was a shopkeeper in Oughterarde, and
known to the whole neighbourhood. This solitary instance brought with
it more of dreadful meaning than all the shock of distant calamity. The
heart-rending wail of those who listened to the news smote many more
with the cold tremour of coming death. Another case soon followed, a
third, and a fourth succeeded, all fatal; and the disease was among
them.

It is only when a malady, generally fatal, is associated with the
terrors of contagion, that the measure of horror and dread flows over.
When the sympathy which suffering sickness calls for is yielded in a
spirit of almost despair, and the ministerings to the dying are but
the prelude to the same state, then indeed death is armed with all his
terrors. No people are more remarkable for the charities of the sick-bed
than the poor Irish. It is with them less a sentiment than a religious
instinct; and though they watched the course of the pestilence, and saw
few, if any, escape death who took it, their devotion never failed them.
They practised, with such skill as they possessed, every remedy in turn.
They, who trembled but an hour before at the word when spoken, faced the
danger itself with a bold heart; and, while the insidious signs of the
disease were already upon them--while their wearied limbs and clammy
hands bespoke that their own hour was come, they did not desist from
their good offices, until past the power to render them.

It was spring-time, the season more than usually mild, the prospects of
the year were already favourable, and all the signs of abundance rife
in the land. What a contrast the scene without to that presented by
the interior of each dwelling! There, death and dismay were met with at
every step. The old man and the infant prostrated by the same
stroke; the strong and vigorous youth who went forth to labour in the
morning--at noon, a feeble, broken-spirited creature--at sunset, a
corpse.

As the minds and temperaments of men were fashioned, so did fear operate
upon them. Some, it made reckless and desperate, careless of what should
happen, and indifferent to every measure of precaution; some, became
paralysed with fear, and seemed unable to make an effort for safety,
were it even attainable; others, exaggerating every care and caution,
lived a life of unceasing terror and anxiety; while a few--they were
unfortunately a very few--summoned courage to meet the danger in a
spirit of calm and resolute determinatio