matther, considherin' the bein' turned out ov one's home into the world.
Remember the ould sayin' ov, 'out ov two evils always chuse the laste;'
an' so, darlint, jist do whatever you think is fur the best."

After this conversation, it was agreed on by both that Owen should set
out the next day but one for the town, to try and dispose of the "cow,
the crathur;" and although poverty had begun to grind them a little,
still they had enough to eat, and slept tranquilly. However, it so
happened, that the very morning on which he had appointed to set out,
_Black Bess_ was seized for a long arrear of a tax that had not been
either asked or paid there for some time, and driven off, with many
others belonging to his neighbors, to be sold. Now you must know, good
reader, that there is a feeling interwoven, as it were, in the Irish
nature, that will doggedly resist anything that it conceives in the
slightest or most remote degree oppressive or unjust; and that feeling
then completely usurped all others in Owen's mind. He went amongst his
friends, and they condoled with one another about their grievances;
there was many a promise exchanged, that they would stand by each other
in their future resistance to what they considered an unlawful impost.
When the rent-day came, by disposing of his two pigs, and by borrowing
a little, he was enabled to pay the full amount, and thus protract for
some time the fear "ov bein' turned out on the world."

Some days after the whole country was in a tumult--Daly, "the procthor,"
was found murdered in the centre of the high road; and there was no clue
perceptible, by which the perpetrators of the crime could be discovered.
The very day before, Owen had borrowed the game-keeper's gun, to go, as
he said, to a wild, mountainous part of the country to shoot hares; and
from this circumstance, and his not having returned the day after, a
strong feeling of suspicion against him was in the minds of most. In