and
music of their mountain streams, and that of the feathered songsters, to
enliven their souls with its melody. The voices of spring, of summer, of
autumn, were cheerful in their ears as the voices of friends, and even
winter, with all his wildness and desolation, was not without a grim
complacence which they loved. They were a poor, harmless, little
community, so very humble and inoffensive, as to be absolutely beneath
the reach of human resentment or injustice. Alas! they were not so.

The cause of the oppression which was now about to place them in its
iron grasp, was as simple as it was iniquitous. They refused to vote for
Lord Cumber's brother, and were independent enough to respect the rights
of conscience, in defiance of M'Clutchy's denunciations. They had voted
for the gentleman who gave them employment, and who happened besides, to
entertain opinions which they approved. M'Clutchy's object was to remove
them from the property, in order that he might replace them with a more
obedient and less conscientious class; for this was his principle of
action under such circumstances.

It so happened that there lived among them a man named O'Regan, who,
in point of comfort, was at the head of this little community. He was a
quiet and an affectionate individual, industrious, sober, and every way
well conducted. This inoffensive and virtuous man, and Iris faithful
wife, had been for some time before the period we are describing,
under the shadow of deep affliction. Their second child, and his little
brother, together with the eldest, who for two or three years before had
been at service in England, were all that had been spared to them--the
rest having died young. This second boy was named Torley, and him they
loved with an excess of tenderness and affection that could scarcely be
blamed. The boy was handsome and manly, full of feeling, and possessed
of great resolution and courage; all this, however, was ultimately of
no avail in adding to the span of the poor youth's life. One day in the
beginning of autumn, he overloaded himself with a log of fir which
he had found in the moors; having laid it down to rest, he broke a
blood-vessel in attempting to raise it to his shoulder the second time:
he staggered home, related the accident as it had occurred, and laid
himself down gently upon his bed. Decline then set in, and the
handsome and high-spirited Torley O'Regan, lay patiently awaiting his
dissolution, his languid eye d