proof of bodily strength which he had just given, depressed every heart,
when his young and generous adversary was contrasted with him. Deep
sorrow for the fate of Lamh Laudher prevailed throughout the town; the
old men sighed at the folly of his rash and fatal obstinacy, and the
females shed tears at the sacrifice of one whom all had loved. From
the inn, hundreds of the crowd rushed to the church-yard, where they
surveyed the newly made grave with shudderings and wonder at the
strangeness of the events which had occurred in the course of the day.
The death music, the muffled drums, the black flag, the mournful tolling
of the sullen bell, together with the deep grave that lay open before
them, appeared rather to resemble the fearful pageant of a gloomy dream,
than the reality of incidents that actually passed before their eyes.
Those who came to see the grave departed with heaviness and a sad
foreboding of what was about to happen; but fresh crowds kept pouring
towards it for the remainder of the day, till the dusky shades of a
summer night drove them to their own hearths, and left the church-yard
silent.

The appearance of the Dead Boxer's wife in the house where Lamh Laudher
resided, confirmed, in its worst sense, that which Nell M'Collum had
suggested to him. It is unnecessary to describe the desolating sweep of
passion which a man, who, like him, was the slave of strong resentments,
must have suffered. It was not only from motives of avarice and a
natural love of victory that he felt anxious to fight: to these was now
added a dreadful certainty that Lamh Laudher was the man in existence
who had inflicted on him an injury, for which nothing but the pleasure
of crushing him to atoms with his hands, could atone. The approaching
battle therefore, with his direst enemy, was looked upon by the Dead
Boxer as an opportunity of glutting his revenge. When the crowd had
dispersed, he called a waiter, and desired him to inquire if his