Chapter 20. Tumults--Confessions Of Murder

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_ CHAPTER XX. Tumults--Confessions of Murder

The next morning opened with all the dark sultry rain and black cloudy drapery, which had, as we have already stated, characterized the whole season. Indeed, during the year we are describing, it was known that all those visible signs which prognosticate any particular description of weather, had altogether lost their significance. If a fine day came, for instance, which indeed was a rare case, or a clear and beautiful evening, it was but natural that after such a dark and dreary course of weather, the heart should become glad and full of hope, that a permanent change for the better was about to take place; but alas, all cheerful hope and expectation were in vain. The morrow's sun rose as before, dim and gloomy, to wade along his dismal and wintry path, without one glimpse of enlivening light from his rising to his setting.

We have already mentioned slightly, those outrages, to which the disease and misery that scourged the country in so many shapes had driven the unfortunate and perishing multitudes. Indeed, if there be any violation of the law that can or ought to be looked upon with the most lenient consideration and forbearance, by the executive authorities, it is that which takes place under the irresistible pressure of famine. And singular as it may appear, it is no less true, that this is a subject concerning which much ignorance prevails, not only throughout other parts of the empire, but even at home here in Ireland, with ourselves. Much for instance is said, and has been said, concerning what are termed "Years of Famine," but it is not generally known that since the introduction of the potato in this country, no year has ever past, which in some remote locality or other, has not been such to the unfortunate inhabitants. The climate of Ireland is so unsettled, its soil so various in quality and the potato so liable to injury from excess of either drought or moisture, that we have no hesitation in stating the startling fact of this annual famine as one we can vouch for, upon our personal knowledge, and against the truth of which we challenge contradiction. Neither does an autumn pass without a complaint peculiar to those who feed solely upon the new and unripe potato, and which, ever since the year '32 is known by the people as the potato cholera. With these circumstances the legislature ought to be acquainted, inasmuch as they are calamities that will desolate and afflict the country so long as the potato is permitted to be, as it unfortunately is, the staple food of the people. That we are subject in consequence of that fact, to periodical recurrences of dearth and disease, is well known and admitted; but that every season brings its partial scourge of both these evils to various remote and neglected districts in Ireland, has not been, what it ought long since to have been, an acknowledged and established fact in the sanatory statistics of the country. Indeed, one would imagine, that after the many terrible visitations which we have had from destitution and pestilence, a legislature sincerely anxious for the health and comfort of the people, would have devoted itself, in some reasonable measure, to the human consideration of such proper sumptuary and sanatory enactments, as would have provided not only against the recurrence of these evils, but for a more enlightened system of public health and cleanliness, and a better and more comfortable provision of food for the indigent and poor. As it is at present, provision dealers of all kinds, meal-mongers, forestallers, butchers, bakers, and hucksters, combine together, and sustain such a general monopoly in food, as is at variance with the spirit of all law and humanity, and constitutes a kind of artificial famine in the country; and surely; these circumstances ought not to be permitted, so long as we have a deliberative legislature, whose duty it is to watch and guard the health and morals of the people.

