In that singular picture, the figure of the woman stood out bold, prominent and alone, absorbing, in its originality, every character of the entire.  Neither she nor her husband could be said to wear any dress.  Neither wore shoes or stockings, or any covering whatever on the head; shreds of flannel, which might once have borne the shape of drawers, a tattered shirt of unbleached linen, with an old blanket drawn uncouthly around his waist and shoulders, completed the costume of the man.  His wife’s was equally scant and rude, but so arranged as to present the idea that even in her breast the sense of fitness, the last feeling of froward womanhood, was not quite extinguished.  The squalid rags and matted hair, by a single touch of the hand, a gesture, or a shake of the head, assumed such shape as she fancied would display to greatest advantage what remained of a coarse and masculine beauty.  The consciousness that she once possessed such beauty fired at once her heart and eye.  Her foot and ankle, which had been rudely tested by flinty rocks and many a winter’s frost, were faultless; her step was firm; her form erect and tall; her hair black as ebony; her features coarse, but regular; her brow lofty, but furrowed and wrinkled; and her terrible eyes dilated with pride, passion and disdain.  Her lip’s slight curl, or a shade of crimson suddenly suffusing her dark complexion, bespoke her feelings towards her husband.  He was her drudge, her slave, her horror and her convenience.  Her ruling idea was a wish to have it understood that the match was ill-assorted and compelled by necessity; though the last idea bespoke a youth of shame.  The child alone was dressed, and with some care, as if she wished to assert its claim to a superior paternity or better destiny.  Among the predominant passions which swayed her, avarice seemed uppermost; and she scowled ominously on her stupid husband, whose rigid impassable stolidity seemed impervious to all prospects and chances of pleasure and of gain.

The rain continued to pour without abatement during the whole night and until sunset the succeeding day.  The next night passed nearly in the same way as the first, save that I could not rest from a vague sense of apprehension with which this woman inspired me.  Both the people of the house slept on the hearth-stone, without any bed, or, as far as I know, any covering, save their rags.  I had an opportunity of overhearing their connubial colloquy, which was in Irish, and had reference solely to conjectures respecting us, our character, our object and our money.  It convinced me that our safety would be compromised by any longer delay.  During the pauses of their conversation, I endeavoured to string together a rough draft of the stanzas that follow, or a considerable part of them.  I give them here, with the accompanying notes, as they were published in the People newspaper.  In the notes or in the text, there is nothing I wish to alter.

    Air:  “Gradh mo Chroidhe.”