“And this is it,” Raymond proceeded; “look at this page, that’s not the one the blood is on; no, no, there’s nothing here but madness.  Ah!” said he, lowering his voice to a tone of deep compassion, “sure she’s mad; they killed Hugh O’Began, and they killed the two sons, and then she went mad.—­So, you see, there it is now—­on that page there’s blood, and, on this one,—­with the big letter on it, there’s madness.  Then agin comes the Turnin’ out.  How would you like to walk three long, dreary miles, in sleet, and frost, and snow, havin’ no house to go to—­wid thin breeches to your bottom, an’ maybe a hole in them—­widout shoe or stockin’ on your hooves—­wid a couple of shiverin’, half starved, sick childre, tied by an ould praskeen to your back, an’ you sinkin’ wid hunger all the time?—­ay, and the tail o’ your old coat blown up behind every minute, like a sparrow before the wind!—­Eh, how would you like it?”

Lucre still stuck to the hypothesis of liquor, and accordingly went and rang the porter’s bell, who immediately appeared.

“John,” said his master, “I desire you will immediately show this man out—­he is so scandalously affected with liquor, that he knows not the purport of his own language.”

John approached his master with a face of awful tenor:—­“for God’s sake, sir,” said he, “don’t say a word that might cross him, sure he’s the great madman, Raymond-na-hattha.  Just sit still, and let him take his own way, and he’ll do no harm in life; appear to listen to him, and he’ll be like a child—­but, if you go to harshness, he’d tear you, and me, and all that’s in the house, into minced meat.”

Once more did Lucre’s countenance lose its accustomed hue; but, on this occasion, it assumed the color of a duck egg, or something between a bad white and a bad blue; “my good friend,” said he, “will you please to take a seat—­John, stay in the room.”  This he said in a whisper.

“There,” proceeded Raymond, who had been busily engaged in examining the pages of the Bible, “there is the page where that’s on—­the puttin’ out in the clouds and storm of heaven—­there it is on that page.  Look at the ould man and the ould woman there—­see them tremblin’.  Don’t cry—­don’t cry; but they are—­see the widow there wid her orphans—­there’s a sick boy in that house, and a poor sick girl in that other house—­see, they’re all cryin’—­all cryin’—­for they must go out, and on sich a day!  All that, now, is upon these two other pages, bekaise, you see, no one page would hould all that.  But see here—­here’s a page wid only one side of it covered—­let vis see what’s on it.  Oh, ay—­here’s the poor craythur’s childre, wid the poor father and the poor mother; but they have the one cow to give milk to moisten their bit.  Ha—­ha—­look again, there she goes off to the pound!  Don’t cry, poor helpless crathers; but how can you help cryin’ when your poor mother’s cryin’.  That’s a bitther thing, too, and it’s on this page—­see—­that—­that—­that’s