During the first two months of the year 1844, the greatest possible excitement existed in Dublin respecting the State Trials, in which Mr O’Connell, his son, the Editors of three different repeal newspapers, Tom Steele, the Rev. Mr Tierney a priest who had taken a somewhat prominent part in the Repeal Movement and Mr Ray, the Secretary to the Repeal Association, were indicted for conspiracy. Those who only read of the proceedings in papers, which gave them as a mere portion of the news of the day, or learned what was going on in Dublin by chance conversation, can have no idea of the absorbing interest which the whole affair created in Ireland, but more especially in the metropolis. Every one felt strongly, on one side or on the other. Every one had brought the matter home to his own bosom, and looked to the result of the trial with individual interest and suspense.
Even at this short interval Irishmen can now see how completely they put judgment aside, and allowed feeling and passion to predominate in the matter. Many of the hottest protestants, of the staunchest foes to O’Connell, now believe that his absolute imprisonment was not to be desired, and that whether he were acquitted or convicted, the Government would have sufficiently shown, by instituting his trial, its determination to put down proceedings of which they did not approve. On the other hand, that class of men who then styled themselves Repealers are now aware that the continued imprisonment of their leader the persecution, as they believed it to be, of “the Liberator” would have been the one thing most certain to have sustained his influence, and to have given fresh force to their agitation. Nothing ever so strengthened the love of the Irish for, and the obedience of the Irish to O’Connell, as his imprisonment; nothing ever so weakened his power over them as his unexpected enfranchisement. The country shouted for joy when he was set free, and expended all its enthusiasm in the effort.
At the time, however, to which I am now referring, each party felt the most intense interest in the struggle, and the most eager desire for success. Every Repealer, and every Anti-Repealer in Dublin felt that it was a contest, in which he himself was, to a certain extent, individually engaged. All the tactics of the opposed armies, down to the minutest legal details, were eagerly and passionately canvassed in every circle. Ladies, who had before probably never heard of “panels” in forensic phraseology, now spoke enthusiastically on the subject; and those on one side expressed themselves indignant at the fraudulent omission of certain names from the lists of jurors; while those on the other were capable of proving the legality of choosing the jury from the names which were given, and stated most positively that the omissions were accidental.
“The traversers” were in everybody’s mouth a term heretofore confined to law courts, and lawyers’ rooms. The Attorney-General, the Commander-inChief of the Government forces, was most virulently assailed; every legal step which he took was scrutinised and abused; every measure which he used was base enough of itself to hand down his name to everlasting infamy. Such were the tenets of the Repealers. And O’Connell and his counsel, their base artifices, falsehoods, delays, and unprofessional proceedings, were declared by the Saxon party to be equally abominable.
The whole Irish bar seemed, for the time, to have laid aside the habitual sang froid and indifference of lawyers, and to have employed their hearts as well as their heads on behalf of the different parties by whom they were engaged. The very jurors themselves for a time became famous or infamous, according to the opinions of those by whom their position was discussed. Their names and additions were published and republished; they were declared to be men who would stand by their country and do their duty without fear or favour so said the Protestants. By the Roman Catholics, they were looked on as perjurors determined to stick to the Government with blind indifference to their oaths. Their names are now, for the most part, forgotten, though so little time has elapsed since they appeared so frequently before the public.
Every day’s proceedings gave rise to new hopes and fears. The evidence rested chiefly on the reports of certain short-hand writers, who had been employed to attend Repeal meetings, and their examinations and cross-examinations were read, re-read, and scanned with the minutest care. Then, the various and long speeches of the different counsel, who, day after day, continued to address the jury; the heat of one, the weary legal technicalities of another, the perspicuity of a third, and the splendid forensic eloquence of a fourth, were criticised, depreciated and admired. It seemed as though the chief lawyers of the day were standing an examination, and were candidates for some high honour, which each was striving to secure.
The Dublin papers were full of the trial; no other subject, could, at the time, either interest or amuse. I doubt whether any affair of the kind was ever, to use the phrase of the trade, so well and perfectly reported. The speeches appeared word for word the same in the columns of newspapers of different politics. For four-fifths of the contents of the paper it would have been the same to you whether you were reading the Evening Mail, or the Freeman. Every word that was uttered in the Court was of importance to every one in Dublin; and half-an-hour’s delay in ascertaining, to the minutest shade, what had taken place in Court during any period, was accounted a sad misfortune.
The press round the Four Courts, every morning before the doors were open, was very great: and except by the favoured few who were able to obtain seats, it was only with extreme difficulty and perseverance, that an entrance into the body of the Court could be obtained.
It was on the eleventh morning of the proceedings, on the day on which the defence of the traversers was to be commenced, that two young men, who had been standing for a couple of hours in front of the doors of the Court, were still waiting there, with what patience was left to them, after having been pressed and jostled for so long a time. Richard Lalor Sheil, however, was to address the jury on behalf of Mr John O’Connell and every one in Dublin knew that that was a treat not to be lost. The two young men, too, were violent Repealers. The elder of them was a three-year-old denizen of Dublin, who knew the names of the contributors to the “Nation”, who had constantly listened to the indignation and enthusiasm of O’Connell, Smith O’Brien, and O’Neill Daunt, in their addresses from the rostrum of the Conciliation Hall; who had drank much porter at Jude’s, who had eaten many oysters at Burton Bindon’s, who had seen and contributed to many rows in the Abbey Street Theatre; who, during his life in Dublin, had done many things which he ought not to have done, and had probably made as many omissions of things which it had behoved him to do. He had that knowledge of the persons of his fellow-citizens, which appears to be so much more general in Dublin than in any other large town; he could tell you the name and trade of every one he met in the streets, and was a judge of the character and talents of all whose employments partook, in any degree, of a public nature. His name was Kelly; and, as his calling was that of an attorney’s clerk, his knowledge of character would be peculiarly valuable in the scene at which he and his companion were so anxious to be present.
The younger of the two brothers, for such they were, was a somewhat different character. Though perhaps a more enthusiastic Repealer than his brother, he was not so well versed in the details of Repeal tactics, or in the strength and weakness of the Repeal ranks. He was a young farmer, of the better class, from the County Mayo, where he held three or four hundred wretchedly bad acres under Lord Ballindine, and one or two other small farms, under different landlords. He was a good-looking young fellow, about twenty-five years of age, with that mixture of cunning and frankness in his bright eye, which is so common among those of his class in Ireland, but more especially so in Connaught.
The mother of these two young men kept an inn in the small town of Dunmore, and though from the appearance of the place, one would be led to suppose that there could not be in Dunmore much of that kind of traffic which innkeepers love, Mrs Kelly was accounted a warm, comfortable woman. Her husband had left her for a better world some ten years since, with six children; and the widow, instead of making continual use, as her chief support, of that common wail of being a poor, lone woman, had put her shoulders to the wheel, and had earned comfortably, by sheer industry, that which so many of her class, when similarly situated, are willing to owe to compassion.
She held on the farm, which her husband rented from Lord Ballindine, till her eldest son was able to take it. He, however, was now a gauger in the north of Ireland. Her second son was the attorney’s clerk; and the farm had descended to Martin, the younger, whom we have left jostling and jostled at one of the great doors of the Four Courts, and whom we must still leave there for a short time, while a few more of the circumstances of his family are narrated.
Mrs Kelly had, after her husband’s death, added a small grocer’s establishment to her inn. People wondered where she had found the means of supplying her shop: some said that old Mick Kelly must have had money when he died, though it was odd how a man who drank so much could ever have kept a shilling by him. Others remarked how easy it was to get credit in these days, and expressed a hope that the wholesale dealer in Pill Lane might be none the worse. However this might be, the widow Kelly kept her station firmly and constantly behind her counter, wore her weeds and her warm, black, stuff dress decently and becomingly, and never asked anything of anybody.
At the time of which we are writing, her two elder sons had left her, and gone forth to make their own way, and take the burden of the world on their own shoulders. Martin still lived with his mother, though his farm lay four miles distant, on the road to Ballindine, and in another county for Dunmore is in County Galway, and the lands of Toneroe, as Martin’s farm was called, were in the County Mayo. One of her three daughters had lately been married to a shop-keeper in Tuam, and rumour said that he had got ?500 with her; and Pat Daly was not the man to have taken a wife for nothing. The other two girls, Meg and Jane, still remained under their mother’s wing, and though it was to be presumed that they would soon fly abroad, with the same comfortable plumage which had enabled their sister to find so warm a nest, they were obliged, while sharing their mother’s home, to share also her labours, and were not allowed to be too proud to cut off pennyworths of tobacco, and mix dandies of punch for such of their customers as still preferred the indulgence of their throats to the blessing of Father Mathew.
Mrs. Kelly kept two ordinary indoor servants to assist in the work of the house; one, an antiquated female named Sally, who was more devoted to her tea-pot than ever was any bacchanalian to his glass. Were there four different teas in the inn in one evening, she would have drained the pot after each, though she burst in the effort. Sally was, in all, an honest woman, and certainly a religious one she never neglected her devotional duties, confessed with most scrupulous accuracy the various peccadillos of which she might consider herself guilty; and it was thought, with reason, by those who knew her best, that all the extra prayers she said and. they were very many were in atonement for commissions of continual petty larceny with regard to sugar. On this subject did her old mistress quarrel with her, her young mistress ridicule her; of this sin did her fellow-servant accuse her; and, doubtless, for this sin did her Priest continually reprove her; but in vain. Though she would not own it, there was always sugar in her pocket, and though she declared that she usually drank her tea unsweetened, those who had come upon her unawares had seen her extracting the pinches of moist brown saccharine from the huge slit in her petticoat, and could not believe her.
Kate, the other servant, was a red-legged lass, who washed the potatoes, fed the pigs, and ate her food nobody knew when or where. Kates, particularly Irish Kates, are pretty by prescription; but Mrs. Kelly’s Kate had been excepted, and was certainly a most positive exception. Poor Kate was very ugly. Her hair had that appearance of having been dressed by the turkey-cock, which is sometimes presented by the heads of young women in her situation; her mouth extended nearly from ear to ear; her neck and throat, which were always nearly bare, presented no feminine charms to view; and her short coarse petticoat showed her red legs nearly to the knee; for, except on Sundays, she knew not the use of shoes and stockings. But though Kate was ungainly and ugly, she was useful, and grateful very fond of the whole family, and particularly attached to the two young ladies, in whose behalf she doubtless performed many a service, acceptable enough to them, but of which, had she known of them, the widow would have been but little likely to approve.
Such was Mrs. Kelly’s household at the time that her son Martin left Connaught to pay a short visit to the metropolis, during the period of O’Connell’s trial. But, although Martin was a staunch Repealer, and had gone as far as Galway, and Athlone, to be present at the Monster Repeal Meetings which had been held there, it was not political anxiety alone which led him to Dublin. His landlord; the young Lord Ballindine, was there; and, though Martin could not exactly be said to act as his lordship’s agent for Lord Ballindine had, unfortunately, a legal agent, with whose services his pecuniary embarrassments did not allow him to dispense he was a kind of confidential tenant, and his attendance had been requested. Martin, moreover, had a somewhat important piece of business of his own in hand, which he expected would tend greatly to his own advantage; and, although he had fully made up his mind to carry it out if possible, he wanted, in conducting it, a little of his brother’s legal advice, and, above all, his landlord’s sanction.
This business was nothing less than an intended elopement with an heiress belonging to a rank somewhat higher than that in which Martin Kelly might be supposed to look, with propriety, for his bride; but Martin was a handsome fellow, not much burdened with natural modesty, and he had, as he supposed, managed to engage the affections of Anastasia Lynch, a lady resident near Dunmore.
All particulars respecting Martin’s intended the amount of her fortune her birth and parentage her age and attractions shall, in due time, be made known; or rather, perhaps, be suffered to make themselves known. In the mean time we will return to the two brothers, who are still anxiously waiting to effect an entrance into the august presence of the Law.
Martin had already told his brother of his matrimonial speculations, and had received certain hints from that learned youth as to the proper means of getting correct information as to the amount of the lady’s wealth her power to dispose of it by her own deed and certain other particulars always interesting to gentlemen who seek money and love at the same time. John did not quite approve of the plan; there might have been a shade of envy at his brother’s good fortune; there might be some doubt as to his brother’s power of carrying the affair through successfully; but, though he had not encouraged him, he gave him the information he wanted, and was as willing to talk over the matter as Martin could desire.
As they were standing in the crowd, their conversation ran partly on Repeal and O’Connell, and partly on matrimony and Anty Lynch, as the lady was usually called by those who knew her best.
‘Tear and ‘ouns Misther Lord Chief Justice!’ exclaimed Martin, ‘and are ye niver going to opin them big doors?’
‘And what’d be the good of his opening them yet,’ answered John, ‘when a bigger man than himself an’t there? Dan and the other boys isn’t in it yet, and sure all the twelve judges couldn’t get on a peg without them.’
‘Well, Dan, my darling!’ said the other, ‘you’re thought more of here this day than the lot of ’em, though the place in a manner belongs to them, and you’re only a prisoner.’
‘Faix and that’s what he’s not, Martin; no more than yourself, nor so likely, may-be. He’s the traverser, as I told you before, and that’s not being a prisoner. If he were a prisoner, how did he manage to tell us all what he did at the Hall yesterday?’
‘Av’ he’s not a prisoner, he’s the next-door to it; it’s not of his own free will and pleasure he’d come here to listen to all the lies them thundhering Saxon ruffians choose to say about him.’
‘And why not? Why wouldn’t he come here and vindicate himself? When you hear Sheil by and by, you’ll see then whether they think themselves likely to be prisoners! No no; they never will be, av’ there’s a ghost of a conscience left in one of them Protesthant raps, that they’ve picked so carefully out of all Dublin to make jurors of. They can’t convict ’em! I heard Ford, the night before last, offer four to one that they didn’t find the lot guilty; and he knows what he’s about, and isn’t the man to thrust a Protestant half as far as he’d see him.’
‘Isn’t Tom Steele a Protesthant himself, John?’
‘Well, I believe he is. So’s Gray, and more of ’em too; but there’s a difference between them and the downright murdhering Tory set. Poor Tom doesn’t throuble the Church much; but you’ll be all for Protesthants now, Martin, when you’ve your new brother-inlaw. Barry used to be one of your raal out-and-outers!’
‘It’s little, I’m thinking, I and Barry’ll be having to do together, unless it be about the brads; and the law about them now, thank God, makes no differ for Roman and Protesthant. Anty’s as good a Catholic as ever breathed, and so was her mother before her; and when she’s Mrs Kelly, as I mane to make her, Master Barry may shell out the cash and go to heaven his own way for me.’
‘It ain’t the family then, you’re fond of, Martin! And I wondher at that, considering how old Sim loved us all.’
‘Niver mind Sim, John! he’s dead and gone; and av’ he niver did a good deed before, he did one when he didn’t lave all his cash to that precious son of his, Barry Lynch.’
‘You’re prepared for squalls with Barry, I suppose?’
‘He’ll have all the squalling on his own side, I’m thinking, John. I don’t mane to squall, for one. I don’t see why I need, with ?400 a-year in my pocket, and a good wife to the fore.’
‘The ?400 a-year’s good enough, av’ you touch it, certainly,’ said the man of law, thinking of his own insufficient guinea a-week, ‘and you must look to have some throuble yet afore you do that. But as to the wife why, the less said the better eh, Martin?
‘Av’ it’s not asking too much, might I throuble you, sir, to set anywhere else but on my shouldher?’ This was addressed to a very fat citizen, who was wheezing behind Martin, and who, to escape suffocation in the crowd, was endeavouring to raise himself on his neighbour’s shoulders. ‘And why the less said the better? I wish yourself may never have a worse.’
‘I wish I mayn’t, Martin, as far as the cash goes; and a man like me might look a long time in Dublin before he got a quarter of the money. But you must own Anty’s no great beauty, and she’s not over young, either.’
‘Av’ she’s no beauty, she’s not downright ugly, like many a girl that gets a good husband; and av’ she’s not over young, she’s not over old. She’s not so much older than myself, after all. It’s only because her own people have always made nothing of her; that’s what has made everybody else do the same.’
‘Why, Martin, I know she’s ten years older than Barry, and Barry’s older than you!’
‘One year; and Anty’s not full ten years older than him. Besides, what’s ten years between man and wife?’
‘Not much, when it’s on time right side. But it’s the wrong side with you, Martin!’
‘Well, John, now, by virtue of your oath, as you chaps say, wouldn’t you many a woman twice her age, av’ she’d half the money? Begad you would, and leap at it!’
‘Perhaps I would. I’d a deal sooner have a woman eighty than forty. There’d be some chance then of having the money after the throuble was over! Anty’s neither ould enough nor young enough’
‘She’s not forty, any way; and won’t be yet for five years and more; and, as I hope for glory, John though I know you won’t believe me I wouldn’t marry her av’ she’d all Sim Lynch’s ill-gotten property, instead of only half, av’ I wasn’t really fond of her, and av’ I didn’t think I’d make her a good husband.’
‘You didn’t tell mother what you’re afther, did you?’
‘Sorrow a word! But she’s so ‘cute she partly guesses; and I think Meg let slip something. The girls and Anty are thick as thiefs since old Sim died; though they couldn’t be at the house much since Barry came home, and Anty daren’t for her life come down to the shop.’
‘Did mother say anything about the schame?’
‘Faix, not much; but what she did say, didn’t show she’d much mind for it. Since Sim Lynch tried to get Toneroe from her, when father died, she’d never a good word for any of them. Not but what she’s always a civil look for Anty, when she sees her.’
‘There’s not much fear she’ll look black on the wife, when you bring the money home with her. But where’ll you live, Martin? The little shop at Dunmore’ll be no place for Mrs Kelly, when there’s a lady of the name with ?400 a-year of her own.’
‘‘Deed then, John, and that’s what I don’t know. Maybe I’ll build up the ould house at Toneroe; some of the O’Kellys themselves lived there, years ago.’
‘I believe they did; but it was years ago, and very many years ago, too, since they lived there. Why you’d have to pull it all down, before you began to build it up!’
‘Maybe I’d build a new house, out and out. Av’ I got three new lifes in the laise, I’d do that; and the lord wouldn’t be refusing me, av’ I asked him.’
‘Bother the lord, Martin; why you’d be asking anything of any lord, and you with ?400 a-year of your own? Give up Toneroe, and go and live at Dunmore House at once.’
‘What! along with Barry when I and Anty’s married? The biggest house in county Galway wouldn’t hould the three of us.’
‘You don’t think Barry Lynch’ll stay at Dunmore afther you’ve married his sisther?’
‘And why not?’
‘Why not! Don’t you know Barry thinks himself one of the raal gentry now? Any ways, he wishes others to think so. Why, he’d even himself to Lord Ballindine av’ he could! Didn’t old Sim send him to the same English school with the lord on purpose? tho’ little he got by it, by all accounts! And d’you think he’ll remain in Dunmore, to be brother-inlaw to the son of the woman that keeps the little grocer’s shop in the village? Not he! He’ll soon be out of Dunmore when he hears what his sister’s afther doing, and you’ll have Dunmore House to yourselves then, av’ you like it.’
‘I’d sooner live at Toneroe, and that’s the truth; and I’d not give up the farm av’ she’d double the money! But, John, faith, here’s the judges at last. Hark, to the boys screeching!’
‘They’d not screech that way for the judges, my boy. It’s the traversers that’s Dan and the rest of ’em. They’re coming into court. Thank God, they’ll soon be at work now!’
‘And will they come through this way? Faith, av’ they do, they’ll have as hard work to get in, as they’ll have to get out by and by.’
‘They’ll not come this way there’s another way in for them: tho’ they are traversers now, they didn’t dare but let them go in at the same door as the judges themselves.’
‘Hurrah, Dan! More power to you! Three cheers for the traversers, and Repale for ever! Success to every mother’s son of you, my darlings! You’ll be free yet, in spite of John Jason Rigby and the rest of ’em! The prison isn’t yet built that’d hould ye, nor won’t be! Long life to you, Sheil sure you’re a Right Honourable Repaler now, in spite of Greenwich Hospital and the Board of Trade! More power, Gavan Duffy; you’re the boy that’ll settle ’em at last! Three cheers more for the Lord Mayor, God bless him! Well, yer reverence, Mr Tierney never mind, they could come to no good when they’d be parsecuting the likes of you! Bravo, Tom Hurrah for Tom Steele!’
Such, and such like, were the exclamations which greeted the traversers, and their cort?ge, as they drew up to the front or the Four Courts. Dan O’Connell was in the Lord Mayor’s state carriage, accompanied by that high official; and came up to stand his trial for conspiracy and sedition, in just such a manner as he might be presumed to proceed to take the chair at some popular municipal assembly; and this was just the thing qualified to please those who were on his own side, and mortify the feelings of the party so bitterly opposed to him. There was a bravado in it, and an apparent contempt, not of the law so much as of the existing authorities of the law, which was well qualified to have this double effect.
And now the outer doors of the Court were opened, and the crowd at least as many as were able to effect an entrance rushed in. Martin and John Kelly were among those nearest to the door, and, in reward of their long patience, got sufficiently into the body of the Court to be in a position to see, when standing on tiptoe, the noses of three of the four judges, and the wigs of four of the numerous counsel employed. The Court was so filled by those who had a place there by right, or influence enough to assume that they had so, that it was impossible to obtain a more favourable situation. But this of itself was a great deal quite sufficient to justify Martin in detailing to his Connaught friends every particular of the whole trial. They would probably be able to hear everything; they could positively see three of the judges, and if those two big policemen, with high hats, could by any possibility be got to remove themselves, it was very probable that they would be able to see Sheil’s back, when he stood up.
John soon began to show off his forensic knowledge. He gave a near guess at the names of the four counsel whose heads were visible, merely from the different shades and shapes of their wigs. Then he particularised the inferior angels of that busy Elysium.
‘That’s Ford that’s Gartlan that’s Peirce Mahony,’ he exclaimed, as the different attorneys for the traversers, furiously busy with their huge bags, fidgetted about rapidly, or stood up in their seats, telegraphing others in different parts of the Court.
‘There’s old Kemmis,’ as they caught a glimpse of the Crown agent; ‘he’s the boy that doctored the jury list. Fancy, a jury chosen out of all Dublin, and not one Catholic! As if that could be fair!’ And then he named the different judges. ‘Look at that big-headed, pig-faced fellow on the right that’s Pennefather! He’s the blackest sheep of the lot and the head of them! He’s a thoroughbred Tory, and as fit to be a judge as I am to be a general. That queer little fellow, with the long chin, he’s Burton he’s a hundred if he’s a day he was fifty when he was called, seventy when they benched him, and I’m sure he’s a judge thirty years! But he’s the sharpest chap of the whole twelve, and no end of a boy afther the girls. If you only saw him walking in his robes I’m sure he’s not three feet high! That next, with the skinny neck, he’s Crampton he’s one of Father Mathews lads, an out and out teetotaller, and he looks it; he’s a desperate cross fellow, sometimes! The other one, you can’t see, he’s Perrin. There, he’s leaning over you can just catch the side of his face he’s Perrin. It’s he’ll acquit the traversers av’ anything does he’s a fair fellow, is Perrin, and not a red-hot thorough-going Tory like the rest of ’em.’
Here John was obliged to give over the instruction of his brother, being enjoined so to do by one of the heavy-hatted policemen in his front, who enforced his commands for silence, with a backward shove of his wooden truncheon, which came with rather unnecessary violence against the pit of John’s stomach.
The fear of being turned out made him for the nonce refrain from that vengeance of abuse which his education as a Dublin Jackeen well qualified him to inflict. But he put down the man’s face in his retentive memory, and made up his mind to pay him of.
And now the business of the day commenced. After some official delays and arrangements Sheil arose, and began his speech in defence of John O’Connell. It would be out of place here to give either his words or his arguments; besides, they have probably before this been read by all who would care to read them. When he commenced, his voice appeared, to those who were not accustomed to hear him, weak, piping, and most unfit for a popular orator; but this effect was soon lost in the elegance of his language and the energy of his manner; and, before he had been ten minutes on his legs, the disagreeable tone was forgotten, though it was sounding in the eager ears of every one in the Court.
His speech was certainly brilliant, effective, and eloquent; but it satisfied none that heard him, though it pleased all. It was neither a defence of the general conduct and politics of the party, such as O’Connell himself attempted in his own case, nor did it contain a chain of legal arguments to prove that John O’Connell, individually, had not been guilty of conspiracy, such as others of the counsel employed subsequently in favour of their own clients.
Sheil’s speech was one of those numerous anomalies with which this singular trial was crowded; and which, together, showed the great difficulty of coming to a legal decision on a political question, in a criminal court. Of this, the present day gave two specimens, which will not be forgotten; when a Privy Councillor, a member of a former government, whilst defending his client as a barrister, proposed in Court a new form of legislation for Ireland, equally distant from that adopted by Government, and that sought to be established by him whom he was defending; and when the traverser on his trial rejected the defence of his counsel, and declared aloud in Court, that he would not, by his silence, appear to agree in the suggestions then made.
This spirit of turning the Court into a political debating arena extended to all present. In spite of the vast efforts made by them all, only one of the barristers employed has added much to his legal reputation by the occasion. Imputations were made, such as I presume were never before uttered by one lawyer against another in a court of law. An Attorney-General sent a challenge from his very seat of office; and though that challenge was read in Court, it was passed over by four judges with hardly a reprimand. If any seditious speech was ever made by O’Connell, that which he made in his defence was especially so, and he was, without check, allowed to use his position as a traverser at the bar, as a rostrum from which to fulminate more thoroughly and publicly than ever, those doctrines for uttering which he was then being tried; and, to crown it all, even the silent dignity of the bench was forgotten, and the lawyers pleading against the Crown were unhappily alluded to by the Chief Justice as the ‘gentlemen on the other side.’
Martin and John patiently and enduringly remained standing the whole day, till four o’clock; and then the latter had to effect his escape, in order to keep an appointment which he had made to meet Lord Ballindine.
As they walked along the quays they both discussed the proceedings of the day, and both expressed themselves positively certain of the result of the trial, and of the complete triumph of O’Connell and his party. To these pleasant certainties Martin added his conviction, that Repeal must soon follow so decided a victory, and that the hopes of Ireland would be realised before. the close of 1844. John was neither so sanguine nor so enthusiastic; it was the battle, rather than the thing battled for, that was dear to him; the strife, rather than the result. He felt that it would be dull times in Dublin, when they should have no usurping Government to abuse, no Saxon Parliament to upbraid, no English laws to ridicule, and no Established Church to curse.
The only thing which could reconcile him to immediate Repeal, would be the probability of having then to contend for the election of an Irish Sovereign, and the possible dear delight which might follow, of Ireland going to war with England, in a national and becoming manner.
Discussing these important measures, they reached the Dublin brother’s lodgings, and Martin turned in to wash his face and hands, and put on clean boots, before he presented himself to his landlord and patron, the young Lord Ballindine.
