, and that eye was almost closed with swelling. She flung herself on her knees. 'I appeal to you for my life, Cormac!' said she. 'Don't give me up to the law this time! I have had my mother there below,' said she, 'without mind or sense, unable to walk or move or know anybody, or speak, for two years and five weeks next Saturday. If I am taken from her now she will die of starvation! She will have nobody to bring priest or friar to her, or to hand a drink to her! I implore you, for the love of Our Lord in Heaven and for the love of the Virgin Mary, and for the sake of the soul of your own mother, not to take me away from that wretched being below there!'
"It was no misnomer to call the old woman a
