n the hands of
another woman, and flying to him, raised his head and laid it upon her
bosom; whilst the miser, who had now recovered, shook his head, lifted
his hands, and looked as if he felt that his house was undergoing
pollution. In the meantime, the young woman bent her mouth down to his
ear, and said, in tones that were wild and hollow, and that had more of
despair than even of sorrow in them--

"Tom, oh, Tom, are you gone?--hear me!"

But he replied not to her. "Ah! there was a day," she added, looking
with a mournful smile around, "when he loved to listen to my voice; but
that day has passed forever."

He opened his eyes as she spoke; hers were fixed upon him. He felt a few
warm tears upon his face, and she exclaimed in a low voice, not designed
for other ears--

"I forgive you all, Tom, dear--I forgive you all!"

He looked at her, and starting to his feet, exclaimed--

"Margaret, my own Margaret, hear me! She is dyin'," he shouted, in a
hoarse and excited voice--"she is dyin' with want. I see it all. She's
dead!"

It was too true; the unhappy girl had passed into another life; but,
whether from a broken heart, caused by sin, shame, and desertion, or
from famine and the pressure of general destitution and distress, could
never properly be ascertained.

"I see!" exclaimed Dalton, his eyes again blazing, and his voice hollow
with emotion--"I see--there she lies; and who brought her to that? But I
intended to set all right. Ay--there she lies. An' again, how are we at
home? Brought low down, down to a mud cabin! Now, Dick o' the Grange,
an' now, Darby Skinadre--now for revenge. The time is come. I'll take my
place at the head of them, and what's to be done, must be done. Margaret
Murtagh, you're lying dead before me, and by the broken heart you died
of--"

He could add no more; but with these words, tottering and frantic, he
rushed out of the miser's house.

"Wid the help o' God, the young savage is as mad as a March hare,"
observed Skinadre, coolly; "but, as it's all over wid the unfortunate
crature, I don't see why an honest man should lose his own, at any
rate."

Whilst uttering these words, he seized the meal, and deliberately
emptied it back into the chest from which young Dalton had taken it.

CHAPTER VIII. -- A Middle Man and Magistrate--Master and Man.

Having mentioned a strange woman who made her appearance at Skinadre's,
it may be necessary, or, at least, agreeable to the reader,