It so happened that there lived among them a man named O’Regan, who, in point of comfort, was at the head of this little community.  He was a quiet and an affectionate individual, industrious, sober, and every way well conducted.  This inoffensive and virtuous man, and Iris faithful wife, had been for some time before the period we are describing, under the shadow of deep affliction.  Their second child, and his little brother, together with the eldest, who for two or three years before had been at service in England, were all that had been spared to them—­the rest having died young.  This second boy was named Torley, and him they loved with an excess of tenderness and affection that could scarcely be blamed.  The boy was handsome and manly, full of feeling, and possessed of great resolution and courage; all this, however, was ultimately of no avail in adding to the span of the poor youth’s life.  One day in the beginning of autumn, he overloaded himself with a log of fir which he had found in the moors; having laid it down to rest, he broke a blood-vessel in attempting to raise it to his shoulder the second time:  he staggered home, related the accident as it had occurred, and laid himself down gently upon his bed.  Decline then set in, and the handsome and high-spirited Torley O’Regan, lay patiently awaiting his dissolution, his languid eye dim with the shadow of its approach.  From the moment it was ascertained that his death, early and unexpectedly, was known to be certain, the grief of his parents transcended the bounds of ordinary sorrow.  It was indeed, a distressing thing to witness their sufferings, and to feel, in the inmost chambers of the heart, the awful wail of their desolation and despair.

Winter had now arrived in all its severity, and the very day selected for the removal of these poor people was that which fills, or was designed to fill, every Christian heart with hope, charity, affection for our kind, and the innocent enjoyment of that festive spirit which gives to the season a charm that throws the memory back upon the sweetest recollections of life—­I mean Christmas eve.  The morning, however, was ushered in by storm.  There had been above a fortnight’s snow, accompanied by hard frost, and to this was added now the force of a piercing wind, and a tremendous down pouring of hard dry drift, against which it is at any time almost impossible even to walk, unless when supported by health, youth, and uncommon strength.

In O’Regan’s house there was, indeed, the terrible union of a most bitter and twofold misery.  The boy was literally dying, and to this was added the consciousness that M’Clutchy would work his way in spite of storm, tempest, and sickness, nay, even death itself.  A few of the inhabitants of the wild mountain village, which, by the way, was named Drum Dhu, from its black and desolate look, had too much the fear of M’Clutchy before their eyes, to await his measures, and accordingly sought out