“There's not much madness in that, Jack,” returned one of them; “I think it would be the best thing we could do. Are you ready to come now, Dalton?” asked the man.
“Who's that,” said the old man, in a voice of indescribable woe and sorrow; “who's that was talkin' of a broken heart? Oh, God,” he exclaimed, looking up to Heaven, with a look of intense agony, “support me—support them; and if it be your blessed will, pity us all; but above all things, pity them, oh, Heavenly Father, and don't punish them for my sin!”
“It's false,” exclaimed Sarah, looking on Dalton, and reasoning apparently with herself; “he never committed a could blooded murdher; an' the Sullivans are—are—oh—take him away,” she said, still in a low, rapid voice; “take him away! Come now,” she added, approaching Dalton again; “come—while they're asleep, an' you'll save them an' yourself much distress. I'm not afeard of your wife—for she can bear it if any wife could—but I do your poor daughter, an' she so weak an' feeble afther her illness; come.”
Dalton looked at her, and said:
“Who is this girl that seems to feel so much for me? but whoever she is, may God bless her, for I feel that she's right. Take me away before they waken! oh, she is right in every word she says, for I am not afeard of my wife—her trust in God is too firm for anything to shake. I'm ready; but I fear I'll scarcely be able to walk all the way—an' sich an evenin' too—Young woman, will you break this business to these ones, and to my wife, as you can?”
“Oh, I will, I will,” she replied; “as well as I can; you did well to say so,” she added, in a low voice to herself; “an' I'll stay here with your sick family, an' I'll watch an' attend them. Whatever can be done by the like o' me for them, I'll do. I'll—I'll not lave them—I'll nurse them—I'll take care of them—I'll beg for them—oh, what would I not do for them?” and while speaking she bent over young Con's bed, and clasping her hands, and wringing them several times, she repeated “oh what wouldn't I do for you!”
“May God bless you, best of girls, whoever you are! Come, now, I'm ready.”
“Ay,” said Sarah, running over to him, “that's right—I'll break the bitter news to them as well as it can be done; come, now.”
The old man stood, in the midst of his desolation, with his hat in his hand, and he looked towards the beds.
“Poor things!” he exclaimed; “what a change has come over you, for what you wanst, an' that not long since, wor. Never, my darlin' childhre—oh, never did one harsh or undutiful word come from your lips to your unhappy father. In my ould age and misery I'm now lavin' you—may be forever—never, maybe, to see you again in this world; an' oh, my God, if we are never to meet in the other; if the innocent and the guilty is never to meet, then this is my last look at you, for everlastin', for everlastin'! I can't do it,” he added, weeping bitterly—“I must take my lave of them; I must kiss their lips.”