e and uncomplaining, felt loth to
obtrude his little wants and sufferings upon her attention, knowing
as he did, that, owing to the nursing of his father, she was scarcely
permitted three hours sleep out of the twenty-four. If he could have
been afforded even the ordinary comforts of a sick-bed, it is possible
he might have recovered. The only drink he could call for was "the black
water," as it is termed by the people, and his only nutrition a dry
potato, which he could not take; the bed he lay upon was damp straw, yet
did this patient child never utter a syllable to dishearten his mother,
or deepen the gloom which hung over the circumstances of the family,
and his father's heart. When asked how he was, he uniformly replied
"better," and his large lucid eyes would faintly smile upon his mother,
as if to give her hope, after which the desolate boy would amuse himself
by handling the bedclothes as invalids often do, or play with the humid
straw of his cold and miserable bed, or strive to chat with his mother.

These details are very painful to those whose hearts are so elegantly
and fashionably tender that they recoil with humane horror from scenes
of humble wretchedness and destitution. It is good, however, that they
should be known to exist, for we assure the great and wealthy that
they actually do exist, and may be found in all their sharpness and
melancholy truth within the evening shadow which falls from many a proud
and wealthy dwelling in this our native land.

After all, it is likely, that had not the fearful occurrences of this
morning taken place, their sweet boy might have been spared to them. The
shock, however, occasioned by the discharge of the gun, and the noise
of the conflict, acting upon a frame so feeble were more than he could
bear. Be this as it may, the constables were not many minutes gone,
when, to their surprise, he staggered back again out of his little
room, where Father Roche had placed him, and tottering across the floor,
slipped in the deceased man's blood, and fell. The mother flew to him,
but Harman had already raised him up; when on his feet, he looked at
the blood and shuddered--a still more deadly paleness settled on his
face--his breath came short, and his lips got dry and parched--he could
not speak nor stand, had not Harman supported him. He looked again at
the blood with horror, and then at his mother, whilst he shrank up, as
it were, into himself, and shivered from head to foot.