uestion first, by saying it was for an
acceptance for twelve hundred and seventy-six pounds odd; and, after a
little pressing, added,--

"'At the suit of Joseph Curtis, Esq., of Meagh-valley House.'

"'What's to be done?' said I. 'I cannot pay it.'

"'Come over to Green Street for the present, anyhow,' said he, civilly;
'there are plenty of houses.'

"'No, no; to jail, if I must,' said I, boldly. 'It's not myself I was
thinking about.'

"Just as day was breaking, I passed into the prison; and when I thought
to be looking upon the mountains of the bay slowly fading behind me,
I was ushered into the debtors' yard, to wait till my future
dwelling-place should be assigned me."

I copy this incident in the very words he himself related it.

CHAPTER XXI. AT REST

Having already acquainted my reader with the source from which I
have derived all these materials of my family history, he will not be
surprised to learn that MacNaghten's imprisonment leaves a blank in this
part of my narrative. All that I know, indeed, of these early years can
be told in a few lines. My mother repaired with me to the cottage in
the Killeries, to which also came De Gabriac shortly after, followed
by Polly Fagan, whose affection for my mother now exhibited itself most
remarkably. Not vainly endeavoring to dam up the current of a grief that
would flow on, she tried to interest my mother in ways and by pursuits
which were totally new to her, and, consequently, not coupled with
painful recollections. She taught her to visit the poor in their cabins;
to see them, in the hard struggle of their poverty, stoutly confronting
fortune day by day, carrying the weary load of adversity, without one
hope as to the time when they might cease to labor and be at rest. These
rambles through wild and unvisited tracts rewarded them well in the
grand and glorious objects of scenery with which they became acquainted.
It was everlasting discovery,--now of some land-locked little bay,
half-hid among its cliffs; now some lone island, with its one family for
inhabitants; or now some picturesque bit of inland scenery, with wood
and mountain and waving grass. Occasionally, too, they ventured out to
sea, either to creep along the coast, and peep into the rocky caverns
with which it is perforated, or they would set sail for the distant
islands of Arran,--bleak and desolate spots on the wide, wild ocean. The
charms of landscape in its grandest features were, however