He looked up to heaven as he spoke, his two hands raised aloft; after which he covered his venerable head, and, with this pious and noble instance of resignation, did the affectionate old man proceed, as well as his feeble limbs could support him, to the county prison, accompanied by his pious and truly Christian wife.

As the men were about to go, he who had addressed Sarah so rudely, approached her with as much regret on his face as its hardened and habitual indifference to human misery could express, and said, tapping her on the shoulder: 

“I was rather rough to you, jist now, my purty girl—­to’ be jabers, it’ is you that is the purty girl.  I dunna, by the way, how the ould Black Prophet came by the likes o’ you; but, then he was a handsome vagabond in his day, himself, an’ you are like him.”

“What do you want to say?” she asked, impatiently; “but stand outside, I won’t speak to you here—­your voice would waken a corpse.  Here, now,” she added, having gone out upon the causeway, “what is it?”

“Why, devil a thing,” he replied; “only you’re a betther girl than I tuck you to be.  It’s a pitiful case, this—­a woful case at his time o’ life.  Be heaventhers, but I’d rather a thousand times see Black Boy, your own precious father, swing, than this poor ould man.”

A moment’s temporary fury was visible, but she paused, and it passed away; after which she returned slowly and thoughtfully into the cabin.

It is unnecessary to say, that almost immediately the general rumor of Dalton’s arrest for the murder had gone through the whole parish, together with the fact that it was upon the evidence of the Black Prophet and Red Rody Duncan, that the proof of it had been brought home to him.  Upon the former occasion there had been nothing against him, but such circumstances of strong suspicion as justified the neighboring magistrates in having him taken into custody.  On this, however, the two men were ready to point out the identical spot where the body had been buried, and to identify it as that of Bartholomew Sullivan.  Nothing remained, therefore, now that Dalton was in custody, but to hold an inquest upon the remains, and to take the usual steps for the trial of Dalton at the following assizes, which were not very far distant.  Indeed, notwithstanding the desolation that prevailed throughout the country, and in spite of the care and sorrow which disease and death brought home to so many in the neighborhood, there was a very general feeling of compassion experienced for poor old Dalton and his afflicted family.  And among those who sympathized with them, there was scarcely one who expressed himself more strongly upon the subject than Mr. Travers, the head agent of the property on which they had lived, especially upon contrasting the extensive farm and respectable residence, from which their middleman landlord had so harshly and unjustly ejected them, with the squalid kennel in which they then endured such a painful and pitiable existence.  This gentleman had come to the neighborhood, in order to look closely into the condition of the property which had been entrusted to his management, in consequence of a great number of leases having expired; some of which had been held by extensive and wealthy middlemen, among the latter of whom was our friend, Dick o’ the Grange.