Reynolds reflected that though it was contrary to their regulations to bring a stranger to the haunts where his companions carried on their illegal trade, they could hardly be unwilling to give shelter to the man who had killed the enemy whom they all so cordially hated, and to murder whom they were all sworn; particularly when his present necessity of concealment arose from the fact of his having done so. Reynolds had an idea of justice in his composition: he knew that had he murdered Ussher, his companions would have used every effort to conceal him, and to baffle his pursuers; and he was determined that they should do as much for Thady.
He went back to the cabin for Corney Dolan, and told him the story which he had just heard; and at about midnight the party started for the mountains.
Aughacashel is a mountain on the eastern side of Loch Allen, near the borders of the County Cavan—uncultivated and rocky at the top, but nevertheless inhabited, and studded with many miserably poor cabins, till within about a quarter of a mile of the summit. The owners of these cabins, with great labour, have contrived to obtain wretchedly poor crops of potatoes from the barren soil immediately round their cabins. To their agricultural pursuits many joined the more profitable but hazardous business of making potheen, and they were generally speaking, a lawless, reckless set of people—paying, some little, and others no rent, and living without the common blessings or restraints of civilization: no road, or sign of a road, came within some miles of them; Drumshambo, the nearest village, was seven or eight miles distant from them; and although they knew that neither the barrenness of their locality, nor the want of means of approach would altogether secure them from the unwelcome visits of the Revenue police or the Constabulary, still they felt sure that neither of these inimical forces could come into their immediate neighbourhood, without their making themselves aware of their approach, in time to guard against any injury which they might do them, either by removing all vestiges of their trade, or by sending those who were in fear of being taken up, into the more inaccessible portions of the mountain. On the western side of Aughacashel, immediately over Loch Allen, and about half way between the lowlands and the summit, a kind of rude limekiln had been made, apparently for the purpose of burning lime for the neighbouring land; but the very poor state of the rocky ground about, which gave signs of but little industry, afforded evidence that the limekiln had not added much to the agricultural wealth of the country. It was now at any rate made use of for other purposes, for it was in here that Joe Reynolds at present usually worked his still. There were only two cabins immediately close to it; one of which was occupied by a very old man and his daughter, but in which Corney Dolan and Reynolds resided, when they were away from Drumleesh; and the other belonged to another partner in the business, who considered himself the owner of the limekiln, and the head of the party concerned in it. This man's name was Daniel Kennedy, and to the reckless, desperate contempt of authority and hatred of those who exercised it, which characterized Reynolds, he added a cruelty of disposition, and a love of wickedness, from which the other was much more free.
This was the place to which his two guides were now conducting Thady, and where it was proposed that he should, at any rate for some time, conceal himself from those, who, it was presumed, would soon be scouring the country in search of him. It was now a bright moonlight night, and the three men hurried across the country with all the haste they could make. Little was said between them as they went, excepting observations made between Joe and his comrade, as to the characters and occupations of the residents in the various cabins by which they passed. After going for some considerable way across fields and bogs and bottom lands, they came out on a lane, running close round a small lake lying in the bed of the low hills which rose on the other side of it. The water was beautifully calm, and the moon shining immediately down upon it, gave it the appearance of a large surface of polished silver. At this spot the fields came close down to the road, and also to the water, and in the corner thus formed stood a very small poor cabin.
This lake was Loch Sheen, and it was in that cabin that Ussher had apprehended Tim Reynolds and the two other men, little more than a fortnight ago.
Joe stopped a moment when he reached the spot, till Thady, who was following the other man, had come up, and then, pointing to the low door, close to which he stood, said,
"The last deed as that ruffian did as now lies so low was in that cabin. It war there he sazed Tim, an' dragged him off with ropes round his arms, an' sent him to Ballinamore Bridewell, an' all for 'spaking a few words of comfort to an owld woman he'd known since he war a little child. I swore, Mr. Thady, that that man should be put beneath the sod before the time came round that Tim should be out agin; an' this very night I war a grieving in my heart to think that he war out of the country safe an' merry—ready agin to play the same bloody game with them among he war going; an' that I should let him go without so much as making one effort to keep my word with him! By G——d, Mr. Thady, quare as you may think it, who are now so low within yerself with what you've done, that thought was heavy on my heart this night. Had I known what way he war to travel, I'd followed him, had it been for days an' nights, till I had got one fair blow. By dad, he would niver have wanted a second. Corney what's the owld hag doing since her two sons is in gaol along with Tim?"
"Ah! thin, she's doing badly enough; she war niver from her bed since. Faix, Joe, they'll niver be out in time to bury her."
"Is it starving she is?"
"Well thin, I b'lieve that's the worst of it; that an' the agny, an' no one to mind her at all, is enough to kill an owld woman like her."