“Oh, Fardorougha!” exclaimed his mother, after they had gone, “sure it isn’t merely for partin’ wid him that we feel so heart—­broken.  He may never stand under this roof again, an’ he all we have and had to love!”

“No,” returned Fardorougha, quietly; “no, it’s not, as you say, for merely partin’ wid him—­hanged!  God!  God!  Mm—­here—­Honor—­here, the thought of it—­I’ll die—­it’ll break!  Oh, God support me! my heart—­here—­my heart’ll break!  My brain, too, and my head—­oh! if God ’ud take me before I’d see it!  But it can’t be—­it’s not possible that our innocent boy should meet sich a death!”

“No, dear, it is not; sure he’s innocent—­that’s one comfort; but, Fardorougha, as the men said, you must go to a lawyer and see what can be done to defind him.”

The old man rose up and proceeded to his son’s bedroom.

“Honor,” said he, “come here;” and while uttering these words he gazed upon her face with a look of unutterable and hopeless distress; “there’s his bed, Honor—­his bed—­he may never sleep on it more—­he may be cut down like a flower in his youth—­an’ then what will become of us?”

“Forever, from this day out,” said the distracted mother, “no hands will ever make it but my own; on no other will I sleep—­we will both sleep—­where his head lay there will mine be too—­avick machree—­machree!  Och, Fardorougha, we can’t stand this; let us not take it to heart, as we do; let us trust in God, an’ hope for the best.”

Honor, in fact, found it necessary to assume the office of a comforter; but it was clear that nothing urged or suggested by her could for a moment win back the old man’s heart from the contemplation of the loss of his son.  He moped about for a considerable time; but, ever and anon, found himself in Connor’s bedroom, looking upon his clothes and such other memorials of him as it contained.

During the occurrence of these melancholy incidents at Fardorougha’s, others of a scarcely less distressing character were passing under the roof of Bodagh Buie O’Brien.

Our readers need not be informed that the charge brought by Bartle Flanagan against Connor, excited the utmost amazement in all who heard it.  So much at variance were his untarnished reputation and amiable manners with a disposition so dark and malignant as that which must have prompted the perpetration of such a crime, that it was treated at first by the public as an idle rumor.  The evidence, however, of Phil Curtis, and his deposition to the conversation which occurred between him and Connor, at the time and place already known to the reader, together with the corroborating circumstances arising from the correspondence of the footprints about the haggard with the shoes produced by the constable—­all, when combined together, left little doubt of his guilt.  No sooner had this impression become general, than the spirit of the father was immediately imputed to the son, and many sagacious observations made, all tending to show,