The morning times., 1896-04-26

/ artillery came numbering over the bill top,
| and tue guns were planted along the heath
/ cry slope commanding the village. Bot no
| firing was done that night, as darkness set
| in rapidly; ana soon the villagers saw " camp
! fires alight against the heather, and the
/ forms OF scntTIcs passing 70 and FRO. There
\ WAS u council of war III Lysaght MCOrc'S
I house, and Pierus Baccagh heard them plan
| Mug 10 convey the women and children 70
place of safety in the hills. But, later on.
! when bis father came looking for Pierus to
/ go with the convoy, the lame boy was no
where to be found.
With a hammer and q p0cketful of nails.
Pierus had crept out of cover and made his
way toiisOmely up the hill TO where lay
the English soldiers All the way before
him he saw the cruel black nuZZleS of
those dreaded cannon pointing in the moon
! light toward the village. But he knew
how to make them silent and uselesS-had
not his father spiked the great gun at Kill
kenny during the troubles in sc?
The English sentries had rough, uneven
path way to tread, and it was easy enough
for even a crippled lad like Pierus to era wI
,, bet ween them. into the shadow of the guns.
There We're three of them-three foes which.
unless destroyed. would on the morning
spread devastation throughout the valley.
Watching his chance, PierUs vaulted astride
of the foremost gun Just as the nearest sen
try had turned, and dropping nail into
the touch hole gave il strong but cautious
tap OF his hammer. In went tie nail,
straight and true. A second blow clinched
it firmly; and the cannon was spiked. Then
barely in time, for the sentry was about to
wIi~ci, the brave 'BaOca sh' s.ippe,i Off the
gun and into the heather.
Then era Wiling to the next piece, herepeat
y M. g.
caught, for his descending hammer slipped,
and struck, not the nail, but the metal of
the gun, making it ring loudly. Quickly
he flung himself into the friendly heather,
and wriggled out OF the way II was well
for him that he did so, for the sentry, at.
tracted by the noise came to examine.
Finding nothing apparently wrong, how
ever, he resumed his march.
Then, summoning up all his courage,
Pierus swung himself astride of the third
gun and drove u nailinto its touch hole. The
deed was done-the cannon spiked-and.
carried away by exuItation. Pierus allowed
himself to remain longer than he ought in
his perilous position. AS he attempted to
slip from the gun the sentry turned and
saw him.
Instantly musket shot rang forth, and
the lame boy staggered backward, falling
over the side of the declivity on which the
guns had been posted. Into the branches
of great rowanash he fell. and thence roll
ed gently to the ground, where. amid the
furZe, he lay concealed, while overhead
the awakened English buzzed like hive
of bees.
In the gray of morning Pierus Baccagh
bleeding from shoulder wound. struggled
manfully into Conner village. and fell a gainSt
his fathers door. Old Lysaght. sitting.
ready armed, by the fire. was startled at
the noise and went to seek its cause.
"Pierusr' ne cried; "what are We doin'
here? Why are ye not with the women
i've spiked the Sassenach guns! Hurroo.
for ould Irelandr' That was all Pierus could
say before he tainted in his fathers arms.
On the morrow. when the truth came to
light. and when the English artillerymen.
with their useless cannon. were forced
back over the mountains. the first hero in
all Conner was Pierus Baccagh. And to
this day the name and fame of the lame
gun-spiker is renowned in song and story
among those heathery highlands.
Thereafter. he was known not as "Pierus
Club-Foot,'' but as "Pierus With-the-Ham-
mer."