Gormley shook his head.  “Poor Bryan,” said he, “it’s nearly all over wid you, at any rate.  To America, Bryan,” he repeated, in a loud voice.

“Ay, to America.  Well, the sorra foot ever I’ll go to America—­that one thing I can tell them.  I’m goin’ in.  Oh! never mind,” he exclaimed, on Gormley offering him assistance, “I’m stout enough still; stout an’ active still; as soople as a two-year ould, thank God.  Don’t I bear up wonderfully?”

“Well, indeed you do, Bryan; it is wonderful, sure enough.”

In a few minutes they arrived at the door; and the old man, recovering as it were a portion of his former intellect, said, “lavin’ this place—­these houses—­an’ goin’ away—­far, far away—­to a strange country—­to strange people! an’ to bring me, the ould white-haired grandfather, away from all! that would be cruel; but my son Tom will never do it.”

“Well, at any rate, Bryan,” said his neighbor, “whether you go or stay, God be wid you.  It’s a pity, God knows, that the like of you and your family should leave the country; and sure if the landlord, as they say, is angry about it, why doesn’t he do what he ought to do? an’ why does he allow that smooth-tongued rap to lead him by the nose as he does?  Howandiver, as I said, whether you go or stay, Bryan, God be wid you!”

During all that morning Thomas M’Mahon had been evidently suffering very deeply from a contemplation of the change that was about to take place by the departure of himself and his family from Carriglass.  He had been silent the greater part of the morning, and not unfrequently forced to give away to tears, in which he was joined by his daughters, with the exception of Dora, who, having assumed the office of comforter, felt herself bound to maintain the appearance of a firmness which she did not feel.  In this mood he was when “grandfather,” as they called him, entered the house, after having been made acquainted with their secret.  “Tom,” said he, approaching his son, “sure you wouldn’t go to bring an ould man away?”

“Where to, father?” asked the other, a good deal alarmed.

“Why, to America, where you’re all goin’ to.  Oh! surely you wouldn’t bring the old man away from the green fields of Carriglass?  Would you lay my white head in a strange land, an’ among a strange people?  Would you take poor ould grandfather away from them that expects him down, at Carndhu where they sleep?  Carndhu’s a holy churchyard.  Sure there never was a Protestant buried in it but one, an’ the next mornin’ there was a boortree bush growin’ out o’ the grave, an’ it’s there yet to prove the maricle.  Oh! ay, Carndhu’s holy ground, an’ that’s where I must sleep.”

These words were uttered with a tone of such earnest and childlike entreaty as rendered them affecting in a most extraordinary degree, and doubly so to those who heard him.  Thomas’s eyes, despite of every effort to the contrary, filled with tears.  “Ah!” he exclaimed, “he has found it out at last; but how can I give him consolation, an’ I stands in need of it so much myself?”