Nothing remained, therefore, now that Dalton was in custody, but to hold an inquest upon the remains, and to take the usual steps for the trial of Dalton at the following assizes, which were not very far distant.
Indeed, notwithstanding the desolation that prevailed throughout the country, and in spite of the care and sorrow which disease and death brought home to so many in the neighborhood, there was a very general feeling of compassion experienced for poor old Dalton and his afflicted family.

And among those who sympathized with them, there was scarcely one who expressed himself more strongly upon the subject than Mr.
Travers, the head agent of the property on which they had lived, especially upon contrasting the extensive farm and respectable residence, from which their middleman landlord had so harshly and unjustly ejected them, with the squalid kennel in which they then endured such a painful and pitiable existence.

This gentleman had come to the neighborhood, in order to look closely into the condition of the property which had been entrusted to his management, in consequence of a great number of leases having expired; some of which had been held by extensive and wealthy middlemen, among the latter of whom was our friend, Dick o' the Grange.
The estate was the property of an English, nobleman, who derived an income of thirty-two or thirty-three thousand a year from it; and who though, as landlords went, was not, in many respects, a bad one; yet when called upon to aid in relieving the misery of those from whose toil he drew so large an income, did actually remit back the munificent sum of one hundred pounds! [A recent fact.] The agent, himself, was one of those men who are capable of a just, but not of a generous action.

He could, for instance, sympathize with the frightful condition of the people--but to contribute to their relief was no part of his duty.

Yet he was not a bad man.