Wichita eagle., 1888-01-11
rhe aaieta Daily eagle aaledesday orno gannar H.

one who s'dreed his weird" solitary amongst
his fellows, unhelped and unpitied by them
Ere morning had resolved that, so far as
was concerned, the matter should not rest
there, but that would at once pay Turlough
OBrien visit, express my gratitude to him
better than l bad been able to DO it in the
hurry of the moment, and try to help him,
at least by sympathy, if in no other way. He
had refused to accept the money; but he
could scarcely decline a few articles, OF use to
a man in his circumstances, if brought to
him as a present and not as a reward, and
these might be my excuse for intruding upon
him. Truth to tell, was rather doubtful as
to the reception I might meet with at the
farm.
Man proposes, and God disposes" 1t is
trite saying, but a practical one. When l
rose in the morning l saw the sky covered
from zenith to horizon by a leaden pail OF
cloud, whence descended an unbroken torrent
of rain, turning the streets to rivers OF mud,
and splashing on the pavement from
every gutter, as if the deluge were
come again. Bogtrotting was, in such
weather, out Of the question, and resigned
myself to the inevitable, though reluctantly,
as knew well that when steady rain begins
in the County Westmeath in November with
a falling barometer, no man can say when it
will stop. But / was scarcely prepared for
the rainfall of that November. Ten whole
days it continued without symptom OF cessa-
ton; then came break of sunshine late one
afternoon, a fine plight, and again rain in the
morning. When on the fourteenth day, the
mercury in the barometer that hung in the
anteroom showed signs of rising steadily, In
place of jumping up and down every few
hours, and the clouds thinned away and let
watery glimpse of sun come through, we were
all thoroughly tired of inaction and indoor
confinement, and half the country was under
water.
Next morning was a glorious one, with
cloudless sky; and started on my expedition
alone this time as | did not think it fair to
ask Peter to accompany me, knowing his
feelings on the subject of my destination.
found locomotion very difficult, as the bogs
We're ankle deep in water in some places, and
once l thought seriously of turning back; but
my good intentions were too strong for me,
and / struggled on. About noon 1 passed
the 'lone tree" and came in sight of Lough
Galliagh. 1t had become respectable sheet
of water by this time. The Devils Scraugh
was quite covered, and evidently my friend
Turlough's engineering operations must have
been suspended for some time past by the laws
of nature The cottage still stood where last
saw it, and thin wreath of smoke rose from
the chimney. proving that the owner was at
bone. The stream below it had become a
swollen river, moving sluggishly onward
close to the walls of the hut, having evidently
flooded the potato garden and fields adjoir-
ing. | was pleased to think that | had brought
few luXuries with me, a pound or so of to-
bacco and so on; for evidently the outcast
had need of something to keep his spirits up,
III view of the desOation around him.
Having thus reflected looked again towards
the gloomy pool where had SO nearly lost my
life. Curiously enough, it seemed larger than
when had viewed II a few minutes before. As !
| tried to account in my own mind for this
phenomenon / felt trembling of the ground
beneath my feet and, with dull, suIen
roar the whole bog, from Lough Galliagh |
downward, split away, opening a vast chasm, !
filled with black foaming water, and slid |
away bodily toward the stream below. A |
few yards it thus moved unbroken, and then |
split in every direction into maze Of |
islands, all borne downward by resistless /
rush of water, that had accumulated twenty |
feet beneath the bog upon the impervious
mari subsoil, and now bore away its load tri- |
in rearing torrent, directed |
straight upon the cottage by the stream.
At the first dull roar, had seen-I seemed |
to see everything at once-the door of the |
hut open and a man standing on the threshold |
looking toward Lough Galliagh. Then the |
flood broke. and cottage and man vanished
H. 1--.N fz1I
by the great masses of peat, which choked up
the bed of the channel and piled themselves
on the further bank like chaos. l am not
ashamed to say that l turned and ran for my
life. There was no saying whether my part
Of the bog would not follow the other. How
ever, the release of the water had saved the
of the peat; and | was able. by
making long detour, TO avoid that chasm
where once was Lough Galliah, and to strike
the bed of the stream about a mile farther
down. where already crowd of country peo-
pie had collected, and were gazing in bewil-
Tered aStonisbment ct the devastation around
hem. One or two OF the most practical-or
perhaps most apathetic-amongst them were
cropping in the rapidly diminishing waters of
he stream, and fishing ont relics of the fur
liture of the cottage, which had been struck
Dy the first force of the released waters and
,arried down the stream in fragments, before
he mass Of peat had damned the channel.
"Hurroo, JOhneen!" shouted one stalwart
ellow, holding on to a long pole with sal
non gaff at the end of it. II have a hoult Of
omething weighty this time. Lend me
land, and Wen have it out. ;"
| knew inStinctively Uhat was coming, and
hrank from the sight. The women screamed
md the men crossed themselves as the body
# Turlough O Brien was raised from the
water and drawn toward the bank. His
tern face with its black hair looked
et and ghastly i'll DEATH and it had
,reat cash across the forehead, caused,
10 doubt, by some timber of the hut
tril;ng it in tie water There seemed some
ifIiculty in getting the corpse out of the
water, and it soon appeared that the right
and held death grip of something which
ooled like a bit OF smoke Drowned rafter
he salmon gatT was again used, and the men
aised the body and its prize together.
"God be betune us and all evil" shrieked an
Id woman. Sure, it's his own brother be
as a hoult Of Throw him in again, boys, or
al luck will follow yez!"
Nonsense" said l. hastily, seeing an evil
ent disposition on the part of the men to com
ly VITA the injunction. Surely that thing
ant be a body!'
II was one, however, shriveled and dried
. ike a mummy, but nevertheless
by the strange antiSeptic
over of fhe peat, so that tine features .
-ere perfectly recognizable. A man in
,e crowd identified it at once as what re-
Iained of Patrick O'Brien Clearly it had
zen carried out Of its resting place by the
aSc1l,fjipp water