Ere arriving at the house they were met by Fardorougha himself, a small man, with dark, but well-set features, which being at no time very placid, appeared now to be absolutely gloomy, yet marked by strong and profound, anxiety.

“Thank God!” he exclaimed on meeting them; “is this Mary Moan?”

“It is—­it is!” she exclaimed; “how are all within?—­am I in time?”

“Only poorly,” he returned; “you are, I hope.”

The midwife, when they reached the door, got herself dismounted in all haste, and was about entering the house, when Fardorougha, laying his hand upon her shoulder, said in a tone of voice full of deep feeling—­

“I need say nothing to you; what you can do, you will do—­but one thing I expect—­if you see danger, call in assistance.”

“It’s all in the hands o’ God, Fardorougha, acushla; be as aisy in your mind as you can; if there’s need for more help you’ll hear it; so keep the man an’ horse both ready.”

She then blessed herself and entered the house, repeating a short prayer, or charm, which was supposed to possess uncommon efficacy in relieving cases of the nature she was then called upon to attend.

Fardorougha Donovan was a man of great good sense, and of strong, but not obvious or flexible feeling; this is to say, on strong occasions he felt accordingly, but exhibited no remarkable symptoms of emotion.  In matters of a less important character, he was either deficient in sensibility altogether, or it affected him so slightly as not to be perceptible.  What his dispositions and feelings might have been, had his parental affections and domestic sympathies been cultivated by the tender intercourse which subsists between a parent and his children, it is not easy to say.  On such occasions many a new and delightful sensation—­many a sweet trait of affection previously unknown—­and, oh! many, many a fresh impulse of rapturous emotion never before felt gushes out of the heart; all of which, were it not for the existence of ties so delightful, might have there lain sealed up forever.  Where is the man who does not remember the strange impression of tumultuous delight which he experienced on finding himself a husband?  And who does not recollect that nameless charm, amounting almost to a new sense, which pervaded his whole being with tenderness and transport on kissing the rose-bud lips of his first-born babe?  It is, indeed, by the ties of domestic life that the purity and affection and the general character of the human heart are best tried.  What is there more beautiful than to see that fountain of tenderness multiplying its affections instead of diminishing them, according as claim after claim arises to make fresh demands upon its love?  Love, and especially parental love, like jealousy, increases by what it feeds on.  But, oh! from what an unknown world of exquisite enjoyment are they shut out, to whom Providence has not vouchsafed those beloved beings on whom the heart lavishes the whole fulness of its rapture!  No wonder that their own affections should wither in the cold gloom of disappointed hope, or their hearts harden into that moody spirit of worldly-mindedness which adopts for its offspring the miser’s idol.