CHAPTER VI .-- Unexpected Generosity--A False Alarm.
At this period, notwithstanding the circumstances which we have just related--and they were severe enough--the distress of the Protestant clergy of Ireland was just only beginning to set in.

It had not, as yet, however, assumed anything like that formidable shape in which it subsequently appeared.

To any scourge so dreadful, no class in the educated and higher ranks of society had been, within the records of historical recollection, ever before subjected.

Still, like a malignant malady, even its first symptoms were severe, and indicative of the sufferings by which, with such dreadful certainty, they were followed.
On that day, and at the very moment when the mysterious attempt at assassination,which we have recorded, was made, Dr.Turbot's worthy curate, on returning home from the neighboring village of Lisnagola, was, notwithstanding great reluctance on his part, forced into the following conversation with his lovely but dejected wife: "Charles," said she, fixing her large, tearful eyes upon him, with a look in which love, anxiety, and sorrow were all blended, "I fear you have not been successful in the village.

Has Moloney refused us ?" "Only conditionally, my dear Maria--that is, until our account is paid up--but for the present, and perhaps for a little longer, we must deny ourselves these 'little luxuries,'" and he accompanied the words with a melancholy smile.