retching up, searched the
crevice in the wall where it had been, but, we need not add, in vain. He
then came down again, in a state of dreadful alarm, and made a general
search for it in every hole and corner visible, after, which his
agitation became wild and excessive.

"She has got it!" he exclaimed--"she has stumbled on it, aided by the
devil'--an' may she soon be in his clutches!--and it's the only thing
I'm afeard of! But then," he added, pausing, and getting somewhat
cool--"does she know it might be brought against me, or who owned it?
I don't think she does; but still, where can it be, and what could she
mane by Providence trackin' me out?--an' why did she look as if she:
knew something? Then that dhrame I can't get it out o' my head this
whole day--and the terrible one I had last night, too! But that last is
aisily 'counted for. As it is, I must only wait, and watch her; and if I
find she can be dangerous, why--it'll be worse for her--that's all!"

He then threw himself on the wretched bed, and, despite of his
tumultuous reflections, soon fell asleep.

CHAPTER VI. -- A Rustic Miser and His Establishment

There is to be found in Ireland, and, we presume, in all other
countries, a class of hardened wretches, who look forward to a period
of dearth as to one of great gain and advantage, and who contrive, by
exercising the most heartless and diabolical principles, to make
the sickness, famine, and general desolation which scourge their
fellow-creatures, so many sources of successful extortion and rapacity,
and consequently of gain to themselves. These are Country Misers or
Money-lenders, who are remarkable for keeping meal until the arrival of
what is termed a hard year, or a dear summer, when they sell it out at
an enormous or usurious prices, and who, at all times, and under all
circumstances, dispose of it only at terms dictated by their own griping
spirit and the crying necessity of the unhappy purchasers.

The houses and places of such persons are always remarkable for a
character in their owners of hard and severe saving, which at a first
glance has the appearance of that rare virtue in our country, called
frugality--a virtue which, upon a closer inspection, is found to
be nothing with them but selfishness, sharpened up into the most
unscrupulous avarice and penury.

About half a mile from the Sullivan's, lived a remarkable man of this
class, named Darby Skinadre. In appearance he was lank and sa