g cherished vengeance against
Brian M'Loughlin--against him and his. I shall leave them this night
without a roof over their heads, as I said I would, and, Phil, when you
are in possession of his property and farm, and he and his outcasts, he
will then understand what I meant, when I told him with a boiling heart
in Castle Cumber Fair, that his farm and mine lay snugly together."

"But what will you do with the sick woman, I mean his wife?" asked Phil,
putting a glass of brandy to his lips, and winking at his father; "what
will you do with the sick woman, I say?"

Val's face became so frightfully ghastly, and presented so startling a
contrast between his complexion and black bushy brows, that even Phil
himself got for a moment alarmed, and said:--

"My God, father, what is the matter?"

Val literally gasped, as if seeking for breath, and then putting his
hand upon his heart, he said--

"Phil, I am sick here--"

"I see you are,"' said Phil, "but what is the matter, I say again? why
are you sick?"

"Vengeance, Phil; I am sick with vengeance! The moment is now near, and
at last I have it within my clutch;" and here he extended his hand, and
literally made a clutch at some imaginary object in the air.

"Upon my honor," said Philip, "I envy you; you are a fine, consistent
old villain."

"The sick woman, Phil! By the great heavens, and by all that they
contain--if they do contain anything--I swear, that if every individual
of them, men and women, were at the last gasp, and within one single
moment of death--ha! hold," said he, checking himself, "that would never
do. Death! why death would end all their sufferings."

"Oh, not all, I hope," said Phil, winking again.

"No matter," resumed Val, "their sufferings in this life it would end,
and so I should no longer be either eye-witness or ear-witness of their
destitution and miseries. I would see them, Phil, without house or
home--without a friend on earth--without raiment, without food--ragged,
starved--starved out of their very virtues--despised, spat upon,
and trampled on by all! To these, Phil, I thought to have added
shame--shame; but we failed--we have failed."

"No," replied Phil, "I give you my word, we did not."

"We did, sir," said the father; "Harman and she are now reconciled, and
this is enough for the people, who loved her. Yes, by heavens, we have
failed." Val sat, or almost dropped on a chair as he spoke, for he had
been pacing through the parlor u