[Illustration:  PAGE AM1018—­ They immediately expelled him]

His friends had now all abandoned him; decent people avoided him—­he had fallen long ago below pity, and was now an object of contempt.  His family at home were destitute; every day brought hunger—­positive, absolute want of food wherewith to support nature.  His clothes were reduced to tatters; so were those of his wife and children.  His frame, once so strong and athletic, was now wasted away to half its wonted size; his hands were thin, tremulous, and flesh-less; his face pale and emaciated; and his eye dead and stupid.  He was now nearly alone in the world.  Low and profligate as were his drunken companions, yet even they shunned him; and so contemptuously did they treat him, now that he was no longer able to pay his way, or enable the scoundrels to swill at his expense, that whenever he happened to enter Barney Scaddhan’s tap, while they were in it, they immediately expelled him without ceremony, or Barney did it for them.  He now hated home; there was nothing there for him, but cold, naked, shivering destitution.  The furniture had gone by degrees for liquor; tables, chairs, kitchen utensils, bed and bedding, with the exception of a miserable blanket for Margaret and the child, had all been disposed of for about one-tenth part of their value.  Alas, what a change is this from comfort, industry, independence, and respectability, to famine, wretchedness, and the utmost degradation!  Even Margaret, whose noble heart beat so often in sympathy with the distresses of the poor, has scarcely any one now who will feel sympathy with her own.  Not that she was utterly abandoned by all.  Many a time have the neighbors, in a stealthy way, brought a little relief in the shape of food, to her and her children.  Sorry are we to say, however, that there were in the town of Ballykeerin, persons whom she had herself formerly relieved, and with whom the world went well since, who now shut their eyes against her misery, and refused to assist her.  Her lot, indeed, was now a bitter one, and required all her patience, all her fortitude to enable her to bear up under it.  Her husband was sunk down to a pitiable pitch, his mind consisting, as it were, only of two elements, stupidity and ill-temper.  Up until the disposal of all the furniture, he had never raised his hand to her, or gone beyond verbal abuse; now, however, his temper became violent and brutal.  All sense of shame—­every pretext for decency—­all notions of self-respect, were gone, and nothing was left to sustain or check him.  He could not look in upon himself and find one spark of decent pride, or a single principle left that contained the germ of his redemption.  He now gave himself over as utterly lost, and consequently felt no scruple to stoop to any act, no matter how mean or contemptible.  In the midst of all this degradation, however, there was one recollection which he never gave up; but alas, to what different and shameless purposes did he now prostitute it!  That which had been in his better days a principle of just pride, a spur to industry, an impulse to honor, and a safeguard to integrity, had now become the catchword of a mendicant—­the cant or slang, as it were, of an impostor.  He was not ashamed to beg in its name—­to ask for whiskey in its name—­and to sink, in its name, to the most sordid supplications.