At the present period of our narrative, and especially on the gloomy morning following the Prophet's unconscious visit to the grave of the murdered man, the popular outrages had risen to an alarming height. Up to the present time occasional outbreaks, by small and detached groups of individuals, had taken place at night or before dawn, and rather in a timid or fugitive manner, than with the recklessness of men who assemble in large crowds, and set both law and all consequences at open defiance. Now, however, destitution and disease had wrought such woeful work among the general population, that it was difficult to know where or how to prescribe bounds to the impetuous resentment with which they expressed themselves against those who held over large quantities of food in order to procure high prices. At this moment the country, with its waste, unreaped crops, tying in a state of plashy and fermenting ruin, and its desolate and wintry aspect, was in frightful keeping with the appearance of the people when thus congregated together. We can only say, that the famine crowds of that awful year should have been seen in order to have been understood and felt. The whole country was in a state of dull but frantic tumult, and the wild crowds as they came and went in the perpetration of their melancholy outrages, were worn down by such starling evidences of general poverty and suffering, as were enough to fill the heart with fear as well as pity, even to look upon. Their cadaverous and emaciated aspects had something in them so wild and wolfish, and the fire of famine blazed so savagely in their hollow eyes, that many of them looked like creatures changed from their very humanity by some judicial plague, that had been sent down from Heaven to punish and desolate the land. And in truth there is no doubt whatsoever, that the intensity of their sufferings, and the natural panic which was occasioned by the united ravages of disease and famine, had weakened the powers of their understanding, and impressed upon their bearing and features an expression which seemed partly the wild excitement of temporary frenzy, and partly the dull, hopeless apathy of fatuity--a state to which it is well known that misery, sickness, and hunger, all together, had brought down the strong intellect and reason of the wretched and famishing multitudes. Nor was this state of feeling confined to those who were goaded by the frightful sufferings that prevailed. On the contrary, thousands became victims of a quick and powerful contagion which spread the insane spirit of violence at a rapid rate, affecting many during the course of the day, who in the early part of the morning had not partaken of its influence. To no other principle than this can we attribute the wanton and irrational outrages of many of the people. Every one acquainted with such awful visitations must know that their terrific realities cause them, by wild influences that run through the whole masses, to forget all the decencies and restraints of ordinary life, until fear and shame, and becoming respect for order, all of which constitute the moral safety of society--are thrown aside or resolved into the great tyrannical instinct of self-preservation, which, when thus stimulated, becomes what may be termed the insanity of desolation. We know that the most savage animals as well as the most timid will, when impelled by its ravenous clamors, alike forget every other appetite but that which is necessary for the sustainment of life. Urged by it alone, they will sometimes approach and assail the habitations of man, and, in the fury of the moment, expose themselves to his power, and dare his resentment; just as a famine mob will do, when urged by the same instinct, in a year of scarcity.

There is no beast, however, in the deepest jungle of Africa itself, so wild, savage and ferocious, as a human mob, when left to its own blind and headlong impulses. On the morning in question, the whole country was pouring forth its famished hordes to intercept meal-carts and provision vehicles of all descriptions, on their way to market or to the next sea-port for shipment; or to attack the granaries of provision dealers, and all who, having food in large quantities, refused to give it gratis, or at a nominal price to the poor. Carts and cars, therefore, mostly the property of unoffending persons, were stopped on the highways, there broken, and the food which they carried openly taken away, and, in case of resistance, those who had charge of them were severely beaten. Mills were also attacked and pillaged, and in many instances large quantities of flour and grain not only carried off, but wantonly and wickedly strewn about the streets and destroyed.

In all these acts of violence there was very little shouting; the fact being that the wretched people were not able to shout; unless on rare occasions; and sooth to say, their vociferations were then but a faint and feeble echo of the noisy tumults which in general characterize the proceedings of excited and angry crowds. Truly, those pitiable gatherings had their own peculiarities of misery. During the progress of the pillage, individuals of every age, sex, and condition--so far as condition can be applied to the lower classes--might be seen behind ditches, in remote nooks--in porches of houses, and many on the open highways and streets, eating, or rather gobbling up raw flour, or oat-meal; others, more fortunate, were tearing and devouring bread, with a fury, to which only the unnatural appetites of so many famished maniacs could be compared. As might be expected, most of these inconsiderate acts of license were punished by the consequences which followed them. Sickness of various descriptions, giddiness, retchings, fainting fits, convulsions, and in some cases, death itself, were induced by this wolfish and frightful gluttony on the part of the starving people. Others, however, who possessed more sense, and maintained a greater restraint over their individual sufferings, might be seen in all directions, hurrying home, loaded with provisions of the most portable descriptions, under which they tottered and panted, and sometimes fell utterly prostrate from recent illness or the mere exhaustion of want. Aged people, grey-haired old men, and old women bent with age, exhibited a wild and excited alacrity that was grievous to witness, while hurrying homewards--if they had a home, or if not, to the first friendly shelter they could get--a kind of dim exulting joy feebly blazing in their heavy eyes, and a wild sense of unexpected good fortune working in unnatural play upon the muscles of their wrinkled and miserable faces. The ghastly impressions of famine, however, were not confined to those who composed the crowds. Even the children were little living skeletons, wan and yellow, with a spirit of pain and suffering legible upon their fleshless but innocent features--while the very dogs, as was well observed, were not able to bark, unless they stood against a wall; for indeed, such of them as survived, were nothing but ribs and skin. At all events, they assisted in making up the terrible picture of general misery which the country at large presented. Both day and night, but at night especially, their hungry howlings could be heard over the country, or mingling with wailings which the people were in the habit of pouring over those whom the terrible typhus was sweeping away with such wide and indiscriminate fatality.