Francis John Mountmorris O’Kelly, Lord Viscount Ballindine, was twenty-four years of age when he came into possession of the Ballindine property, and succeeded to an Irish peerage as the third viscount; and he is now twenty-six, at this time of O’Connell’s trial. The head of the family had for many years back been styled ‘The O’Kelly’, and had enjoyed much more local influence under that denomination than their descendants had possessed, since they had obtained a more substantial though not a more respected title. The O’Kellys had possessed large tracts of not very good land, chiefly in County Roscommon, but partly in Mayo and Galway. Their property had extended from Dunmore nearly to Roscommon, and again on the other side to Castlerea and Ballyhaunis. But this had been in their palmy days, long, long ago. When the government, in consideration of past services, in the year 1800, converted ‘the O’Kelly’ into Viscount Ballindine, the family property consisted of the greater portion of the land lying between the villages of Dunmore and Ballindine. Their old residence, which the peer still kept up, was called Kelly’s Court, and is situated in that corner of County Roscommnon which runs up between Mayo and Galway.
The first lord lived long enough to regret his change of title, and to lament the increased expenditure with which he had thought it necessary to accompany his more elevated rank. His son succeeded, and showed in his character much more of the new-fangled viscount than of the ancient O’Kelly. His whole long life was passed in hovering about the English Court. From the time of his father’s death, he never once put his foot in Ireland. He had been appointed, at different times from his youth upwards, Page, Gentleman in Waiting, Usher of the Black Rod, Deputy Groom of the Stole, Chief Equerry to the Princess Royal, (which appointment only lasted till the princess was five years old), Lord Gold Stick, Keeper of the Royal Robes; till, at last, he had culminated for ten halcyon years in a Lord of the Bedchamber. In the latter portion of his life he had grown too old for this, and it was reported at Ballindine, Dunmore, and Kelly’s Court with how much truth I don’t know that, since her Majesty’s accession, he had been joined with the spinster sister of a Scotch Marquis, and an antiquated English Countess, in the custody of the laces belonging to the Queen Dowager.
This nobleman, publicly useful as his life had no doubt been, had done little for his own tenants, or his own property. On his father’s death, he had succeeded to about three thousand a-year, and he left about one; and he would have spent or mortgaged this, had he not, on his marriage, put it beyond his own power to do so. It was not only by thriftless extravagance that he thus destroyed a property which, with care, and without extortion, would have doubled its value in the thirty-five years during which it was in his hands; but he had been afraid to come to Ireland, and had been duped by his agent. When he came to the title, Simeon Lynch had been recommended to him as a fit person to manage his property, and look after his interests; and Simeon had managed it well in that manner most conducive to the prosperity of the person he loved best in the world; and that was himself. When large tracts of land fell out of lease, Sim had represented that tenants could not be found that the land was not worth cultivating that the country was in a state which prevented the possibility of letting; and, ultimately put himself into possession, with a lease for ever, at a rent varying from half a crown to five shillings an acre.
The courtier lord had one son, of whom he made a soldier, but who never rose to a higher rank than that of Captain. About a dozen years before the date of my story, the Honourable Captain O’Kelly, after numerous quarrels with the Right Honourable Lord of the Bedchamber, had, at last, come to some family settlement with him; and, having obtained the power of managing the property himself, came over to live at his paternal residence of Kelly’s Court.
A very sorry kind of Court he found it neglected, dirty, and out of repair. One of the first retainers whom he met was Jack Kelly, the family fool. Jack was not such a fool as those who, of yore, were valued appendages to noble English establishments. He resembled them in nothing but his occasional wit. He was a dirty, barefooted, unshorn, ragged ruffian, who ate potatoes in the kitchen of the Court, and had never done a day’s work in his life. Such as he was, however, he was presented to Captain O’Kelly, as ‘his honour the masther’s fool.’
‘So, you’re my fool, Jack, are ye?’ said the Captain.
‘Faix, I war the lord’s fool ance; but I’ll no be anybody’s fool but Sim Lynch’s, now. I and the lord are both Sim’s fools now. Not but I’m the first of the two, for I’d never be fool enough to give away all my land, av’ my father’d been wise enough to lave me any.’
Captain O’Kelly soon found out the manner in which the agent had managed his father’s affairs. Simeon Lynch was dismissed, and proceedings at common law were taken against him, to break such of the leases as were thought, by clever attorneys, to have the ghost of a flaw in them. Money was borrowed from a Dublin house, for the purpose of carrying on the suit, paying off debts, and making Kelly’s Court habitable; and the estate was put into their hands. Simeon Lynch built himself a large staring house at Dunmore, defended his leases, set up for a country gentleman on his own account, and sent his only son, Barry, to Eton merely because young O’Kelly was also there, and he was determined to show, that he was as rich and ambitious as the lord’s family, whom he had done so much to ruin.
Kelly’s Court was restored to such respectability as could ever belong to so ugly a place. It was a large red stone mansion, standing in a demesne of very poor ground, ungifted by nature with any beauty, and but little assisted by cultivation or improvement. A belt of bald-looking firs ran round the demesne inside the dilapidated wall; but this was hardly sufficient to relieve the barren aspect of the locality. Fine trees there were none, and the race of O’Kellys had never been great gardeners.
Captain O’Kelly was a man of more practical sense, or of better education, than most of his family, and he did do a good deal to humanise the place. He planted, tilled, manured, and improved; he imported rose-trees and strawberry-plants, and civilised Kelly’s Court a little. But his reign was not long. He died about five years after he had begun his career as a country gentleman, leaving a widow and two daughters in Ireland; a son at school at Eton; and an expensive lawsuit, with numerous ramifications, all unsettled.
Francis, the son, went to Eton and Oxford, was presented at Court by his grandfather, and came hack to Ireland at twenty-two, to idle away his time till the old lord should die. Till this occurred, he could neither call himself the master of the place, nor touch the rents. In the meantime, the lawsuits were dropped, both parties having seriously injured their resources, without either of them obtaining any benefit. Barry Lynch was recalled from his English education, where he had not shown off to any great credit; and both he and his father were obliged to sit down prepared to make the best show they could on eight hundred pounds a-year, and to wage an underhand internecine war with the O’Kellys.
Simeon and his son, however, did not live altogether alone. Anastasia Lynch was Barry’s sister, and older than him by about ten years. Their mother had been a Roman Catholic, whereas Sim was a Protestant; and, in consequence, the daughter had been brought up in the mother’s, and the son in the father’s religion. When this mother died, Simeon, no doubt out of respect to the memory of the departed, tried hard to induce his daughter to prove hem religious zeal, and enter a nunnery; but this, Anty, though in most things a docile creature, absolutely refused to do. Her father advised, implored, and threatened; but in vain; and the poor girl became a great thorn in the side of both father and son. She had neither beauty, talent, nor attraction, to get her a husband; and her father was determined not to encumber his already diminished property with such a fortune as would make her on that ground acceptable to any respectable suitor.
Poor Anty led a miserable life, associating neither with superiors nor inferiors, and her own position was not sufficiently declared to enable her to have any equals. She was slighted by her father and the servants, and bullied by her brother; and was only just enabled, by humble, unpresuming disposition, to carry on her tedious life from year to year without grumbling.
In the meantime, the ci-devant Black Rod, Gold Stick, Royal Equerry, and Lord of the Bedchamber, was called away from his robes and his finery, to give an account of the manner in which he had renounced the pomps and vanities of this wicked world; and Frank became Lord Ballindine, with, as I have before said, an honourable mother, two sisters, a large red house, and a thousand a-year. He was not at all a man after the pattern of his grandfather, but he appeared as little likely to redeem the old family acres. He seemed to be a reviving chip of the old block of the O’Kellys. During the two years he had been living at Kelly’s Court as Frank O’Kelly, he had won the hearts of all the tenants of all those who would have been tenants if the property had not been sold, and who still looked up to him as their ‘raal young masther’ and of the whole country round. The ‘thrue dhrop of the ould blood’, was in his veins; and, whatever faults he might have, he wasn’t likely to waste his time and his cash with furs, laces, and hangings.
This was a great comfort to the neighbourhood, which had learned heartily to despise the name of Lord Ballindine; and Frank was encouraged in shooting, hunting, racing in preparing to be a thorough Irish gentleman, and in determining to make good the prophecies of his friends, that he would be, at last, one more ‘raal O’Kelly to brighten the country.’
And if he could have continued to be Frank O’Kelly, or even ‘the O’Kelly’, he would probably have done well enough, for he was fond of his mother and sisters, and he might have continued to hunt, shoot, and farm on his remaining property without further encroaching on it. But the title was sure to be his ruin. When he felt himself to be a lord, he could not be content with the simple life of a country gentleman; or, at any rate, without taking the lead in the country. So, as soon as the old man was buried, he bought a pack of harriers, and despatched a couple of race-horses to the skilful hands of old Jack Igoe, the Curragh trainer.
Frank was a very handsome fellow, full six feet high, with black hair, and jet-black silky whiskers, meeting under his chin the men said he dyed them, and the women declared he did not. I am inclined, myself, to think he must have done so, they were so very black. He had an eye like a hawk, round, bright, and bold; a mouth and chin almost too well formed for a man; and that kind of broad forehead which conveys rather the idea of a generous, kind, openhearted disposition, than of a deep mind or a commanding intellect.
Frank was a very handsome fellow, and he knew it; and when he commenced so many ill-authorised expenses immediately on his grandfather’s death, he consoled himself with the idea, that with his person and rank, he would soon be able, by some happy matrimonial speculation, to make up for what he wanted in wealth. And he had not been long his own master, before he met with the lady to whom he destined the honour of doing so.
He had, however, not properly considered his own disposition, when he determined upon looking out for great wealth; and on disregarding other qualifications in his bride, so that he obtained that in sufficient quantity. He absolutely fell in love with Fanny Wyndham, though her twenty thousand pounds was felt by him to be hardly enough to excuse him in doing so certainly not enough to make his doing so an accomplishment of his prudential resolutions. What would twenty thousand pounds do towards clearing the O’Kelly property, and establishing himself In a manner and style fitting for a Lord Ballindine! However, he did propose to her, was accepted, and the match, after many difficulties, was acceded to by the lady’s guardian, the Earl of Cashel. It was stipulated, however, that the marriage should not take place till the lady was of age; and at the time of the bargain, she wanted twelve months of that period of universal discretion. Lord Cashel had added, in his prosy, sensible, aristocratic lecture on the subject to Lord Ballindine, that he trusted that, during the interval, considering their united limited income, his lordship would see the wisdom of giving up his hounds, or at any rate of withdrawing from the turf.
Frank pooh-poohed at the hounds, said that horses cost nothing in Connaught, and dogs less, and that he could not well do there without them; but promised to turn in his mind what Lord Cashel had said about the turf; and, at last, went so far as to say that when a good opportunity offered of backing out, he would part with Finn M’Coul and Granuell as the two nags at Igoe’s were patriotically denominated.
They continued, however, appearing in the Curragh lists in Lord Ballindine’s name, as a part. of Igoe’s string; and running for Queen’s whips, Wellingtons and Madrids, sometimes with good and sometimes with indifferent success. While their noble owner, when staying at Grey Abbey, Lord Cashel’s magnificent seat near Kilcullen, spent too much of his time (at least so thought the earl and Fanny Wyndham) in seeing them get their gallops, and in lecturing the grooms, and being lectured by Mr Igoe. Nothing more, however, could be done; and it was trusted that when the day of the wedding should come, he would be found minus the animals. What, however, was Lord Cashel’s surprise, when, after an absence of two months from Grey Abbey, Lord Ballindine declared, in the earl’s presence, with an air of ill-assumed carelessness, that he had been elected one of the stewards of the Curragh, in the room of Walter Blake, Esq., who had retired in rotation from that honourable office! The next morning the earl’s chagrin was woefully increased by his hearing that that very valuable and promising Derby colt, Brien Boru, now two years old, by Sir Hercules out of Eloisa, had been added to his lordship’s lot.
Lord Cashel felt that he could not interfere, further than by remarking that it appeared his young friend was determined to leave the turf with ?clat; and Fanny Wyndham could only be silent and reserved for one evening. This occurred about four months before the commencement of my tale, and about five before the period fixed for the marriage; but, at the time at which Lord Ballindine will be introduced in person to the reader, he had certainly made no improvement in his manner of going on. He had, during this period, received from Lord Cashel a letter intimating to him that his lordship thought some further postponement advisable; that it was as well not to fix any day; and that, though his lordship would always be welcome at Grey Abbey, when his personal attendance was not required at the Curragh, it was better that no correspondence by letter should at present be carried on between him and Miss Wyndham; and that Miss Wyndham herself perfectly agreed in the propriety of these suggestions.
Now Grey Abbey was only about eight miles distant from the Curragh, and Lord Ballindine had at one time been in the habit of staying at his friend’s mansion, during the period of his attendance at the race-course; but since Lord Cashel had shown an entire absence of interest in the doings of Finn M’Coul, and Fanny had ceased to ask after Granuell’s cough, he had discontinued doing so, and had spent much of his time at his friend Walter Blake’s residence at the Curragh. Now, Handicap Lodge offered much more dangerous quarters for him than did Grey Abbey.
In the meantime, his friends in Connaught were delighted at the prospect of his bringing home a bride. Fanny’s twenty thousand were magnified to fifty, and the capabilities even of fifty were greatly exaggerated; besides, the connection was so good a one, so exactly the thing for the O’Kellys! Lord Cashel was one of the first resident noblemen in Ireland, a representative peer, a wealthy man, and possessed of great influence; not unlikely to be a cabinet minister if the Whigs came in, and able to shower down into Connaught a degree of patronage, such as had never yet warmed that poor unfriended region. And Fanny Wyndham was not only his lordship’s ward, but his favourite niece also! The match was, in every way, a good one, and greatly pleasing to all the Kellys, whether with an O or without, for ‘shure they were all the one family.’
Old Simeon Lynch and his son Barry did not participate in the general joy. They had calculated that their neighbour was on the high road to ruin, and that he would soon have nothing but his coronet left. They could not, therefore, bear the idea of his making so eligible a match. They had, moreover, had domestic dissensions to disturb the peace of Dunmore House. Simeon had insisted on Barry’s taking a farm into his own hands, and looking after it. Barry had declared his inability to do so, and had nearly petrified the old man by expressing a wish to go to Paris. Then, Barry’s debts had showered in, and Simeon had pledged himself not to pay them. Simeon had threatened to disinherit Barry; and Barry had called his father a d d obstinate old fool.
These quarrels had got to the ears of the neighbours, and it was being calculated that, in the end, Barry would get the best of the battle when, one morning, the war was brought to an end by a fit of apoplexy, and the old man was found dead in his chair. And then a terrible blow fell upon the son; for a recent will was found in the old man’s desk, dividing his property equally, and without any other specification between Barry and Anty.
This was a dreadful blow to Barry. He consulted with his friend Molloy, the attorney of Tuam, as to the validity of the document and the power of breaking it; but in vain. It was properly attested, though drawn up in the old man’s own hand-writing; and his sister, whom he looked upon but as little better than a head main-servant, had not only an equal right to all the property, but was equally mistress of the house, the money at the bank, the wine in the cellar, and the very horses in the stable.
This was a hard blow; but Barry was obliged to bear it. At first, he showed his ill-humour plainly, enough in his treatment of his sister; but he soon saw that this was folly, and that, though her quiet disposition prevented her from resenting it, such conduct would drive her to marry some needy man. Then he began, with an ill grace, to try what coaxing would do. He kept, however, a sharp watch on all her actions; and on once hearing that, in his absence, the two Kelly girls from the hotel had been seen walking with her, he gave her a long lecture on what was due to her own dignity, and the memory of her departed parents.
He made many overtures to her as to the divisions of the property; but, easy and humble as Anty was, she was careful enough to put her name to nothing that could injure her rights. They had divided the money at the banker’s, and she had once rather startled Barry by asking him for his moiety towards paying the butcher’s bill; and his dismay was completed shortly afterwards by being informed, by a steady old gentleman in Dunmore, whom he did not like a bit too well, that he had been appointed by Miss Lynch to manage her business and receive her rents.
As soon as it could be decently done, after his father’s burial, Barry took himself off to Dublin, to consult his friends there as to what he should do; but he soon returned, determined to put a bold face on it, and come to some understanding with his sister.
He first proposed to her to go and live in Dublin, but she said she preferred Dunmore. He then talked of selling the house, and to this she agreed. He next tried to borrow money for the payment of his debts; on which she referred him to the steady old man. Though apparently docile and obedient, she would not put herself in his hands, nor would her agent allow him to take any unfair advantage of her.
Whilst this was going on, our friend Martin Kelly had set his eye upon the prize, and, by means of his sister’s intimacy with Anty, and his own good hooks, had succeeded in obtaining from her half a promise to become his wife. Anty had but little innate respect for gentry; and, though she feared her brother’s displeasure, she felt no degradation at the idea of uniting herself to a man in Martin Kelly’s rank. She could not, however, be brought to tell her brother openly, and declare her determination; and Martin had, at length, come to the conclusion that he must carry her off, before delay and unforeseen changes might either alter her mind, or enable her brother to entice her out of the country.
Thus matters stood at Dunmore when Martin Kelly started for Dublin, and at the time when he was about to wait on his patron at Morrison’s hotel.
Both Martin and Lord Ballindine (and they were related in some distant degree, at least so always said the Kellys, and I never knew that the O’Kellys denied it) both the young men were, at the time, anxious to get married, and both with the same somewhat mercenary views; and I have fatigued the reader with the long history of past affairs, in order to imbue him, if possible, with some interest in the ways and means which they both adopted to accomplish their objects.
At about five o’clock on the evening of the day of Sheil’s speech, Lord Ballindine and his friend, Walter Blake, were lounging on different sofas in a room at Morrison’s Hotel, before they went up to dress for dinner. Walter Blake was an effeminate-looking, slight-made man, about thirty or thirty-three years of age; good looking, and gentlemanlike, but presenting quite a contrast in his appearance to his friend Lord Ballindine. He had a cold quiet grey eye, and a thin lip; and, though he was in reality a much cleverer, he was a much less engaging man. Yet Blake could be very amusing; but he rather laughed at people than with them, and when there were more than two in company, he would usually be found making a butt of one. Nevertheless, his society was greatly sought after. On matters connected with racing, his word was infallible. He rode boldly, and always rode good horses; and, though he was anything but rich, he managed to keep up a comfortable snuggery at the Curragh, and to drink the very best claret that Dublin could procure.
Walter Blake was a finished gambler, and thus it was, that with about six hundred a year, he managed to live on equal terms with the richest around him. His father, Laurence Blake of Castleblakeney, in County Galway, was a very embarrassed man, of good property, strictly entailed, and, when Walter came of age, he and his father, who could never be happy in the same house, though possessing in most things similar tastes, had made such a disposition of the estate, as gave the father a clear though narrowed income, and enabled the son at once to start into the world, without waiting for his father’s death; though, by so doing, he greatly lessened the property which he must otherwise have inherited.
Blake was a thorough gambler, and knew well how to make the most of the numerous chances which the turf afforded him. He had a large stud of horses, to the training and working of which he attended almost as closely as the person whom he paid for doing so. But it was in the betting-ring that he was most formidable. It was said, in Kildare Street, that no one at Tattersall’s could beat him at a book. He had latterly been trying a wider field than the Curragh supplied him~ and had, on one or two occasions, run a horse in England with such success, as had placed him, at any rate, quite at the top of the Irish sporting tree.
He was commonly called ‘Dot Blake’, in consequence of his having told one of his friends that the cause of his, the friend’s, losing so much money on the turf, was, that he did not mind ‘the dot and carry on’ part of the business; meaning thereby, that he did not attend to the necessary calculations. For a short time after giving this piece of friendly caution, he had been nick-named, ‘Dot and carry on’; but that was too long to last, and he had now for some years been known to every sporting man in Ireland as ‘Dot’ Blake.
This man was at present Lord Ballindine’s most intimate friend, and he could hardly have selected a more dangerous one. They were now going down together to Handicap Lodge, though there was nothing to be done in the way of racing for months to come. Yet Blake knew his business too well to suppose that his presence was necessary only when the horses were running; and he easily persuaded his friend that it was equally important that he should go and see that it was all right with the Derby colt.
They were talking almost in the dark, on these all-absorbing topics, when the waiter knocked at the door and informed them that a young man named Kelly wished to see Lord Ballindine.
‘Show him up,’ said Frank. ‘A tenant of mine, Dot; one of the respectable few of that cattle, indeed, almost the only one that I’ve got; a sort of subagent, and a fifteenth cousin, to boot, I believe. I am going to put him to the best use I know for such respectable fellows, and that is, to get him to borrow money for me.’
‘And he’ll charge you twice as much for it, and make three times as much bother about it, as the fellows in the next street who have your title-deeds. When I want lawyer’s business done, I go to a lawyer; and when I want to borrow money, I go to my own man of business; he makes it his business to find money, and he daren’t rob me more than is decent, fitting, and customary, because he has a character to lose.’
‘Those fellows at Guinness’s make such a fuss about everything; and I don’t put my nose into that little back room, but what every word I say, by some means or other, finds its way down to Grey Abbey.’
‘Well, Frank, you know your own affairs best; but I don’t think you’ll make money by being afraid of your agent; or your wife’s guardian, if she is to be your wife.’
‘Afraid, man? I’m as much afraid of Lord Cashel as you are. I don’t think I’ve shown myself much afraid; but I don’t choose to make him my guardian, just when he’s ceasing to be hers; nor do I wish, just now, to break with Grey Abbey altogether.’
‘Do you mean to go over there from the Curragh next week?’
‘I don’t think I shall. They don’t like me a bit too well, when I’ve the smell of the stables on me.’
‘There it is, again, Frank! What is it to you what Lord Cashel likes? If you wish to see Miss Wyndham, and if the heavy-pated old Don doesn’t mean to close his doors against you, what business has he to inquire where you came from? I suppose he doesn’t like me a bit too well; but you’re not weak enough to be afraid to say that you’ve been at Handicap Lodge?’
‘The truth is, Dot, I don’t think I’ll go to Grey Abbey at all, till Fanny’s of age. She only wants a month of it now; and then I can meet Lord Cashel in a business way, as one man should meet another.’
‘I can’t for the life of me,’ said Blake, ‘make out what it is that has set that old fellow so strong against horses. He won the Oaks twice himself, and that not so very long ago; and his own son, Kilcullen, is deeper a good deal on the turf than I am, and, by a long chalk less likely to pull through, as I take it. But here’s the Connaught man on the stairs I could swear to Galway by the tread of his foot!’ and Martin knocked at the door, and walked in.
‘Well, Kelly,’ said Lord Ballindine, ‘how does Dublin agree with you?’ And, ‘I hope I see your lordship well, my lord?’ said Martin.
‘How are they all at Dunmore and Kelly’s Court?’
‘Why thin, they’re all well, my lord, except Sim Lynch and he’s dead. But your lordship’ll have heard that.’
‘What, old Simeon Lynch dead!’ said Blake, ‘well then, there’s promotion. Peter Mahon, that was the agent at Castleblakeney, is now the biggest rogue alive in Connaught.’
‘Don’t swear to that,’ said Lord Ballindine. ‘There’s some of Sim’s breed still left at Dunmore. It wouldn’t be easy to beat Barry, would it, Kelly?’
‘Why then, I don’t know; I wouldn’t like to be saying against the gentleman’s friend that he spoke of; and doubtless his honour knows him well, or he wouldn’t say so much of him.’
‘Indeed I do,’ said Blake. ‘I never give a man a good character till I know he deserves it. Well, Frank, I’ll go and dress, and leave you and Mr. Kelly to your business,’ and he left the room.
‘I’m sorry to hear you speak so hard agin Mr. Barry, my lord,’ began Martin. ‘May-be he mayn’t be so bad. Not but that he’s a cross-grained piece of timber to dale with.’
‘And why should you be sorry I’d speak against him? There’s not more friendship, I suppose, between you and Barry Lynch now, than there used to be?’
‘Why, not exactly frindship, my lord; but I’ve my rasons why I’d wish you not to belittle the Lynches. Your lordship might forgive them all, now the old man’s dead.’
‘Forgive them! indeed I can, and easily. I don’t know I ever did any of them an injury, except when I thrashed Barry at Eton, for calling himself the son of a gentleman. But what makes you stick up for them? You’re not going to marry the daughter, are you?’
Martin blushed up to his forehead as his landlord thus hit the nail on the head; but, as it was dark, his blushes couldn’t be seen. So, after dangling his hat about for a minute, and standing first on one foot, and then on the other, he took courage, and answered.
‘Well, Mr. Frank, that is, your lordship, I mane — I b’lieve I might do worse.’
‘Body and soul, man!’ exclaimed the other, jumping from his recumbent position on the sofa, ‘You don’t mean to tell me you’re going to marry Anty Lynch?’
‘In course not,’ answered Martin; ‘av’ your lordship objects.’
‘Object, man! How the devil can I object? Why, she’s six hundred a year, hasn’t she?’
‘About four, my lord, I think’s nearest the mark.’
‘Four hundred a year! And I don’t suppose you owe a penny in the world!’
‘Not much unless the last gale to your lordship and we never pay that till next May.’
‘And so you’re going to marry Anty Lynch!’ again repeated Frank, as though he couldn’t bring himself to realise the idea; ‘and now, Martin, tell me all about it how the devil you managed it when it’s to come off and how you and Barry mean to hit it off together when you’re brothers. I suppose I’ll lose a good tenant any way?’
‘Not av’ I’m a good one, you won’t, with my consent, my lord.’
‘Ah! but it’ll be Anty’s consent, now, you know. She mayn’t like Toneroe. But tell me all about it. What put it into your head?’
‘Why, my lord, you run away so fast; one can’t tell you anything. I didn’t say I was going to marry her at laist, not for certain I only said I might do worse.’
‘Well then;. are you going to marry her, or rather, is she going to marry you, or is she not?’
‘Why, I don’t know. I’ll tell your lordship just how it is. You know when old Sim died, my lord? ’
‘Of course I do. Why, I was at Kelly’s Court at the time.’
‘So you were, my lord; I was forgetting. But you went away again immediately, and didn’t hear how Barry tried to come round his sisther, when he heard how the will went; and how he tried to break the will and to chouse her out of the money.’
‘Why, this is the very man you wouldn’t let me call a rogue, a minute or two ago!’
‘Ah, my lord! that was just before sthrangers; besides, it’s no use calling one’s own people bad names. Not that he belongs to me yet, and maybe never will. But, between you and I, he is a rogue, and his father’s son every inch of him.’
‘Well, Martin, I’ll remember. I’ll not abuse him when he’s your brother-inlaw. But how did you get round the sister? That’s the question.’
‘Well, my lord, I’ll tell you. You know there was always a kind of frindship between Anty and the girls at home, and they set her up to going to old Moylan he that receives the rents on young Barron’s property, away at Strype. Moylan’s uncle to Flaherty, that married mother’s sister. Well, she went to him he’s a kind of office at Dunmore, my lord.’
