he had on
one or two occasions before become apprehensive that his father's mind
might, if strongly pressed, be worn down, by the singular conflict
of which it was that scene, to that most frightful of all
maladies--insanity. As the old man, however, folded him in his feeble
arms, and attempted to express what he felt, the unhappy boy groaned
aloud, and felt even in the depth of his cell, a blush of momentary
shame suffuse his cheek and brow. His father, notwithstanding the
sentence that had been so shortly before passed upon his son--that
father, he perceived to be absolutely intoxicated, or, to use a more
appropriate expression, decidedly drunk. There was less blame, however,
to be attached to Fardorougha on this occasion, than Connor imagined.
When the old man swooned in the court-house, he was taken by his
neighbors to a public-house, where he lay for some minutes in a state of
insensibility. On his recovery he was plied with burnt whiskey, as well
to restore his strength and prevent a relapse, as upon the principle
that it would enable him to sustain with more firmness the dreadful and
shocking destiny which awaited his son. Actuated by motives of mistaken
kindness, they poured between two and three glasses of this fiery
cordial down his throat, which, as he had not taken so much during the
lapse of thirty years before, soon reduced the feeble old man to the
condition in which we have described him when entering the gloomy cell
of the prisoner.

"Father," said Connor, "in the name of Heaven above, who or what has put
you into this dreadful state, especially when we consider the hard, hard
fate that is over us, and upon us?"

"Connor," returned Fardorougha, not perceiving the drift of his
question, "Connor, my son, I'll hang--hang him, that's one comfort."

"Who are you spaking about?"

"The villain sentence was passed on to--to--day. He'll swing--swing for
the robbery; P----e will. We got him back out of that nest of robbers,
the Isle o' Man--o' Man they call it--that he made off to, the villain!"

"Father dear, I'm sorry to see you in this state on sich a day--sich a
black day to us. For your sake I am. What will the world say of it?"

"Connor, I'm in great spirits all out, exceptin' for something that I
forget, that--that--li--lies heavy upon me. That I mayn't sin, but I
am--I am, indeed--for now that we've cotch him, we'll hang the villain
up. Ha, ha, ha, it's a pleasant sight to see sich a fellow danglin