Our readers may now perceive, that the sufferings of these unhappy crowds, before they had been driven to these acts of violence, were almost beyond belief. At an early period of the season, when the potatoes could not be dug, miserable women might be seen early in the morning, and in fact, during all hours of the day, gathering weeds of various descriptions, in order to sustain life; and happy were they who could procure a few handfuls of young nettles, chicken-weed, sorrel, preshagh, buglass, or seaweed, to bring home as food, either for themselves or their unfortunate children. Others, again, were glad to creep or totter to stock-farms, at great distances across the country, in hope of being able to procure a portion of blood, which, on such melancholy occasions, is taken from the heifers and bullocks that graze there, in order to prevent the miserable poor from perishing by actual starvation and death.

Alas! little do our English neighbors know or dream of the horrors which attend a year of severe famine in this unhappy country. The crowds which kept perpetual and incessant siege to the houses of wealthy and even of struggling small farmers, were such! as scarcely any pen could describe. Neither can we render anything like adequate justice to the benevolence and charity--nay, we ought to say, the generosity and magnanimity of this and the middle classes in general, In no country on earth could such noble instances of self-denial and sublime humanity be witnessed. It has happened in thousands of instances that the last miserable morsel, the last mouthful of nourishing liquid, the last potato, or the last six-pence, has been divided with wretched and desolate beings who required it more, and this, too, by persons who, when that was gone, knew not to what quarter they could turn with a hope of replacing for themselves that which they had just shared in a spirit of such genuine and exalted piety.*

* It is as well to state here that the season described in this tale is the dreadful and melancholy one of 1817; and we may add, that in order to avoid the charge of having exaggerated the almost incredible sufferings of the people in that year, we have studiously kept our descriptions of them within the limits of truth. Dr. Cokkigan, in his able and very sensible pamphlet on "Fever and Famine as Cause and Effect in Ireland"--a pamphlet, by the way, which has been the means of conveying most important truths to statesmen, and which ought to be looked on as a great public benefit--has confirmed the accuracy of the gloomy pictures I was forced to draw. Here follow an extract or two:

"It is scarcely necessary to call to recollection the summer of 1810, cold and wet--corn uncut in November, or rotting in the sheaves on the ground--potatoes not ripened (and when unripe there cannot be worse food), containing more water than nutriment--straw at such an extravagant price as to render the obtaining of it for bedding almost impossible, and when procured, retaining from its half-fermented state, so much moisture, that the use was, perhaps, worse than the want of it. The same agent that destroyed the harvest spoiled the turf. Seldom had such a multiplication of evils come together. In some of the former years, although food and bedding were deficient, the portion saved was of good quality, and fuel was not wanting: but in 1815 every comfort that might have compensated for partial want was absent. This description applies to the two years of 1816 and 1817. In midsummer of 1817, the blaze of fever was over the entire country. It had burst forth in almost a thousand different points. Within the short space of a month, in the summer of 1817, the epidemic sprung forth in Tramore, Youghal, Kinsale, Tralee, and Clonmel, in Carrick-on-Suir, Iloscrea, Ballina, Castlebar, Belfast, Armagh, Omagh, Londonderry, Monasterevan, Tullamore and Slane. This simultaneous break-out shows that there must have been some universal cause."

