eir
melancholy burthen was hastily covered up with scarcely any exhibition
of that simple and affecting decorum, or of those sacred and natural
sorrows, which in other circumstances throw their tender but solemn
light over the last offices of death. As she went along, new and more
startling objects of distress attracted her notice. In dry and sheltered
places she observed little temporary sheds, which, in consequence of the
dreadful panic which always accompanies an epidemic in Ireland, had, to
a timid imagination, something fearful about them, especially when it
is considered that death and contagion were then at work in them in such
terrible shapes. To Sarah, however, they had no terrors; so far from
that, a great portion of the day was spent by her in relieving their
wretched, and, in many cases, dying inmates, as well as she could. She
brought them water, lit fires for them, fixed up their shed, and even
begged aid for them from the neighbors around, and, as far as she could,
did everything to ease their pain, or smooth their last moment by the
consolation of her sympathy. If she met a family on the highway, worn
with either illness or fatigue--perhaps an unhappy mother, surrounded
by a helpless brood, bearing, or rather tottering under a couple of sick
children, who were unable to walk--she herself, perhaps, also ill, as
was often the case--she would instantly take one of them out 'of the
poor creature's arms, and carry it in her own as far as she happened
to go in that direction, utterly careless of contagion, or all other
consequences.

In this way was she engaged towards evening when at a turn of the road
she was met by a large crowd of rioters, headed by Red Rody, Tom Dalton,
and many others in the parish who were remarkable only for a tendency to
ruffianism and outrage; for we may remark here, that on occasions such
as we are describing, it is generally those who have suffered least, and
have but little or nothing to complain of, that lead the misguided and
thoughtless people into crime, and ultimately into punishment.

The change that had come over young Dalton was frightful; he was not
half his former size; his clothes were now in rags, his beard grown,
his whole aspect and appearance that of some miscreant, in whom it was
difficult to say whether the ruffian or the idiot predominated the
most. He appeared now in his glory--frantic and destructive; but amidst
all this drivelling impetuosity, it was not diff