NOT THE MAN FOR GALWAY. 325 



" 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 comtempt as almost 

 struck me lifeless. I asked affectionately for my wife 

 I inquired tenderly for my child. ' It is a fine boy,' 

 said a young, wild, light-hearted creature, the housemaid ; 

 ' it has the longest legs I ever saw ; and, its hair is as 

 red as Lanty Driscoll's jacket. ' 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 degradation. 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. 



