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! he knew not at the time how deeply the unfortunate family in question were steeped in distress and poverty. They accepted this miserable cabin; but in spite of every effort to improve their condition, days, weeks, and months passed, and still found them unable to make a change for the better.
When Darby and Sarah entered, they found young Con, who had now relapsed, lying in one corner of the cabin, on a wretched shake-down bed of damp straw; while on another of the same description lay his amiable and affectionate sister Nancy. The cabin stood, as we have said, in a low, moist situation, the floor of it being actually lower—which is a common case—than the ground about it outside. It served, therefore, as a receptacle for the damp and under-water which the incessant down-pouring of rain during the whole season had occasioned. It was therefore, dangerous to tread upon the floor, it was so soft and slippery. The rain, which fell heavily, now came down through the roof in so many places that they were forced to put under it such vessels as they could spare, not even excepting the beds over each of which were placed old clothes, doubled up under dishes, pots, and little bowls, in order, if possible, to keep them dry. The house—if such it could be called—was almost destitute of furniture, nothing but a few pots, dishes, wooden noggins, some spoons, and some stools being their principal furniture, with the exception of one standing short-posted bed, in a corner, near the fire. There, then, in that low, damp, dark, pestilential kraal, without chimney or window, sat the old man, who, notwithstanding its squalid misery, could have looked upon it as a palace, had he been able to say to his own heart—I am not a murderer.
There, we say, he sat alone, surrounded by pestilence and famine in their most fearful shapes, listening to the moanings of his sick family, and the ceaseless dropping of the rain, which fell into the vessels that were placed to receive it. Mrs. Dalton was “out,” a term which was used in the bitter misery of the period, to indicate that the person to whom it applied had been driven to the last resource of mendicancy; and his other daughter, Mary, had gone to a neighbor's house to beg a little fire.
As the old man uttered the words, no language could describe the misery which was depicted on his countenance.
“Take me,” he exclaimed; “ah, no; for then what will become of these?” pointing to his son and daughter, who were sick.
The very minions of the law felt for him; and the chief of them said, in a voice of kindness and compassion:
“It's a distressin' case; but if you'll be guided by me, you won't say anything that may be brought against yourself. I was never engaged,” said he, looking towards Darby and Sarah, to whom he partly addressed his discourse, “in anything so painful as this. A man of his age, now afther so many years! However—well—it can't be helped; we must do our duty.”