not so frequently dragged, as he had been, to the remotest parts of the parish.  Being an expert penman, he acted also as secretary of grievances to the poor, who frequently employed him to draw up petitions to obdurate landlords, or to their more obdurate agents, and letters to soldiers in all parts of the world, from their anxious and affectionate relations.  All these little services he performed kindly and promptly; many a blessing was fervently invoked upon his head; the “good word” and “the prayer” were all they could afford, as they said, “to the bouchal dhas oge * that tuck the world an him for sake o’ the larnin’, an’ that hasn’t the kindliness o’ the mother’s breath an’ the mother’s hand near him, the crathur.”

     * The pretty young boy.  Boy in Ireland does not always
     imply youth.

About the middle of the third year he was once more thrown upon the general hospitality of the people.  The three farmers with whom he had lived for the preceding six months emigrated to America, as did many others of that class which, in this country, most nearly approximates to the substantial yeomanry of England.  The little purse, too, which he had placed in the hands of the kind priest, was exhausted; a season of famine, sickness, and general distress had set in; and the master, on understanding that he was without money, became diabolically savage.  In short, the boy’s difficulties increased to a perplexing degree.  Even Thady and his grown companions, who usually interposed in his behalf when the master became excessive in correcting him, had left the school, and now the prospect before him was dark and cheerless indeed.  For a few months longer, however, he struggled on, meeting every difficulty with meek endurance.  From his very boyhood he had reverenced the sanctity of religion, and was actuated by a strong devotional spirit.  He trusted in God, and worshipped Him night and morning with a sincere heart.

At this crisis he was certainly an object of pity; his clothes, which, for some time before had been reduced to tatters, he had replaced by a cast-off coat and small-clothes, a present from his friend the Curate, who never abandoned him.  This worthy young man could not afford him money, for as he had but fifty pounds a year, with which to clothe, subsist himself, keep a horse, and pay rent, it was hardly to be expected that his benevolence could be extensive.  In addition to this, famine and contagious disease raged with formidable violence in the parish; so that the claims upon his bounty of hundreds who lay huddled together in cold cabins, in out-houses, and even behind ditches, were incessant as well, as heart-rending.  The number of interments that took place daily in the parish was awful; nothing could be seen but funerals attended by groups of ragged and emaciated creatures from whose hollow eyes gleamed forth the wolfish fire of famine.  The wretched mendicants were countless, and the number of coffins that lay on the public roads—­where, attended by the nearest relatives of the deceased, they had been placed for the purpose of procuring charity—­were greater than ever had been remembered by the oldest inhabitant.