A few minutes brought this kind-hearted Whiteboy back to the spot where Hourigan and his companion, who was also his cousin, fell. He was a good deal surprised, but still highly gratified, at not finding them where they had fallen, as it was a 'proof to him that his aim at either had not been fatal, as he certainly had no intention of taking their lives, or of rendering them any greater injury than the infliction of such wound as might put an end to their pursuit of M'Carthy. On advancing a little farther, he saw them proceeding, by a different but shorter path towards the inland country; and being now satisfied, from their appearance, that they had not been mortally wounded, he left them to reach home as best they might, and proceeded himself in another direction.
It is necessary to say here, that Moylan had not the slightest intention of sending Mr. Purcel's car to meet our friend M'Carthy, inasmuch as he never for a moment supposed that this devoted youth was likely to leave the mountains alive. His own egregious vanity, engrafted on a cowardly, jealous, and malignant disposition, prompted him, ever since he had been induced by the pedlar, out of a mere banter, to suppose that he had engaged the affections of Julia Purcel, to look upon this young man as a person that ought to be got out of his way. In this manner there was, indeed, a peculiar combination of circumstances against M'Carthy; for it so happened that Moylan, whilst anxious to wreak his own jealousy and hatred upon him, was, at the same time, executing the will of another individual who stood behind the scenes. On every side, then, M'Carthy was surrounded by mortal dangers that were completely veiled in obscurity. During this very night it was resolved to assassinate him, be the consequences what they might; and if he should escape, in the one instance, he was to be sought after in whatever house he took refuge, with the exception only of Purcel's, which his enemies were, for the present, afraid to attack. Every avenue and road leading to it however, was watched, with a hope that if he escaped elsewhere, they might shoot him down from, behind a hedge.
The condition of all secret and illegal societies in Ireland is, indeed, shocking and most detestable, when contemplated from any point of view whatsoever. In every one of them--that is, in every local body or branch of such conspiracy--there is a darker and more secret class, comparatively few in number, who undertake to organize the commission of crimes and outrages; and who, when they are controlled by the peaceably-disposed and enemies to bloodshed, always fall back upon this private and blood-stained clique, who are always willing to execute their sanguinary behests, as it were, _con amore_. In other cases, however, as we have stated before, even the virtuous and reluctant are often compelled, by the dark and stern decrees of these desperate ruffians, to perpetrate crimes from which they revolt. It was, therefore, in pursuance of these abominable principles that the arrangements for M'Carthy's murder were made on the night in question.