The youngsters all burst into tears, the fact being that they had not tasted food for more than eighteen hours.  The mother, worn and pale with anxiety and distress, turned sorrowfully to her husband and said:  “Charles, what is to be done? must our children die? must they perish with famine?”

“Send Charles over to M’Mahon’s,” replied her husband; “he is poor, it is true, but he is our next neighbor, and from him, if he will oblige us, relief will come soonest.  Charles, go, my child, and ask Con M’Mahon if he will be good enough to send me a stone or two of potatoes for a few days; and I will feel obliged—­your brother, poor child, is fatigued by his journey to the post-office, and from other causes—­or being the elder I would make him go—­if M’Mahon obliges me, tell him that I will thank him to send them, as I have no messenger to fetch them.  I have always found poor M’Mahon respectful and neighborly, and I am certain he will not refuse us.”

We shall not detail the distressing and melancholy conversation, in which they were engaged until the child’s return.  It is enough to say that, although he met with no refusal, the expected relief was not sent.  “Well, my child,” inquired his anxious father, “what reply did he give?”

“He said, papa,” returned the child, “that he would give you a whole sack of potatoes with pleasure, but that, to send them in the open day, would be more than his life is worth—­he dare not do it.”

The old man looked up, then clasping his hands together, and glancing at his unhappy family, a few bitter tears rolled down his cheeks.

“But,” added the boy, “he said he would bring over as many as he could carry, about twelve o’clock to-night.”

“Well,” continued his father, “that is civil; and I believe, as to the danger, he is right.  But, in the meantime, what is to be done?  I fear all the available sources of relief have been already exhausted, with the exception of heaven alone—­in which, my children, we must not permit anything to shake our trust.  I am feeble, but yet I must go forth and try to secure some food for you, my poor famishing family:  hold up, then, my dear children, even for a little, for certain I am that God will provide for us still.”

He was, accordingly, upon the point of going out, when John Purcel entered; and as the object of his visit is already known to the reader, we shall leave to his imagination the sense of the relief which it afforded.

This now is not an overdrawn picture of particular cases—­and they were numerous—­which occurred during the period of what was termed the Tithe rebellion.