Again:

"The poor were deprived of employment and were driven from the doors where before they had always received relief, lest they should introduce disease with them. Thus, destitution and fever continued in a vicious circle, each impelling the other, while want of presence of mind aggravated a thousandfold the terrible infliction. Of the miseries that attend a visitation of epidemic fever, few can form a conception. The mere relation of the scenes that occurred in the country, even in one of its last visitations, makes one shudder in reading them. As Barker and Cheyne observe in their report, 'a volume might be filled with instances of the distress occasioned by the visitation of fever in 1817.'"

"'On the road leading from Cork, within a mile of the town (Kanturk), I visited a woman laboring under typhus; on her left lay a child very ill, at the foot of the bed another child just able to crawl about, and on her right the corpse of a third child who had died two days previously, which the unhappy mother could not get removed.'--Letter from Dr. O'Leary, Kanturk.

"'Ellen Pagan, a young woman, whose husband was obliged, in order to seek employment, to leave her almost destitute in a miserable cabin, with three children, gave the shelter of her roof to a poor beggar who had fever. She herself caught the disease, and from the terror created in the neighborhood, was, with her three children, deserted--except that some person left a little water and milk at the window for the children,--one about four, the other about three years old, and the other an infant at her breast. In this way she continued for a week, when a neighbor sent her a loaf of bread, which was left in the window. Four days after this he grew uneasy about her, and one night having prepared some tea and bread, he set off to her ralief. When he arrived, the following scene presented itself:--In the window lay the loaf, where it had been deposited four days previously; in one corner of the cabin, on a little straw, without covering of any kind, lay the wretched mother, actually dying, and her infant dead by her side, for the want of that sustenance which she had not to give; on the floor lay the children, to all appearance dying also of cold and hunger. At first they refused to take anything, and he had to pour a little liquid down their throats--with the cautious administration of food they gradually recovered. The woman expired before the visitor quitted the house.'-- Letter from Dr. Mucarthney, Monivae.

"'A man, his wife, and two children lay together in a fever. The man died in the night; his wife, nearly convalescent, was so terrified with his corpse in the same bed with her, that she relapsed, and died in two days after; the children recovered from fever, but the eldest lost his reason by the fright. Many other scenes have I witnessed, which would be too tedious to relate.'--Barker & Oheyne's Report.

"I know not of any visitation so much to be dreaded as epidemic fever; it is worse than the plague, for it lasts throughout all seasons. Cholera may seem more frightful, but it is in reality less destructive. It terminates rapidly in death, or in as rapid recovery. Its visitation, too, is short, and it leaves those who recover unimpaired in health and strength. Civil war, were it not for its crimes, would be, as far as regards the welfare of a country, a visitation less to be dreaded than epidemic fever."

*****

"It is not possible, then, to form an exaggerated picture of the sufferings of a million and a half of people in these countries, in their convalescence from fever, deprived of, not only the comforts, but even the necessaries of life, with scanty food, and fuel, and covering, only rising from fever to slowly fall victims to those numerous chronic diseases that are sure to seize upon enfeebled constitutions. Death would be to many a more merciful dispensation than such a recovery."--Famine and Fever, as Clause and Effect in Ireland, &a., &o. By D. J. Cohkigan, Esq., M.D., M.K.C.S.B. Dublin: J. Fannin & Co., Grafton Street.

It was to such a state of general tumult that the Prophet and his family arose on the morning of the following day. As usual, he was grim and sullen, but on this occasion his face had a pallid and sunken look in it, which apparently added at least ten years to his age. There was little spoken, and after breakfast he prepared to go out. Sarah, during the whole morning, watched his looks, and paid a marked attention to every thing he said. He appeared, however, to be utterly unconscious of the previous night's adventure, a fact which his daughter easily perceived, and which occasioned her to feel a kind of vague compassion for him, in consequence of the advantage it might give Nelly over him; for of late she began to participate in her father's fears and suspicions of that stubborn and superstitious personage.

"Father," said she, as he was about to go out, "is it fair to ax where you are going?"

"It's neither fair nor foul," he replied; "but if it's any satisfaction to you to know, I won't tell you."

"Have you any objections then, that I should walk a piece of the way with you?"

