and stunned. While she addressed him, he
involuntarily ceased to utter those sounds of anguish which were neither
shrieks nor groans, but something between both. He theli resumed his
pace, but with a more settled step, and for some minutes maintained
perfect silence.

"Get me," said he, at length, "get me a drink of wather; I'm in a flame
wid drouth."

When Biddy Nulty went out to fetch him this, he inquired of the rest
what Honor meant by charging him with blasphemy.

"Surely to God, I didn't blasphame," he said, peevishly; "no, no, I'm
not that bad; but any how, let her pray for me; her prayer will be
heard, if ever woman's was."

When Biddy returned, he emptied the jug of water with the same trembling
eagerness as before; then clasped his hands again, and commenced pacing
the room, evidently in a mood of mind about to darken into all the
wildness of his former grief.

"Fardorougha," said Nogher M'Cormick; "I was undher this roof the
night your manly son was born. I remimber it well; an' I remimber more
betoken, I had to check you for flying in the face o' God that sent
him to you. Instead o' feelin' happy and delighted, as you ought to ha'
done, an' as any other man but yourself would, you grew dark an' sulky,
and grumbled bekase you thought there was a family comin'. I tould you
that night to take care an' not be committing sin; an' you may renumber,
too, that I gev you chapter an' verse for it out o' Scripture: 'Woe
be to the man that's born wid a millstone about his neck, especially
if he's to be cast into the say.' The truth is, Fardorougha, you warn't
thankful to God for him; and you see that afther all, it doesn't do to
go to loggerheads wid the Almighty. Maybe, had you been thankful for
him, he wouldn't be where he is this night. Millstone! Faith, it was
a home thrust, that same verse; for if you didn't carry the millstone
about your neck, you had it in your heart; an' you now see and feel the
upshot. I'm now goin' fast into age myself; my hair is grayer than your
own, and I could take it to my death," said the honest fellow, while a
tear or two ran slowly down his cheek; "that, exceptin' one o' my own
childre', an' may God spare them to me! I couldn't feel more sorrow at
the fate of any one livin', than at Connor's. Many a time I held him in
these arms, an' many a little play I made for him; an' many a time he
axed me why his father didn't nurse him as I did;' bekase,' he used to
say, 'I would rather h