As the day appointed for the auction of the M’Mahon’s stock, furniture, etc., etc., at Carriglass drew near, a spirit of deep and unceasing distress settled upon the whole family.  It had not been their purpose to apprise the old man of any intention on their part to emigrate at all, and neither indeed had they done so.  The fact, however, reached him from the neighbors, several of whom, ignorant that it was the wish of his family to conceal the circumstance from him—­at least as long as they could—­entered into conversation with him upon it, and by this means he became acquainted with their determination.  Age, within the last few months—­for he was now past ninety—­had made sad work with both his frame and intellect.  Indeed, for some time past, he might be said to hover between reason and dotage.  Decrepitude had set in with such ravages on his constitution that it could almost be marked by daily stages.  Sometimes he talked with singular good sense and feeling; but on other occasions he either babbled quite heedlessly, or his intellect would wander back to scenes and incidents of earlier life, many of which he detailed with a pathos that was created and made touching by the unconsciousness of his own state while relating them.  They also observed that of late he began to manifest a child-like cunning in many things connected with himself and family, which, though amusing from its very simplicity, afforded at the same time a certain indication that the good old grandfather whom they all loved so well, and whose benignant character had been only mellowed by age into a more plastic affection for them all, was soon to be removed from before their eyes, never again to diffuse among them that charm of domestic truth and love, and the holy influences of all those fine old virtues which ancestral integrity sheds over the heart, and transmits pure and untarnished from generation to generation.

On the day he made the discovery of their intention, he had been sitting on a bench in the garden, a favorite seat of his for many a long year previously; “And so,” said he to the neighbor with whom he had been speaking, “you tell me that all our family is goin’ to America?”

“Why, dear me,” replied his acquaintance, “is it possible you didn’t know it?”

“Ha!” he exclaimed, “I undherstand now why they used to be whisperin’ together so often, and lookin’ at me; but indeed they might spake loud enough now, for I’m so deaf that I can hardly hear anything.  Howaniver, Ned, listen—­they all intend to go, you say; now listen, I say—­I know one that won’t go; now, do you hear that?  You needn’t say anything about it, but this I tell you—­listen to me, what’s your name?  Barney, is it?”

“Why, is it possible, you don’t know Ned Gormley?”

“Ay, Ned Gormley—­och, so it is.  Well listen, Ned—­there’s one they won’t bring; I can tell you that—­the sorra foot I’ll go to—­to—­where’s this you say they’re goin’ to, Jemmy?”