t a pace quite unusual to him; his
hollow, gleaming eyes were bent on the earth; his Gothamore about his
shoulders; his staff held with a tight desperate grip, and his whole
appearance that of a man frightfully distracted by the intelligence of
some sudden calamity.

He had not proceeded far on this hopeless errand, when many bitter
confirmations of the melancholy truth, by persons whom he met on their
return from P----'s residence, were afforded him. Even these, however,
were insufficient to satisfy him; he heard them with a vehement
impatience, that could not brook the bare possibility of the report
being true. His soul clung with the tenacity of a death--grip to the
hope, that however others might have suffered, some chance might,
notwithstanding, still remain in Ms particular favor. In the meantime,
he poured out curses of unexampled malignity against the guilty
defaulter, on whose head he invoked the Almighty's vengeance with a
venomous fervor which appalled all who heard him. Having reached
the treasurer's house, a scene presented itself that was by no means
calculated to afford him consolation. Persons of every condition, from
the squireen and gentleman farmer, to the humble widow and inexperienced
orphan, stood in melancholy groups about the deserted mansion,
interchanging details of their losses, their blasted prospects, and
their immediate ruin. The cries of the widow, who mourned for the
desolation brought upon her and her now destitute orphans, rose in a
piteous wail to heaven, and the industrious fathers of many struggling
families, with pale faces and breaking hearts, looked in silent misery
upon the closed shutters and smokeless chimneys of their oppressor's
house, bitterly conscious that the laws of the boasted constitution
under which they lived, permitted the destroyer of hundreds to enjoy,
in luxury and security, the many thousands of which, at one fell and
rapacious swoop, he had deprived them.

With white, quivering lips and panting breath, Fardorougha approached
and joined them.

"What, what," said he, in a broken sentence, "is this true--can it, can
it be true? Is the thievin' villain of hell gone? Has he robbed us,
ruined us, destroyed us?"

"Ah, too thrue it is," replied a farmer; "the dam' rip is off to that
nest of robbers, the Isle of Man; ay, he's gone! an' may all our bad
luck past, present, and to come, go with him, an' all he tuck!"

Fardorougha looked at his informant as if he had