that might cost him his life. No sooner was the lane made, and the
by-standers removed back, than a person evidently youthful, tall,
elastic, and muscular, approached the burning mass with the speed, and
lightness of a deer, and flew over it as if he had wings. A tremendous
shout burst forth, which lasted for more than a minute, and the people
were about to bring him to receive his reward at the whiskey keg, when
it was found that he also had disappeared. This puzzled them once more,
and they began to think that, there were more present at these bonfires
than had ever received baptism; for they could scarcely shake themselves
free of the belief that the mysterious stranger either was something
supernaturally evil himself, or else the conjurer as aforesaid, who, by
all accounts, was not many steps removed from such a personage. Of the
young person who performed this unprecedented and terrible exploit they
had little time to take any notice. Torley Davoren, however, who was one
of the spectators, turned round to his wife and whispered,

"Unfortunate boy--madman I ought-to say--what devil tempted him to come
here?"

"Was it him?" asked his wife.

"Whist, whist," he replied; "let us say no more about it."

In the meantime, although the youthful performer of this daring feat may
be said to have passed among them like an arrow from a bow, yet it so
happened that the secret of his identity did not rest solely with Torley
Davoren. In a few minutes whisperings began to take place, which spread
gradually through the crowd, until at length the name of _Shawn na
Middogue_ was openly pronounced, and the secret--now one no longer--was
instantly sent abroad through the people, to whom his fearful leap was