This, which was meant for consolation, utterly failed, or rather aggravated the sufferings of the affrighted girl they bore, who once more struggled with a power that resembled the intense muscular strength of epilepsy, more than anything else. It literally required four of them to hold her down, so dreadfully spasmodic were her efforts to be free. The delay caused by those occasional workings of terror, at a moment when Flanagan expected every sound to be the noise of pursuit, wrought up his own bad passions to a furious height. His own companions could actually hear him grinding his teeth with vexation and venom, whenever anything on her part occurred to retard their flight. All this, however, he kept to himself, owing to the singular command he possessed over his passions. Nay, he undertook, once more, the task of reconciling her to the agreeable prospect, as he termed it, that life presented her. “We'll be as happy as the day's long,” said he, “espichilly when heaven sends us a family; an' upon my troth a purty mother you'll make? suppose, darlin' love, you wondher how I got in to-night, but I tell you I've my wits about me; you don't know that it was I encouraged Biddy Nulty to go to live wid you, but I know what I was about then; Biddy it was that left the door open for me, an' that tould me the room you lay in, an' the place you keep your hard goold an' notes; I mintion these things to show you how I have you hemmed in, and that your wisest way is to submit without makin' a rout about it. You know that if you wor taken from me this minit, there 'ud be a stain upon your name that 'ud never lave it, an' it wouldn't be my business, you know, to clear up your character, but the conthrary. As for Biddy, the poor fool, I did all in my power to prevint her bein' fond o' me, but ever since we two lived with the ould miser, somehow she couldn't.” For some time before he had proceeded thus far, there was felt, by those who carried their fair charge, a slight working of her whole body, especially of the arms, and in a moment Flanagan, who walked a little in advance of her, with his head bent down, that he might not be put to the necessity of speaking loud, suddenly received, right upon his nose, such an incredible facer as made the blood spin a yard out of it.