‘Oh, I know him and his office! He knows the value of a name at the back of a bit of paper, as well as any one.’
‘Maybe he does, my lord; but he’s an honest old fellow, is Moylan, and manages a little for mother.’
‘Oh, of course he’s honest, Martin, because he belongs to you. You know Barry’s to be an honest chap, then.’
‘And that’s what he niver will be the longest day he lives! But, however, Moylan got her to sign all the papers; and, when Barry was out, he went and took an inventhory to the house, and made out everything square and right, and you may be sure Barry’d have to get up very ‘arly before he’d come round him. Well, after a little, the ould chap came to me one morning, and asked me all manner of questions whether I knew Anty Lynch? whether we didn’t used to be great friends? and a lot more. I never minded him much; for though I and Anty used to speak, and she’d dhrank tay on the sly with us two or three times before her father’s death, I’d never thought much about her.’
‘Nor wouldn’t now, Martin, eh? if it wasn’t for the old man’s will.’
‘In course I wouldn’t, my lord. I won’t be denying it. But, on the other hand, I wouldn’t marry her now for all her money, av’ I didn’t mane to trate her well. Well, my lord, after beating about the bush for a long time, the ould thief popped it out, and told me that he thought Anty’d be all the betther for a husband; and that, av’ I was wanting a wife, he b’lieved I might suit myself now. Well, I thought of it a little, and tould him I’d take the hint. The next day he comes to me again, all the way down to Toneroe, where I was walking the big grass-field by myself, and began saying that, as he was Anty’s agent, of course he wouldn’t see her wronged. “Quite right, Mr. Moylan,” says I; “and, as I maneto be her husband, I won’t see her wronged neither.” “Ah! but,” says he, “I mane that I must see her property properly settled.” “Why not?” says I, “and isn’t the best way for her to marry? and then, you know, no one can schame her out of it. There’s lots of them schamers about now,” says I. “That’s thrue for you,” says he, “and they’re not far to look for,” and that was thrue, too, my lord, for he and I were both schaming about poor Anty’s money at that moment. “Well,” says he, afther walking on a little, quite quiet, “av’ you war to marry her.”-” Oh, I’ve made up my mind about that, Mr. Moylan,” says I. “Well, av’ it should come to pass that you do marry her-of course you’d expect to have the money settled on herself?” “In course I would, when I die,” says I. “No, but,” says he, “at once: wouldn’t it be enough for you to have a warm roof over your head, and a leg of mutton on the table every day, and no work to do for it?” and so, my lord, it came out that the money was to be settled on herself, and that he was to be her agent.’
‘Well, Martin, after that, I think you needn’t go to Sim Lynch, or Barry, for the biggest rogues in Connaught to be settling the poor girl’s money between you that way!’
‘Well, but listen, my lord. I gave in to the ould man; that is, I made no objection to his schame. But I was determined, av’ I ever did marry Anty Lynch, that I would be agent and owner too, myself, as long as I lived; though in course it was but right that they should settle it so that av’ I died first, the poor crature shouldn’t be out of her money. But I didn’t let on to him about all that; for, av’ he was angered, the ould fool might perhaps spoil the game; and I knew av’ Anty married me at all, it’d be for liking; and av’ iver I got on the soft side of her, I’d soon be able to manage matthers as I plazed, and ould Moylan’d soon find his best game’d be to go asy.’
‘Upon my soul, Martin, I think you seem to have been the sharpest rogue of the two! Is there an honest man in Connaught at all, I wonder?’
‘I can’t say rightly, just at present, my lord; but there’ll be two, plaze God, when I and your lordship are there.’
‘Thank ye, Kelly, for the compliment, and especially for the good company. But let me hear how on earth you ever got face enough to go up and ask Anty Lynch to marry you.’
‘Oh! a little soft sawther did it! I wasn’t long in putting my com’ether on her when I once began. Well, my lord, from that day out from afther Moylan’s visit, you know I began really to think of it. I’m sure the ould robber meant to have asked for a wapping sum of money down, for his good will in the bargain; but when he saw me he got afeard.’
‘He was another honest man, just now!’
‘Only among sthrangers, my lord. I b’lieve he’s a far-off cousin of your own, and I wouldn’t like to spake ill of the blood.’
‘God forbid! But go on, Kelly.’
‘Well, so, from that out, I began to think of it in arnest the Lord forgive me! but my first thoughts was how I’d like to pull down Barry Lynch; and my second that I’d not demane myself by marrying the sisther of such an out-and-out ruffian, and that it wouldn’t become me to live on the money that’d been got by chating your lordship’s grandfather.’
‘My lordship’s grandfather ought to have looked after that himself. If those are all your scruples they needn’t stick in your throat much.’
‘I said as much as that to myself, too. So I soon went to work. I was rather shy about it at first; but the girls helped me. They put it into her head, I think, before I mentioned it at all. However, by degrees, I asked her plump, whether she’d any mind to be Mrs. Kelly? and, though she didn’t say “yes,” she didn’t say “no.”’
‘But how the devil, man, did you manage to get at her? I’m told Barry watches her like a dragon, ever since he read his father’s will.’
‘He couldn’t watch her so close, but what she could make her way down to mother’s shop now and again. Or, for the matter of that, but what I could make my way up to the house.’
‘That’s true, for what need she mind Barry, now? She may marry whom she pleases, and needn’t tell him, unless she likes, until the priest has his book ready.’
‘Ah, my lord! but there’s the rub. She is afraid of Barry; and though she didn’t say so, she won’t agree to tell him, or to let me tell him, or just to let the priest walk into the house without telling him. She’s fond of Barry, though, for the life of me, I can’t see what there is in him for anybody to be fond of. He and his father led her the divil’s own life mewed up there, because she wouldn’t be a nun. But still is both fond and afraid of him; and, though I don’t think she’ll marry anybody else at laist not yet awhile, I don’t think she’ll ever get courage to marry me at any rate, not in the ordinary way.’
‘Why then, Martin, you must do something extraordinary, I suppose.’
‘That’s just it, my lord; and what I wanted was, to ask your lordship’s advice and sanction, like.’
‘Sanction! Why I shouldn’t think you’d want anybody’s sanction for marrying a wife with four hundred a-year. But, if that’s anything to you, I can assure you I approve of it.’
‘Thank you, my lord. That’s kind.’
‘To tell the truth,’ continued Lord Ballindine, ‘I’ve a little of your own first feeling. I’d be glad of it, if it were only for the rise it would take out of my schoolfellow, Barry. Not but that I think you’re a deal too good to be his brother-inlaw. And you know, Kelly, or ought to know, that I’d be heartily glad of anything for your own welfare. So, I’d advise you to hammer away while the iron’s hot, as the saying is.’
‘That’s just what I’m coming to. What’d your lordship advise me to do?’
‘Advise you? Why, you must know best yourself how the matter stands. Talk her over, and make her tell Barry.’
‘Divil a tell, my lord, in her. She wouldn’t do it in a month of Sundays.’
‘Then do you tell him, at once. I suppose you’re not afraid of him?’
‘She’d niver come to the scratch, av’ I did. He’d bully the life out of her, or get her out of the counthry some way.’
‘Then wait till his back’s turned for a month or so. When he’s out, let the priest walk in, and do the matter quietly that way.’
‘Well, I thought of that myself, my lord; but he’s as wary as a weazel, and I’m afeard he smells something in the wind. There’s that blackguard Moylan, too, he’d be telling Barry and would, when he came to find things weren’t to be settled as he intended.’
‘Then you must carry her off, and marry her up here, or in Galway or down in Connemara, or over at Liverpool, or any where you please.’
‘Now you’ve hit it, my lord. That’s just what I’m thinking myself. Unless I take her off Gretna Green fashion, I’ll never get her.’
‘Then why do you want my advice, if you’ve made up your mind to that? I think you’re quite right; and what’s more, I think you ought to lose no time in doing it. Will she go, do you think?’
‘Why, with a little talking, I think she will.’
‘Then what are you losing your time for, man? Hurry down, and off with her! I think Dublin’s probably your best ground.’
‘Then you think, my lord, I’d betther do it at once?’
‘Of course, I do! What is there to delay you?’
‘Why, you see, my lord, the poor girl’s as good as got no friends, and I wouldn’t like it to be thought in the counthry, I’d taken her at a disadvantage. It’s thrue enough in one way, I’m marrying her for the money; that is, in course, I wouldn’t marry her without it. And I tould her, out open, before her face, and before the girls, that, av’ she’d ten times as much, I wouldn’t marry her unless I was to be masther, as long as I lived, of everything in my own house, like another man; and I think she liked me the betther for it. But, for all that, I wouldn’t like to catch her up without having something fair done by the property.’
‘The lawyers, Martin, can manage that, afterwards. When she’s once Mrs Kelly, you can do what you like about the fortune.’
‘That’s thrue, my lord. But I wouldn’t like the bad name I’d get through the counthry av’ I whisked her off without letting her settle anything. They’d he saying I robbed her, whether I did or no: and when a thing’s once said, it’s difficult to unsay it. The like of me, my lord, can’t do things like you noblemen and gentry. Besides, mother’d never forgive me. They think, down there, that poor Anty’s simple like; tho’ she’s cute enough, av’ they knew her. I wouldn’t, for all the money, wish it should be said that Martin Kelly ran off with a fool, and robbed her. Barry’d be making her out a dale more simple than she is; and, altogether, my lord, I wouldn’t like it.’
‘Well, Martin, perhaps you’re right. At any rate you’re on the right side. What is it then you think of doing?’
‘Why, I was thinking, my lord, av’ I could get some lawyer here to draw up a deed, just settling all Anty’s property on herself when I die, and on her children, av’ she has any so that I couldn’t spend it you know; she could sign it, and so could I, before we started; and then I’d feel she’d been traited as well as tho’ she’d all the friends in Connaught to her back.’
‘And a great deal better, probably. Well, Martin, I’m no lawyer, but I should think there’d not be much difficulty about that. Any attorney could do it.’
‘But I’d look so quare, my lord, walking into a sthranger’s room and explaining what I wanted all about the running away and everything. To be sure there’s my brother John’s people; they’re attorneys; but it’s about robberies, and hanging, and such things they’re most engaged; and I was thinking, av’ your lordship wouldn’t think it too much throuble to give me a line to your own people; or, maybe, you’d say a word to them explaining what I want. It’d be the greatest favour in life.’
‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Kelly. I’ll go with you, tomorrow, to Mr Blake’s lawyers that’s my friend that was sitting here and I’ve no doubt we’ll get the matter settled. The Guinnesses, you know, do all my business, and they’re not lawyers.’
‘Long life to your lordship, and that’s just like yourself! I knew you’d stick by me. And shall I call on you tomorrow, my lord? and at what time?’
‘Wait! here’s Mr Blake. I’ll ask him, and you might as well meet me there. Grey and Forrest is the name; it’s in Clare Street, I think.’ Here Mr Blake again entered the room.
‘What!’ said he; ‘isn’t your business over yet, Ballindine? I suppose I’m de trop then. Only mind, dinner’s ordered for half past six, and it’s that now, and you’re not dressed yet!’
‘You’re not de trop, and I was just wanting you. We’re all friends here, Kelly, you know; and you needn’t mind my telling Mr Blake. Here’s this fellow going to elope with an heiress from Connaught, and he wants a decently honest lawyer first.’
‘I should have thought,’ said Blake, ‘that an indecently dishonest clergyman would have suited him better under those circumstances.’
‘Maybe he’ll want that, too, and I’ve no doubt you can recommend one. But at present he wants a lawyer; and, as I have none of my own, I think Forrest would serve his turn.’
‘I’ve always found Mr Forrest ready to do anything in the way of his profession for money.’
‘No, but he’d draw up a deed, wouldn’t he, Blake? It’s a sort of a marriage settlement.’
‘Oh, he’s quite at home at that work! He drew up five, for my five sisters, and thereby ruined my father’s property, and my prospects.’
‘Well, he’d see me tomorrow, wouldn’t he?’ said Lord Ballindine.
‘Of course he would. But mind, we’re to be off early. We ought to be at the Curragh, by three.’
‘I suppose I could see him at ten?’ said his lordship. It was then settled that Blake should write a line to the lawyer, informing him that Lord Ballindine wished to see him, at his office, at ten o’clock the next morning; it was also agreed that Martin should meet him there at that hour; and Kelly took his leave, much relieved on the subject nearest his heart.
‘Well, Frank,’ said Blake, as soon as the door was closed, ‘and have you got the money you wanted?’
‘Indeed I’ve not, then.’
‘And why not? If your prot?g? is going to elope with an heiress, he ought to have money at command.’
‘And so he will, and it’ll be a great temptation to me to know where I can get it so easily. But he was telling me all about this woman before I thought of my own concerns and I didn’t like to be talking to him of what I wanted myself, when he’d been asking a favour of me. It would be too much like looking for payment.’
‘There, you’re wrong; fair barter is the truest and honestest system, all the world over. Ca me, ca thee,’ as the Scotch call it, is the best system to go by. I never do, or ask, a favour; that is, for whatever I do, I expect a return; and for whatever I get, I intend to make one.’
‘I’ll get the money from Guinness. After all, that’ll be the best, and as you say, the cheapest.’
‘There you’re right. His business is to lend money, and he’ll lend it you as long as you’ve means to repay it; and I’m sure no Connaught man will do more that is, if I know them.’
‘I suppose he will, but heaven only knows how long that’ll be!’ and the young lord threw himself back on the sofa, as if he thought a little meditation would do him good. However, very little seemed to do for him, for he soon roused himself, and said, ‘I wonder how the devil, Dot, you do without borrowing? My income’s larger than yours, bad as it is; I’ve only three horses in training, and you’ve, I suppose, above a dozen; and, take the year through, I don’t entertain half the fellows at Kelly’s Court that you do at Handicap Lodge; and yet, I never hear of your borrowing money.’
‘There’s many reasons for that. In the first place, I haven’t an estate; in the second, I haven’t a mother; in the third, I haven’t a pack of hounds; in the fourth, I haven’t a title; and, in the fifth, no one would lend me money, if I asked it.’
‘As for the estate, it’s devilish little I spend on it; as for my mother, she has her own jointure; as for the hounds, they eat my own potatoes; and as for the title, I don’t support it. But I haven’t your luck, Dot. You’d never want for money, though the mint broke.’
‘Very likely I mayn’t when it does; but I’m likely to be poor enough till that happy accident occurs. But, as far as luck goes, you’ve had more than me; you won nearly as much, in stakes, as I did, last autumn, and your stable expenses weren’t much above a quarter what mine were. But, the truth is, I manage better; I know where my money goes to, and you don’t; I work hard, and you don’t; I spend my money on what’s necessary to my style of living, you spend yours on what’s not necessary. What the deuce have the fellows in Mayo and Roscommon done for you, that you should mount two or three rascals, twice a-week, to show them sport, when you’re not there yourself two months in the season? I suppose you don’t keep the horses and men for nothing, if you do the dogs; and I much doubt whether they’re not the dearest part of the bargain.’
‘Of course they cost something; but it’s the only thing I can do for the country; and there were always hounds at Kelly’s Court till my grandfather got the property, and they looked upon him as no better than an old woman, because he gave them up. Besides, I suppose I shall be living at Kelly’s Court soon, altogether, and I could never get on then without hounds. It’s bad enough, as it is.’
‘I haven’t a doubt in the world it’s bad enough. I know what Castleblakeney is. But I doubt your living there. I’ve no doubt you’ll try; that is, if you do marry Miss Wyndham; but she’ll be sick of it. in three months, and you in six, and you’ll go and live at Paris, Florence, or Naples, and there’ll be another end of the O’Kellys, for thirty or forty years, as far as Ireland’s concerned. You’ll never do for a poor country lord; you’re not sufficiently proud, or stingy. You’d do very well as a country gentleman, and you’d make a decent nobleman with such a fortune as Lord Cashel’s. But your game, if you lived on your own property, would be a very difficult one, and one for which you’ve neither tact nor temper.’
‘Well, I hope I’ll never live out of Ireland. Though I mayn’t have tact to make one thousand go as far as five, I’ve sense enough to see that a poor absentee landlord is a great curse to his country; and that’s what I hope I never shall be.’
‘My dear Lord Ballindine; all poor men are curses, to themselves or some one else.’
‘A poor absentee’s the worst of all. He leaves nothing behind, and can leave nothing. He wants all he has for himself; and, if he doesn’t give his neighbours the profit which must arise somewhere, from his own consumption, he can give nothing. A rich man can afford to leave three or four thousand a year behind him; in the way of wages for labour.’
‘My gracious, Frank! You should put all that in a pamphlet, and not inflict it on a poor devil waiting for his dinner. At present, give your profit to Morrison, and come and consume some mock-turtle; and I’ll tell you what Sheil’s going to do for us all.’
Lord Ballindine did as he was bid, and left the room to prepare for dinner. By the time that he had eaten his soup, and drank a glass of wine, he had got rid of the fit of blue devils which the thoughts of his poverty had brought on, and he spent the rest of the evening comfortably enough, listening to his friend’s comical version of Shell’s speech; receiving instruction from that great master of the art as to the manner in which he should treat his Derby colt, and being flattered into the belief that he would be a prominent favourite for that great race.
When they had finished their wine, they sauntered into the Kildare Street Club.
Blake was soon busy with his little betting-book, and Lord Ballindine followed his example. Brien Boru was, before long, in great demand. Blake took fifty to one, and then talked the horse up till he ended by giving twenty-five. He was soon ranked the first of the Irish lot; and the success of the Hibernians had made them very sanguine of late. Lord Ballindine found himself the centre of a little sporting circle, as being the man with the crack nag of the day. He was talked of, courted, and appealed to; and, I regret to say, that before he left the club he was again nearly forgetting Kelly’s Court and Miss Wyndham, had altogether got rid of his patriotic notions as to the propriety of living on his own estate, had determined forthwith to send Brien Boru over to Scott’s English stables; and then, went to bed, and dreamed that he was a winner of the Derby, and was preparing for the glories of Newmarket with five or six thousand pounds in his pocket.
Martin Kelly dined with his brother at Jude’s, and spent his evening equally unreasonably; at least, it may be supposed so from the fact that at one o’clock in the morning he was to be seen standing on one of the tables at Burton Bindon’s oyster-house, with a pewter pot, full of porter, in his hand, and insisting that every one in the room should drink the health of Anty Lynch, whom, on that occasion, he swore to be the prettiest and the youngest girl in Connaught.
It was lucky he was so intoxicated, that no one could understand him; and that his hearers were so drunk that they could understand nothing; as, otherwise, the publicity of his admiration might have had the effect of preventing the accomplishment of his design.
He managed, however, to meet his patron the next morning at the lawyer’s, though his eyes were very red, and his cheeks pale; and, after being there for some half hour, left the office, with the assurance that, whenever he and the lady might please to call there, they should find a deed prepared for their signature, which would adjust the property in the manner required.
That afternoon Lord Ballindine left Dublin, with his friend, to make instant arrangements for the exportation of Brien Boru; and, at two o’clock the next day, Martin left, by the boat, for Ballinaslie, having evinced his patriotism by paying a year’s subscription in advance to the ‘Nation’ newspaper, and with his mind fully made up to bring Anty away to Dublin with as little delay as possible.
Anty Lynch was not the prettiest, or the youngest girl in Connaught; nor would Martin have affirmed her to be so, unless he had been very much inebriated indeed. However young she might have been once, she was never pretty; but, in all Ireland, there was not a more single-hearted, simpleminded young woman. I do not use the word simple as foolish; for, though uneducated, she was not foolish. But she was unaffected, honest, humble, and true, entertaining a very lowly idea of her own value, and undated by her newly acquired wealth.
She had been so little thought of all her life by others, that she had never learned to think much of herself; she had had but few acquaintances, and no friends, and had spent her life, hitherto, so quietly and silently, that her apparent apathy was attributable rather to want of subjects of excitement, than to any sluggishness of disposition. Her mother had died early; and, since then, the only case in which Anty had been called on to exercise her own judgment, was in refusing to comply with her father’s wish that she should become a nun. On this subject, though often pressed, she had remained positive, always pleading that she felt no call to the sacred duties which would be required, and innocently assuring her father, that, if allowed to remain at home, she would cause him no trouble, and but little expense.
So she had remained at home, and had inured herself to bear without grumbling, or thinking that she had cause for grumbling, the petulance of her father, and the more cruel harshness and ill-humour of her brother. In all the family schemes of aggrandisement she had been set aside, and Barry had been intended by the father as the scion on whom all the family honours were to fall. His education had been expensive, his allowance liberal, and his whims permitted; while Anty was never better dressed than a decent English servant, and had been taught nothing save the lessons she had learnt from her mother, who died when she was but thirteen.
Mrs Lynch had died before the commencement of Sim’s palmy days. They had seen no company in her time for they were then only rising people; and, since that, the great friends to whom Sim, in his wealth, had attached himself, and with whom alone he intended that Barry should associate, were all of the masculine gender. He gave bachelor dinner-parties to hard-drinking young men, for whom Anty was well contented to cook; and when they as they often, from the effect of their potations, were perforce obliged to do stayed the night at Dunmore House, Anty never showed herself in the breakfast parlour, but boiled the eggs, made the tea, and took her own breakfast in the kitchen.
It was not wonderful, therefore, that no one proposed for Anty; and, though all who knew the Lynches, knew that Sim had a daughter, it was very generally given out that she was not so wise as her neighbours; and the father and brother took no pains to deny the rumour. The inhabitants of the village knew better; the Lynches were very generally disliked, and the shameful way ‘Miss Anty was trated,’ was often discussed in the little shops; and many of the townspeople were ready to aver that, ‘simple or no, Anty Lynch was the best of the breed, out-and-out.’
Matters stood thus at Dunmore, when the quarrel before alluded to, occurred, and when Sim made his will, dividing his property and died before destroying it, as he doubtless would have done, when his passion was over.
Great was the surprise of every one concerned, and of many who were not at all concerned, when it was ascertained that Anty Lynch was an heiress, and that she was now possessed of four hundred pounds a-year in her own right; but the passion of her brother, it would be impossible to describe. He soon, however, found that it was too literally true, and that no direct means were at hand, by which he could deprive his sister of her patrimony. The lawyer, when he informed Anty of her fortune and present station, made her understand that she had an equal right with her brother in everything in the house; and though, at first, she tacitly acquiesced in his management, she was not at all simple enough to be ignorant of the rights o possession, or weak enough to relinquish them.
Barry soon made up his mind that, as she had and must have the property, all he could now do was to take care that it should revert to him as her heir; and the measure of most importance in effecting this, would be to take care that she did not marry. In his first passion, after his father’s death, he had been rough and cruel to her; but he soon changed his conduct, and endeavoured to flatter her into docility at one moment, and to frighten her into obedience in the next.
He soon received another blow which was also a severe one. Moylan, the old man who proposed the match to Martin, called on him, and showed him that Anty had appointed him her agent, and had executed the necessary legal documents for the purpose. Upon this subject he argued for a long time with his sister pointing out to her that the old man would surely rob her offering to act as her agent himself recommending others as more honest and fitting and, lastly, telling her that she was an obstinate fool, who would soon be robbed of every penny she had, and that she would die in a workhouse at last.
But Anty, though she dreaded her brother, was firm. Wonderful as it may appear, she even loved him. She begged him not to quarrel with her promised to do everything to oblige him, and answered his wrath with gentleness; but it was of no avail. Barry knew that her agent was a plotter that he would plot against his influence though he little guessed then what would be the first step Moylan would take, or how likely it would be, if really acted on, to lead to his sister’s comfort and happiness. After this, Barry passed two months of great misery and vexation. He could not make up his mind what to do, or what final steps to take, either about the property, his sister, or himself. At first, he thought of frightening Moylan and his sister, by pretending that he would prove Anty to be of weak mind, and not fit to manage her own affairs, and that he would indict the old man for conspiracy; but he felt that Moylan was not a man to be frightened by such bugbears. Then, he made up his mind to turn all he had into money, to leave his sister to the dogs, or any one who might choose to rob her, and go and live abroad. Then he thought, if his sister should die, what a pity it would be, he should lose it all, and how he should blame himself, if she were to die soon after having married some low adventurer; and he reflected; how probable such a thing would be how likely that such a man would soon get rid of her; and then his mind began to dwell on her death, and to wish for it. He found himself constantly thinking of it, and ruminating on it, and determining that it was the only event which could set him right. His own debts would swallow up half his present property; and how could he bring himself to live on the pitiful remainder, when that stupid idiot, as he called her to himself, had three times more than she could possibly want? Morning after morning, he walked about the small grounds round the house, with his hat over his eyes, and his hands tossing about the money in his pockets, thinking of this cursing his father, and longing almost praying for his sister’s death. Then he would have his horse, and flog the poor beast along the roads without going anywhere, or having any object in view, but always turning the same thing over and over in his mind. And, after dinner, he would sit, by the hour, over the fire, drinking, longing for his sister’s money, and calculating the probabilities of his ever possessing it. He began to imagine all the circumstances which might lead to her death; he thought of all the ways in which persons situated as she was, might, and often did, die. He reflected, without knowing that he was doing so, on the probability of robbers breaking into the house, if she were left alone in it, and of their murdering her; he thought of silly women setting their own clothes on fire of their falling out of window drowning themselves of their perishing in a hundred possible but improbable ways. It was after he had been drinking a while, that these ideas became most vivid before his eyes, and seemed like golden dreams, the accomplishment of which he could hardly wish for. And, at last, as the, fumes of the spirit gave him courage, other and more horrible images would rise to his imagination, and the drops of sweat would stand on his brow as he would invent schemes by which, were he so inclined, he could accelerate, without detection, the event for which he so ardently longed. With such thoughts would he turn into bed; and though in the morning he would try to dispel the ideas in which he had indulged overnight, they still left their impression on his mind they added bitterness to his hatred and made him look on himself as a man injured by his father and sister, and think that he owed it to himself to redress his injuries by some extraordinary means.
It was whilst Barry Lynch was giving way to such thoughts as these, and vainly endeavouring to make up his mind as to what he would do, that Martin made his offer to Anty. To tell the truth, it was Martin’s sister Meg who had made the first overture; and, as Anty had not rejected it with any great disdain, but had rather shown a disposition to talk about it as a thing just possible, Martin had repeated it in person, and had reiterated it, till Anty had at last taught herself to look upon it as a likely and desirable circumstance. Martin had behaved openly and honourably with regard to the money part of the business; telling his contemplated bride that it was, of course, her fortune which had first induced him to think of her; but adding, that he would also value her and love her for herself, if she would allow him. He described to her the sort of settlement he should propose, and ended by recommending an early day for the wedding.
Anty had sense enough to be pleased at his straightforward and honest manner; and, though she did not say much to himself, she said a great deal in his praise to Meg, which all found its way to Martin’s ears. But still, he could not get over the difficulty which he had described to Lord Ballindine. Anty wanted to wait till her brother should go out of the country, and Martin was afraid that he would not go; and things were in this state when he started for Dublin.
