She closed her eyes as she rested her head upon his shoulder, but was soon frightened from her place of refuge by the furious howlings of the fierce hounds.
"Ha! ha! ha!" cried Wilkins, who now stood within a few steps of the door, and gazed upon them with an expression of vindictive rage. "Are you contemplating the charming country which surrounds you? Well, well, you will certainly have time enough to study nature in the open air, with no roof between you and the autumn stars. Therefore, perhaps you had better gaze upon the delights of your castle here, think what a charming place of residence it has always been for you, and that, if you really wish to enjoy the luxury of a shelter within its walls, you must pay immediately the rent which is due upon it; for you are in arrears seven months and ten days. Ha! ha! how is it? will you answer me? I must know instantly, O'Neil, whether you are ready to pay me the ready money, the sum due upon the rent, now, or not?"
O'Neil answered tranquilly, "You know I cannot pay it; and you know, too, why I cannot; for you yourself robbed me yesterday of the only means to do it which I possessed in the world."
Wilkins angrily interrupted him, saying, "What nonsensical stuff! What idle chattering! I know where I am, and what I am doing; and you shall soon know it too! But if the keen wind should nip the nose of your dainty daughter, or freeze your own, then remember that it was warmer in this hut, and that it was no trifle to have handled an honorable sportsman like myself with your rough hands! Ha! ha! The morning air is somewhat bleak, but we shall have rain before night! Go ahead! go ahead, boys! go into the rascal's den, and bring out all you see there. Ha! ha! ha! No doubt you will find things of enormous value in it, for the lord tenant carries his head so high he must surely have thousands at his command!"
The men who were with him approached the door of the hovel, in order to execute his brutal commands; but Molly rushed on in advance of them to bring out her little sister, who, utterly unconscious of all the horrors that surrounded her, was still wrapped in peaceful slumber. As Molly lifted the scarcely wakened child tenderly in her protecting arms, she lightly murmured, "O that I, too, were blind! for even to sit in perpetual darkness must be a lighter affliction than to be forced to look upon such things as are now occurring, without possessing the least power to prevent them."
"Do you wish to become blind?" asked Kitty, who, almost as in a dream, had heard the sad words of her sister. "O, if you only knew how frightful it is to be blind, you would never, never say such a dreadful thing! O, what a constant happiness it must be to be able to see!" added the poor little blind girl, vividly, while her dead eyes seemed almost to kindle into life as she continued to speak. "Molly, my Molly, if I could only see you, and my dear father, and the blue sky, and all the glittering stars, which you have so often told me were so wonderfully beautiful, then I would willingly endure both hunger and cold, and I would never complain again, Molly!"
"Alas, my poor little blind one! hunger and cold you must soon endure, without being able to see the shining stars above, the faces of those you love, or the blue heaven-tent!" sighed Molly, as the rapid tears coursed down her cheeks. "O, my heart will surely break if I am to see my poor little Kitty pine and waste away before my eyes! There is no deeper anguish in this wretched world than to be forced to gaze upon the slow agonies of those whom we love and cannot aid. That is the real torture; that is far worse than death!"
In a few moments the men had succeeded in dragging out all the scanty furniture of the unhappy family. Wilkins measured it rapidly with his keen eyes, then turned them away with an expression of the utmost scorn. He muttered angrily between his teeth: "The whole property is good for nothing, except to split up and heat the stove. It would never be worth while to offer such wretched trash for sale, for the whole sum that could be raised upon it would not be enough to buy the most wretched goose that ever starved upon the bogs of Ireland."
Then suddenly and angrily turning to O'Neil, who stood, as if turned to stone, before the door of his hut, he said: "Now, O'Neil, what are you standing there for? You had better use the time before the arrival of the landlord, whom I already see in the distance. If you stay here until he comes, he will probably let you taste the delights of his hunting-whip, for he is very generous in the lavish use he is in the habit of making of it."
O'Neil shuddered as if stung by a rattlesnake; his hands were clenched as if in a convulsion; his eyes started almost out of his head, as if about to fall from their pained sockets.