"Not if you have come to your senses, as you ought, about what I mentioned to you."

"I have something to say to you," she replied, without noticing the allusion he had made; "something that you ought to know."

"An' why not mention it where we are?"

"Bekaise I don't wish her there to know it."

"Thank you, ma'am," replied Nelly; "I feel your kindness--an,' dear me, what a sight o' wisdom I'll lose by bein' kep' out o' the saicret--saicret indeed! A fig for yourself an' your saicret; maybe I have my saicret as well as you."

"Well, then," replied Sarah, "if you have, do you keep yours as I'll keep mine, and then we'll be aiquil. Come, father, for I must go from home too. Indeed I think this is the last day I'll be with either of you for some time--maybe ever."

"What do you mane?" said the father.

"Hut!" said the mother, "what a goose you are! Charley Hanlon, to be sure; I suppose she'll run off wid him. Oh, thin, God pity him or any other one that's doomed to be blistered wid you!"

Sarah flashed like lightning, and her frame began to work with that extraordinary energy which always accompanied the manifestation of her resentment.

"You will," said she, approaching the other--"you will, after your escape the other day; you--no, ah! no--I won't now; I forgot myself. Come, father,--come, come; my last quarrel with her is over."

"Ay," returned Nelly, as they went out, "there you go, an' a sweet pair you are--father and daughter!"

"Now, father," resumed Sarah, after they had got out of hearing, "will you tell me if you slep' well last night?"

"Why do you ax?" he replied; "to be sure I did."

"I'll tell you why I ax," she answered; "do you know that you went last night--in the middle of the night--to the murdhered man's grave, in the glen there?"

It is impossible to express the look of astonishment and dismay which he turned up on her at these words.

"Sarah!" he said, sternly; but she interrupted him.

"It's thruth," said she; "an I went with--"

"What are you spakin' about? Me go out, an' not know it! Nonsense!"

"You went in your sleep, she rejoined.

"Did I spake?" said he, with a black and; ghastly look. "What--what--tell me--eh? What did I say?"

"You talked a good deal, an' said that it was Condy Dalton that murdhered him, and that you had Red Rody to prove it."

"That was what I said?--eh, Sarah?"

"That's what you said, an' I thought it was only right to tell you."

"It was right, Sarah; but at the same time, at the peril of your life, never folly me there again. Of coorse, you know now that Sullivan is buried there."

"I do," said she; "but that's no great comfort, although it is to know that you didn't murdher him. At any rate, father, remember what I tould you about Condy Dalton. Lave him to God; an' jist that you may feel what you ought to feel on the subject, suppose you were in his situation--suppose for a minute that it was yourself that murdhered him--then ask, would you like to be dragged out from us and hanged, in your ould age, like a dog--a disgrace to all belongin' to you. Father, I'll believe that Condy Dalton murdhered him, when I hear it from his own lips, but not till then. Now, Good-bye. You won't find me at home when you come back, I think."

"Why, where are you goin'?"

"There's plenty for me to do," she replied; "there's the sick an' the dyin' on all hands about me, an' it's a shame for any one that has a heart in their body, to see their fellow-creatures gaspin' for want of a dhrop of cowld wather to wet their lips, or a hand to turn them where they lie. Think of how many poor sthrangers is lyin' in ditches an' in barns, an' in outhouses, without a livin' bein' a'most to look to them, or reach them any single thing they want; no, even to bring the priest to them, that they might die reconciled to the Almighty. Isn't it a shame, then, for me, an' the likes o' me, that has health an' strength, an' nothin' to do, to see my fellow-creatures dyin' on all hands about me, for want of the very assistance that I can afford them. At any rate, I wouldn't live in the house with that woman, an' you know that, an' that I oughtn't."

"But aren't you afeard of catchin' this terrible faver, that's takin' away so many, if you go among them'?"

"Afeard!" she replied; "no, father, I feel no fear either of that or anything else. If I die, I lave a world that I never had much happiness in, an' I know that I'll never be happy again in it. What then have I to fear from death? Any change for me must now be for the betther; at all events it can hardly be for the worse. No; my happiness is gone."