The village of Dunmore has nothing about it which can especially recommend it to the reader. It has none of those beauties of nature which have taught Irishmen to consider their country as the ‘first flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea’. It is a dirty, ragged little town, standing in a very poor part of the country, with nothing about it to induce the traveller to go out of his beaten track. It is on no high road, and is blessed with no adventitious circumstances to add to its prosperity.
It was once the property of the O’Kellys; but, in those times the landed proprietors thought but little of the towns; and now it is parcelled out among different owners, some of whom would think it folly to throw away a penny on the place, and others of whom have not a penny to throw away. It consists of a big street, two little streets, and a few very little lanes. There is a Court-house, where the barrister sits twice a year; a Barrack, once inhabited by soldiers, but now given up to the police; a large slated chapel, not quite finished; a few shops for soft goods; half a dozen shebeen-houses, ruined by Father Mathew; a score of dirty cabins offering ‘lodging and enthertainment’, as announced on the window-shutters; Mrs. Kelly’s inn and grocery-shop; and, last though not least, Simeon Lynch’s new, staring house, built just at the edge of the town, on the road to Roscommon, which is dignified with the name of Dunmore House. The people of most influence in the village were Mrs. Kelly of the inn, and her two sworn friends, the parish priest and his curate. The former, Father Geoghegan, lived about three miles out of Dunmore, near Toneroe; and his curate, Father Pat Connel, inhabited one of the small houses in the place, very little better in appearance than those which offered accommodation to travellers and trampers.
Such was, and is, the town of Dunmore in the county of Galway; and I must beg the reader to presume himself to be present there with me on the morning on which the two young Kellys went to hear Sheil’s speech. At about ten o’clock, the widow Kelly and her daughters were busy in the shop, which occupied the most important part of the ground-floor of the inn. It was a long, scrambling, ugly-looking house. Next to the shop, and opening out of it, was a large drinking-room, furnished with narrow benches and rickety tables; and here the more humble of Mrs. Kelly’s guests regaled themselves. On the other side of this, was the hall, or passage of the house; and, next to that again, a large, clingy, dark kitchen, over which Sally reigned with her teapot dynasty, and in which were always congregated a parcel of ragged old men, boys, and noisy women, pretending to be busy, but usually doing but little good, and attracted by the warmth of the big fire, and the hopes of some scraps of food and drink.
‘For the widow Kelly God bless her! was a thrue Christhian, and didn’t begrudge the poor more power to her like some upstarts who might live to be in want yet, glory be to the Almighty!’
The difference of the English and Irish character is nowhere more plainly discerned than in their respective kitchens. With the former, this apartment is probably the cleanest, and certainly the most orderly, in the house. It is rarely intruded into by those unconnected, in some way, with its business. Everything it contains is under the vigilant eye of its chief occupant, who would imagine it quite impossible to carry on her business, whether of an humble or important nature, if her apparatus was subjected to the hands of the unauthorised. An Irish kitchen is devoted to hospitality in every sense of the word. Its doors are open to almost all loungers and idlers; and the chances are that Billy Bawn, the cripple, or Judy Molloy, the deaf old hag, are more likely to know where to find the required utensil than the cook herself. It is usually a temple dedicated to the goddess of disorder; and, too often joined with her, is the potent deity of dirt. It is not that things are out of their place, for they have no place. It isn’t that the floor is not scoured, for you cannot scour dry mud into anything but wet mud. It isn’t that the chairs and tables look filthy, for there are none. It isn’t that the pots, and plates, and pans don’t shine, for you see none to shine. All you see is a grimy, black ceiling, an uneven clay floor, a small darkened window, one or two unearthly-looking recesses, a heap of potatoes in the corner, a pile of turf against the wall, two pigs and a dog under the single dresser, three or four chickens on the window-sill, an old cock moaning on the top of a rickety press, and a crowd of ragged garments, squatting, standing, kneeling, and crouching, round the fire, from which issues a babel of strange tongues, not one word of which is at first intelligible to ears unaccustomed to such eloquence.
And yet, out of these unfathomable, unintelligible dens, proceed in due time dinners, of which the appearance of them gives no promise. Such a kitchen was Mrs. Kelly’s; and yet, it was well known and attested by those who had often tried tile experiment, that a man need think it no misfortune to have to get his dinner, his punch, and his bed, at the widow’s.
Above stairs were two sitting-rooms and a colony of bed-rooms, occupied indiscriminately by the family, or by such customers as might require them. If you came back to dine at the inn, after a day’s shooting on the bogs, you would probably find Miss Jane’s work-box on the table, or Miss Meg’s album on the sofa; and, when a little accustomed to sojourn at such places, you would feel no surprise at discovering their dresses turned inside out, and hanging on the pegs in your bed-room; or at seeing their side-combs and black pins in the drawer of your dressing-table.
On the morning in question, the widow and her daughters were engaged in the shop, putting up pen’norths of sugar, cutting bits of tobacco, tying bundles of dip candles, attending to chance customers, and preparing for the more busy hours of the day. It was evident that something had occurred at the inn, which had ruffled the even tenor. of its way. The widow was peculiarly gloomy. Though fond of her children, she was an autocrat in her house, and accustomed, as autocrats usually are, to scold a good deal; and now she was using her tongue pretty freely. It wasn’t the girls, however, she was rating, for they could answer for themselves; and did, when they thought it necessary. But now, they were demure, conscious, and quiet. Mrs. Kelly was denouncing one of the reputed sins of the province to which she belonged, and describing the horrors of ‘schaming.’
‘Them underhand ways,’ she declared, ‘niver come to no good. Av’ it’s thrue what Father Connel’s afther telling me, there’ll harum come of it before it’s done and over. Schaming, schaming, and schaming for iver! The back of my hand to such doings! I wish the tongue had been out of Moylan’s mouth, the ould rogue, before he put the thing in his head. Av’ he wanted the young woman, and she was willing, why not take her in a dacent way, and have done with it. I’m sure she’s ould enough. But what does he want with a wife like her? making innimies for himself. I suppose he’ll be sitting up for a gentleman now bad cess to them for gentry; not but that he’s as good a right as some, and a dale more than others, who are ashamed to put their hand to a turn of work. I hate such huggery muggery work up in a corner. It’s half your own doing; and a nice piece of work it’ll be, when he’s got an ould wife and a dozen lawsuits! when he finds his farm gone, and his pockets empty; for it’ll be a dale asier for him to be getting the wife than the money when he’s got every body’s abuse, and nothing else, by his bargain!’
It was very apparent that Martin’s secret had not been well kept, and that the fact of his intended marriage with Anty Lynch was soon likely to be known to all Dunmore. The truth was, that Moylan had begun to think himself overreached in the matter to be afraid that, by the very measure he had himself proposed, he would lose all share in the great prize he had put in Martin’s way, and that he should himself be the means of excluding his own finger from the pie. It appeared to him that if he allowed this, his own folly would only be equalled by the young man’s ingratitude; and he determined therefore, if possible, to prevent the match. Whereupon he told the matter as a secret, to those who he knew would set it moving. In a very short space of time it reached the ears of Father Connel; and he lost none in stepping down to learn the truth of so important a piece of luck to one of his parishioners, and to congratulate the widow. Here, however, he was out in his reckoning, for she declared she did not believe it that it wasn’t, and couldn’t be true; and it was only after his departure that she succeeded in extracting the truth from her daughters.
The news, however, quickly reached the kitchen and its lazy crowd; and the inn door and its constant loungers; and was readily and gladly credited in both places.
Crone after crone, and cripple after cripple, hurried into the shop, to congratulate the angry widow on ‘masther Martin’s luck; and warn’t he worthy of it, the handsome jewel and wouldn’t he look the gintleman, every inch of him?’ and Sally expatiated greatly on it in the kitchen, and drank both their healths in an extra pot of tea, and Kate grinned her delight, and Jack the ostler, who took care of Martin’s horse, boasted loudly of it in the street, declaring that ‘it was a good thing enough for Anty Lynch, with all her money, to get a husband at all out of the Kellys, for the divil a know any one knowed in the counthry where the Lynchs come from; but every one knowed who the Kellys wor and Martin wasn’t that far from the lord himself.’
There was great commotion, during the whole day, at the inn. Some said Martin had gone to town to buy furniture; others, that he had done so to prove the will. One suggested that he’d surely have to fight Barry, and another prayed that ‘if he did, he might kill the blackguard, and have all the fortin to himself, out and out, God bless him!
The great news was not long before it reached the ears of one not disposed to receive the information with much satisfaction, and this was Barry Lynch, the proposed bride’s amiable brother. The medium through which he first heard it was not one likely to add to his good humour. Jacky, the fool, had for many years been attached to the Kelly’s Court family; that is to say, he had attached himself to it, by getting his food in the kitchen, and calling himself the lord’s fool. But, latterly, he had quarrelled with Kelly’s Court, and had insisted on being Sim Lynch’s fool, much to the chagrin of that old man; and, since his death, he had nearly maddened Barry by following him through the street, and being continually found at the house-door when he went out. Jack’s attendance was certainly dictated by affection rather than any mercenary views, for he never got a scrap out of the Dunmore House kitchen, or a halfpenny from his new patron. But still, he was Barry’s fool; and, like other fools, a desperate annoyance to his master.
On the day in question, as young Mr. Lynch was riding out of the gate, about three in the afternoon, there, as usual, was Jack.
‘Now yer honour, Mr. Barry, darling, shure you won’t forget Jacky today. You’ll not forget your own fool, Mr. Barry?’
Barry did not condescend to answer this customary appeal, but only looked at the poor ragged fellow as though he’d like to flog the life out of him.
‘Shure your honour, Mr. Barry, isn’t this the time then to open yer honour’s hand, when Miss Anty, God bless her, is afther making sich a great match for the family? Glory be to God!’
‘What d’ye mean, you ruffian?’
‘Isn’t the Kellys great people intirely, Mr. Barry? and won’t it be a great thing for Miss Anty, to be sib to a lord? Shure yer honour’d not be refusing me this blessed day.’
‘What the d —— are you saying about Miss Lynch?’ said Barry, his attention somewhat arrested by the mention of his sister’s name.
‘Isn’t she going to be married then, to the dacentest fellow in Dunmore? Martin Kelly, God bless him! Ah! there’ll be fine times at Dunmore, then. He’s not the boy to rattle a poor divil out of the kitchen into the cold winther night! The Kellys was always the right sort for the poor.’
Barry was frightened in earnest, now. It struck him at once that Jack couldn’t have made the story out of his own head; and the idea that there was any truth in it, nearly knocked him off his horse. He rode on, however, trying to appear to be regardless of what had been said to him; and, as he trotted off, he heard the fool’s parting salutation.
‘And will yer honour be forgething me afther the news I’ve brought yer? Well, hard as ye are, Misther Barry, I’ve hot yer now, any way.’
And, in truth, Jack had hit him hard. Of all things that could happen to him, this would be about the worst. He had often thought, with dread, of his sister’s marrying, and of his thus being forced to divide everything all his spoil, with some confounded stranger. But for her to marry a shopkeeper’s son, in the very village in which he lived, was more than he could bear. He could never hold up his head in the county again. And then, he thought of his debts, and tried to calculate whether he might get over to France without paying them, and be able to carry his share of the property with him; and so he went on, pursuing his wretched, uneasy, solitary ride, sometimes sauntering along at a snail’s pace, and then again spurring the poor brute, and endeavouring to bring his mind to some settled plan. But, whenever he did so, the idea of his sister’s death was the only one which seemed to present either comfort or happiness.
He made up his mind, at last, to put a bold face on the matter; to find out from Anty herself whether there was any truth in the story; and, if there should be for he felt confident she would not be able to deceive him to frighten her and the whole party of the Kellys out of what he considered a damnable conspiracy to rob him of his father’s property,
He got off his horse, and stalked into the house. On inquiry, he found that Anty was in her own room. He was sorry she was not out; for, to tell the truth, he was rather anxious to put off the meeting, as he did not feel himself quite up to the mark, and was ashamed of seeming afraid of her. He went into the stable, and abused the groom; into the kitchen, and swore at the maid; and then into the garden. It was a nasty, cold, February day, and he walked up and down the damp muddy walks till he was too tired and cold to walk longer, and then turned into the parlour, and remained with his back to the fire, till the man came in to lay the cloth, thinking on the one subject that occupied all his mind occasionally grinding his teeth, and heaping curses on his father and sister, who, together, had inflicted such grievous, such unexpected injuries upon him.
If, at this moment, there was a soul in all Ireland over whom Satan had full dominion if there was a breast unoccupied by one good thought if there was a heart wishing, a brain conceiving, and organs ready to execute all that was evil, from the worst motives, they were to he found in that miserable creature, as he stood there urging himself on to hate those whom he should have loved cursing those who were nearest to him fearing her, whom he had ill-treated all his life and striving to pluck up courage to take such measures as might entirely quell her. Money was to him the only source of gratification. He had looked forward, when a boy, to his manhood, as a period when he might indulge, unrestrained, in pleasures which money would buy; and, when a man, to his father’s death, as a time when those means would be at his full command. He had neither ambition, nor affection, in his nature; his father had taught him nothing but the excellence of money, and, having fully imbued him with this, had cut him off from the use of it.
He was glad when he found that dinner was at hand, and that he could not now see his sister until after he had fortified himself with drink. Anty rarely, if ever, dined with him; so he sat down, and swallowed his solitary meal. He did not eat much, but he gulped down three or four glasses of wine; and, immediately on having done so, he desired the servant, with a curse, to bring him hot water and sugar, and not to keep him waiting all night for a tumbler of punch, as he did usually. Before the man had got into the kitchen, he rang the bell again; and when the servant returned breathless, with the steaming jug, he threatened to turn him out of the house at once, if he was not quicker in obeying the orders given him. He then made a tumbler of punch, filling the glass half full of spirits, and drinking it so hot as to scald his throat; and when that was done he again rang the bell, and desired the servant to tell Miss Anty that he wanted to speak to her. When the door was shut, he mixed more drink, to support his courage during the interview, and made up his mind that nothing should daunt him from preventing the marriage, in one way or another. When Anty opened the door, he was again standing with his back to the fire, his hands in his pockets, the flaps of his coat hanging over his arms, his shoulders against the mantel-piece, and his foot on the chair on which he had been sitting. His face was red, and his eyes were somewhat blood-shot; he had always a surly look, though, from his black hair, and large bushy whiskers, many people would have called him good looking; but now there was a scowl in his restless eyes, which frightened Anty when she saw it; and the thick drops of perspiration on his forehead did not add benignity to his face.
‘Were you wanting me, Barry?’ said Anty, who was the first to speak.
‘What do you stand there for, with the door open?’ replied her brother, ‘d’ you think I want the servants to hear what I’ve got to say?’
‘‘Deed I don’t know,’ said Anty, shutting the door; ‘but they’ll hear just as well now av’ they wish, for they’ll come to the kay-hole.’
‘Will they, by G—!’ said Barry, and he rushed to the door, which he banged open; finding no victim outside on whom to exercise his wrath ‘let me catch ’em!’ and he returned to his position by the fire.
Anty had sat down on a sofa that stood by the wall opposite the fireplace, and Barry remained for a minute, thinking how he’d open the campaign. At last he began:
‘Anty, look you here, now. What scheme have you got in your head? You’d better let me know, at once.’
‘What schame, Barry?’
‘Well what schame, if you like that better.’
‘I’ve no schame in my head, that I know of at laist —’ and then Anty blushed. It would evidently be easy enough to make the poor girl tell her own secret.
‘Well, go on at laist ’
‘I don’t know what you mane, Barry. Av’ you’re going to be badgering me again, I’ll go away.’
‘It’s evident you’re going to do something you’re ashamed of, when you’re afraid to sit still, and answer a common question. But you must answer me. I’m your brother, and have a right to know. What’s this you’re going to do?’ He didn’t like to ask her at once whether she was going to get married. It might not be true, and then he would only be putting the idea into her head. ‘Well why don’t you answer me? What is it you’re going to do?’
‘Is it about the property you mane, Barry?’
‘What a d d hypocrite you are! As if you didn’t know what I mean! As for the property, I tell you there’ll be little left the way you’re going on. And as to that, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do; so, mind, I warn you beforehand. You’re not able that is, you’re too foolish and weak-headed to manage it yourself; and I mean, as your guardian, to put it into the hands of those that shall manage it for you. I’m not going to see you robbed and duped, and myself destroyed by such fellows as Moylan, and a crew of huxtering blackguards down in Dunmore. And now, tell me at once, what’s this I hear about you and the Kellys?’
‘What Kellys?’ said Anty, blushing deeply, and half beside herself with fear for Barry’s face was very red, and full of fierce anger, and his rough words frightened her.
‘What Kellys! Did you ever hear of Martin Kelly? d d young robber that he is!’ Anty blushed still deeper rose a little way from the sofa, and then sat down again. ‘Look you here, Anty I’ll have the truth out of you. I’m not going to be bamboozled by such an idiot as you. You got an old man, when he was dying, to make a will that has robbed me of what was my own, and now you think you’ll play your own low game; but you’re mistaken! You’ve lived long enough without a husband to do without one now; and I can tell you I’m not going to see my property carried off by such a low, paltry blackguard as Martin Kelly.’
‘How can he take your property, Barry?’ sobbed forth the poor creature, who was, by this time, far gone in tears.
‘Then the long and the short of it is, he shan’t have what you call yours. Tell me, at once, will you is it true, that you’ve promised to marry him?’
Anty replied nothing, but continued sobbing violently.
‘Cease your nonsense, you blubbering fool! A precious creature you are to take on yourself to marry any man! Are you going to answer me, Anty?’ And he walked away from the fire, and came and stood opposite to her as she sat upon the sofa. ‘Are you going to answer me or not?’ he continued, stamping on the floor.
‘I’ll not stop here and be trated this way Barry I’m sure I do all I I can for you and you’re always bullying me because father divided the property.’ And Anty continued sobbing more violently than ever. ‘I won’t stop in the room any more,’ and she got up to go to the door.
Barry, however, rushed before her, and prevented her. He turned the lock, and put the key in his pocket; and then he caught her arm, as she attempted to get to the bell, and dragged her back to the sofa.
‘You’re not off so easy as that, I can tell you. Why, d’ you think you’re to marry whom you please, without even telling me of it? What d’you think the world would say of me, if I were to let such an idiot as you be caught up by the first sharper that tried to rob you of your money? Now, look here,’ and he sat down beside her, and laid his hand violently on her arm, as he spoke, ‘you don’t go out of this room, alive, until you’ve given me your solemn promise, and sworn on the cross, that you’ll never marry without my consent; and you’ll give me that in writing, too.’
Anty at first turned very pale when she felt his heavy hand on her arm, and saw his red, glaring eyes so near her own. But when he said she shouldn’t leave the room alive, she jumped from the sofa, and shrieked, at the top of her shrill voice ‘Oh, Barry! you’ll not murdher me! shure you wouldn’t murdher your own sisther!’
Barry was rather frightened at the noise, and, moreover, the word ‘murder’ quelled him. But when he found, after a moment’s pause, that the servants had not heard, or had not heeded his sister, he determined to carry on his game, now that he tad proceeded so far. He took, however, a long drink out of his tumbler, to give him fresh courage, and then returned to the charge.
‘Who talked of murdering you? But, if you bellow in that way, I’ll gag you. It’s a great deal I’m asking, indeed that, when I’m your only guardian, my advice should be asked for before you throw away your money on a low ruffian. You’re more fit for a mad-house than to be any man’s wife; and, by Heaven, that’s where I’ll put you, if you don’t give me the promise I ask! Will you swear you’ll marry no one without my leave?’
Poor Anty shook with fear as she sate, with her eyes fixed on her brother’s face. He was nearly drunk now, and she felt that he was so and he looked so hot and so fierce so red and cruel, that she was all but paralysed. Nevertheless, she mustered strength to say,
‘Let me go, now, Barry, and, tomorrow, I’ll tell you everything indeed I will and I’ll thry to do all you’d have me; indeed,’ and indeed, I will! Only do let me go now, for you’ve frighted me.’
‘You’re likely to be more frighted yet, as you call it! And be tramping along the roads, I suppose, with Martin Kelly, before the morning. No! I’ll have an answer from you, any way. I’ve a right to that!’
‘Oh, Barry! What is it you want? Pray let me go pray, pray, for the love of the blessed Jesus, let me go.’
‘I’ll tell you where you’ll go, and that’s into Ballinasloe mad-house! Now, mark me so help me I’ll set off with you this night, and have you there in the morning as an idiot as you are, if you won’t make the promise I’m telling you!’
By this time Anty’s presence of mind had clean left her. Indeed, all the faculties of her reason had vanished; and, as she saw her brother’s scowling face so near her own, and heard him threatening to drag her to a mad-house, she put her hands before her eyes, and made one rush to escape from him to the door to the window anywhere to get out of his reach.
Barry was quite drunk now. Had he not been so, even he would hardly have done what he then did. As she endeavoured to rush by him, he raised his fist, and struck her on the face, with all his force. The blow fell upon her hands, as they were crossed over her face; but the force of the blow knocked her down, and she fell upon the floor, senseless, striking the back of her head against the table.
‘Confound her,’ muttered the brute, between his teeth, as she fell, ‘for an obstinate, pig-headed fool! What the d l shall I do now? Anty, get up! get up, will you! What ails you?’ and then again to himself, ‘the d l seize her! What am I to do now?’ and he succeeded in dragging her on to the sofa.
The man-servant and the cook although up to this point, they had considered it would be ill manners to interrupt the brother and sister in their family interview, were nevertheless at the door; and though they could see nothing, and did not succeed in hearing much, were not the less fully aware that the conversation was of a somewhat stormy nature on the part of the brother. When they heard the noise which followed the blow, though not exactly knowing what had happened, they became frightened, and began to think something terrible was being done.
‘Go in, Terry, avich,’ whispered the woman ‘Knock, man, and go in shure he’s murdhering her!’
‘What ‘ud he do to me thin, av’ he’d strick a woman, and she his own flesh and blood! He’ll not murdher her but, faix, he’s afther doing something now! Knock, Biddy, knock, I say, and screech out that you’re afther wanting Miss Anty.’
The woman had more courage than the man or else more compassion, for, without further parleying, she rapped her knuckles loudly against the door, and, as she did so, Terry sneaked away to the kitchen.
Barry had just succeeded in raising his sister to the sofa as he heard the knock.
‘Who’s that?’ he called out loudly; ‘what do you want?’
‘Plaze yer honer, Miss Anty’s wanting in the kitchen.’
‘She’s busy, and can’t come at present; she’ll be there directly.’
‘Is she ill at all, Mr. Barry? God bless you, spake, Miss Anty; in God’s name, spake thin. Ah! Mr. Barry, thin, shure she’d spake av’ she were able.’
‘Go away, you fool! Your mistress’ll be out in a minute.’ Then, after a moment’s consideration, he went and unlocked the door, ‘or go in, and see what she wants. She’s fainted, I think.’
Barry Lynch walked out of the room, and into the garden before the house, to think over what he had done, and what he’d better do for the future, leaving Anty to the care of the frightened woman.
She soon came to herself, and, excepting that her head was bruised in the fall, was not much hurt. The blow, falling on her hands, had neither cut nor marked her; but she was for a long time so flurried that she did not know where she was, and, in answer to all Biddy’s tender inquiries as to the cause of her fall, and anathemas as to the master’s bad temper, merely said that ‘she’d get to bed, for her head ached so, she didn’t know where she was.’
To bed accordingly she went; and glad she was to have escaped alive from that drunken face, which had glared on her for the last half hour.
After wandering about round the house and through the grounds, for above an hour, Barry returned, half sobered, to the room; but, in his present state of mind, he could not go to bed sober. He ordered more hot water, and again sat down alone to drink, and drown the remorse he was beginning to feel for what he had done or rather, not remorse, but the feeling of fear that every one would know how he had treated Anty, and that they would side with her against him. Whichever way he looked, all was misery and disappointment to him, and his only hope, for the present, was in drink. There he sat, for a long time, with his eyes fixed on the turf, till it was all burnt out, trying to get fresh courage from the spirits he swallowed, and swearing to himself that he would not be beat by a woman.
About one o’clock he seized one of the candles, and staggered up to bed. As he passed his sister’s door, he opened it and went in. She was fast asleep; her shoes were off, and the bed-clothes were thrown over her, but she was not undressed. He slowly shut the door, and stood, for some moments, looking at her; then, walking to the bed, he took her shoulder, and shook it as gently as his drunkenness would let him. This did not wake her, so he put the candle down on the table, close beside the bed, and, steadying himself against the bedstead, he shook her again and again. ‘Anty’, he whispered, ‘Anty’; and, at last, she opened her eyes. Directly she saw his face, she closed them again, and buried her own in the clothes; however, he saw that she was awake, and, bending his head, he muttered, loud enough for her to hear, but in a thick, harsh, hurried, drunken voice, ‘Anty d’ye hear? If you marry that man, I’ll have your life!’ and then, leaving the candle behind him, he staggered off into his own room in the dark.
In vain, after that, did Anty try to sleep; turn which way she would, she saw the bloodshot eyes and horrid drunken face of her cruel brother. For a long time she lay, trembling and anxious; fearing she knew not what, and trying to compose herself trying to make herself think that she had no present cause for fear; but in vain. If she heard a noise, she thought it was her brother’s footstep, and when the house was perfectly silent and still, she feared the very silence itself. At last, she crept out of bed, and, taking the candle left by her brother, which had now burned down to the socket, stepped softly down the stairs, to the place where the two maid-servants slept, and, having awakened them, she made Biddy return with her and keep her company for the remainder of the night. She did not quite tell the good-natured girl all that had passed; she did not own that her brother had threatened to send her to a madhouse, or that he had sworn to have her life; but she said enough to show that he had shamefully ill-treated her, and to convince Biddy that wherever her mistress might find a home, it would be very unadvisable that she and Barry should continue to live under the same roof.
Early in the morning, ‘Long afore the break o’ day,’ as the song says, Biddy got up from her hard bed on the floor of her mistress’ room, and, seeing that Anty was at last asleep, started to carry into immediate execution the counsels she had given during the night. As she passed the head of the stairs, she heard the loud snore of Barry, in his drunken slumber; and, wishing that he might sleep as sound for ever and ever, she crept down to her own domicile, and awakened her comrade.
‘Whist, Judy whist, darlint! Up wid ye, and let me out.’
‘And what’d you be doing out now?’ yawned Judy.
‘An arrand of the misthress shure, he used her disperate. Faix, it’s a wondher he didn’t murther her outright!’
‘And where are ye going now?’
‘Jist down to Dunmore to the Kellys then, avich. Asy now; I’ll be telling you all bye and bye. She must be out of this intirely.’
‘Is’t Miss Anty? Where’d she be going thin out of this?’
‘Divil a matther where! He’d murther her, the ruffian ‘av he cotched her another night in his dhrunkenness. We must git her out before he sleeps hisself right. But hurry now, I’ll be telling you all when I’m back again.’
