On hearing the approach of the car which bore her husband home, and on listening to the noisy mirth of those, who, had they been sober, would have sincerely respected her grief, she put up an inward prayer of thanksgiving to God for what she supposed to be the happy event of Connor’s acquittal.  Stunning was the blow, however, and dreadful the revulsion of feelings, occasioned by the discovery of this sad mistake.  When they reached the door she felt still farther persuaded that all had ended as she wished, for to nothing else, except the wildness of unexpected joy, could she think of ascribing her husband’s intoxication.

“We must carry Fardorougha in,” said one of them to the rest; “for the liquor has fairly overcome him—­he’s sound asleep.”

“He is cleared!” exclaimed the mother; “he is cleared!  My heart tells me he has come out without a stain.  What else could make his father, that never tasted liquor for the last thirty years, be as he is?”

“Honor O’Donovan,” said one of them, wringing her hand as he spoke, “this has been a black day to you all; you must prepare yourself for bad news.”

“Thin Christ and his blessed mother support me, and support us all! but what is the worst? oh, what is the worst?”

“The barradh dhu,” replied the man, alluding to the black cap which the judge puts on when passing sentence of death.

“Well,” said she, “may the name of the Lord that sent this upon us be praised forever!  That’s no rason why we shouldn’t still put our trust and reliance in him.  I will show them, by the help of God’s grace, an’ by the assistance of His blessed mother, who suffered herself—­an’ oh, what is my sufferin’s to her’s?—­I will show them I say, that I can bear, as a Christian ought, whatever hard fate it may plase the Saviour of the earth to lay upon us.  I know my son is innocent, an surely, although it’s hard, hard to part with such a boy, yet it’s a consolation to know that he’ll be better wid God, who is takin’ him, than ever he’d be wid us.  So the Lord’s will be done this night and forever! amin!”

This noble display of glowing piety and fortitude was not lost upon those who witnessed it.  After littering these simple but exalted sentiments, she crossed herself devoutly, as is the custom, and bowed her head with such a vivid sense of God’s presence, that it seemed as if she actually stood, as no doubt she did, under the shadow of His power.  These men, knowing the force of her love to that son, and the consequent depth of her misery at losing him by a death so shameful and violent, reverently took off their hats as she bent her head to express this obedience to the decrees of God, and in a subdued tone and manner exclaimed, almost with one voice—­

“May God pity you, Honor! for who but yourself would or could act as you do this bitther, bitther night?”

“I’m only doin’ what I ought to do,” she replied, “what is religion good for if it doesn’t keep the heart right an’ support us undher thrials like this; what ’ud it be then but a name?  But how, oh how, came his father to be in sich a state on this bitther, bitther night, as you say it is—­aif oh!  Heaven above sees it’s that—­how came his father, I say, into sich a state?”