"What in Heaven's name is the matther with you?" asked her father; "an' what brings the big tears into your eyes that way?"

"Good-bye," said she; and as she spoke, a melancholy smile--at once sad and brilliant--irradiated her features. "It's not likely, father, that ever you'll see me under your roof again. Forgive me all my follies now, maybe it's the last time ever you'll have an opportunity."

"Tut, you foolish girl; it's enough to sicken one to hear you spake such stuff!"

She stood and looked at him for a moment, and the light of her smile gradually deepened, or rather faded away, until nothing remained but a face of exquisite beauty, deeply shadowed by anxiety and distress.

The Prophet pursued his way to Dick o' the Grange's, whither, indeed, he was bent; Sarah, having looked after him for a moment with a troubled face, proceeded in the direction of old Dalton's, with the sufferings and pitiable circumstances of whose family she was already but too well acquainted. Her journey across the country presented her with little else than records of death, suffering, and outrage. Along the roads the funerals were so frequent, that, in general, they excited no particular notice. They could, in fact scarcely be termed funerals, inasmuch as they were now nothing more than squalid and meagre-looking knots of those who were immediately related to the deceased, hurrying onward, with reckless speed and disturbed looks to the churchyard, where their melancholy burthen was hastily covered up with scarcely any exhibition of that simple and affecting decorum, or of those sacred and natural sorrows, which in other circumstances throw their tender but solemn light over the last offices of death. As she went along, new and more startling objects of distress attracted her notice. In dry and sheltered places she observed little temporary sheds, which, in consequence of the dreadful panic which always accompanies an epidemic in Ireland, had, to a timid imagination, something fearful about them, especially when it is considered that death and contagion were then at work in them in such terrible shapes. To Sarah, however, they had no terrors; so far from that, a great portion of the day was spent by her in relieving their wretched, and, in many cases, dying inmates, as well as she could. She brought them water, lit fires for them, fixed up their shed, and even begged aid for them from the neighbors around, and, as far as she could, did everything to ease their pain, or smooth their last moment by the consolation of her sympathy. If she met a family on the highway, worn with either illness or fatigue--perhaps an unhappy mother, surrounded by a helpless brood, bearing, or rather tottering under a couple of sick children, who were unable to walk--she herself, perhaps, also ill, as was often the case--she would instantly take one of them out 'of the poor creature's arms, and carry it in her own as far as she happened to go in that direction, utterly careless of contagion, or all other consequences.

In this way was she engaged towards evening when at a turn of the road she was met by a large crowd of rioters, headed by Red Rody, Tom Dalton, and many others in the parish who were remarkable only for a tendency to ruffianism and outrage; for we may remark here, that on occasions such as we are describing, it is generally those who have suffered least, and have but little or nothing to complain of, that lead the misguided and thoughtless people into crime, and ultimately into punishment.

The change that had come over young Dalton was frightful; he was not half his former size; his clothes were now in rags, his beard grown, his whole aspect and appearance that of some miscreant, in whom it was difficult to say whether the ruffian or the idiot predominated the most. He appeared now in his glory--frantic and destructive; but amidst all this drivelling impetuosity, it was not difficult to detect some desperate and unshaken purpose in his heavy but violent and bloodshot eyes.

Far different from him was Red Rody, who headed his own section of them with an easy but knowing swagger; now nodding his head with some wonderful purpose which nobody could understand; or winking at some acquaintance with an indefinite meaning, that set them a guessing at it in vain. It was easy to see that he was a knave, but one of those knaves on whom no earthly reliance could be placed, and who would betray to-morrow, for good reasons, and without a moment's hesitation, those whom he had corrupted to-day.

"Come, Tom," said Rody, "we have scattered a few of the meal-mongin' vagabonds; weren't you talkin' about that blessed voteen, ould Darby Skinadre? The villain that allowed Peggy Murtagh an' her child to starve to death! Aren't we to pay him a visit?"