The two crept off to the back door together, and, Judy having opened it, Biddy sallied out, on her important and good-natured mission. It was still dark, though the morning was beginning to break, as she stood, panting, at the front door of the inn. She tried to get in at the back, but the yard gates were fastened; and Jack, the ostler, did not seem to be about yet. So she gave a timid, modest knock, with the iron knocker, on the front door. A pause, and then a second knock, a little louder; another pause, and then a third; and then, as no one came, she remembered the importance of her message, and gave such a rap as a man might do, who badly wanted a glass of hot drink after travelling the whole night.
The servants had good or hardy consciences, for they slept soundly; but the widow Kelly, in her little bed-room behind the shop, well knew the sound of that knocker, and, hurrying on her slippers and her gown, she got to the door, and asked who was there.
‘Is that Sally, ma’am?’ said Biddy, well knowing the widow’s voice.
‘No, it’s not. What is it you’re wanting?’
‘Is it Kate thin, ma’am?’
‘No, it’s not Kate. Who are you, I say; and what d’you want?’
‘I’m Biddy, plaze ma’am from Lynch’s, and I’m wanting to spake to yerself, ma’am about Miss Anty. She’s very bad intirely, ma’am.’
‘What ails her and why d’you come here? Why don’t you go to Doctor Colligan, av’ she’s ill; and not come knocking here?’
‘It ain’t bad that way, Miss Anty is, ma’am. Av’ you’d just be good enough to open the door, I’d tell you in no time.’
It would, I am sure, be doing injustice to Mrs Kelly to say that her curiosity was stronger than her charity; they both, however, no doubt had their effect, and the door was speedily opened.
‘Oh, ma’am!’ commenced Biddy, ‘sich terrible doings up at the house! Miss Anty’s almost kilt!’
‘Come out of the cowld, girl, in to the kitchen fire,’ said the widow, who didn’t like the February blast, to which Biddy, in her anxiety, had been quite indifferent; and the careful widow again bolted the door, and followed the woman into certainly the warmest place in Dunmore, for the turf fire in the inn kitchen was burning day and night. ‘And now, tell me what is it ails Miss Anty? She war well enough yesterday, I think, and I heard more of her then than I wished.’
Biddy now pulled her cloak from off her head, settled it over her shoulders, and prepared for telling a good substantial story.
‘Oh, Misthress Kelly, ma’am, there’s been disperate doings last night up at the house. We were all hearing, in the morn yesterday, as how Miss Anty and Mr Martin, God bless him! were to make a match of it, as why wouldn’t they, ma’am? for wouldn’t Mr Martin make her a tidy, dacent, good husband?’
‘Well, well, Biddy don’t mind Mr Martin; he’ll be betther without a wife for one while, and he needn’t be quarrelling for one when he wants her. What ails Miss Anty?’
‘Shure I’m telling you, ma’am; howsomever, whether its thrue or no about Mr Martin, we were all hearing it yestherday; and the masther, he war afther hearing it too, for he come into his dinner as black as tunder; and Terry says he dhrunk the whole of a bottle of wine, and then he called for the sperrits, and swilled away at them till he was nigh dhrunk. Well, wid that, ma’am, he sent for Miss Anty, and the moment she comes in, he locks to the door, and pulls her to the sofa, and swears outright that he’ll murdher her av’ she don’t swear, by the blessed Mary and the cross, that she’ll niver dhrame of marrying no one.’
‘Who tould you all this, Biddy? was it herself?’
‘Why, thin, partly herself it war who tould me, ma’am, and partly you see, when Mr Barry war in his tantrums and dhrunken like, I didn’t like to be laying Miss Anty alone wid him, and nobody nigh, so I and Terry betook ourselves nigh the door, and, partly heard what was going on; that’s the thruth on it, Mrs Kelly; and, afther a dale of rampaging and scolding, may I niver see glory av’ he didn’t up wid his clenched fist, strik her in the face, and knock her down all for one as ‘av she wor a dhrunken blackguard at a fair!’
‘You didn’t see that, Biddy?’
‘No, ma’am I didn’t see it; how could I, through the door? but I heerd it, plain enough I heerd the poor cratur fall for dead amongst the tables and chairs I did, Mrs Kelly and I heerd the big blow smash agin her poor head, and down she wint why wouldn’t she? and he, the born ruffian, her own brother, the big blackguard, stricking at her wid all his force! Well, wid that ma’am, I rushed into the room at laist, I didn’t rush in for how could I, and the door locked? but I knocked agin and agin, for I war afeard he would be murthering her out and out. So, I calls out, as loud as I could, as how Miss Anty war wanting in the kitchen: and wid that he come to the door, and unlocks it as bould as brass, and rushes out into the garden, saying as how Miss Anty war afther fainting. Well, in course I goes in to her, where he had dragged her upon the sofa, and, thrue enough, she war faint indeed.’
‘And, did she tell you, Biddy, that her own brother had trated her that way?’
‘Wait, Mrs Kelly, ma’am, till I tell yer how it all happened. When she corned to herself and she warn’t long coming round she didn’t say much, nor did I; for I didn’t just like then to be saying much agin the masther, for who could know where his ears were? perish his sowl, the blackguard!’
‘Don’t be cursing, Biddy.’
‘No, ma’am; only he must be cursed, sooner or later. Well, when she corned to herself, she begged av’ me to help her to bed, and she went up to her room, and laid herself down, and I thought to myself that at any rate it was all over for that night. When she war gone, the masther he soon come back into the house, and begun calling for the sperrits again, like mad; and Terry said that when he tuk the biling wather into the room, Mr Barry war just like the divil as he’s painted, only for his ears. After that Terry wint to bed; and I and Judy weren’t long afther him, for we didn’t care to be sitting up alone wid him, and he mad dhrunk. So we turned in, and we were in bed maybe two hours or so, and fast enough, when down come the misthress as pale as a sheet, wid a candle in her hand, and begged me, for dear life, to come up into her room to her, and so I did, in coorse. And then she tould me all and, not contint with what he’d done down stairs, but the dhrunken ruffian must come up into her bed-room and swear the most dreadfullest things to her you iver heerd, Mrs Kelly. The words he war afther using, and the things he said, war most horrid; and Miss Anty wouldn’t for her dear life, nor for all the money in Dunmore, stop another night, nor another day in the house wid him.’
‘But, is she much hurt, Biddy?’
‘Oh! her head;’ cut, dreadful, where she fell, ma’am: and he shuck the very life out of her poor carcase; so he did, Mrs Kelly, the ruffian!’
‘Don’t be cursing, I tell you, girl. And what is it your misthress is wishing to do now? Did she tell you to come to me?’
‘No, ma’am; she didn’t exactly tell me only as she war saying that she wouldn’t for anything be staying in the house with Mr Barry; and as she didn’t seem to be knowing where she’d be going, and av’ she be raally going to be married to Mr Martin ’
‘Drat Mr Martin, you fool! Did she tell you she wanted to come here?’.
‘She didn’t quite say as much as that. To tell the thruth, thin, it wor I that said it, and she didn’t unsay it; so, wid that, I thought I’d come down here the first thing, and av’ you, Mrs Kelly, wor thinking it right, we’d get her out of the house before the masther’s stirring.’
The widow was a prudent woman, and she stood, for some time, considering; for she felt that, if she held out her hand to Anty now, she must stick to her through and through in the battle which there would be between her and her brother; and there might be more plague than profit in that. But then, again, she was not at all so indifferent as she had appeared to be, to her favourite son’s marrying four hundred a-year. She was angry at his thinking of such a thing without consulting her; she feared the legal difficulties he must encounter; and she didn’t like the thoughts of its being said that her son had married an old fool, and cozened her out of her money. But still, four hundred a-year was a great thing; and Anty was a good-tempered tractable young woman, of the right religion, and would not make a bad wife; and, on reconsideration, Mrs Kelly thought the thing wasn’t to be sneezed at. Then, again, she hated Barry, and, having a high spirit, felt indignant that he should think of preventing her son from marrying his sister, if the two of them chose to do it; and she knew she’d be able, and willing enough, too, to tell him a bit of her mind, if there should be occasion. And lastly, and most powerfully of all, the woman’s feeling came in to overcome her prudential scruples, and to open her heart and her house to a poor, kindly, innocent creature, ill-treated as Anty Lynch had been. She was making up her mind what to do, and determining to give battle royal to Barry and all his satellites, on behalf of Anty, when Biddy interrupted her by saying
‘I hope I warn’t wrong, ma’am, in coming down and throubling you so arly? I thought maybe you’d be glad to befrind Miss Anty seeing she and Miss Meg, and Miss Jane, is so frindly.’
‘No, Biddy for a wondher, you’re right, this morning. Mr Barry won’t be stirring yet?’
‘Divil a stir, ma’am! The dhrunkenness won’t be off him yet this long while. And will I go up, and be bringing Miss Anty down, ma’am?’
‘Wait a while. Sit to the fire there, and warm your shins. You’re a good girl. I’ll go and get on my shoes and stockings, and my cloak, and bonnet. I must go up wid you myself, and ask yer misthress down, as she should be asked. They’ll be telling lies on her ‘av she don’t lave the house dacently, as she ought.’
‘More power to you thin, Mrs Kelly, this blessed morning, for a kind good woman as you are, God bless you!’ whimpered forth Biddy, who, now that she had obtained her request, began to cry, and to stuff the corner of her petticoat into her eyes.
‘Whist, you fool whist,’ said the widow. ‘Go and get up Sally you know where she sleeps-and tell her to put down a fire in the little parlour upstairs, and to get a cup of tay ready, and to have Miss Meg up. Your misthress’ll be the better of a quiet sleep afther the night she’s had, and it’ll be betther for her jist popping into Miss Meg’s bed than getting between a pair of cowld sheets.’
These preparations met with Biddy’s entire approval, for she reiterated her blessings on the widow, as she went to announce all the news to Sally and Kate, while Mrs Kelly made such preparations as were fitting for a walk, at that early hour, up to Dunmore House.
They were not long before they were under weigh, but they did not reach the house quite so quickly as Biddy had left it. Mrs Kelly had to pick her way in the half light, and observed that ‘she’d never been up to the house since old Simeon Lynch built it, and when the stones were laying for it, she didn’t think she ever would; but one never knowed what changes might happen in this world.’
They were soon in the house, for Judy was up to let them in; and though she stared when she saw Mrs Kelly, she merely curtsied, and said nothing.
The girl went upstairs first, with the candle, and Mrs Kelly followed, very gently, on tiptoe. She need not have been so careful to avoid waking Barry, for, had a drove of oxen been driven upstairs, it would not have roused him. However, up she crept her thick shoes creaking on every stair and stood outside the door, while Biddy went in to break the news of her arrival.
Anty was still asleep, but it did not take much to rouse her; and she trembled in her bed, when, on her asking what was the matter, Mrs Kelly popped her bonnet inside the door, and said,
‘It’s only me, my dear. Mrs Kelly, you know, from the inn,’ and then she very cautiously insinuated the rest of her body into the room, as though she thought that Barry was asleep under the bed, and she was afraid of treading on one of his stray fingers. ‘It’s only me, my dear. Biddy’s been down to me, like a good girl; and I tell you what this is no place for you, just at present, Miss Anty; not till such time as things is settled a little. So I’m thinking you’d betther be slipping down wid me to the inn there, before your brother’s up. There’s nobody in it, not a sowl, only Meg, and Jane, and me, and we’ll make you snug enough between us, never fear.’
‘Do, Miss Anty, dear do, darling,’ added Biddy. ‘It’ll be a dale betther for you than waiting here to be batthered and bruised, and, perhaps, murthered out and out.’
‘Hush, Biddy don’t be saying such things,’ said the widow, who had a great idea of carrying on the war on her own premises, but who felt seriously afraid of Barry now that she was in his house, ‘don’t be saying such things, to frighthen her. But you’ll be asier there than here,’ she continued, to Anty; ‘and there’s nothin like having things asy. So, get up alanna, and we’ll have you warm and snug down there in no time.’
Anty did not want much persuading. She was soon induced to get up and dress herself, to put on her cloak and bonnet, and hurry off with the widow, before the people of Dunmore should be up to look at her going through the town to the inn; while Biddy was left to pack up such things as were necessary for her mistress’ use, and enjoined to hurry down with them to the inn as quick as she could; for, as the widow said, ‘there war no use in letting every idle bosthoon in the place see her crossing with a lot of baggage, and set them all asking the where and the why and the wherefore; though, for the matther of that, they’d all hear it soon enough.’
To tell the truth, Mrs Kelly’s courage waned from the moment of her leaving her own door, and it did not return till she felt herself within it again. Indeed, as she was leaving the gate of Dunmore House, with Anty on her arm, she was already beginning to repent what she was doing; for there were idlers about, and she felt ashamed of carrying off the young heiress. But these feelings vanished the moment she had crossed her own sill. When she had once got Anty home, it was all right. The widow Kelly seldom went out into the world; she seldom went anywhere except to mass; and, when out, she was a very modest and retiring old lady; hut she could face the devil, if necessary, across her own counter.
And so Anty was rescued, for a while, from her brother’s persecution. This happened on the morning on which Martin and Lord Ballindine met together at the lawyer’s, when the deeds were prepared which young Kelly’s genuine honesty made him think necessary before he eloped with old Sim Lynch’s heiress. He would have been rather surprised to hear, at that moment, that his mother had been before him, and carried off his bride elect to the inn!
Anty was soon domesticated. The widow, very properly, wouldn’t let her friends, Meg and Jane, ask her any questions at present. Sally had made, on the occasion, a pot of tea sufficient to supply the morning wants of half a regiment, and had fully determined that it should not be wasted. The Kelly girls were both up, and ready to do anything for their friend; so they got her to take a little of Sally’s specific, and put her into a warm bed to sleep, quiet and secure from any interruption.
While her guest was sleeping, the widow made up her mind that her best and safest course, for the present, would be, as she expressed it to her daughter, Meg, ‘to keep her toe in her pump, and say nothing to nobody.’
‘Anty can just stay quiet and asy,’ she continued, ‘till we see what Master Barry manes to be afther; he’ll find it difficult enough to move her out of this, I’m thinking, and I doubt his trying. As to money matthers, I’ll neither meddle nor make, nor will you, mind; so listen to that, girls; and as to Moylan, he’s a dacent quiet poor man but it’s bad thrusting any one. Av’ he’s her agent, however, I s’pose he’ll look afther the estate; only, Barry’ll be smashing the things up there at the house yonder in his anger and dhrunken fits, and it’s a pity the poor girl’s property should go to rack. But he’s such a born divil, she’s lucky to be out of his clutches alive; though, thank the Almighty, that put a good roof over the lone widow this day, he can’t clutch her here. Wouldn’t I like to see him come to the door and ax for her! And he can’t smash the acres, nor the money they say Mulholland has, at Tuam; and faix, av’ he does any harm up there at the house, shure enough Anty can make him pay for it every pot and pan of it out of his share, and she’ll do it, too av’ she’s said by me. But mind, I’ll neither meddle nor make; neither do you, and then we’re safe, and Anty too. And Martin’ll be here soon I wondher what good Dublin’ll do him? They might have the Repale without him, I suppose? And when he’s here, why, av’ he’s minded to marry her, and she’s plased, why, Father Geoghegan may come down, and do it before the whole counthry, and who’s ashamed? But there’ll be no huggery-muggery, and schaming; that is, av’ they’re said by me. Faix, I’d like to know who she’s to be afeared of, and she undher this roof! I s’pose Martin ain’t fool enough to care for what such a fellow as Barry Lynch can do or say and he with all the Kellys to back him; as shure they would, and why not, from the lord down? Not that I recommend the match; I think Martin a dale betther off as he is, for he’s wanting nothing, and he’s his own industhry and, maybe, a handful of money besides. But, as for being afeard I niver heard yet that a Kelly need be afeard of a Lynch in Dunmore.’
In this manner did Mrs Kelly express the various thoughts that ran through her head, as she considered Anty’s affairs; and if we could analyse the good lady’s mind, we should probably find that the result of her reflections was a pleasing assurance that she could exercise the Christian virtues of charity and hospitality towards Anty, and, at the same time, secure her son’s wishes and welfare, without subjecting her own name to any obloquy, or putting herself to any loss or inconvenience. She determined to put no questions to Anty, nor even to allude to her brother, unless spoken to on the subject; but, at the same time, she stoutly resolved to come to no terms with Barry, and to defy him to the utmost, should he attempt to invade her in her own territories. After a sound sleep Anty got up, much strengthened and refreshed, and found the two Kelly girls ready to condole with, or congratulate her, according to her mood and spirits. In spite of their mother’s caution, they were quite prepared for gossiping, as soon as Anty showed the slightest inclination that way; and, though she at first was afraid to talk about her brother, and was even, from kindly feeling, unwilling to do so, the luxury of such an opportunity of unrestrained confidence overcame her; and, before the three had been sitting together for a couple of hours, she had described the whole interview, as well as the last drunken midnight visit of Barry’s to her own bed-room, which, to her imagination, was the most horrible of all the horrors of the night.
Poor Anty. She cried vehemently that morning more in sorrow for her brother, than in remembrance of her own fears, as she told her friends how he had threatened to shut her up in a mad-house, and then to murder her, unless she promised him not to marry; and when she described how brutally he had struck her, and how, afterwards, he had crept to her room, with his red eyes and swollen face, in the dead of the night, and, placing his hot mouth close to her ears, had dreadfully sworn that she should die, if she thought of Martin Kelly as her husband, she trembled as though she was in an ague fit.
The girls said all they could to comfort her, and they succeeded in a great degree; but they could not bring her to talk of Martin. She shuddered whenever his name was mentioned, and they began to fear that Barry’s threat would have the intended effect, and frighten her from the match. However, they kindly talked of other things of how impossible it was that she should go back to Dunmore House, and how comfortable and snug they would make her at the inn, till she got a home for herself; of what she should do, and of all their little household plans together; till Anty, when she could forget her brother’s threats for a time, seemed to be more comfortable and happy than she had been for years.
In vain did the widow that morning repeatedly invoke Meg and Jane, first one and then the other, to assist in her commercial labours. In vain were Sally and Kate commissioned to bring them down. If, on some urgent behest, one of them darted down to mix a dandy of punch, or weigh a pound of sugar, when the widow was imperatively employed elsewhere, she was upstairs again, before her mother could look about her; and, at last, Mrs Kelly was obliged to content herself with the reflection that girls would be girls, and that it was ‘nathural and right they shouldn’t wish to lave Anty alone the first morning, and she sthrange to the place.’
At five o’clock, the widow, as was her custom, went up to her dinner; and Meg was then obliged to come down and mind the shop, till her sister, having dined, should come down and relieve guard. She had only just ensconced herself behind the counter, when who should walk into the shop but Barry Lynch.
Had Meg seen an ogre, or the enemy of all mankind himself, she could not, at the moment, have been more frightened; and she stood staring at him, as if the sudden loss of the power of motion alone prevented her from running away.
‘I want to see Mrs Kelly,’ said Barry; ‘d’ye hear? I want to see your mother; go and tell her.’
But we must go back, and see how Mr Lynch had managed to get up, and pass his morning.
It was noon before Barry first opened his eyes, and discovered the reality of the headache which the night’s miserable and solitary debauch had entailed on him. For, in spite of the oft-repeated assurance that there is not a headache in a hogshead of it, whiskey punch will sicken one, as well as more expensive and more fashionable potent drinks. Barry was very sick when he first awoke; and very miserable, too; for vague recollections of what he had done, and doubtful fears of what he might have done, crowded on him. A drunken man always feels more anxiety about what he has not done in his drunkenness, than about what he has; and so it was with Barry. He remembered having used rough language with his sister, but he could not remember how far he had gone. He remembered striking her, and he knew that the servant had come in; but he could not remember how, or with what he had struck her, or whether he had done so more than once, or whether she had been much hurt. He could not even think whether he had seen her since or not; he remembered being in the garden after she had fallen, and drinking again after that, but nothing further. Surely, he could not have killed her? he could not even have hurt her very much, or he would have heard of it before this. If anything serious had happened, the servants would have taken care that he should have heard enough about it ere now. Then he began to think what o’clock it could be, and that it must be late, for his watch was run down; the general fate of drunkards, who are doomed to utter ignorance of the hour at which they wake to the consciousness of their miserable disgrace. He feared to ring the bell for the servant; he was afraid to ask the particulars of last night’s work; so he turned on his pillow, and tried to sleep again. But in vain. If he closed his eyes, Anty was before them, and he was dreaming, half awake, that he was trying to stifle her, and that she was escaping, to tell all the world of his brutality and cruelty. This happened over and over again; for when he dozed but for a minute, the same thing re-occurred, as vividly as before, and made even his waking consciousness preferable to the visions of his disturbed slumbers. So, at last, he roused himself, and endeavoured to think what he should do.
Whilst he was sitting up in his bed, and reflecting that he must undress himself before he could dress himself for he had tumbled into bed with most of his clothes on Terry’s red head appeared at the door, showing an anxiety, on the part of its owner, to see if ‘the masther’ was awake, but to take no step to bring about such a state, if, luckily, he still slept.
‘What’s the time, Terry?’ said Lynch, frightened, by his own state, into rather more courtesy than he usually displayed to those dependent on him.
‘Well then, I b’lieve it’s past one, yer honer.’
‘The d l it is! I’ve such a headache. I was screwed last night; eh, Terry?’
‘I b’lieve yer war, yer honer.’
‘What o’clock was it when I went to bed?’
‘Well then, I don’t rightly know, Mr Barry; it wasn’t only about ten when I tuk in the last hot wather, and I didn’t see yer hotier afther that.’
‘Well; tell Miss Anty to make me a cup of tea, and do you bring it up here.’ This was a feeler. If anything was the matter with Anty, Terry would be sure to tell him now; but he only said, ‘Yis, yer honer,’ and retreated.
Barry now comforted himself with the reflection that there was no great harm done, and that though, certainly, there had been some row between him and Anty, it would probably blow over; and then, also, he began to reflect that, perhaps, what he had said and done, would frighten her out of her match with Kelly.
In the meantime. Terry went into the kitchen, with the news that ‘masther was awake, and axing for tay.’ Biddy had considered herself entitled to remain all the morning at the inn, having, in a manner, earned a right to be idle for that day, by her activity during the night; and the other girl had endeavoured to enjoy the same luxury, for she had been found once or twice during the morning, ensconced in the kitchen, under Sally’s wing; but Mrs Kelly had hunted her back, to go and wait on her master, giving her to understand that she would not receive the whole household.
‘And ye’re afther telling him where Miss Anty’s gone, Terry?’ inquired the injured fair one.
‘Divil a tell for me thin, shure, he may find it out hisself, widout my telling him
‘Faix, it’s he’ll be mad thin, when lie finds she’s taken up with the likes of the widdy Kelly!’
‘And ain’t she betther there, nor being murthered up here? FIe’d be killing her out and out some night.’
‘Well, but Terry, he’s not so bad as all that; there’s worse than him, and ain’t it rasonable he shouldn’t be quiet and asy, and she taking up with the likes of Martin Kelly?’
‘May be so; but wouldn’t she be a dale happier with Martin thaii up here wid him? Any ways it don’t do angering him, so, get him the tay, Judy.’
It was soon found that this was easier said than done, for Anty, in her confusion, had taken away the keys in her pocket. and there was no tea to be had.
The bell was now rung, and, as Barry had gradually re-assured himself, rung violently; and Terry, when he arrived distracted at the bed-room door, was angrily asked by his thirsty master why the tea didn’t appear? The truth was now obliged to come out, or at any rate, part of it: so Terry answered, that Miss Anty was out, and had the keys with her.
Miss Anty was so rarely out, that Barry instantly trembled again. Had she gone to a magistrate, to swear against him? Had she run away from him? Had she gone off with Martin?
‘Where the d l’s she gone, Terry?’ said he, in his extremity.
‘Faix, yer honour, thin, I’m not rightly knowing; but I hear tell she’s down at the widow Kelly’s.’
‘Who told you, you fool?’
‘Well thin, yer honer, it war Judy.’
‘And where’s Judy?’
And it ended in Judy’s being produced, and the two of them, at length, explained to their master, that the widow had come up early in the morning and fetched her away; and Judy swore ‘that not a know she knowed how it had come about, or what had induced the widow to come, or Miss Anty to go, or anything about it; only, for shure, Miss Anty was down there, snug enough, with Miss Jane and Miss Meg; and the widdy war in her tantrums, and wouldn’t let ony dacent person inside the house-door barring Biddy. And that wor all she knowed av’ she wor on the book.’
The secret was now out. Anty had left him, and put herself under the protection of Martin Kelly’s mother; had absolutely defied him, after all his threats of the preceding night. What should he do now! All his hatred for her returned again, all his anxious wishes that she might be somehow removed from his path, as an obnoxious stumbling-block. A few minutes ago, he was afraid he had murdered her, and he now almost wished that lie had done so. He finished dressing himself, and then sat down in the parlour, which had been the scene of his last night’s brutality, to concoct fresh schemes for the persecution of his sister.
In the meantime, Terry rushed down to the inn, demanding the keys, and giving Mrs Kelly a fearful history of his master’s anger. This she very wisely refrained from retailing, but, having procured the keys, gave them to the messenger, merely informing him, that ‘thanks to God’s kind protection, Miss Anty was tolerably well over the last night’s work, and he might tell his master so.’
This message Terry thought it wisest to suppress, so he took the breakfast up in silence, and his master asked no more questions. He was very sick and pale, and could eat nothing; but he drank a quantity of tea, and a couple of glasses of brandy-and-water, and then he felt better, and again began to think what measures he should take, what scheme he could concoct, for stopping this horrid marriage, and making his sister obedient to his wishes. ‘Confound her,’ he said, almost aloud, as he thought, with bitter vexation of spirit, of her unincumbered moiety of the property, ‘confound them all!’ grinding his teeth, and meaning by the ‘all’ to include with Anty his father, and every one who might have assisted his father in making the odious will, as well as his own attorney in Tuam, who wouldn’t find out some legal expedient by which he could set it aside. And then, as he thought of the shameful persecution of which he was the victim, lie kicked the fender with impotent violence, and, as the noise of the falling fire irons added to his passion, he reiterated his kicks till the unoffending piece of furniture was smashed; and then with manly indignation he turned away to the window.
