2/0 MEMOIR OF A GENTLEMAN. 



torture long continued, I must, ere now, have been the inmate 

 of a madhouse. 



" The time of her trial came, and at that awful hour, I 

 am told women like to have their husbands near them, for 

 those they love can sometimes whisper hope, and rouse the 

 drooping courage of the sufferer. But I was specially excluded 

 from the chamber of the patient, although constant messages 

 passed between the lady and her kinsman. The trial ended 

 happily a boy was born the servants flocked round me, to 

 offer their rude congratulations ; but the nurse cast on me 

 such a look of mingled pity and contempt as almost struck 

 me lifeless. I asked affectionately for my wife I inquired 

 tenderly for my child. s It is a fine boy/ said a young, wild, 

 light-hearted creature, the housemaid ; ' it has the longest 

 legs I ever saw ; and, Holy Mary ! its hair is as red as Lanty 

 Driscoll's jacket !' God of Heaven ! red hair. It was killing 

 murderous. Then I was the wretch my worst fears had 

 whispered, and a child was born but not to me." 



He paused, completely overcome. I felt my eye moisten at 

 the deep though simple pathos of the story-teller. There was 

 a sorrow, an agony, in his melancholy detail, that touched the 

 heart more sensibly than calamities of deeper character and 

 greater men. 



After a short pause, he thus continued : 



" The day the most eventful of my life, if my wedding one 

 be excepted, at last arrived, and had it been nominated for my 

 undergoing the extreme penalty of the law, it could not have 

 brought more horror with it. I felt the fulness of my degra- 

 dation. I was a miserable puppet, obliged to pretend a 

 blindness to disgrace, of which my conviction was entire ; 

 and automaton as I was considered, and little as my looks or 

 feelings were consulted, the deep melancholy of my face did 

 not escape my conscience- stricken partner. She became pale 

 and agitated, while with affected indifference of manner, she 

 taxed me with rudeness to my company, and more especially 

 to herself. What would the world say, if on this high festival, 

 when the heir of Castle Toole was to be presented to his 

 relatives, I should appear like a monk at a death-wake than a 

 happy parent? ' Lord! Mr. Dawkins, this moping* is so unmanly. 

 Here will be the O'Tooles and the O'Shaughnesseys, Blakes 

 and Burkes, Bellews and Bodkins : they will feel it a personal 



