“We are lost!” he exclaimed; “oh, my past life!  Great Heaven! if I had but one act of kindness to look back upon, I could dare death.  Children, the tortures of hell are upon me!  Here is death at my throat, but how will I die?  Hallo—­look!” he exclaimed, “do you see it?—­it is all black—­black and bloody—­black and bloody—­that life of mine!  Crimes—­crimes—­crimes against the poor—­against the widow and the orphan!  Why did I do it?  Eh, why did I oppress, and grind, and murder!  Ay, murder!—­where’s Widow Flanagan’s son?—­where’s all the blood I was the means of shedding?—­where are the rotten corpses that are now festering in the grave, because I was rapacious and an oppressor?  Hallo!  I say, don’t curse me—­or rather, do curse me—­damn me—­damn my soul—­damn my soul—­ha! what am I saying?—­who brought me to this?  Who? why who but the black and damnable parsons—­ay, the parsons and their d—­d heretical church!  However, I’ll have my revenge, for hell is lined with them—­paved with them—­circled with them; and there I’ll find them in burning squads to welcome me—­ha! ha! ha!  Welcome, Proctor!  Tithe-Proctor!  God’s Perdition! what a name! what a character?  Tithe-Proctor!—­that is rogue, oppressor, scourge, murderer!—­and all for what?  For a dead, lazy, gross, overgrown heresy!  Ay, lazy parsons that I brought myself to this for, to perdition for!  But then I was proud too—­oh, it was a great thing to creep up from poverty and cunning to broadcloth and top-boots, to saddle horse, then a jaunting-car, to shake hands with the great parsons, who despised me all the while and made me their tool and scapegoat!  Oh, yes, and to have my sons able to hunt in red coats and top-boots, and my daughters to ride on side-saddles—­how do you do, gintlemen?—­ladies, your most obedient! but, where are we?—­what is this?  Is this the light of hell, and these the devils with their black faces?  And yet, I did intend to repent and to be merciful to the poor; and now here comes damnation! and why? have I not murdered you all?—­where am I?—­who am I?  I am not Matthew Purcel, the Tithe-Proctor, I hope—­make that clear, and I’ll give you—­or could it be a dream?—­no, no, it is real, a real fact; and the gulf of damnation yawns for me!  Ha!—­well—­come, then, let us die like men; give me the blunderbuss; now, down with the villains—­down with the villains!”

His family had been standing between the shelter of two windows, almost transfixed into stone with horror at the blasphemous agonies under which his frantic spirit was raging and writhing.  The truth is, that the frightful certainty of death to himself and his family, in such an unprepared state, together with the rapid glance of his ill-spent life, joined to his exertion and the suffocating heat of the room, had, all combined, induced what may be well termed this insane paroxysm of despair and guilt.

On seizing the blunderbuss, he rushed, now distinctly visible in the light, and forgetful that the multitude were on the watch for him, over towards one of the unprotected windows, where he was followed by his son John, for the purpose of being dragged out of danger.  He had just discharged the blunderbuss at their leader, who was on the point of making his way to the hall-door, when the ruffian fell stone-dead, and almost simultaneously, he and his son John were literally perforated with a shower of bullets.