But breaking the furniture, though it was what the widow predicted of him, wouldn’t in any way mend matters, or assist him in getting out of his difficulties. What was he to do? He couldn’t live on ?200 a-year; he couldn’t remain in Dunmore, to be known by every one as Martin Kelly’s brother-inlaw; he couldn’t endure the thoughts of dividing the property with such ‘a low-born huxtering blackguard’, as he called him over and over again. He couldn’t stay there, to be beaten by him in the course of legal proceedings, or to give him up amicable possession of what ought to have been what should have been his what he looked upon as his own. He came back, and sat down again over the fire, contemplating the debris of the fender, and turning all these miserable circumstances over in his mind. After remaining there till five o’clock, and having fortified himself with sundry glasses of wine, he formed his resolution. He would make one struggle more; he would first go down to the widow, and claim his sister, as a poor simple young woman, inveigled away from her natural guardian; and, if this were unsuccessful, as he felt pretty sure it would be, he would take proceedings to prove her a lunatic. If he failed, he might still delay, and finally put off the marriage; and he was sure he could get some attorney to put him in the way of doing it, and to undertake the work for him. His late father’s attorney had been a fool, in not breaking the will, or at any rate trying it, and he would go to Daly. Young Daly, he knew, was a sharp fellow, and wanted practice, and this would just suit him. And then, if at last he found that nothing could be done by this means, if his sister and the property must go from him, he would compromise the matter with the bridegroom, he would meet him half way, and, raising what money he could on his share of the estate, give leg bail to his creditors, and go to some place abroad, where tidings of Dunmore would never reach him. What did it matter what people said? he should never hear it. He would make over the whole property to Kelly, on getting a good life income out of it. Martin was a prudent fellow, and would jump at such a plan. As he thought of this, he even began to wish that it was done; he pictured to himself the easy pleasures, the card-tables, the billiard-rooms, and caf?s of some Calais or Boulogne; pleasures which he had never known, but which had been so glowingly described to him; and he got almost cheerful again as he felt that, in any way, there might be bright days yet in store for him.
He would, however, still make the last effort for the whole stake. It would be time enough to give in, and make the best of a pis aller, when he was forced to do so. If beaten, he would make use of Martin Kelly; but he would first try if he couldn’t prove him to be a swindling adventurer, and his sister to be an idiot.
Much satisfied at having come to this salutary resolution, he took up his hat, and set out for the widow’s, in order to put into operation the first part of the scheme. He rather wished it over, as he knew that Mrs Kelly was no coward, and had a strong tongue in her head. However, it must be done, and the sooner the better. He first of all looked at himself in his glass, to see that his appearance was sufficiently haughty and indignant, and, as he flattered himself, like that of a gentleman singularly out of his element in such a village as Dunmore; and then, having ordered his dinner to be ready on his return, he proceeded on his voyage for the recovery of his dear sister.
Entering the shop, he communicated his wishes to Meg, in the manner before described; and, while she was gone on her errand, he remained alone there, lashing his boot, in the most approved, but, still, in a very common-place manner.
‘Oh, mother!’ said Meg, rushing into the room where her mother, and Jane, and Anty, were at dinner, ‘there’s Barry Lynch down in the shop, wanting you.’
‘Oh my!’ said Jane. ‘Now sit still, Anty dear, and he can’t come near you. Shure, he’ll niver be afther coming upstairs, will he, Meg?’
Anty, who had begun to feel quite happy in her new quarters, and among her kind friends, turned pale, and dropped her knife and fork. ‘What’Il I do, Mrs Kelly?’ she said, as she saw the old lady complacently get up. ‘You’re not going to give me up? You’ll not go to him?’
‘Faith I will thin, my dear,’ replied the widow; ‘never fear else I’ll go to him, or any one else that sends to me in a dacent manner. Maybe it’s wanting tay in the shop he is. I’ll go to him immediately. But, as for giving you up, I mane you to stay here, till you’ve a proper home of your own; and Barry Lynch has more in him than I think, av’ he makes me alter my mind. Set down quiet, Meg, and get your dinner.’ And the widow got up, and proceeded to the shop.
The girls were all in commotion. One went to the door at the top of the stairs, to overhear as much as possible of what was to take place; and the other clasped Anty’s hand, to re-assure her, having first thrown open the door of one of the bed-rooms, that she might have a place of retreat in the event of the enemy succeeding in pushing his way upstairs.
‘Your humble sarvant, Mr Lynch,’ said the widow, entering the shop and immediately taking up a position of strength in her accustomed place behind the counter. ‘Were you wanting me, this evening?’ and she took up the knife with which she cut penn’orths of tobacco for her customers, and hitting the counter with its wooden handle looked as hard as copper, and as bold as brass.
‘Yes, Mrs Kelly,’ said Barry, with as much dignity as he could muster, ‘I do want to speak to you. My sister has foolishly left her home this morning, and my servants tell me she is under your roof. Is this true?’
‘Is it Anty? Indeed she is thin: ating her dinner, upstairs, this very moment;’ and she rapped the counter again, and looked her foe in the face.
‘Then, with your leave, Mrs Kelly, I’ll step up, and speak to her. I suppose she’s alone?’
‘Indeed she ain’t thin, for she’s the two girls ating wid her, and myself too, barring that I’m just come down at your bidding. No; we’re not so bad as that, to lave her all alone; and as for your seeing her, Mr Lynch, I don’t think she’s exactly wishing it at present; so, av’ you’ve a message, I’ll take it.’
‘You don’t mean to say that Miss Lynch my sister is in this inn, and that you intend to prevent my seeing her? You’d better take care what you’re doing, Mrs Kelly. I don’t want to say anything harsh at present, but you’d better take care what you’re about with me and my family, or you’ll find yourself in a scrape that you little bargain for.’
‘I’ll take care of myself, Mr Barry; never fear for me, darling; and, what’s more, I’ll take care of your sister, too. And, to give you a bit of my mind she’ll want my care, I’m thinking, while you’re in the counthry.’
‘I’ve not come here to listen to impertinence, Mrs Kelly, and I will not do so. In fact, it is very unwillingly that I came into this house at all.’
‘Oh, pray lave it thin, pray lave it! We can do without you.’
‘Perhaps you will have the civility to listen to me. It is very unwillingly, I say, that I have come here at all; but my sister, who is, unfortunately, not able to judge for herself, is here. How she came here I don’t pretend to say ’
‘Oh, she walked,’ said the widow, interrupting him; ‘she walked, quiet and asy, out of your door, and into mine. But that’s a lie, for it was out of her own. She didn’t come through the kay-hole, nor yet out of the window.’
‘I’m saying nothing about how she came here, but here she is, poor creature!’
‘Poor crature, indeed! She was like to be a poor crature, av’ she stayed up there much longer.’
‘Here she is, I say, and I consider it my duty to look after her. You cannot but be aware, Mrs Kelly, that this is not a fit place for Miss Lynch. You must be aware that a road-side public-house, however decent, or a village shop, however respectable, is not the proper place for my sister; and, though I may not yet be legally her guardian, I am her brother, and am in charge of her property, and I insist on seeing her. It will be at your peril if you prevent me.’
‘Have you done, now, Misther Barry?’
‘That’s what I’ve got to say; and I think you’ve sense enough to see the folly not to speak of the danger, of preventing me from seeing my sister.’
‘That’s your say, Misther Lynch; and now, listen to mine. Av’ Miss Anty was wishing to see you, you’d be welcome upstairs, for her sake; but she ain’t, so there’s an end of that; for not a foot will you put inside this, unless you’re intending to force your way, and I don’t think you’ll be for trying that. And as to bearing the danger, why, I’ll do my best; and, for all the harm you’re likely to do me that’s by fair manes, I don’t think I’ll be axing any one to help me out of it. So, good bye t’ ye, av’ you’ve no further commands, for I didn’t yet well finish the bit I was ating.’
‘And you mean to say, Mrs Kelly, you’ll take upon yourself to prevent my seeing my sister?’
‘Indeed I do; unless she was wishing it, as well as yourself; and no mistake.’
‘And you’ll do that, knowing, as you do, that the unfortunate young woman is of weak mind, and unable to judge for herself, and that I’m her brother, and her only living relative and guardian?’
‘All blathershin, Masther Barry,’ said the uncourteous widow, dropping the knife from her hand, and smacking her fingers: ‘as for wake mind, it’s sthrong enough to take good care of herself and her money too, now she’s once out of Dunmore House. There many waker than Anty Lynch, though few have had worse tratement to make them so. As for guardian, I’m thinking it’s long since she was of age, and, av’ her father didn’t think she wanted one, when he made his will, you needn’t bother yourself about it, now she’s no one to plaze only herself. And as for brother, Masther Barry, why didn’t you think of that before you struck her, like a brute, as you are before you got dhrunk, like a baste, and then threatened to murdher her? Why didn’t you think about brother and sisther before you thried to rob the poor wake crature, as you call her; and when you found she wasn’t quite wake enough, as you call it, swore to have her life, av’ she wouldn’t act at your bidding? That’s being a brother and a guardian, is it,Masther Barry? Talk to me of anger, you ruffian,’ continued the widow, with her back now thoroughly up; ‘you’d betther look to yourself, or I know who’ll be in most danger. Av’ it wasn’t the throuble it’d be to Anty and, God knows, she’s had throubles enough, I’d have had her before the magisthrates before this, to tell of what was done last night up at the house, yonder. But mind, she can do it yet, and, av’ you don’t take yourself very asy, she shall. Danger, indeed! a robber and ruffian like you, to talk of danger to me and his dear sisther, too, and aftimer trying his best, last night, to murdher her!’
These last words, with a long drawl on the word dear, were addressed rather to the crowd, whom the widow’s loud voice had attracted into the open shop, than to Barry, who stood, during this tirade, half stupefied with rage, and half frightened, at the open attack made on him with reference to his ill-treatment of Anty. However, he couldn’t pull in his horns now, and he was obliged, in self-defence, to brazen it out.
‘Very well, Mrs Kelly you shall pay for this impudence, and that dearly. You’ve invented these lies, as a pretext for getting my sister and her property into your hands!’
‘Lies!’ screamed the widow; ‘av’ you say lies to me agin, in this house, I’ll smash the bones of ye myself, with the broom-handle. Lies, indeed! and from you, Barry Lynch, the biggest liar in all Connaught not to talk of robber and ruffian! You’d betther take yourself out of that, fair and asy, while you’re let. You’ll find you’ll have the worst of it, av’ you come rampaging here wid me, my man;’ and she turned round to the listening crowd for sympathy, which those who dared were not slow in giving her.
‘And that’s thrue for you, Mrs Kelly, Ma’am,’ exclaimed one.
‘It’s a shame for him to come storming here, agin a lone widdy, so it is,’ said a virago, who seemed well able, like the widow herself, to take her own part.
‘Who iver knew any good of a Lynch barring Miss Anty herself?’ argued a third.
‘The Kellys is always too good for the likes of them,’ put in a fourth, presuming that the intended marriage was the subject immediately in discourse.
‘Faix, Mr Martin’s too good for the best of ’em,’ declared another.
‘Niver mind Mr Martin, boys,’ said the widow, who wasn’t well pleased to have her son’s name mentioned in the affair ‘it’s no business of his, one way or another; he ain’t in Dunmore, nor yet nigh it. Miss Anty Lynch has come to me for protection; and, by the Blessed Virgin, she shall have it, as long as my name’s Mary Kelly, and I ain’t like to change it; so that’s the long and short of it, Barry Lynch. So you may go and get dhrunk agin as soon as you plaze, and bate and bang Terry Hooney, or Judy Smith; only I think either on ’em’s more than a match for you.’
‘Then I tell you, Mrs Kelly,’ replied Barry, who was hardly able to get in a word, ‘that you’ll hear more about it. Steps are now being taken to prove Miss Lynch a lunatic, as every one here knows she unfortunately is; and, as sure as you stand there, you’ll have to answer for detaining her; and you’re much mistaken if you think you’ll get hold of her property, even though she were to marry your son, for, I warn you, she’s not her own mistress, or able to be so.’
‘Drat your impudence, you low-born ruffian,’ answered his opponent; ‘who cares for her money? It’s not come to that yet, that a Kelly is wanting to schame money out of a Lynch.’
‘I’ve nothing more to say, since you insist on keeping possession of my sister,’ and Barry turned to the door. ‘But you’ll be indicted for conspiracy, so you’d better be prepared.’
‘Conspiracy, is it?’ said one of Mrs Kelly’s admirers; ‘maybe, Ma’am, he’ll get you put in along with Dan and Father Tierney, God bless them! It’s conspiracy they’re afore the judges for.’
Barry now took himself off, before hearing the last of the widow’s final peal of thunder.
‘Get out wid you! You’re no good, and never will be. An’ it wasn’t for the young woman upstairs, I’d have the coat off your back, and your face well mauled, before I let you out of the shop!’ And so ended the interview, in which the anxious brother can hardly he said to have been triumphant, or successful.
The widow, on the other hand, seemed to feel that she had acquitted herself well, and that she had taken the orphan’s part, like a woman, a Christian, and a mother; anti merely saying, with a kind of inward chuckle, ‘Come to me, indeed, with his roguery! he’s got the wrong pig by the ear!’ she walked off, to join the more timid trio upstairs, one of whom was speedily sent down, to see that business did not go astray.
And then she gave a long account of the interview to Anty and Meg, which was hardly necessary, as they had heard most of what had passed. The widow however was not to know that, and she was very voluble in her description of Barry’s insolence, and of time dreadfully abusive things he had said to her how he had given her the lie, and called her out of her name. She did not, however, seem to be aware that she had, herself, said a word which was more than necessarily violent; and assured Anty over and over again, that, out of respect to her feelings, and because the man was, after all, her brother, she had refrained from doing and saying what she would have done and said, had she been treated in such a manner by anybody else. She seemed, however, in spite of the ill-treatment which she had undergone, to be in a serene and happy state of mind. She shook Anty’s two hands in hers, and told her to make herself ‘snug and asy where she was, like a dear girl, and to fret for nothing, for no one could hurt or harum her, and she undher Mary Kelly’s roof.’ Then she wiped her face in her apron, set to at her dinner; and even went so far as to drink a glass of porter, a thing she hadn’t done, except on a Sunday, since her eldest daughter’s marriage.
Barry Lynch sneaked up the town, like a beaten dog. He felt that the widow had had the best of it, and he also felt that every one in Dunmore was against him. It was however only what he had expected, and calculated upon; and what should he care for the Dunmore people? They wouldn’t rise up and kill him, nor would they he likely even to injure him. Let, them hate on, lie would follow his own plan. As he came near the house gate, there was sitting, as usual, Jacky, the fool.
‘Well, yer honer, Masther Barry,’ said Jacky, ‘don’t forget your poor fool this blessed morning!’
‘Away with you! If I see you there again, I’ll have you in Bridewell, you blackguard.’
‘Ah, you’re joking, Masther Barry. You wouldn’t like to be afther doing that. So yer honer’s been down to the widdy’s? That’s well; it’s a fine timing to see you on good terms, since you’re soon like to be so sib. Well, there an’t no betther fellow, from this to Galway, than Martin Kelly, that’s one comfort, Masther Barry.’
Barry looked round for something wherewith to avenge himself for this, but Jacky was out of his reach; so he merely muttered some customary but inaudible curses, and turned into the house.
He immediately took pen, ink, and paper, and, writing the following note dispatched it to Tuam, by Terry, mounted for the occasion, and directed on no account to return, without an answer. If Mr Daly wasn’t at home, he was to wait for his return; that is, if he was expected home that night.
Dunmore House, Feb. 1844.
My dear Sir,
I wish to consult you on legal business, which will bear no delay. The subject is of considerable importance, and I am induced to think it will be more ably handled by you than by Mr Blake, my father’s man of business. There is a bed at your service at Dunmore House, and I shall be glad to see you to dinner tomorrow.
I am, dear Sir, Your faithful servant,
BARRY LYNCH.
P.S. You had better not mention in Tuam that you are coming to me not that my business is one that I intend to keep secret.
J.Daly, Esq., Solicitor, Tuam.
In about two hours’ time, Terry had put the above into the hands of the person for whom it was intended, and in two more he had brought back an answer, saying that Mr Daly would be at Dunmore House to dinner on the following day. And Terry, on his journey there and back, did not forget to tell everyone he saw, from whom he came, and to whom he was going.
We will now return to Martin Kelly. I have before said that as soon as he had completed his legal business, namely, his instructions for the settlement of Anty Lynch’s property, respecting which he and Lord Ballindine had been together to the lawyer’s in Clare Street he started for home, by the Ballinasloe canal-boat, and reached that famous depot of the fleecy tribe without adventure. I will not attempt to describe the tedium of that horrid voyage, for it has been often described before; and to Martin, who was in no ways fastidious, it was not so unendurable as it must always be to those who have been accustomed to more rapid movement. Nor yet will I attempt to put on record the miserable resources of those, who, doomed to a twenty hours’ sojourn in one of these floating prisons, vainly endeavour to occupy or amuse their minds. But I will advise any, who from ill-contrived arrangements, or unforeseen misfortune, [FOOTNOTE: Of course it will be remembered that this was written before railways in Ireland had been constructed.] may find themselves on board the Ballinasloe canal-boat, to entertain no such vain dream. The vis inertiae of patient endurance, is the only weapon of any use in attempting to overcome the lengthened ennui of this most tedious transit. Reading is out of the question. I have tried it myself, and seen others try it, but in vain. The sense of the motion, almost imperceptible, but still perceptible; the noises above you; the smells around you; the diversified crowd, of which you are a part; at one moment the heat this crowd creates; at the next, the draught which a window just opened behind your ears lets in on you; the fumes of punch; the snores of the man under the table; the noisy anger of his neighbour, who reviles the attendant sylph; the would-be witticisms of a third, who makes continual amorous overtures to the same overtasked damsel, notwithstanding the publicity of his situation; the loud complaints of the old lady near the door, who cannot obtain the gratuitous kindness of a glass of water; and the baby-soothing lullabies of the young one, who is suckling her infant under your elbow. These things alike prevent one from reading, sleeping, or thinking. All one can do is to wait till the long night gradually wears itself away, and reflect that, Time and the hour run through the longest day.
I hardly know why a journey in one of these boats should be much more intolerable than travelling either outside or inside a coach; for, either in or on the coach, one has less room for motion, and less opportunity of employment. I believe the misery of the canal-boat chiefly consists in a pre-conceived and erroneous idea of its capabilities. One prepares oneself for occupation an attempt is made to achieve actual comfort and both end in disappointment; the limbs become weary with endeavouring to fix themselves in a position of repose, and the mind is fatigued more by the search after, than the want of, occupation.
Martin, however, made no complaints, and felt no misery. He made great play at the eternal half-boiled leg of mutton, floating in a bloody sea of grease and gravy, which always comes on the table three hours after the departure from Porto Bello. He, and others equally gifted with the dura ilia messorum, swallowed huge collops of the raw animal, and vast heaps of yellow turnips, till the pity with which a stranger would at first be inclined to contemplate the consumer of such unsavoury food, is transferred to the victim who has to provide the meal at two shillings a head. Neither love nor drink and Martin had, on the previous day, been much troubled with both had affected his appetite; and he ate out his money with the true persevering prudence of a Connaught man, who firmly determines not to be done.
He was equally diligent at breakfast; and, at last, reached Ballinasloe, at ten o’clock the morning after he had left Dublin, in a flourishing condition. From thence he travelled, by Bianconi’s car, as far as Tuam, and when there he went at once to the hotel, to get a hack car to take him home to Dunmore.
In the hotel yard he found a car already prepared for a journey; and, on giving his order for a similar vehicle for his own use, was informed, by the disinterested ostler, that the horse then being harnessed, was to take Mr Daly, the attorney, to Tuam, and that probably that gentleman would not object to join him, Martin, in the conveyance. Martin, thinking it preferable to pay fourpence rather than sixpence a mile for his jaunt, acquiesced in this arrangement, and, as he had a sort of speaking acquaintance with Mr Daly, whom he rightly imagined would not despise the economy which actuated himself, he had his carpet-bag put into the well of the car, and, placing himself on it, he proceeded to the attorney’s door.
He soon made the necessary explanation to Mr Daly, who made no objection to the proposal; and he also throwing a somewhat diminutive carpet-bag into the same well, placed himself alongside of our friend, and they proceeded on their journey, with the most amicable feelings towards each other.
They little guessed, either the one or the other, as they commenced talking on the now all-absorbing subject of the great trial, that they were going to Dunmore for the express object though not with the expressed purpose, of opposing each other that Daly was to be employed to suggest any legal means for robbing Martin of a wife, and Anty of her property; and that Martin was going home with the fixed determination of effecting a wedding, to prevent which his companion was, in consideration of liberal payment, to use all his ingenuity and energy.
When they had discussed O’Connel and his companions, and their chances of liberation for four or five miles, and when Martin had warmly expressed his assurance that no jury could convict the saviours of their country, and Daly had given utterance to his legal opinion that saltpetre couldn’t save them from two years in Newgate, Martin asked his companion whether he was going beyond Dunmore that night?
‘No, indeed, then,’ replied Daly; ‘I have a client there now a thing I never had in that part of the country before yesterday.’
‘We’ll have you at the inn, then, I suppose, Mr Daly?’
‘Faith, you won’t, for I shall dine on velvet. My new client is one of the right sort, that can feed as well as fee a lawyer. I’ve got my dinner, and bed tonight, whatever else I may get.’
‘There’s not many of that sort in Dunmore thin; any way, there weren’t when I left it, a week since. Whose house are you going to, Mr Daly, av’ it’s not impertinent asking?’
‘Barry Lynch’s.’
‘Barry Lynch’s!’ re-echoed Martin; ‘the divil you are! I wonder what’s in the wind with him now. I thought Blake always did his business?’
‘The devil a know I know, so I can’t tell you; and if I did, I shouldn’t, you may be sure. But a man that’s just come to his property always wants a lawyer; and many a one, besides Barry Lynch, ain’t satisfied without two.’
‘Well, any way, I wish you joy of your new client. I’m not over fond of him myself, I’ll own; but then there were always rasons why he and I shouldn’t pull well together. Barry’s always been a dale too high for me, since he was at school with the young lord. Well, good evening, Mr Daly. Never mind time car coming down the street, as you’re at your friend’s gate,’ and Martin took his bag on his arm, and walked down to the inn.
Though Martin couldn’t guess, as he walked quickly down the street, what Barry Lynch could want with young Daly, who was beginning to be known as a clever, though not over-scrupulous practitioner, he felt a presentiment that it must have some reference to Anty and himself, and this made him rather uncomfortable. Could Barry have heard of his engagement? Had Anty repented of her bargain, during his short absence? Had that old reptile Moylan, played him false, and spoilt his game? ‘That must be it,’ said Martin to himself, ‘and it’s odd but I’ll be even with the schamer, yet; only she’s so asy frightened! Av’ she’d the laist pluck in life, it’s little I’d care for Moylan or Barry either.’
This little soliloquy brought him to the inn door. Some of the tribe of loungers who were always hanging about the door, and whom in her hatred of idleness the widow would one day rout from the place, and, in her charity, feed the next, had seen Martin coming down the street, and had given intelligence in the kitchen. As he walked in, therefore, at the open door, Meg and Jane were ready to receive him in the passage. Their looks were big with some important news. Martin soon saw that they had something to tell.
‘Well, girls,’ he said, as he chucked his bag and coat to Sally, ‘for heaven’s sake get me something to ate, for I’m starved. What’s the news at Dunmore?’
‘It’s you should have the news thin,’ said one, ‘and you just from Dublin.’
‘There’s lots of news there, then; I’ll tell you when I’ve got my dinner. How’s the ould lady?’ and he stepped on, as if to pass by them, upstairs.
‘Stop a moment, Martin,’ said Meg; ‘don’t be in a hurry; there’s some one there.’
‘Who’s there? is it a stranger?’
‘Why, then, it is, and it isn’t,’ said Jane.
‘But you don’t ask afther the young lady!’ said her sister.
‘May I be hanged thin, av’ I know what the two of ye are afther! Is there people in both the rooms? Come, girls, av’ ye’ve anything to tell, why don’t you out wid it and have done? I suppose I can go into the bed-room, at any rate?’
‘Aisy, Martin, and I’ll tell you. Anty’s in the parlour.’
‘In the parlour upstairs?’ said he; ‘the deuce she is! And what brought her here? Did she quarrel with Barry, Meg?’ added he, in a whisper.
‘Indeed she did, out and out,’ said Meg.
‘Oh, he used her horrible!’ said Jane.
‘He’ll hear all about that by and by,’ said Meg. ‘Come up and see her now, Martin.’
‘But does mother know she’s here?’
‘Why, it was she brought her here! She fetched her down from the house, yesterday, before we was up.’
Thus assured that Anty had not been smuggled upstairs, her lover, or suitor as he might perhaps be more confidently called, proceeded to visit her. If he wished her to believe that his first impulse, on hearing of her being in the house, had been to throw himself at her feet, it would have been well that this conversation should have been carried on out of her hearing. But Anty was not an exigent mistress, and was perfectly contented that as much of her recent history as possible should be explained before Martin presented himself.
Martin went slowly upstairs, and paused a moment at the door, as if he was a little afraid of commencing the interview; he looked round to his sisters, and made a sign to them to come in with him, and then, quickly pushing open the unfastened door, walked briskly up to Anty and shook hands with her.
‘I hope you’re very well, Anty,’ said he; ‘seeing you here is what I didn’t expect, but I’m very glad you’ve come down.’
‘Thank ye, Martin,’ replied she; ‘it was very good of your mother, fetching me. She’s been the best friend I’ve had many a day.’
‘Begad, it’s a fine thing to see you and the ould lady pull so well together. It was yesterday you came here?’
‘Yesterday morning. I was so glad to come! I don’t know what they’d been saying to Barry; but the night before last he got drinking, and then he was very bad to me, and tried to frighten me, and so, you see, I come down to your mother till we could be friends again.’
Anty’s apology for being at the inn, was perhaps unnecessary; but, with the feeling so natural to a woman, she was half afraid that Martin would fancy she had run after him, and she therefore thought it as well to tell him that it was only a temporary measure. Poor Anty! At the moment she said so, she trembled at the very idea of putting herself again in her brother’s power.
‘Frinds, indeed!’ said Meg; ‘how can you iver be frinds with the like of him? What nonsense you talk, Anty! Why, Marti, he was like to murdher her! he raised his fist to her, and knocked her down and, afther that, swore to her he’d kill her outright av’ she wouldn’t sware that she’d niver ’
‘Whist, Meg! How can you go on that way?’ said Anty, interrupting her, and blushing. ‘I’ll not stop in the room; don’t you know he was dhrunk when he done all that?’
‘And won’t he be dhrunk again, Anty?’ suggested Jane.
‘Shure he will: he’ll be dhrunk always, now he’s once begun,’ replied Meg, who, of all the family was the most anxious to push her brother’s suit; and who, though really fond of her friend, thought the present opportunity a great deal too good to be thrown away, and could not bear the idea of Anty’s even thinking of being reconciled to her brother. ‘Won’t he be always dhrurik now?’ she continued; ‘and ain’t we all frinds here? and why shouldn’t you let me tell Martin all? Afther all’s said and done, isn’t he the best frind you’ve got?’ Here Anty blushed very red, and to tell the truth, so did Martin too ‘well so he is, and unless you tell him what’s happened, how’s he to know what to advise; and, to tell the truth, wouldn’t you sooner do what he says than any one else?’
‘I’m sure I’m very much obliged to Mr Martin’ it had been plain Martin before Meg’s appeal; ‘but your mother knows what’s best for me, and I’ll do whatever she says. Av’ it hadn’t been for her, I don’t know where I’d be now.’
