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Carleton, William, 1794-1869

"Phelim Otoole's Courtship and Other Stories Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of William Carleton, Volume Three"


He now slowly departed, and knew not whether the house-steward had given
him money or not until he felt it in his hand. A cold, sorrowful weight
lay upon his heart; the din of the town deadened his affliction into
a stupor; but an overwhelming sense of his disappointment, and a
conviction of the Agent's diabolical falsehood, entered like barbed
arrows into his heart.
On leaving the steps, he looked up to heaven in the distraction of
his agonizing thoughts; the clouds were black and lowering--the wind
stormy--and, as it carried them on its dark wing along the sky, he
wished, if it were the will of God, that his head lay in the quiet
grave-yard where the ashes of his forefathers reposed in peace. But he
again remembered his Kathleen and their children; and the large tears of
anguish, deep and bitter, rolled slowly down his cheeks.
We will not trace him into an hospital, whither the wound on his head
occasioned him to be sent, but simply state, that, on the second week
after this, a man, with his head bound in a handkerchief, lame, bent,
and evidently laboring under a severe illness or great affliction,
might be seen toiling slowly up the little hill that commanded a view of
Tubber Derg. On reaching the top he sat down to rest for a few minutes,
but his eye was eagerly turned to the house which contained all that was
dear to him on this earth.


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