a single hour had passed, Donnel felt and impression that, on
that business at least, Rody had betrayed him. Acting upon this
conviction.--for it amounted to that--he soon satisfied himself that the
house was secured against, the possibility of any successful attack upon
it. This he discovered in the village of Grange, when, on inquiring, he
found that most of the young men were gone to sit up all night in the
"big house". So much being known, any additional information to Donnel
was unnecessary. He accordingly relinquished the enterprise; and
remembering the engagement with young Henderson at the Grey Stone, met
him there, to receive the wages of his iniquity; but with what success,
the reader is already acquainted.

This double failure of his projects, threw the mind of the Prophet into
a train of deep and painful reflection. He began to reflect that his
views of life and society might not, after all, be either the safest
or the best. He looked back over his own past life, and forward to the
future, and he felt as if the shadow of some approaching evil was over
him. He then thought of his daughter, and pictured to himself what she
might have been, had he discharged, as he ought to have done, the
duties of a Christian parent towards her. This, and other recollections,
pressed upon Mm, and his heart was once or twice upon the point of
falling back into the fresh impulses of its early humanity, when the
trial of tomorrow threw him once more into a gloom, that settled him
down into a resentful but unsatisfactory determination to discharge the
duty he had imposed upon himself.

CHAPTER XXXI. -- A Double Trial--Retributive Justice.

With beating and anxious hearts did the family of the Daltons rise upon
the gloomy morning of the old man's trial. Deep concern prevented them
from eating, or even feeling inclined to eat; but when about to sit down
to their early and sorrowful repast, Mrs. Dalton, looking around her,
asked--

"Where is poor Tom from us this morning?"

"He went out last night," replied one of his sisters, "but didn't come
back since."

"That poor boy," said his mother, "won't be long with us; he's gone
every way--health and strength, and reason. He has no appetite--and a
child has more strength. After this day he must be kept in the house, if
possible, or looked to when he goes out; but indeed I fear that in a
day or two he will not be able to go anywhere. Poor affectionate boy!
he never recovered