‘But you needn’t quarrel with Martin because you’re frinds with mother,’ answered Meg.
‘Nonsense, Meg,’ said Jane, ‘Anty’s not going to quarrel with him. You hurry her too much.’
Martin looked rather stupid all this time, but he plucked up courage and said, ‘Who’s going to quarrel? I’m shure, Anty, you and I won’t; but, whatever it is Barry did to you, I hope you won’t go back there again, now you’re once here. But did he railly sthrike you in arnest?’
‘He did, add knocked her down,’ said Jane.
‘But won’t you get your brother his dinner?’ said Anty; ‘he must be very hungry, afther his ride and won’t you see your mother afther your journey, Mr Martin? I’m shure she’s expecting you.’
This, for the present, put an end to the conversation; the girls went to get something for their brother to eat, and he descended into the lower regions to pay his filial respects to his mother.
A considerable time passed before Martin returned to the meal the three young women had provided for him, during which he was in close consultation with the widow. In the first place, she began upbraiding him for his folly in wishing to marry an old maid for her money; she then taxed him with villany, for trying to cheat Anty out of her property; and when he defended himself from that charge by telling her what he had done about the settlement, she asked him how much he had to pay the rogue of a lawyer for that ‘gander’s job’. She then proceeded to point out all the difficulties which lay in the way of a marriage between him, Martin, and her, Anty; and showed how mad it was for either of them to think about it. From that, she got into a narrative of Barry’s conduct, and Anty’s sufferings, neither of which lost anything in the telling; and having by this time gossiped herself into a good humour, she proceeded to show how, through her means and assistance, the marriage might take place if he was still bent upon it. She eschewed all running away, and would hear of no clandestine proceedings. They should be married in the face of day, as the Kellys ought, with all their friends round them. ‘They’d have no huggery-muggery work, up in a corner; not they indeed! why should they? for fear of Barry Lynch? who cared for a dhrunken blackguard like that? not she indeed! who ever heard of a Kelly being afraid of a Lynch? They’d ax him to come and see his sister married, and av’ he didn’t like it, he might do the other thing.’
And so, the widow got quite eloquent on the glories of the wedding, and the enormities of her son’s future brother-in1aw, who had, she assured Martin, come down and abused her horribly, in her own shop, before all the town, because she allowed Anty to stay in the house. She then proceeded to the consequences of the marriage, and expressed her hope that when Martin got all that ready money he would ‘do something for his poor sisthers for Heaven knew they war like to be bad enough off, for all she’d be able to do for them!’ From this she got to Martin’s own future mode of life, suggesting a ‘small snug cottage on the farm, just big enough for them two, and, maybe, a slip of a girl servant, and not to be taring and tatthering away, as av’ money had no eend; and, afther all,’ she added, ‘there war nothing like industhry; and who know’d whether that born villain, Barry, mightn’t yet get sich a hoult of the money, that there’d be no getting it out of his fist?’ and she then depicted, in most pathetic language, what would be the misery of herself and all the Kellys if Martin, flushed with his prosperity, were to give up the farm at Toneroe, and afterwards find that he had been robbed of his expected property, and that he had no support for himself and his young bride.
On this subject Martin considerably comforted her by assuring her that he had no thoughts of abandoning Toneroe, although he did not go so far as to acquiesce in the very small cottage; and he moreover expressed his thorough confidence that he would neither be led himself, nor lead Anty, into the imprudence of a marriage, until he had well satisfied himself that the property was safe.
The widow was well pleased to find, from Martin’s prudent resolves, that he was her own son, and that she needn’t blush for him; and then they parted, she to her shop, and he to his dinner: not however, before he had promised her to give up all ideas of a clandestine marriage, and to permit himself to be united to his wife in the face of day, as became a Kelly.
The evening passed over quietly and snugly at the inn. Martin had not much difficulty in persuading his three companions to take a glass of punch each out of his tumbler, and less in getting them to take a second, and, before they went to bed, he and Anty were again intimate. And, as he was sitting next her for a couple of hours on the little sofa opposite the fire, it is more than probable that he got his arm round her waist a comfortable position, which seemed in no way to shock the decorum of either Meg or Jane.
We must now see how things went on in the enemy’s camp.
The attorney drove up to the door of Dunmore House on his car, and was shown into the drawing-room, where he met Barry Lynch. The two young men were acquainted, though not intimate with each other, and they bowed, and then shook hands; and Barry told the attorney that he was welcome to Dunmore House, and the attorney made another bow, rubbed his hands before the fire and said it was a very cold evening; and Barry said it was ‘nation cold for that time of the year; which, considering that they were now in the middle of February, showed that Barry was rather abroad, and didn’t exactly know what to say. He remained for about a minute, silent before the fire, and then asked Daly if he’d like to see his room; and, the attorney acquiescing, he led him up to it, and left him there.
The truth was, that, as the time of the man’s visit had drawn nearer, Barry had become more and more embarrassed; and now that the attorney had absolutely come, his employer felt himself unable to explain the business before dinner. ‘These fellows are so confoundedly sharp I shall never be up to him till I get a tumbler of punch on board,’ said he to himself, comforting himself with the reflection; ‘besides, I’m never well able for anything till I get a little warmed. We’ll get along like a house on fire when we’ve got the hot water between us.’
The true meaning of all which was, that he hadn’t the courage to make known his villanous schemes respecting his sister till he was half drunk; and, in order the earlier to bring about this necessary and now daily consummation, he sneaked downstairs and took a solitary glass of brandy to fortify himself for entertaining the attorney.
The dinner was dull enough; for, of course, as long as the man was in the room there was no talking on business, and, in his present frame of mind Barry was not likely to be an agreeable companion. The attorney ate his dinner as if it was a part of the fee, received in payment of the work he was to do, and with a determination to make the most of it.
At last, the dishes disappeared, and with them Terry Rooney; who, however, like a faithful servant, felt too strong an interest in his master’s affairs to be very far absent when matters of importance were likely to be discussed.
‘And now, Mr Daly,’ said Lynch, ‘we can be snug here, without interruption, for an hour or two. You’ll find that whiskey old and good, I think; but, if you prefer wine, that port on the table came from Barton’s, in Sackville Street.’
‘Thank ye; if I take anything, it’ll be a glass of punch. But as we’ve business to talk of, maybe I’d better keep my head clear.’
‘My head’s never so clear then, as when I’ve done my second tumbler. I’m never so sure of what I’m about as when I’m a little warmed; “but,” says you, “because my head’s strong, it’s no reason another’s shouldn’t be weak:” but do as you like; liberty hall here now, Mr Daly; that is, as far as I’m concerned. You knew my father, I believe, Mr Daly?’
‘Well then, Mr Lynch, I didn’t exactly know him; but living so near him, and he having so much business in the county, and myself having a little, I believe I’ve been in company with him, odd times.’
‘He was a queer man: wasn’t he, Mr Daly?’
‘Was he, then? I dare say. I didn’t know much about him. I’ll take the sugar from you, Mr Lynch; I believe I might as well mix a drop, as the night’s cold.’
‘That’s right. I thought you weren’t the fellow to sit with an empty glass before you. But, as I was saying before, the old boy was a queer hand; that is, latterly for the last year or so. Of course you know all about his will?’
‘Faith then, not much. I heard lie left a will, dividing the property between you and Miss Lynch.’
‘He did! Just at the last moment, when the breath wasn’t much more than left in him, he signed a will, making away half the estate, just as you say, to my sister. Blake could have broke the will, only he was so d —— pig-headed and stupid. It’s too late now, I suppose?’
‘Why, I could hardly answer that, you know, as I never heard the circumstances; but I was given to understand that Blake consulted McMahon; and that McMahon wouldn’t take up the case, as there was nothing he could put before the Chancellor. Mind I’m only repeating what people said in Tuam, and about there. Of course, I couldn’t think of advising till I knew the particulars. Was it on this subject, Mr Lynch, you were good enough to send for me?’
‘Not at all, Mr Daly. I look upon that as done and gone; bad luck to Blake and McMahon, both. The truth is, between you and me, Daly I don’t mind telling you; as I hope now you will become my man of business, and it’s only fair you should know all about it the truth is, Blake was more interested on the other side, and he was determined the case shouldn’t go before the Chancellor. But, when my father signed that will, it was just after one of those fits he had lately; that could be proved, and he didn’t know what he was doing, from Adam! He didn’t know what was in the will, nor, that he was signing a will at all; so help me, he didn’t. However, that’s over. It wasn’t to talk about that that I sent for you; only, sorrow seize the rogue that made the old man rob me! It wasn’t Anty herself, poor creature; she knew nothing about it; it was those who meant to get hold of my money, through her, that did it. Poor Anty! Heaven knows she wasn’t up to such a dodge as that!’
‘Well, Mr Lynch, of course I know nothing of the absolute facts; but from what I hear, I think it’s as well to let the will alone. The Chancellor won’t put a will aside in a hurry; it’s always a difficult job would cost an immense sum of money, which should, any way, come out of the property; and, after all, the chances are ten to one you’d be beat.’
‘Perhaps you’re right, now; though I’m sure, had the matter been properly taken up at first had you seen the whole case at the first start, the thing could have been done. I’m sure you would have said so; but that’s over now; it’s another business I want you for. But you don’t drink your punch! and it’s dry work talking, without wetting one’s whistle,’ and Barry carried out his own recommendation.
‘I’m doing very well, thank ye, Mr Lynch. And what is it I can do for you?’
‘That’s what I’m coming to. You know that, by the will, my sister Anty gets from four to five hundred a year?’
‘I didn’t know the amount; but I believe she has half whatever there is.’
‘Exactly: half the land, half the cash, half the house, half everything, except the debts! and those were contracted in my name, and I must pay them all. Isn’t that hard, Mr Daly?’
‘I didn’t know your father had debts.’
‘Oh, but he had debts which ought to have been his; though, as I said, they stand in my name, and I must pay them.’
‘And, I suppose, what you now want is to saddle the debts on the entire property? If you can really prove that the debts were incurred for your father’s benefit, I should think you might do that. But has your sister refused to pay the half? They can’t be heavy. Won’t Miss Lynch agree to pay the half herself?’
This last lie of Barry’s for, to give the devil his due, old Sim hadn’t owed one penny for the last twenty years was only a bright invention of the moment, thrown off by our injured hero to aggravate the hardships of his case; but he was determined to make the most of it.
‘Not heavy? faith, they are heavy, and d d heavy too, Mr Daly! what’ll take two hundred a-year out of my miserable share of the property; divil a less. Oh! there’s never any knowing how a man’ll cut up till he’s gone.’
‘That’s true; but how could your father owe such a sum as that, and no one know it? Why, that must be four or five thousand pounds?’
‘About five, I believe.’
‘And you’ve put your name to them, isn’t that it?’
‘Something like it. You know, he and Lord Ballindine, years ago, were fighting about the leases we held under the old Lord; and then, the old man wanted ready money, and borrowed it in Dublin; and, some years since that is, about three years ago, sooner than see any of the property sold, I took up the debt myself. You know, it was all as good as my own then; and now, confound it! I must pay the whole out of the miserable thing that’s left me under this infernal will. But it wasn’t even about that I sent for you; only, I must explain exactly how matters are, before I come to the real point.’
‘But your father’s name must be joined with yours in the debt; and, if so, you can come upon the entire property for the payment. There’s no difficulty about that; your sister, of course, must pay the half.’
‘It’s not so, my dear fellow. I can’t explain the thing exactly, but it’s I that owe the money, and I must pay it. But it’s no good talking of that. Well, you see, Anty that’s my sister, has this property all in her own hands. But you don’t drink your punch,’ and Barry mixed his third tumbler.
‘Of course she has; and, surely she won’t refuse to pay half the claims on the estate?’
‘Never mind the claims!’ answered Barry, who began to fear that he had pushed his little invention a thought too far. ‘I tell you, I must stand to them; you don’t suppose I’d ask her to pay a penny as a favour? No; I’m a little too proud for that. Besides, it’d be no use, not the least; and that’s what I’m coming to. You see, Anty’s got this money, and . You know, don’t you, Mr Daly, poor Anty’s not just like other people?’
‘No,’ said Mr Daly ‘I didn’t. I can’t say I know much about Miss Lynch. I never had the pleasure of seeing her.’
‘But did you never hear she wasn’t quite right?’
‘Indeed, I never did, then.’
‘Well that’s odd; but we never had it much talked about, poor creature. Indeed, there was no necessity for people to know much about it, for she never gave any trouble; and, to tell the truth, as long as she was kept quiet, she never gave us occasion to think much about it. But, confound them for rogues those who have got. hold of her now, have quite upset her.’
‘But what is it ails your sister, Mr Lynch?’
‘To have it out, at once, then she’s not right in her upper story. Mind, I don’t mean she’s a downright lunatic; but she’s cracked, poor thing, and quite unable to judge for herself, in money-matters, and such like; and, though she might have done very well, poor thing, and passed without notice, if she’d been left quiet, as was always intended, I’m afraid now, unless she’s well managed, she’d end her life in the Ballinasloe Asylum.’
The attorney made no answer to this, although Barry paused, to allow him to do so. Daly was too sharp, and knew his employer’s character too well to believe all he said, and he now began to fancy that he saw what the affectionate brother was after. ‘Well, Daly,’ continued Barry, after a minute’s pause; ‘after the old man died, we went on quiet enough for some time. I was up in Dublin mostly, about that confounded loan, and poor Anty was left here by herself; and what should she do, but take up with a low huxter’s family in the town here.’
‘That’s bad,’ said the attorney. ‘Was there an unmarried young man among them at all?’
‘Faith there was so; as great a blackguard as there is in Connaught.’
‘And Miss Lynch is going to marry him?’
‘That’s just it, Daly; that’s what we must prevent. You know, for the sake of the family, I couldn’t let it go on. Then, poor creature, she’d be plundered and ill-treated she’d be a downright idiot in no time; and, you know, Daly, the property’d go to the devil; and where’d I be then?’
Daly couldn’t help thinking that, in all probability, his kind host would not be long in following the property; but he did not say so. He merely asked the name of the ‘blackguard’ whom Miss Anty meant to marry?
‘Wait till I tell you the whole of it. The first thing I heard was, that Anty had made a low ruffian, named Moylan, her agent.’
‘I know him; she couldn’t have done much worse. Well?’
‘She made him her agent without speaking to me, or telling me a word about it; and I couldn’t make out what had put it into her head, till I heard that this old rogue was a kind of cousin to some people living here, named Kelly.’
‘What, the widow, that keeps the inn?’
‘The very same! confound her, for an impertinent scheming old hag, as she is. Well; that’s the house that Anty was always going to; drinking tea with the daughters, and walking with the son an infernal young farmer, that lives with them, the worst of the whole set.’
‘What, Martin Kelly? There’s worse fellows than him, Mr Lynch.’
‘I’ll be hanged if I know them, then; but if there are, I don’t choose my poor sister only one remove from an idiot, and hardly that to be carried off from her mother’s house, and married to such a fellow as that. Why, it’s all the same infernal plot; it’s the same people that got the old man to sign the will, when he was past his senses!’
‘Begad, they must have been clever to do that! How the deuce could .they have got the will drawn?’
‘I tell you, they did do it!’ answered Barry, whose courage was now somewhat raised by the whiskey. ‘That’s neither here nor there, but they did it; and, when the old fool was dead, they got this Moylan made Anty’s agent: and then, the hag of a mother comes up here, before daylight, and bribes the servant, and carries her off down to her filthy den, which she calls an inn; and when I call to see my sister, I get nothing but insolence and abuse.’
‘And when did this happen? When did Miss Lynch leave the house?’
‘Yesterday morning, about four o’clock.’
‘She went down of her own accord, though?’
‘D l a bit. The old hag came up here, and filched her out of her bed.’
‘But she couldn’t have taken your sister away, unless she had wished to go.’
‘Of course she wished it; but a silly creature like her can’t be let to do all she wishes.. She wishes to get a husband, and doesn’t care what sort of a one she gets; but you don’t suppose an old maid forty years old, who has always been too stupid and foolish ever to be seen or spoken to, should be allowed to throw away four hundred a-year, on the first robber that tries to cheat her? You don’t mean to say there isn’t a law to prevent that?’
‘I don’t know how you’ll prevent it, Mr Lynch. She’s her own mistress.’
‘What the d l! Do you mean to say there’s nothing to prevent an idiot like that from marrying?’
‘If she was an idiot! But I think you’ll find your sister has sense enough to marry whom she pleases.’
‘I tell you she is an idiot; not raving, mind; but everybody knows she was never fit to manage anything.’
‘Who’d prove it!’
‘Why, I would. Divil a doubt of it! I could prove that she never could, all her life.’
‘Ah, my dear Sir! you couldn’t do it; nor could I advise you to try that is, unless there were plenty more who could swear positively that she was out of her mind. Would the servants swear that? Could you yourself, now, positively swear that she was out of her mind?’
‘Why she never had any mind to be out of.’
‘Unless you are very sure she is, and, for a considerable time back, has been, a confirmed lunatic, you’d be very wrong very ill-advised, I mean, Mr Lynch, to try that game at all. Things would come out which you wouldn’t like; and your motives would be — would be —’ seen through at once, the attorney was on the point of saying, but he stopped himself, and finished by the words ‘called in question’.
‘And I’m to sit here, then, and see that young blackguard Kelly, run off with what ought to be my own, and my sister into the bargain? I’m blessed if I do! If you can’t put me in the way of stopping it, I’ll find those that can.’
‘You’re getting too much in a hurry, Mr Lynch. Is your sister at the inn now?’
‘To be sure she is.’
‘And she is engaged to this young man?’
‘She is.’
‘Why, then, she might be married to him tomorrow, for anything you know.’
‘She might, if he was here. But they tell me he’s away, in Dublin.’
‘If they told you so today, they told you wrong: he came into Dunmore, from Tuam, on the same car with myself, this very afternoon.’
‘What, Martin Kelly? Then he’ll be off with her this night, while we’re sitting here!’ and Barry jumped up, as if to rush out, and prevent the immediate consummation of his worst fears.
‘Stop a moment, Mr Lynch,’ said the more prudent and more sober lawyer. ‘If they were off, you couldn’t follow them; and, if you did follow and find them, you couldn’t prevent their being married, if such were their wish, and they had a priest ready to do it. Take my advice; remain quiet where you are, and let’s talk the matter over. As for taking out a commission “de lunatico”, as we call it, you’ll find you couldn’t do it. Miss Lynch may be a little weak or so in the upper story, but she’s not a lunatic; and you couldn’t make her so, if you had half Dunmore to back you, because she’d be brought before the Commissioners herself, and that, you know, would soon settle the question. But you might still prevent the marriage, for a time, at any rate at least, I think so; and, after that, you must trust to the chapter of accidents.’
‘So help me, that’s all I want! If I got her once up here again, and was sure the thing was off, for a month or so, let me alone, then, for bringing her to reason!’
As Daly watched his comrade’s reddening face, and saw the malicious gleam of his eyes as he declared how easily he’d manage the affair, if poor Anty was once more in the house, his heart misgave him, even though he was a sharp attorney, at the idea of assisting such a cruel brute in his cruelty; and, for a moment, he had determined to throw up the matter. Barry was so unprincipled, and so wickedly malicious in his want of principle, that he disgusted even Daly. But, on second thoughts, the lawyer remembered that if he didn’t do the job, another would; and, quieting his not very violent qualms of conscience with the idea that, though employed by the brother, he might also, to a certain extent, protect the sister, he proceeded to give his advice as to the course which would be most likely to keep the property out of the hands of the Kellys.
He explained to Barry that, as Anty had left her own home in company with Martin’s mother, and as she now was a guest at the widow’s, it was unlikely that any immediate clandestine marriage should be resorted to; that their most likely course would be to brazen the matter out, and have the wedding solemnised without any secrecy, and without any especial notice to him, Barry. That, on the next morning, a legal notice should be prepared in Tuam, and served on the widow, informing her that it was his intention to indict her for conspiracy, in enticing away from her own home his sister Anty, for the purpose of obtaining possession of her property, she being of weak mind, and not able properly to manage her own affairs; that a copy of this notice should also be sent to Martin, warning him that he would be included in the indictment if he took any proceedings with regard to Miss Lynch; and that a further copy should, if possible, be put into the hands of Miss Lynch herself.
‘You may be sure that’ll frighten them,’ continued Daly; ‘and then, you know, when we see what sort of fight they make, we’ll be able to judge whether we ought to go on and prosecute or not. I think the widow’ll be very shy of meddling, when she finds you’re in earnest. And you see, Mr Lynch,’ he went on, dropping his voice, ‘if you do go into court, as I don’t think you will, you’ll go with clean hands, as you ought to do. Nobody can say anything against you for trying to prevent your sister from marrying a man so much younger than herself, and so much inferior in station and fortune; you won’t seem to gain anything by it, and that’s everything with a jury; and then, you know, if it comes out that Miss Lynch’s mind is rather touched, it’s an additional reason why you should protect her from intriguing and interested schemers. Don’t you see?’
Barry did see, or fancied he saw, that he had now got the Kellys in a dead fix, and Anty back into his own hands again; and his self-confidence having been fully roused by his potations, he was tolerably happy, and talked very loudly of the manner in which he would punish those low-bred huxters, who had presumed to interfere with him in the management of his family.
Towards the latter end of the evening, he became even more confidential, and showed the cloven foot, if possible, more undisguisedly than he had hitherto done. He spoke of the impossibility of allowing four hundred a year to be carried off from him, and suggested to Daly that his sister would soon drop off, that there would then be a nice thing left, and that he, Daly, should have the agency, and if he pleased, the use of Dunmore House. As for himself, he had no idea of mewing himself up in such a hole as that; but, before he went, he’d take care to drive that villain, Moylan, out of the place. ‘The cursed villany of those Kellys, to go and palm such a robber as that off on his sister, by way of an agent!’
To all this, Daly paid but little attention, for he saw that his host was drunk. But when Moylan’s name was mentioned, he began to think that it might be as well either to include him in the threatened indictment, or else, which would be better still, to buy him over to their side, as they might probably learn from him what Martin’s plans really were. Barry was, however, too tipsy to pay much attention to this, or to understand any deep-laid plans. So the two retired to their beds, Barry determined, as he declared to the attorney in his drunken friendship, to have it out of Anty, when he caught her; and Daly promising to go to Tuarn early in the morning, have the notices prepared and served, and come back in the evening to dine and sleep, and have, if possible, an interview with Mr Moylan. As he undressed, he reflected that, during his short professional career, he had been thrown into the society of many unmitigated rogues of every description; but that his new friend, Barry Lynch, though he might not equal them in energy of villany and courage to do serious evil, beat them all hollow in selfishness, and utter brutal want of feeling, conscience, and principle.
chapter 10 Dot Blake’s Advice
In hour or two after Martin Kelly had left Porto Bello in the Ballinasloe fly-boat, our other hero, Lord Ballindine, and his friend Dot Blake, started from Morrison’s hotel, with post horses, for Handicap Lodge; and, as they travelled in Blake’s very comfortable barouche, they reached their destination in time for a late dinner, without either adventure or discomfort. Here they remained for some days, fully occupied with the education of their horses, the attention necessary to the engagements for which they were to run, and with their betting-books.
Lord Ballindine’s horse, Brien Boru, was destined to give the Saxons a dressing at Epsom, and put no one knows how many thousands into his owner’s hands, by winning the Derby; and arrangements had already been made for sending him over to John Scott, the English trainer, at an expense, which, if the horse should by chance fail to be successful, would be of very serious consequence to his lordship. But Lord Ballindine had made up his mind, or rather, Blake had made it up for him, and the thing was to be done; the risk was to be run, and the preparations the sweats and the gallops, the physicking, feeding, and coddling, kept Frank tolerably well employed; though the whole process would have gone on quite as well, had he been absent.
It was not so, however, with Dot Blake. The turf, to him, was not an expensive pleasure, but a very serious business, and one which, to give him his due, he well understood. He himself, regulated the work, both of his horses and his men, and saw that both did what was allotted to them. He took very good care that he was never charged a guinea, where a guinea was not necessary; and that he got a guinea’s worth for every guinea he laid out. In fact, he trained his own horses, and was thus able to assure himself that his interests were never made subservient to those of others who kept horses in the same stables. Dot was in his glory, and in his element on the Curragh, and he was never quite happy anywhere else.
This, however, was not the case with his companion. For a couple of days the excitement attending Brien Boru was sufficient to fill Lord Ballindine’s mind; but after that, he could not help recurring to other things. He was much in want of money, and had been civilly told by is agent’s managing clerk, before he left town, that there was some difficulty in the way of his immediately getting the sum required. This annoyed him, for he could not carry on the game without money. And then, again, he was unhappy to be so near Fanny Wyndham, from day to day, without seeing her. He was truly and earnestly attached to her, and miserable at the threat which had been all but made by her guardian, that the match should be broken off.
It was true that he had made up his mind not to go to Grey Abbey, as long as he remained at Handicap Lodge, and, having made the resolution, he thought he was wise in keeping it; but still, he continually felt that she must be aware that he was in the neighbourhood, and could not but be hurt at his apparent indifference. And then he knew that her guardian would make use of his present employment his sojourn at such a den of sporting characters as his friend Blake’s habitation and his continued absence from Grey Abbey though known to be in its vicinity, as additional arguments for inducing his ward to declare the engagement at an end.
These troubles annoyed him, and though he daily stood by and saw Brien Boru go through his manoeuvres, he was discontented and fidgety.
He had been at Handicap Lodge about a fortnight, and was beginning to feel anything but happy. His horse was to go over in another week, money was not plentiful with him, and tradesmen were becoming obdurate and persevering. His host, Blake, was not a soothing or a comfortable friend, under these circumstances: he gave him a good deal of practical advice, but he could not sympathise with him. Blake was a sharp, hard, sensible man, who reduced everything to pounds shillings and pence. Lord Ballindine was a man of feeling, and for the time, at least, a man of pleasure; and, though they were, or thought themselves friends, they did not pull well together; in fact, they bored each other terribly.
One morning, Lord Ballindine was riding out from the training-ground, when he met, if not an old, at any rate an intimate acquaintance, named Tierney. Mr or, as he was commonly called, Mat Tierney, was a bachelor, about sixty years of age, who usually inhabited a lodge near the Curragh; and who kept a horse or two on the turf, more for the sake of the standing which it gave him in the society he liked best, than from any intense love of the sport. He was a fat, jolly fellow, always laughing, and usually in a good humour; he was very fond of what he considered the world; and the world, at least that part of it which knew him, returned the compliment.
‘Well, my lord,’ said he, after a few minutes of got-up enthusiasm respecting Brien Boru, ‘I congratulate you, sincerely.’
‘What about?’ said Lord Ballindine.
‘Why, I find you’ve got a first-rate horse, and I hear you’ve got rid of a first-rate lady. You’re very lucky, no doubt, in both; but I think fortune has stood to you most, in the latter.’
