that it
was impossible to get him to do or to understand anything; and she
forthwith took hold of his shoulders, and began shaking him, and
scolding him--bawling into his ear, till the poor idiot shook in her
grasp.

Father John at last succeeded in rescuing him from her hands, and,
seating himself in a chair immediately opposite to him, he began his
sad tale. He told him by degrees that his daughter had been taken
very ill--that she had got worse and worse--that Doctor Blake had
been sent for--that she was found to be in imminent danger. But it
had no effect on Larry; he kept on continually thanking Father John
for his friendly visit, saying how kind it was of him, to come and
sit with an old man like him--how hard it was to be shut up alone
with such a d----d old jade as Mary; and then he began telling Father
John a history of the ill-treatment and cruelty he received from
her,--which to do Mary justice, was in the main false; for, excepting
that she shook him and bawled to him, by way of rousing his dormant
intellect, she had always endeavoured to be as kind to him as the
nature of her disposition would allow. He begged of Father John to
tell him when Ussher and Feemy would come back to take care of him;
asked if Feemy hadn't gone away to marry her lover; and complained
that it was cruel in his own dear girl not to let her old father be
present at her wedding.

At last the priest saw it was no good trying to break this bad news,
by degrees, to such a man as Larry; and he told him that his daughter
was dead. The old man remained silent for a few minutes staring him
in the face, and Father John continued--

"Yes, Mr. Macdermot, your poor daughter died in Mrs. McKeon's arms."

"Is it Feemy?" said Larry. "My own Feemy?"

"It is too true, Mr. Macdermot; and indeed, indeed, I feel for you."

"But it aint true, Father John," said the idiot, grinning. "Shure
didn't I see her myself, when she went away on the car to the
wedding?" And then the old man paused as if thinking, and the stupid
smile passed off from his face, and the saddest cloud one could
conceive came over it, and he said, "Ah, they're gone away from me;
they're gone away to Thady, and now I'll never see them agin." He
then paused for a moment, but after a while a fire came into his eyes
and he began again, "but curse her--curse--"

This was too horrid; Father John got up and held his hand before the
father's face, as if to forbid him to finish the curs