The conversation then fell into its original channel, and Phil was summoned, in order to receive his instructions touching a ceremony which was to take place on the following day but one; which ceremony simply consisted in turning out upon the wide world, without house, or home, or shelter, about twenty three families, containing among them the young, the aged, the sick, and the dying—­but this is a scene to which we must beg the reader’s more particular attention.

There stood, facing the west, about two miles from Constitution Cottage, an irregular string of cabins, with here and there something that might approach the comfortable air of a middle size house.  The soil on which they stood was an elevated moor, studded with rocks and small cultivated patches, which the hard hand of labor had, with toil and difficulty, worn from what might otherwise be called a cold, bleak, desert.  The rocks in several instances were overgrown with underwood and shrubs of different descriptions, which were browsed upon by meagre and hungry-looking goats, the only description of cattle that the poverty of these poor people allowed them to keep, with the exception of two or three families, who were able to indulge in the luxury of a cow.  In winter it had an air of shivering desolation that was enough to chill the very blood, even to think of; but in summer, the greenness of the shrubs, some of which were aromatic and fragrant, relieved the dark, depressing spirit which seemed to brood upon it.  This little colony, notwithstanding the wretchedness of its appearance, was not, however, shut out from a share of human happiness.  The manners of its inhabitants were primeval and simple, and if their enjoyments were few and limited, so also were their desires.  God gave them the summer breeze to purify their blood, the sun of heaven to irradiate the bleakness of their mountains, the morning and evening dressed in all their beauty, and music of their mountain streams, and that of the feathered songsters, to enliven their souls with its melody.  The voices of spring, of summer, of autumn, were cheerful in their ears as the voices of friends, and even winter, with all his wildness and desolation, was not without a grim complacence which they loved.  They were a poor, harmless, little community, so very humble and inoffensive, as to be absolutely beneath the reach of human resentment or injustice.  Alas! they were not so.

The cause of the oppression which was now about to place them in its iron grasp, was as simple as it was iniquitous.  They refused to vote for Lord Cumber’s brother, and were independent enough to respect the rights of conscience, in defiance of M’Clutchy’s denunciations.  They had voted for the gentleman who gave them employment, and who happened besides, to entertain opinions which they approved.  M’Clutchy’s object was to remove them from the property, in order that he might replace them with a more obedient and less conscientious class; for this was his principle of action under such circumstances.