As the sterling fellow spoke, the cheeks of the widow were suffused with tears, and her son Jemmy’s hollow eyes once more kindled, but with a far different expression from that which but a few minutes before flashed from them.

“Owen,” said he, and utterance nearly failed him:  “Owen, if I was well it wouldn’t be as it is wid us; but—­no, indeed it would not; but—­may God bless you for this!  Owen, never fear but you’ll be paid; may God bless you, Owen!”

As he spoke the hand of his humble benefactor was warmly grasped in his.  A tear fell upon it:  for with one of those quick and fervid transitions of feeling so peculiar to the people, he now felt a strong, generous emotion of gratitude, mingled, perhaps, with a sense of wounded pride, on finding the poverty of their little family so openly exposed.

“Hut, tut, Jimmy, avick,” said Owen, who understood his feelings; “phoo, man alive! hut—­hem!—­why, sure it’s nothin’ at all, at all; anybody would do it—­only a bare five an’ twenty shillins [it was five pound]:  any neighbor—­Mick Cassidy, Jack Moran, or Pether M’Cullagh, would do it.—­Come, Frank, step out; the money’s to the fore.  Rosha, put your cloak about you, and let us go down to the agint, or clerk, or whatsomever he is—­sure, that makes no maxin anyhow;—­I suppose he has power to give a resate.  Jemmy, go to bed again, you’re pale, poor bouchal; and, childhre, ye crathurs ye, the cows won’t be taken from ye this bout.—­Come, in the name of God, let us go, and see-everything rightified at once—­hut, tut—­come.”

Many similar details of Owen M’Carthy’s useful life could be given, in which he bore an equally benevolent and Christian part.  Poor fellow! he was, ere long, brought low; but, to the credit of our peasantry, much as is said about their barbarity, he was treated, when helpless, with gratitude, pity, and kindness.

Until the peace of 1814, Owen’s regular and systematic industry enabled him to struggle successfully against a weighty rent and sudden depression in the price of agricultural produce; that is, he was able, by the unremitting toil of a man remarkable alike for an unbending spirit and a vigorous frame of body, to pay his rent with tolerable regularity.  It is true, a change began to be visible in his personal appearance, in his farm, in the dress of his children, and in the economy of his household.  Improvements, which adequate capital would have enabled, him to effect, were left either altogether unattempted, or in an imperfect state, resembling neglect, though, in reality, the result of poverty.  His dress at mass, and in fairs and markets, had, by degrees, lost that air of comfort and warmth which bespeak the independent farmer.  The evidences of embarrassment began to disclose themselves in many small points—­inconsiderable, it is true, but not the less significant.  His house, in the progress of his declining circumstances,ceased to be annually ornamented by a new coat of whitewash;