“Now,” said he, “here I have you at last—­ha, ha, ha!”—­his voice, by the way, as he spoke and laughed, had become fearfully deep and hollow—­“now, Peggy dear, didn’t I swear it—­by the broken heart you died of, I said, an’ I’ll keep that sacred oath, darlin’.”  While speaking, the thin fleshless face of the miser was becoming black—­his eyes were getting blood-shot, and, in a very short time, strangulation must have closed his wretched existence, when a young and tall female threw herself by a bound upon Dalton, whom she caught by the throat, precisely as he himself had caught Darby.  It was Sarah, who saw that there was but little time to lose in order to save the wretch’s life.  Her grip was so effectual, that Dalton was obliged to relax his hold upon the other for the purpose of defending himself.

“Who is this?” said he; “let me go, you had better, till I have his life—­let me go, I say.”

“It’s one,” she replied, “that’s not afeard but ashamed of you.  You, a young man, to go strangle a weak, helpless ould creature, that hasn’t strength or breath to defend himself no more then a child.”

“Didn’t he starve Peggy Murtagh?” replied Tom; “ha, ha, ha!—­didn’t he starve her and her child?”

“No,” she replied aloud, and with glowing cheeks; “it’s false—­it wasn’t he but yourself that starved her and her child.  Who deserted her—­who brought her to shame, an’ to sorrow, in her own heart an’ in the eyes of the world?  Who left her to the bitter and vile tongues of the whole counthry?  Who refused to marry her, and kept her so that she couldn’t raise her face before her fellow cratures?  Who sent her, without hope, or any expectation of happiness in this life—­this miserable life—­to the glens and lonely ditches about the neighborhood, where she did nothing but shed blither tears of despair and shame at the heartless lot you brought her to?  An’ when she was desarted by the wide world, an’ hadn’t a friendly face to look to but God’s, an’ when one kind word from your lips would give her hope, an’ comfort, an’ happiness, where were you? and where was that kind word that would have saved her?  Let the old man go, you unmanly coward; it wasn’t him that starved her—­it was yourself that starved her, and broke her heart!”

“Did yez hear that?” said Dalton; “ha, ha, ha—­an’ it’s all thrue; she has tould me nothing but the thruth—­here, then, take the ould vagabond away with you, and do what you like with him—­”

     “’I am a bold and rambling boy,
     My lodging’s in the isle of Throy;
     A rambling boy, although I be,
     I’d lave them all an’ folly thee.’

Ha, ha, ha!—­but come, boys, pull away; we’ll finish the wreck of this house, at any rate.”

“Wreck away,” said Sarah, “I have nothin’ to do with that; but I think them women—­man-women I ought to call them—­might consider that there’s many a starvin’ mouth that would be glad to have a little of what they’re throwin’ about so shamefully.  Do you come with me, Darby; I’ll save you as far as I can, an’ as long as I’m able.”