again--and do not fear
that ever revelation of mine shall facilitate any catastrophe that may
await you."

Hycy looked keenly into the schoolmaster's face as he uttered the last
observation; but in the maudlin and collapsed features then before him
he could read nothing that intimated the sagacity of a double meaning.
This satisfied him; and after once more exacting from Finigan a pledge
of what he termed honorable confidence, he took his departure.

CHAPTER IX.--A Little Polities, Much Friendship, and Some Mystery

This communication determined Hycy to forego his intention for the
present, and he consequently allowed the summer and autumn to pass
without keeping up much intercourse with either Teddy Phats or the
Hogans. The truth is, that Burke, although apparently frank and candid,
was constitutionally cautious, and inclined a good deal to suspicion.
He feared that no project, the knowledge of which was held in common
with Finigan, could be long kept a secret; and for that reason he make
up his mind to postpone the matter, and allow it to die away out of the
schoolmaster's mind ere he bestowed any further attention upon it. In
the meantime, the state of the country was gradually assuming a worse
and more depressing character. The season was unfavorable; and although
we do not assert that many died of immediate famine, yet we know that
hundreds--nay, thousands--died from the consequences of scarcity and
destitution--or, in plainer words, from fever and other diseases induced
by bad and insufficient food, and an absence of the necessary comforts
of life. Indeed, at the period of our narrative, the position of Ireland
was very gloomy; but when, we may ask, has it been otherwise, within
the memory of man, or the records of history? Placed as the country was,
emigration went forward on an extensive scale,--emigration, too, of
that peculiar description which every day enfeebles and impoverishes
the country, by depriving her of all that approaches to anything like
a comfortable and independent yeomanry. This, indeed, is a kind of
depletion which no country can bear long; and, as it is, at the moment
we are writing this, progressing at a rate beyond all precedent, it will
not, we trust, be altogether uninteresting to inquire into some of the
causes that have occasioned it. Let not our readers apprehend, however,
that we are about to turn our fictitious narrative into a dissertation
on political economy. Of course t