At length they reached O’Regan’s,and it is not our intention to describe the occurrence at any length.  It could not be done.  O’Regan clasped his hands, so did his wife; they knelt—­they wept—­they supplicated.  They stated the nature of his malady—­decline—­from having ruptured a blood-vessel.  They ran to M’Clutchy, to M’Slime, to the squat figure on horseback.  They prayed to Darby, and especially entreated a ruffian follower who had been remarkable for, and wanton in, his inhumanity, but with no effect.  Darby shook his head.

“It couldn’t be done,” said he.

“No,” replied the other, whose name was Grimes, “we can’t make any differ between one and another—­so out he goes.”

“Father,” observed the meek boy, “let them.  I will only be the sooner in heaven.”

He was placed sitting up in bed by the bailiff’s, trembling in the cold rush of the blast; but the moment the father saw their polluted and sacrilegious hands upon him—­he rushed forward accompanied by his mother.

“Stay,” he said, in a loud, hoarse voice, “since you will have him out, let our hands, not yours, be upon him.”

The ruffian told him they could not stand there all day, and without any farther respect for their feelings, they rudely wrapped the bed-clothes about him, and, carrying him out, he was placed upon a chair before the door.  His parents were immediately beside him, and took him now into then own care; but it was too late—­he smiled as he looked into their faces, then looked at his little brother, and giving one long drawn sigh, he passed, without pain or suffering, saving a slight shudder, into happiness.  O’Regan, when he saw that his noble and beloved boy was gone, surrendered him into the keeping of his wife and other friends, who prevented his body from falling off the chair.  He then bent his eye sternly upon the group of bailiffs, especially upon the rude ruffian, Grimes, whose conduct was so atrocious.

“Now listen,” said he, kneeling down beside his dead son—­“listen all of you that has wrought this murder of my dying boy!  He is yet warm,” he added, grinding his teeth and looking up to heaven, “and here beside him, I pray, that the gates of mercy may be closed upon my soul through sill eternity, if I die without vengeance for your death, my son!”

His mother, who was now in a state between stupor and distraction, exclaimed—­

“To be sure, darling, and I’ll assist you, and so will Torley.”

The death of this boy, under circumstances of such incredible cruelty, occasioned even M’Clutchy to relax something of his original intentions.  He persisted, however, in accomplishing all the ejectments without exception, but when this was over, he allowed them to re-occupy their miserable cabins, until the weather should get milder, and until such of them as could, might be able to procure some other shelter for themselves and families.