“I will—­I will, Connor; an’ if I had always done so, maybe it isn’t here now you’d be standing, an’ my heart breakin’ to look at you; but, indeed, it was God, I hope, put this plan into my head; an’ the money yestherday—­that, too, was so lucky—­far more so, Connor dear, than you think.  Only for that—­but sure no matther, Connor, we’re not partin’ for evermore now; so acushla machree, let your mind be aisy.  Cheer up, cheer up my darlin’ son.”

Much more conversation of this kind took place between them during the old man’s stay, which he prolonged almost to the last hour.  Connor wondered, as was but natural, what the plan so recently fallen upon by his father could be.  Indeed, sometimes, he feared that the idea of their separation had shaken his intellect, and that his allusions to this mysterious discovery, mixed up, as they were, with the uncommon delight he expressed at having recovered Cusack’s money, boded nothing less than the ultimate derangement of his faculties.  One thing, however, seemed obvious—­that, whatever it might be, whether reasonable or otherwise, his father’s mind was exclusively occupied by it; and that, during the whole scene of their parting, it sustained him in a manner for which he felt it utterly impossible to account.  It is true he did not leave him without shedding tears, and bitter tears; but they were unaccompanied by the wild vehemence of grief which had, on former occasions, raged through and almost desolated his heart.  The reader may entertain some notion of what he would have felt on this occasion, were it not for the “plan” as he called it, which supported him so much, when we tell him that he blessed his son three or four times dining their interview, without being conscious; that he had blessed him more than once.  His last words to him were to keep up his spirits, for that there was little doubt that they would meet again.

The next morning, at daybreak, “their noble boy,” as they fondly and proudly called him, was conveyed, to the transport, in company with many others; and at the hour of five o’clock p. m., that melancholy vessel weighed anchor, and spread her broad sails to the bosom of the ocean.

Although the necessary affairs of life are, after all, the great assuager of sorrow, yet there are also cases where the heart persists in rejecting the consolation brought by time, and in clinging to the memory of that which it loved.  Neither Honor O’Donovan nor Una O’Brien could forget our unhappy hero, nor school their affections into the apathy of ordinary feelings.  Of Fardorougha we might say the same; for, although he probably felt the want of his son’s presence more keenly even than his wife, yet his grief, notwithstanding its severity, was mingled with the interruption of a habit—­such as is frequently the prevailing cause of sorrow in selfish and contracted minds.  That there was much selfishness in his grief, our readers, we dare say, will admit.  At all events, a scene which took place between him and his wife, on the night of the day which saw Connor depart from his native land forever, will satisfy them of the different spirit which marked their feelings on that unfortunate occasion.