“Well,” said he, clenching his hands and grinding his teeth, “it is expected that people like us will sit tamely undher sich tratement as we have resaved from Dick o’ the Grange.  Oh, if we had now the five hundre good pounds that we spent upon our farm—­spent, as it turned out, not for ourselves, but to enable that ould villain of a landlord to set it to Darby Skinadre; for I b’lieve it’s he that’s to get it, with strong inthrest goin’ into his pocket for all our improvements; if we had now,” he continued, his passion rising, “if we had that five hundre pounds now, or one hundre, or one pound, great God! ay, or one shillin’ now, wouldn’t it save some of you from starving”

This reflection, which in the young man excited only wrath, occasioned the female portion of the family to burst into fresh sorrow; not so the old man; he arose hastily, and paced up and down the floor in a state of gloomy indignation and fury which far transcended that of his son.

“Oh!” said he, “if I was a young man, as I was wanst—­but the young men now are poor, pitiful, cowardly—­I would—­I would;” he paused suddenly, however, looked up, and clasping his hands, exclaimed—­“forgive me, O God! forgive the thought that was in my unhappy heart!  Oh, no, no, never, never allow yourself, Con, dear, to be carried away by anger, for ’fraid you might do in one minute, or in a short fit of anger, what might make you pass many a sleepless night, an’ maybe banish the peace of God from your heart forever!”

“God bless you for them last words, Condy!” exclaimed his wife, “that’s the way I wish you always to spake; but what to do, or where to go, or who to turn to, unless to God himself, I don’t know.”

“We’re come to it at last,” said their daughter Peggy; “little we thought of it, but at all events, it’s betther to do that than to do worse—­betther than to rob or steal, or do an ondaicent act of any kind.  In the name of God, then, rather than you should die of hunger, Mary—­you an’ my father an’ all of yez—­I’ll go out and beg from the neighbors.”

“Beg!” shouted the old man, with a look of rage—­“beg!” he repeated, starting to his feet and seizing his staff—­“beg! you shameless and disgraceful strap.  Do you talk of a Dalton goin’ out to bee? taka that!”

And as he spoke, he hit her over the arm with a stick he always carried.

“Now that will teach you to talk of beg-gin’.  No!—­die—­die first—­die at wanst; but no beggin’ for any one wid the blood of a Dalton in their veins.  Death—­death—­a thousand times sooner!”

“Father—­oh! father, father, why, why did you do that?” exclaimed his son, “to strike poor kind an’ heart-broken Peggy, that would shed her blood for you or any of us.  Oh! father, I am sorry to see it.”

The sorrowing girl turned pale by the blow, and a few tears came down her cheeks; but she thought not of herself, nor of her sufferings.  After the necessary pause caused by the pain, she ran to him, and, throwing her arms about his neck, exclaimed in a gush of sorrow that was perfectly heart-rending to witness—­