and under-water which the incessant down-pouring of rain during the whole season had occasioned.  It was therefore, dangerous to tread upon the floor, it was so soft and slippery.  The rain, which fell heavily, now came down through the roof in so many places that they were forced to put under it such vessels as they could spare, not even excepting the beds over each of which were placed old clothes, doubled up under dishes, pots, and little bowls, in order, if possible, to keep them dry.  The house—­if such it could be called—­was almost destitute of furniture, nothing but a few pots, dishes, wooden noggins, some spoons, and some stools being their principal furniture, with the exception of one standing short-posted bed, in a corner, near the fire.  There, then, in that low, damp, dark, pestilential kraal, without chimney or window, sat the old man, who, notwithstanding its squalid misery, could have looked upon it as a palace, had he been able to say to his own heart—­I am not a murderer.

There, we say, he sat alone, surrounded by pestilence and famine in their most fearful shapes, listening to the moanings of his sick family, and the ceaseless dropping of the rain, which fell into the vessels that were placed to receive it.  Mrs. Dalton was “out,” a term which was used in the bitter misery of the period, to indicate that the person to whom it applied had been driven to the last resource of mendicancy; and his other daughter, Mary, had gone to a neighbor’s house to beg a little fire.

As the old man uttered the words, no language could describe the misery which was depicted on his countenance.

“Take me,” he exclaimed; “ah, no; for then what will become of these?” pointing to his son and daughter, who were sick.

The very minions of the law felt for him; and the chief of them said, in a voice of kindness and compassion: 

“It’s a distressin’ case; but if you’ll be guided by me, you won’t say anything that may be brought against yourself.  I was never engaged,” said he, looking towards Darby and Sarah, to whom he partly addressed his discourse, “in anything so painful as this.  A man of his age, now afther so many years!  However—­well—­it can’t be helped; we must do our duty.”

“Where is the rest of your family?” asked another of them; “is this young woman a daughter of yours?”

“Not at all,” replied a third; “this is a daughter of the Black Prophet himself; and, by japers, you hardened gipsey, it’s a little too bad for you to come to see how your blasted ould father’s work gets on.  It’s his evidence that’s bringin’ this dacent ould man from his family to a gaol, this miserable evenin’.  Be off out o’ this, I desire you; I wondher you’re not ashamed to be present here, above all places in the world, you brazen devil.”