The appeal, however, was ineffectual; worthy Phelim was convicted, and
sentenced to transportation for life. When his old acquaintances heard
the nature of his destiny, they remembered the two prophecies that
had been so often uttered concerning him. One of them was certainly
fulfilled to the letter--we mean that in which it was stated, "that the
greatest swaggerer among the girls generally comes to the wall at last."
The other, though not literally accomplished, was touched at least upon
the spirit; transportation for life ranks next to hanging. We,cannot
avoid mentioning a fact connected with Phelim which came to light while
he remained in prison. By incessant trouble he was prevailed upon, or
rather compelled, to attend the prison school, and on examining him,
touching his religion? knowledge, it appeared that he was ignorant of
the plainest truths of Christianity; that he knew not how or by whom the
Christian religion had been promulgated; nor, indeed, any other moral
truth connected with Revelation.
Immediately after his transportation, Larry took to drink, and his
mother to begging, for she had no other means of living. In this mode
of life, the husband was soon compelled to join her. They are both
mendicants, and Sheelah now appears sensible of the error in their
manner of bringing Phelim up.
"Ah! Larry," she is sometimes heard to say, "I doubt that we wor wrong
for flyin' in the face o' God, becase He didn't give us childhre.
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