The house was nearly filled with grave and aged people, whose conversation was low, and impressed with solemnity, that originated from the painful and melancholy spirit of the event that had that morning taken place.  A deal table was set lengthwise on the floor; on this were candles, pipes, and plates of cut tobacco.  In the usual cases of death among the poor, the bed on which the corpse is stretched is festooned with white sheets, borrowed for the occasion from the wealthier neighbors.  Here, however, there was nothing of the kind.  The associations connected with murder were too appalling and terrible to place the rites required, either for the wake or funeral of the murderer, within the ordinary claims of humanity for these offices of civility to which we have alluded.  In this instance none of the neighbors would lend sheets for what they considered an unholy purpose; the bed, therefore, on which the body lay had nothing to ornament it.  A plain drugget quilt was his only covering, but he did not feel the want of a better.

It was not the first time I had ever seen a corpse, but it was the first time I had ever seen that of a murderer.  I looked upon it with an impression which it is difficult, if not impossible, to describe.  I felt my nerves tingle, and my heart palpitate.  To a young man, fresh, and filled with the light-hearted humanity of youth, approximation to such an object as then lay before me is a singular trial of feeling, and a painful test of moral courage.  The sight, however, and the reflections connected with it, rendered a long contemplation of it impossible, and, besides, I had other objects to engage my attention.  I now began to observe the friends and immediate connections of the deceased.  In all, there were only seven or eight women, including his wife.  There were four boys and no daughters; for, alas!  I forgot to inform the reader that his fallen daughter was his only one; a fact which, notwithstanding his guilt, must surely stir up the elements of our humanity in mitigation of his madness.

This house of mourning was, indeed, a strange, a solemn, and a peculiar one.  The women sat near the bed upon stools, and such other seats as they had prepared.  The wife and his two sisters were rocking themselves to and fro, as is the custom when manifesting profound sorrow in Irish wake-houses; the other women talked to each other in a low tone, amounting almost to a whisper.  Their conduct was marked, in fact, by a grave and mysterious monotony; but after a little reflection, it soon became painfully intelligible.  Here was shame, as well as guilt and sorrow—­here was shame endeavoring to restrain sorrow; and hence the silence, and the struggle between them which it occasioned.  The wife from time to time turned her heavy eyes upon the countenance of the corpse; and after the first sensations of awe had departed from me, I ventured to look upon it with a purpose of discovering in its features the lineaments of guilt.