Dalton coughed several times, to clear his throat; a settled hoarseness having given a frightful hollowness to his voice. "Ay," said he--"ha, ha, ha--by the broken-heart she died of--well--well--eh, Rody, what are we to do to him?"

Rody looked significantly at the crowd, and grinned, and touched his forehead, and pointed at Dalton.

"That boy's up to everything," said he; "he's the man to head us all--ha, ha!"

"Never mind laughin' at him, anyway," observed one of his friends; "maybe if you suffered what he did, poor fellow, an' his family too, that it's not fun you'd be makin' of him."

"Why," asked a new comer; "what's wrong wid him?"

"He's not at himself," replied the other, "ever since he had the faver; that, they say, an' the death of a very purty girl he was goin' to be married to, has put him beside himself, the Lord save us!"

"Come on now," shouted Tom, in his terrible voice; "here's the greatest of all before us still. Who wants meal now? Come on, I say--ha, ha, ha! Is there any of you hungry? Is there any of you goin' to die for want of food? Now's your time--ho, ho! Now, Peggy, now. Amn't I doin' it? Ay, am I, an' it's all for your sake, Peggy dear, for, I swore by the broken heart you died of--ay, an' didn't I tell you that last night on your grave where I slep'. No, he wouldn't--he wouldn't--but now--now--he'll see the differ--ay, an' feel it too. Come on," he shouted, "who-ever's hungry, folly me! ha, ha, ha!"

This idiotic, but ferocious laugh, echoing such a dreadful purpose, was appalling; but the people who knew what he had suffered, only felt it as a more forcible incentive to outrage. Darby's residence was now quite at hand, and in a few minutes it was surrounded by such a multitude, both of men and women, as no other occasion could ever bring together. The people were, in fact, almost lost in their own garments; some were without coats or waistcoats to protect them from the elements, having been forced, poor wretches, to part with them for food; others had nightcaps or handkerchiefs upon their heads instead of hats; a certain proof that they were only in a state of convalescence from fever--the women stood with dishevelled hair--some of them half naked, and others leading their children about, or bearing them in their arms; altogether they presented such an appearance as was enough to wring the benevolent heart with compassion and. sorrow for their sufferings.

On arriving at Darby's house, they found it closed, but not deserted. At first, Tom Dalton knocked, and desired the door to be opened, but the women who were present, whether with shame or with honor to the sex, we are at a loss to say, felt so eager on the occasion, probably for the purpose of avenging Peggy Murtagh, that they lost not a moment in shivering in the windows, and attacking the house with stones and missiles of every description. In a few minutes the movement became so general and simultaneous that the premises were a perfect wreck, and nothing was to be seen but meal and flour, and food of every description, either borne off by the hungry crowd, or scattered most wickedly and wantonly through the streets, while, in the very midst of the tumult, Tom Dalton was seen dragging poor Darby out by the throat, and over to the centre of the street.

"Now," said he, "here I have you at last--ha, ha, ha!"--his voice, by the way, as he spoke and laughed, had become fearfully deep and hollow--"now, Peggy dear, didn't I swear it--by the broken heart you died of, I said, an' I'll keep that sacred oath, darlin'." While speaking, the thin fleshless face of the miser was becoming black--his eyes were getting blood-shot, and, in a very short time, strangulation must have closed his wretched existence, when a young and tall female threw herself by a bound upon Dalton, whom she caught by the throat, precisely as he himself had caught Darby. It was Sarah, who saw that there was but little time to lose in order to save the wretch's life. Her grip was so effectual, that Dalton was obliged to relax his hold upon the other for the purpose of defending himself.

"Who is this?" said he; "let me go, you had better, till I have his life--let me go, I say."

"It's one," she replied, "that's not afeard but ashamed of you. You, a young man, to go strangle a weak, helpless ould creature, that hasn't strength or breath to defend himself no more then a child."

"Didn't he starve Peggy Murtagh?" replied Tom; "ha, ha, ha!--didn't he starve her and her child?"

