Fardoroug--he was in its own nature
sufficiently severe to render his sufferings sharp and pungent; still
they resembled the influence of local disease more than that of a malady
which prostrates the strength and grapples with the powers of the whole
constitution. The sensation he immediately felt, on hearing that his
banker had absconded with the gains of his penurious life, was rather
a stunning shock that occasioned for the moment a feeling of dull, and
heavy, and overwhelming dismay. It filled, nay, it actually distended
his narrow soul with an oppressive sense of exclusive misery that
banished all consideration for every person and thing extraneous to his
individual selfishness. In truth, the tumult of his mind was peculiarly
wild and anomalous. The situation of his son, and the dreadful fate that
hung over him, were as completely forgotten as if they did not exist.
Yet there lay, underneath his own gloomy agony, a remote consciousness
of collateral affliction, such as is frequently experienced by those
who may be drawn, by some temporary and present pleasure, from the
contemplation of their misery. We feel, in such cases, that the darkness
is upon us, even while the image of the calamity is not before the mind;
nay, it sometimes requires an effort to bring it back, when anxious to
account for our depression; but when it comes, the heart sinks with a
shudder, and we feel, that, although it ceased to engage our thoughts,
we had been sitting all the time beneath its shadow. For this reason,
although Fardorougha's own loss absorbed, in one sense, all his powers
of suffering, still he knew that something else pressed with additional
weight upon his heart. Of its distinct character, however, he was
ignorant, and only felt that a dead and heavy load of multiplied
affliction bent him in burning anguish to the earth.

There is something more or less eccentric in the gait and dress of every
miser. Fardorougha's pace was naturally slow, and the habit for which,
in the latter point, he had all his life been remarkable, was that of
wearing a great-coat thrown loosely about his shoulders. In summer it
saved an inside one, and, as he said, kept him cool and comfortable.
That he seldom or never put his arms into it arose from the fact that
he knew it would last a much longer period of time than if he wore it in
the usual manner.

On leaving the attorney's office, he might be seen creeping along
towards the County Treasurer's, a