From my infancy I had been familiar with scenes of this kind; and my habit of stealing away unobserved from home to witness a country wake had endeared me much to the country-people, who felt this no small kindness from “the master's son.” Somehow the ready welcome and attention I always met with had worked on my young heart, and I learned to feel all the interest of these scenes fully as much as those about me. It was, then, with a sense of desolation that I looked upon the one solitary mourner who now sat at the hearth,--that poor old idiot man who gazed on vacancy, or muttered with parched lip some few words to himself. That he alone should be found to join his sorrows to ours, seemed to me like utter destitution, and as I leaned against the chimney I burst into tears. “Don't cry, alannah! don't cry,” said the old man; “it 's the worst way at all. Get up again and ride him at it bould. Oh vo! look at where the thief is taking now,--along the stonewall there!” Here he broke out into a low, wailing ditty:-- “And the fox set him down and looked about-- And many were feared to follow; 'Maybe I 'm wrong,' says he, 'but I doubt That you 'll be as gay to-morrow. For loud as you cry, and high as you ride, And little you feel my sorrow, I'll be free on the mountain-side, While you 'll lie low to-morrow. Oh, Moddideroo, aroo, aroo!'” “Ay, just so; they 'll run to earth in the cold churchyard. Whisht!--hark there! Soho, soho! That's Badger I hear.” I turned away with a bursting heart, and felt my way up the broad oak stair, which was left in complete darkness. As I reached the corridor, off which the bedrooms lay, I heard voices talking together in a low tone; they came from my father's room, the door of which lay ajar. I approached noiselessly and peeped in: by the fire, which was the only light now in the apartment, sat two persons at a set table, one of whom I at once recognized as the tall, solemn-looking figure of Doctor Finnerty; the other I detected, by the sharp tones of his voice, to be Mr. Anthony Basset, my father's confidential attorney. On the table before them lay a mass of papers, parchments, leases, deeds, together with glasses and a black bottle, whose accompaniments of hot water and sugar left no doubt as to its contents. The chimney-piece was crowded with a range of vials and medicine bottles, some of them empty, some of them half finished. [Illustration: Law and Physic in the Chamber of Death 008]