When asked why he ran away on meeting Phil.  Curtis, near O’Brien’s house, on their return that night, while Connor held his ground, he replied that it was very natural he should run away, and not wish to be seen after having assisted at such a crime.  In reply to another question, he said it was as natural that Connor should have ran away also, and that he could not account for it, except by the fact that God always occasions the guilty to commit some oversight, by which they may be brought to punishment.  These replies, apparently so rational and satisfactory, convinced Connor’s counsel that his case was hopeless, and that no skill or ingenuity on their part could succeed in breaking down Flanagan’s evidence.

The next witness called was Phil.  Curtis, whose testimony corroborated Bartle’s in every particular, and gave to the whole trial a character of gloom and despair.  The constables who applied his shoes to the footmarks were then produced, and swore in the clearest manner as to their corresponding.  They then deposed to finding the tinder-box in his pocket, according to the information received from Flanagan, every tittle of which they found to be remarkably correct.

There was only one other witness now necessary to complete the chain against him, and he was only produced because Biddy Nulty, the servant—­maid, positively stated, and actually swore, when previously examined, that she was ignorant whether Connor slept in his father’s house on the night in question or not.  There was no alternative, therefore, but to produce the father; and Fardorougha Donovan was consequently forced to become an evidence against his own son.

The old man’s appearance upon the table excited deep commiseration for both, and the more so when the spectators contemplated the rooted sorrow which lay upon the wild and wasted features of the woe-worn father.  Still the old man was composed and calm; but his calmness was in an extraordinary degree mournful and touching.  “When he, sat down, after having been sworn, and feebly wiped the dew from his thin temples, many eyes were already filled with tears.  When the question was put to him if he remembered the night laid in the indictment, he replied that he did.

“Did the prisoner at the bar sleep at home on that night?”

The old man looked into the face of the counsel with such an eye of deprecating entreaty, as shook the voice in which the question was repeated.  He then turned about, and, taking a long gaze at his son, rose up, and, extending his hands to the judges, exclaimed: 

“My lords, my lords! he is my only son—­my only child!”

These words were followed by a pause in the business of the court, and a dead silence of more than a minute.