The Prophet’s own adventure was not less disastrous.  Rody Duncan’s sudden withdrawal from the robbery surprised him very much.  On seriously and closely reconsidering the circumstances, it looked suspicious, and ere a single hour had passed, Donnel felt and impression that, on that business at least, Rody had betrayed him.  Acting upon this conviction.—­for it amounted to that—­he soon satisfied himself that the house was secured against, the possibility of any successful attack upon it.  This he discovered in the village of Grange, when, on inquiring, he found that most of the young men were gone to sit up all night in the “big house”.  So much being known, any additional information to Donnel was unnecessary.  He accordingly relinquished the enterprise; and remembering the engagement with young Henderson at the Grey Stone, met him there, to receive the wages of his iniquity; but with what success, the reader is already acquainted.

This double failure of his projects, threw the mind of the Prophet into a train of deep and painful reflection.  He began to reflect that his views of life and society might not, after all, be either the safest or the best.  He looked back over his own past life, and forward to the future, and he felt as if the shadow of some approaching evil was over him.  He then thought of his daughter, and pictured to himself what she might have been, had he discharged, as he ought to have done, the duties of a Christian parent towards her.  This, and other recollections, pressed upon Mm, and his heart was once or twice upon the point of falling back into the fresh impulses of its early humanity, when the trial of tomorrow threw him once more into a gloom, that settled him down into a resentful but unsatisfactory determination to discharge the duty he had imposed upon himself.

CHAPTER XXXI. —­ A Double Trial—­Retributive Justice.

With beating and anxious hearts did the family of the Daltons rise upon the gloomy morning of the old man’s trial.  Deep concern prevented them from eating, or even feeling inclined to eat; but when about to sit down to their early and sorrowful repast, Mrs. Dalton, looking around her, asked—­

“Where is poor Tom from us this morning?”

“He went out last night,” replied one of his sisters, “but didn’t come back since.”

“That poor boy,” said his mother, “won’t be long with us; he’s gone every way—­health and strength, and reason.  He has no appetite—­and a child has more strength.  After this day he must be kept in the house, if possible, or looked to when he goes out; but indeed I fear that in a day or two he will not be able to go anywhere.  Poor affectionate boy! he never recovered the death of that unhappy girl, nor ever will; an’ it would be well for himself that he was removed from this world, in which, indeed, he’s now not fit to live.”

Little time was lost in the despatch of their brief meal, and they set out, with the exception of Mary, to be present at the trail of their aged father.