[Illustration: PAGE 886-- Upon the very spot where he had shot his rival]
The manner of his death excited a profound and wholesome feeling among the people, with respect to the crime which he attempted to commit. The circumstances attending it, and his oath upon the spot where he shot Reillaghan, are still spoken of by the fathers of the neighboring villages, and even by some who were present at the search for his body, it was also doubly remarkable on account of a case of spectral illusion which it produced, and which was ascribed to the effect of M'Kenna's supernatural appearance at the time. The daughter of a herdsman in the mountains was strongly affected by the spectacle of his dead body borne past her father's door. In about a fortnight afterwards she assured her family that he appeared to her. She saw the apparition, in the beginning, only at night; but ere long it ventured, as she imagined, to appear in day-light. Many imaginary conversations took place between them; and the fact of the peasantry flocking to the herd's house to satisfy themselves as to the truth of the rumor, is yet well remembered in the parish. It, was also affirmed, that as the funeral of M'Kenna passed to the churchyard, a hare crossed it, which some one present struck on the side with a stone. The hare, says the tradition, was not injured, but the sound of the stroke resembled that produced on striking an empty barrel.
We have nearly wound up our story, in which we have feebly endeavored to illustrate scenes that were, some time ago, not unusual in Irish life. There is little more to be added, except that Mike Reillaghan almost miraculously recovered; that he and Peggy Gartland were happily married, and that Darby More lost his character as a dreamer in that parish, Mike, with whom, however, he still continued a favorite, used frequently to allude to the speaking crucifix, the dream aforesaid, and his bit of fiction, in assuring his mother that he had dissuaded him against “tracing” on that eventful day.
“Well, avourneen,” Darby would exclaim, “the holiest of us has our failins; but, in throth, the truth of it is, that myself didn't know what I was sayin', I was so _through other_ (* agitated); for I renumber that I was badly afflicted with this thief of a configuration inwardly at the time. That, you see, and your own throubles, put my mind ashanghran for 'a start. But, upon my sanctity,--an' sure that's a great oath wid me--only for the Holy Carol you bought from me the night before, an' above all touchin' you wid the blessed Cruciwhix, you'd never a' got over the same accident. Oh, you may smile an' shake your head, but it's thruth whether or not! Glory be to God!”