olomew
Sullivan."

"It is the will of God," replied the old man, while the tears flowed
down his cheeks--"it's God's will, an' I won't consale it any longer;
take me away--I'm guilty--I'm guilty."

CHAPTEE XXI. -- Condy Datton goes to Prison.

The scene that presented itself in Condy Dalton's miserable cabin was
one, indeed, which might well harrow any heart not utterly callous to
human sympathy. The unhappy old man had been sitting in the armchair we
have alluded to, his chin resting on his breast, and his mind apparently
absorbed in deep and painful reflection, when the officers of justice
entered. Many of our Landlord readers, and all, probably, of our
Absentee ones, will, in the simplicity of their ignorance regarding the
actual state of the lower classes, most likely take it for granted
that the picture we are about to draw exists nowhere but in our own
imagination. Would to God that it were so! Gladly and willingly would we
take to ourselves all the shame; acknowledge all the falsehood; pay
the highest penalty for all the moral guilt of our misrepresentations,
provided only any one acquainted with the country could prove to us
that we are wrong, change our nature, or, in other words, falsify the
evidence of our senses and obliterate our experience of the truths we
are describing.

Old Dalton was sitting, as we have said, in the only memorial of his
former respectability now left him--the old arm-chair--when the men
bearing the warrant for his arrest presented themselves. The rain
was pouring down in that close, dark, and incessant fall, which gives
scarcely any hope of its ending, and throws the heart into that anxious
and gloomy state which every one can feel and perhaps no one describe.

The cabin in which the Daltons now lived was of the poorest description.
When ejected from their large holding by Dick o' the Grange, or in other
words, were auctioned out, they were unhappily at a loss where to find
a place in which they could take a temporary refuge. A kind neighbor who
happened to have the cabin in question lying unoccupied, or rather
waste upon his hands, made them an offer of it; not, as he said, in
the expectation that they could live in it for any length of time, but
merely until they could provide themselves with a more comfortable and
suitable abode.

"He wished," he added, "it was better for their sakes; and sorry he was
to see such a family brought so low as to live in it at all!"

Alas