"No," she replied aloud, and with glowing cheeks; "it's false--it wasn't he but yourself that starved her and her child. Who deserted her--who brought her to shame, an' to sorrow, in her own heart an' in the eyes of the world? Who left her to the bitter and vile tongues of the whole counthry? Who refused to marry her, and kept her so that she couldn't raise her face before her fellow cratures? Who sent her, without hope, or any expectation of happiness in this life--this miserable life--to the glens and lonely ditches about the neighborhood, where she did nothing but shed blither tears of despair and shame at the heartless lot you brought her to? An' when she was desarted by the wide world, an' hadn't a friendly face to look to but God's, an' when one kind word from your lips would give her hope, an' comfort, an' happiness, where were you? and where was that kind word that would have saved her? Let the old man go, you unmanly coward; it wasn't him that starved her--it was yourself that starved her, and broke her heart!"

"Did yez hear that?" said Dalton; "ha, ha, ha--an' it's all thrue; she has tould me nothing but the thruth--here, then, take the ould vagabond away with you, and do what you like with him--"

"'I am a bold and rambling boy,
My lodging's in the isle of Throy;
A rambling boy, although I be,
I'd lave them all an' folly thee.'

Ha, ha, ha!--but come, boys, pull away; we'll finish the wreck of this house, at any rate."

"Wreck away," said Sarah, "I have nothin' to do with that; but I think them women--man-women I ought to call them--might consider that there's many a starvin' mouth that would be glad to have a little of what they're throwin' about so shamefully. Do you come with me, Darby; I'll save you as far as I can, an' as long as I'm able."

"I will, achora," replied Darby, "an' may God bless you, for you have saved my life; but why should they attack me? Sure the world knows, an' God knows, that my heart bleeds--"

"Whisht," she exclaimed, "the world an' God both know it's a lie, if you say your heart bleeds for any thing but the destruction that you see on your place. If you had given Peggy Murtagh the meal, she might be a livin' woman to-day; so no more falsehoods now, or I'll turn you back to Tom Dalton's clutches."

"No, then," replied the trembling wretch, "I won't; but between you an' me, then,--an' it needn't go farther--troth my heart bleeds for the severity that's--"

"One word more," she replied, "an' I lave you to what you'll get."

Sarah's interference had a singular effect upon the crowd. The female portion of it having reflected upon her words, soon felt and acknowledged their truth, because they involved a principle of justice and affection to their sex; while the men, without annexing any moral consideration to the matter, felt themselves influenced by her exquisite figure and great beauty.

"She's the Black Prophet's daughter," exclaimed the women; "an' if the devil was in her, she tould Tom Dalton nothing but the truth, at any rate."

"An' they say the devil is in her, the Lord save us, if ever he was in any one--keep away from her--my sowl in Heaven! but she'd think no more of tearin' your eyes out, or stickin' you wid a case-knife, than you would of aitin' bread an' butther."

"Blessed Father!" exclaimed another, "did you see the brightness of her eyes while she was spakin?"

"No matther what she is," said a young fellow beside them; "the devil a purtier crature ever was made; be my soul, I only wish I had a thousand pounds, I wouldn't be long without a wife at any rate."

The crowd having wrecked Skinadre's dwelling, and carried off and destroyed almost his whole stock of provisions, now proceeded in a different direction, with the intention of paying a similar visit to some similar character. Sarah and Darby--for he durst not venture, for the present, towards his own house--now took their way to the cabin of old Condy Dalton, where they arrived just in time to find the house surrounded by the officers of justice, and some military.

"Ah," thought Sarah, on seeing them; "it is done, then, an' you lost but little time about it. May God forgive you, father."

They had scarcely entered, when one of the officers pulling out a paper, looked at it and asked, "Isn't your name Condy or Cornelius Dalton?"--

"That is my name," said the old man.

"I arrest you, then," he continued, "for the murder of one Bartholomew Sullivan."

"It is the will of God," replied the old man, while the tears flowed down his cheeks--"it's God's will, an' I won't consale it any longer; take me away--I'm guilty--I'm guilty." _

Read next: Chapter 21. Condy Datton Goes To Prison

Read previous: Chapter 19. Hanlon Secures The Tobacco-Box.--Strange Scene At Midnight

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