Lord Ballindine was petrified: he did not know what to reply. He was aware that his engagement with Miss Wyndham was so public that Tierney could allude to no other lady; but he could not conceive how any one could have heard that his intended marriage was broken off at any rate how he could have heard it spoken of so publicly, as to induce him to mention it in that sort of way, to himself. His first impulse was to be very indignant; but he felt that no one would dream of quarrelling with Mat Tierney; so he said, as soon as he was able to collect his thoughts sufficiently,
‘I was not aware of the second piece of luck, Mr Tierney. Pray who is the lady?’
‘Why, Miss Wyndham,’ said Mat, himself a little astonished at Lord Ballindine’s tone.
‘I’m sure, Mr Tierney,’ said Frank, ‘you would say nothing, particularly in connection with a lady’s name, which you intended either to be impertinent, or injurious. Were it not that I am quite certain of this, I must own that what you have just said would appear to be both.’
‘My dear lord,’ said the other, surprised and grieved, ‘I beg ten thousand pardons, if I have unintentionally said anything, which you feel to be either. But, surely, if I am not wrong in asking, the match between you and Miss Wyndham is broken off?’
‘May I ask you, Mr Tierney, who told you so?’
‘Certainly Lord Kilcullen; and, as he is Miss Wyndham’s cousin, and Lord Cashel’s son, I could not but think the report authentic.’
This overset Frank still more thoroughly. Lord Kilcullen would never have spread the report publicly unless he had been authorised to do so by Lord Cashel. Frank and Lord Kilcullen had never been intimate; and the former was aware that the other had always been averse to the proposed marriage; but still, he would never have openly declared that the marriage was broken off, had he not had some authority for saying so.
‘As you seem somewhat surprised,’ continued Mat, seeing that Lord Ballindine remained silent, and apparently at a loss for what he ought to say, ‘perhaps I ought to tell you, that Lord Kilcullen mentioned it last night very publicly at a dinner-party, as an absolute fact. Indeed, from his manner, I thought he wished it to be generally made known. I presumed, therefore, that it had been mutually agreed between you, that the event was not to come off that the match was not to be run; and, with my peculiar views, you know, on the subject of matrimony, I thought it a fair point for congratulation. If Lord Kilcullen had misled me, I heartily beg to apologise; and at the same time, by giving you my authority, to show you that I could not intend anything impertinent. If it suits you, you are quite at liberty to tell Lord Kilcullen all I have told you; and, if you wish me to contradict the report, which I must own I have spread, I will do so.’
Frank felt that be could not be angry with Mat Tierney; he therefore thanked him for his open explanation, and, merely muttering something about private affairs not being worthy of public interest, rode off towards Handicap Lodge.
It appeared very plain to him that the Grey Abbey family must have discarded him that Fanny Wyndham, Lord and Lady Cashel, and the whole set, must have made up their minds to drop him altogether; otherwise, one of the family would not have openly declared the match at an end. And yet he was at a loss to conceive how they could have done so how even Lord Cashel could have reconciled it to himself to do so, without the common-place courtesy of writing to him on the subject. And then, when he thought of her, ‘his own Fanny,’ as he had so often called her, he was still more bewildered: she, with whom he had sat for so many sweet hours talking of the impossibility of their ever forgetting, deserting, or even slighting each other; she, who had been so entirely devoted to him so much more than engaged to him could she have lent her name to such a heartless mode of breaking her faith?
‘If I had merely proposed for her through her guardian,’ thought Frank, to himself ‘if I had got Lord Cashel to make the engagement, as many men do, I should not be surprised; but after all that has passed between us after all her vows, and all her ‘and then Lord Ballindine struck his horse with his heel, and made a cut at the air with his whip, as he remembered certain passages more binding even than promises, warmer even than vows, which seemed to make him as miserable now as they had made him happy at the time of their occurrence. ‘I would not believe it,’ he continued, meditating, ‘if twenty Kilcullens said it, or if fifty Mat Tierneys swore to it!’ and then he rode on towards the lodge, in a state of mind for which I am quite unable to account, if his disbelief in Fanny Wyndham’s constancy was really as strong as he had declared it to be. And, as he rode, many unusual thoughts for, hitherto, Frank had not been a very deep-thinking man crowded his mind, as to the baseness, falsehood, and iniquity of the human race, especially of rich cautious old peers who had beautiful wards in their power.
By the time he had reached the lodge, he had determined that he must now do something, and that, as he was quite unable to come to any satisfactory conclusion on his own unassisted judgment, he must consult Blake, who, by the bye, was nearly as sick of Fanny Wyndham as he would have been had he himself been the person engaged to marry her.
As he rode round to the yard, he saw his friend standing at the door of one of the stables, with a cigar in his mouth.
‘Well, Frank, how does Brien go today? Not that he’ll ever be the thing till he gets to the other side of the water. They’ll never be able to bring a horse out as he should be, on the Curragh, till they’ve regular trained gallops. The slightest frost in spring, or sun in summer, and the ground’s so hard, you might as well gallop your horse down the pavement of Grafton Street.’
‘Confound the horse,’ answered Frank; ‘come here, Dot, a minute. I want to speak to you.’
‘What the d l’s the matter? he’s not lame, is he?’
‘Who? what? Brien Boru? Not that I know of. I wish the brute had never been foaled.’
‘And why so? What crotchet have you got in your head now? Something wrong about Fanny, I suppose?’
‘Why, did you hear anything?’
‘Nothing but what you’ve told me.’
‘I’ve just seen Mat Tierney, and he told me that Kilcullen had declared, at a large dinner-party, yesterday, that the match between me and his cousin was finally broken off.’
‘You wouldn’t believe what Mat Tierney would say? Mat was only taking a rise out of you.’
‘Not at all: he was not only speaking seriously, but he told me what I’m very sure was the truth, as far as Lord Kilcullen was concerned. I mean, I’m sure Kilcullen said it, and in the most public manner he could; and now, the question is, what had I better do?’
‘There’s no doubt as to what you’d better do; the question is what you’d rather do?’
‘But what had I better do? call on Kilcullen for an explanation?’
‘That’s the last thing to think of. No; but declare what he reports to be the truth; return Miss Wyndham the lock of hair you have in your desk, and next your heart, or wherever you keep it; write her a pretty note, and conclude by saying that the “Adriatic’s free to wed another”. That’s what I should do.’
‘It’s very odd, Blake, that you won’t speak seriously to a man for a moment. You’ve as much heart in you as one of your own horses. I wish I’d never come to this cursed lodge of yours. I’d be all right then.’
‘As for my heart, Frank, if I have as much as my horses, I ought to be contented for race-horses are usually considered to have a good deal; as for my cursed lodge, I can assure you I have endeavoured, and, if you will allow me, I will still endeavour, to make it as agreeable to you as I am able; and as to my speaking seriously, upon my word, I never spoke more so. You asked me what I thought you had better do and I began by telling you there would be a great difference between that and what you’d rather do.’
‘But, in heaven’s name, why would you have me break off with Miss Wyndham, when every one knows I’m engaged to her; and when you know that I wish to marry her?’
‘Firstly, to prevent her breaking off with you though I fear there’s hardly time for that; and secondly, in consequence as the newspapers say, of incompatibility of temper.’
‘Why, you don’t even know her!’
‘But I know you, and I know what your joint income would be, and I know that there would be great incompatibility between you, as Lord Ballindine, with a wife and family and fifteen hundred a year, or so. But mind, I’m only telling you what I think you’d better do.’
‘Well, I shan’t do that. If I was once settled down, I could live as well on fifteen hundred a year as any country gentleman in Ireland. It’s only the interference of Lord Cashel that makes me determined not to pull in till I am married. If he had let me have my own way, I shouldn’t, by this time, have had a horse in the world, except one or two hunters or so, down in the country.’
‘Well, Frank, if you’re determined to get yourself married, I’ll give you the best advice in my power as to the means of doing it. Isn’t that what you want?’
‘I want to know what you think I ought to do, just at this minute.’
‘With matrimony as the winning-post?’
‘You know I wish to marry Fanny Wyndham.’
‘And the sooner the better is that it?’
‘Of course. She’ll be of age now, in a few days,’ replied Lord Ballindine.
‘Then I advise you to order a new blue coat, and to buy a wedding-ring.’
‘Confusion!’ cried Frank, stamping his foot; and turning away in a passion; and then he took up his hat, to rush out of the room, in which the latter part of the conversation had taken place.
‘Stop a minute, Frank,’ said Blake, ‘and don’t he in a passion. What I said was only meant to show you how easy I think it is for you to marry Miss Wyndham if you choose.’
‘Easy! and every soul at Grey Abbey turned against me, in consequence of my owning that brute of a horse! I’ll go over there at once, and I’ll show Lord Cashel that at any rate he shall not treat me like a child. As for Kilcullen, if he interferes with me or my name in any way, I’ll ’
‘You’ll what? thrash him?’
‘Indeed, I’d like nothing better!’
‘And then shoot him be tried by your peers and perhaps hung; is that it?’
‘Oh, that’s nonsense. I don’t wish to fight any one, but I am not going to be insulted.’
‘I don’t think you are: I don’t think there’s the least chance of Kilcullen insulting you; he has too much worldly wisdom. But to come back to Miss Wyndham: if you really mean to marry her, and if, as I believe, she is really fond of you, Lord Cashel and all the family can’t prevent it. She is probably angry that you have not been over there; he is probably irate at your staying here, and, not unlikely, has made use of her own anger to make her think that she has quarrelled with you; and hence Kilcullen’s report.’
‘And what shall I do now?’
‘Nothing today, but eat your dinner, and drink your wine. Ride over tomorrow, see Lord Cashel, and tell him but do it quite coolly, if you can exactly what you have heard, and how you have heard it, and beg him to assure Lord Kilcullen that he is mistaken in his notion that the match is off; and beg also that the report may not be repeated. Do this; and do it as if you were Lord Cashel’s equal, not as if you were his son, or his servant. If you are co1lected and steady with him for ten minutes, you’ll soon find that he will become bothered and unsteady.’
‘That’s very easy to say here, but it’s not so easy to do there. You don’t know him as I do: he’s so sedate, and so slow, and so dull especially sitting alone, as he does of a morning, in that large, dingy, uncomfortable, dusty-looking book-room of his. He measures his words like senna and salts, and their tone is as disagreeable.’
‘Then do you drop out yours like prussic acid, and you’ll beat him at his own game. Those are all externals, my dear fellow. When a man knows he has nothing within his head to trust to when he has neither sense nor genius, he puts on a wig, ties up his neck in a white choker, sits in a big chair, and frightens the world with his silence. Remember, if you were not a baby, he would not be a bugbear.’
‘And should I not ask to see Fanny?’
‘By all means. Don’t leave Grey Abbey without seeing and making your peace with Miss Wyndham. That’ll be easy with you, because it’s your m?tier. I own that with myself it would be the most difficult part of the morning’s work. But don’t ask to see her as a favour. When you’ve done with the lord (and don’t let your conference be very long) when you’ve done with the lord, tell him you’ll say a word to the lady; and, whatever may have been his pre-determination, you’ll find that, if you’re cool, he’ll be bothered, and he won’t know how to refuse; and if he doesn’t prevent you, I’m sure Miss Wyndham won’t.’
‘And if he asks about these wretched horses of mine?’
‘Don’t let him talk more about your affairs than you can help; but, if he presses you and he won’t if you play your game well tell him that you’re quite aware your income won’t allow you to keep up an establishment at the Curragh after you’re married.’
‘But about Brien Boru, and the Derby?’
‘Brien Boru! You might as well talk to him about your washing-bills! Don’t go into particulars-stick to generals. He’ll never ask you those questions unless he sees you shiver and shake like a half-whipped school-boy.’
After a great deal of confabulation, in which Dot Blake often repeated his opinion of Lord Ballindine’s folly in not rejoicing at an opportunity of breaking oft the match, it was determined that Frank should ride over the next morning, and do exactly what his friend proposed. If, however, one might judge from his apparent dread of the interview with Lord Cashel, there was but little chance of his conducting it with the coolness or assurance insisted on by Dot. The probability was, that when the time did come, he would, as Blake said, shiver and shake like a half-whipped school-boy.
‘And what will you do when you’re married, Frank?’ said Blake; ‘for I’m beginning to think the symptoms are strong, and you’ll hardly get out of it now.’
‘Do! why, I suppose I’ll do much the same as others have two children, and live happy ever afterwards.’
‘I dare say you’re right about the two children, only you might say two dozen; but as to the living happy, that’s more problematical. What do you mean to eat and drink?’
‘Eggs potatoes and bacon buttermilk, and potheen. It’s odd if I can’t get plenty of them in Mayo, if I’ve nothing better.’
‘I suppose you will, Frank; but bacon won’t go down well after venison; and a course of claret is a bad preparative for potheen punch. You’re not the man to live, with a family, on a small income, and what the d l you’ll do I don’t know. You’ll fortify Kelly’s Court that’ll be the first step.’
‘Is it against the Repealers?’
‘Faith, no; you’ll join them, of course: but against the sub-sheriff, and his officers an army much more likely to crown their enterprises with success.’
‘You seem to forget, Dot, that, after all, I’m marrying a girl with quite as large a fortune as I had any right to expect.’
‘The limit to your expectations was only in your own modesty; the less you had a right in the common parlance to expect, the more you wanted, and the more you ought to have looked for. Say that Miss Wyndham’s fortune clears a thousand a year of your property, you would never be able to get along on what you’d have. No; I’ll tell you what you’ll do. You’ll shut up Kelly’s Court, raise the rents, take a moderate house in London; and Lord Cashel, when his party are in, will get you made a court stick of, and you’ll lead just such a life as your grandfather. If it’s not very glorious, at any rate it’s a useful kind of life. I hope Miss Wyndham will like it. You’ll have to christen your children Ernest and Albert, and that sort of thing; that’s the worst of it; and you’ll never be let to sit down, and that’s a bore. But you’ve strong legs. It would never do for me. I could never stand out a long tragedy in Drury Lane, with my neck in a stiff white choker, and my toes screwed into tight dress boots. I’d sooner be a porter myself, for he can go to bed when the day’s over.’
‘You’re very witty, Dot; but you know I’m the last man in Ireland, not excepting yourself, to put up with that kind of thing. Whatever I may have to live on, I shall live in my own country, and on my own property.’
‘Very well; if you won’t be a gold stick, there’s the other alternative: fortify Kelly’s Court, and prepare for the sheriff’s officers. Of the two, there’s certainly more fun in it; and you can go out with the harriers on a Sunday afternoon, and live like a “ra’al O’Kelly of the ould times” only the punch’ll kill you in about ten years.’
‘Go on, Dot, go on. You want to provoke me, but you won’t. I wonder whether you’d bear it as well, if I told you you’d die a broken-down black-leg, without a friend or a shilling to bless you.’
‘I don’t think I should, because I should know that you were threatening me with a fate which my conduct and line of life would not warrant any one in expecting.’
‘Upon my word, then, I think there’s quite as much chance of that as there is of my getting shut up by bailiffs in Kelly’s Court, and dying drunk. I’ll bet you fifty pounds I’ve a better account at my bankers than you have in ten years.’
‘Faith, I’ll not take it. It’ll be hard work getting fifty pounds out of you, then! In the meantime, come and play a game of billiards before dinner.’
To this Lord Ballindine consented, and they adjourned to the billiard-room; but, before they commenced playing, Blake declared that if the names of Lord Cashel or Miss Wyndham were mentioned again that evening, he should retreat to his own room, and spend the hours by himself; so, for the rest of that day, Lord Ballindine was again driven back upon Brien Boru and the Derby for conversation, as Dot was too close about his own stable to talk much of his own horses and their performances, except when he was doing so with an eye to business.
About two o’clock on the following morning, Lord Ballindine set off for Grey Abbey, on horseback, dressed with something more than ordinary care, and with a considerable palpitation about his heart. He hardly knew, himself, what or whom he feared, but he knew that he was afraid of something. He had a cold, sinking sensation within him, and he felt absolutely certain that he should be signally defeated in his present mission. He had plenty of what is usually called courage; had his friend recommended him instantly to call out Lord Kilcullen and shoot him, and afterwards any number of other young men who might express a thought in opposition to his claim on Miss Wyndham’s hand, he would have set about it with the greatest readiness and aptitude; but he knew he could not baffle the appalling solemnity of Lord Cashel, in his own study. Frank was not so very weak a man as he would appear to be when in the society of Blake. He unfortunately allowed Blake to think for him in many things, and he found a convenience in having some one to tell him what to do; but he was, in most respects, a better, and in some, even a wiser man than his friend. He often felt that the kind of life he was leading contracting debts which he could not pay, and spending his time in pursuits which were not really congenial to him, was unsatisfactory and discreditable: and it was this very feeling, and the inability to defend that which he knew to be wrong sand foolish, which made him so certain that he would not be able successfully to persist in his claim to Miss Wyndham’s hand in opposition to the trite and well-weighed objections, which he knew her guardian would put forward. He consoled himself, however, with thinking that, at any rate, they could not prevent his seeing her; and he was quite sanguine as to her forgiveness, if he but got a fair opportunity of asking it. And when that was obtained, why should the care for any one? Fanny would be of age, and her own mistress, in a few days, and all the solemn earls in England, and Ireland too, could not then prevent her marrying whom and when she liked.
He thought a great deal on all his friend had said to his future poverty; but then, his ideas and Blake’s were very different about life. Blake’s idea of happiness was, the concentrating of every thing into a focus for his own enjoyment; whereas he, Frank had only had recourse to dissipation and extravagance, because he had nothing to make home pleasant to him. If he once had Fanny Wyndham installed as Lady Ballindine, at Kelly’s Court, he was sure he could do his duty as a country gentleman, and live on his income, be it what it might, not only without grumbling, but without wishing for anything more. He was fond of his country, his name, and his countrymen: he was fully convinced of his folly in buying race-horses, and in allowing himself to be dragged on the turf: he would sell Brien Boru, and the other two Irish chieftains, for what they would fetch, and show Fanny and her guardian that he was in earnest in his intention of reforming. Blake might laugh at him if he liked; but he would not stay to be laughed at. He felt that Handicap Lodge was no place for him; and besides, why should he bear Dot’s disagreeable sarcasms? It was not the part of a real friend to say such cutting things as he continually did. After all, Lord Cashel would be a safer friend, or, at any rate, adviser; and, instead of trying to defeat him by coolness or insolence, he would at once tell him of all his intentions, explain to him exactly how matters stood, and prove his good resolutions by offering to take whatever steps the earl might recommend about the horses. This final determination made him easier in this mind, and, as he entered the gates of Grey Abbey Park, he was tolerably comfortable, trusting to his own good resolutions, and the effect which he felt certain the expression of them must have on Lord Cashel.
Grey Abbey is one of the largest but by no means one of the most picturesque demesnes in Ireland. It is situated in the county of Kildare, about two miles from the little town of Kilcullen, in a flat, uninteresting, and not very fertile country. The park itself is extensive and tolerably well wooded, but it wants water and undulation, and is deficient of any object of attraction, except that of size and not very magnificent timber. I suppose, years ago, there was an Abbey here, or near the spot, but there is now no vestige of it remaining. In a corner of the demesne there are standing the remains of one of those strong, square, ugly castles, which, two centuries since, were the real habitations of the landed proprietors of the country, and many of which have been inhabited even to a much later date. They now afford the strongest record of the apparently miserable state of life which even the favoured of the land then endured, and of the numberless domestic comforts which years and skill have given us, apt as we are to look back with fond regret to the happy, by-gone days of past periods.
This old castle, now used as a cow-shed, is the only record of antiquity at Grey Abbey; and yet the ancient family of the Greys have lived there for centuries. The first of them who possessed property in Ireland, obtained in the reign of Henry Il, grants of immense tracts of land, stretching through Wicklow, Kildare, and the Queen’s and King’s Counties; and, although his descendants have been unable to retain, through the various successive convulsions which have taken place in the interior of Ireland since that time, anything like an eighth of what the family once pretended to claim, the Earl of Cashel, their present representative, has enough left to enable him to consider himself a very great man. The present mansion, built on the site of that in which the family had lived till about seventy years since, is, like the grounds, large, commodious, and uninteresting. It is built of stone, which appears as if it had been plastered over, is three stories high, and the windows are all of the same size, and at regular intervals. The body of the house looks like a huge, square, Dutch old lady, and the two wings might be taken for her two equally fat, square, Dutch daughters. Inside, the furniture is good, strong, and plain. There are plenty of drawing-rooms, sitting-rooms, bed-rooms, and offices; a small gallery of very indifferent paintings, and a kitchen, with an excellent kitchen-range, and patent boilers of every shape.
Considering the nature of the attractions, it is somewhat strange that Lord Cashel should have considered it necessary to make it generally known that the park might be seen any day between the hours of nine and six, and the house, on Tuesdays and Fridays between the hours of eleven and four. Yet such is the case, and the strangeness of this proceeding on his part is a good deal diminished by the fact that persons, either induced by Lord Cashel’s good nature, or thinking that any big house must be worth seeing, very frequently pay half-a-crown to the housekeeper for the privilege of being dragged through every room in the mansion.
There is a bed there, in which the Regent slept when in Ireland, and a room which was tenanted by Lord Normanby, when Lord Lieutenant. There is, moreover, a satin counterpane, which was made by the lord’s aunt, and a snuff-box which was given to the lord’s grandfather by Frederick the Great. These are the lions of the place, and the gratification experienced by those who see them is, no doubt, great; but I doubt if it equals the annoyance and misery to which they are subjected in being obliged to pass one unopened door that of the private room of Lady Selina, the only daughter of the earl at present unmarried.
It contains only a bed, and the usual instruments of a lady’s toilet; but Lady Selina does not choose to have it shown, and it has become invested, in the eyes of the visitors, with no ordinary mystery. Many a petitionary whisper is addressed to the housekeeper on the subject, but in vain; and, consequently, the public too often leave Grey Abbey dissatisfied.
As Lord Ballindine rode through the gates, and up the long approach to the house, he was so satisfied of the wisdom of his own final resolution, and of the successful termination of his embassy under such circumstances, that he felt relieved of the uncomfortable sensation of fear which had oppressed him; and it was only when the six-foot high, powdered servant told him, with a very solemn face, that the earl was alone in the book-room the odious room he hated so much that he began again to feel a little misgiving. However, there was nothing left for him now, so he gave up his horse to the groom, and followed the sober-faced servant into the book-room.
Lord Cashel was a man about sixty-three, with considerable external dignity of appearance, though without any personal advantage, either in face, figure, or manner. He had been an earl, with a large income, for thirty years; and in that time he had learned to look collected, even when his ideas were confused; to keep his eye steady, and to make a few words go a long way. He had never been intemperate, and was, therefore, strong and hale for his years, he had not done many glaringly foolish things, and, therefore, had a character for wisdom and judgment. He had run away with no man’s wife, and, since his marriage, had seduced no man’s daughter; he was, therefore, considered a moral man. He was not so deeply in debt as to have his affairs known to every one; and hence was thought prudent. And, as he lived in his own house, with his own wife, paid his servants and labourers their wages regularly, and nodded in church for two hours every Sunday, he was thought a good man. Such were his virtues; and by these negative qualities this vis inertiae, he had acquired, and maintained, a considerable influence in the country.
When Lord Ballindine’s name was announced, he slowly rose, and, just touching the tip of Frank’s fingers, by way of shaking hands with him, hoped he had the pleasure of seeing him well.
The viscount hoped the same of the earl and of the ladies. This included the countess and Lady Selina, as well as Fanny, and was, therefore, not a particular question; but, having hoped this, and the earl remaining silent, he got confused, turned red, hummed and hawed a little, sat down, and then, endeavouring to drown his confusion in volubility, began talking quickly about his anxiety to make final arrangements concerning matters, which, of course, he had most deeply at heart; and, at last, ran himself fairly aground, from not knowing whether, under the present circumstances, he ought to speak of his affianced to her guardian as ‘Fanny’, or ‘Miss Wyndham’.
When he had quite done, and was dead silent, and had paused sufficiently long to assure the earl that he was going to say nothing further just at present, the great man commenced his answer.
‘This is a painful subject, my lord most peculiarly painful at the present time; but, surely, after all that has passed but especially after what has not passed’ Lord Cashel thought this was a dead hit ‘you cannot consider your engagement with Miss Wyndham to be still in force?’
‘Good gracious! and why not, my lord? I am ready to do anything her friends in fact I came solely, this morning, to consult yourself, about I’m sure Fanny herself can’t conceive the engagement to be broken off. Of course, if Miss Wyndham wishes it but I can’t believe I can’t believe if it’s about the horses, Lord Cashel, upon my word, I’m ready to sell them today.’
This was not very dignified in poor Frank, and to tell the truth, he was completely bothered. Lord Cashel looked so more than ordinarily glum; had he been going to put on a black cap and pass sentence of death, or disinherit his eldest son, he could not have looked more stern or more important. Frank’s lack of dignity added to his, and made him feel immeasurably superior to any little difficulty which another person might have felt in making the communication he was going to make. He was really quite in a solemn good humour. Lord Ballindine’s confusion was so .flattering.
‘I can assure you, my lord, Miss Wyndham calls for no such sacrifice, nor do I. There was a time when, as her guardian, I ventured to hint and I own I was taking a liberty, a fruitless liberty, in doing so that I thought your remaining on the turf was hardly prudent. But I can assure you, with all kindly feeling with no approach to animosity that I will not offend in a similar way again. I hear, by mere rumour, that you have extended your operations to the other kingdom. I hope I have not been the means of inducing you to do so; but, advice, if not complied with, often gives a bias in an opposite direction. With regard to Miss Wyndham, I must express and I really had thought it was unnecessary to do so, though it was certainly my intention, as it was Miss Wyndham’s wish, that I should have written to you formally on the subject but your own conduct excuse me, Lord Ballindine your own evident indifference, and continued, I fear I must call it, dissipation and your, as I considered, unfortunate selection of acquaintance, combined with the necessary diminution of that attachment which I presume Miss Wyndham once felt for you necessary, inasmuch as it was, as far as I understand, never of a sufficiently ardent nature to outlive the slights indeed, my lord, I don’t wish to offend you, or hurt your feelings but, I must say, the slights which it encountered.’ Here the earl felt that his sentence was a little confused, but the viscount looked more so; and, therefore, not at all abashed by the want of a finish to his original proposition, he continued glibly enough:
‘In short, in considering all the features of the case, I thought the proposed marriage a most imprudent one; and, on questioning Miss Wyndham as to her feelings, I was, I must own, gratified to learn that she agreed with me; indeed, she conceived that your conduct gave ample proof, my lord, of your readiness to be absolved from your engagement; pardon me a moment, my lord as I said before, I still deemed it incumbent on me, and on my ward, that I, as her guardian, should give you an absolute and written explanation of her feelings that would have been done yesterday, and this most unpleasant meeting would have been spared to both of us, but for the unexpected Did you hear of the occurrence which has happened in Miss Wyndham’s family, my lord?’
‘Occurrence? No, Lord Cashel; I did not hear of any especial occurrence.’
There had been a peculiarly solemn air about Lord Cashel during the whole of the interview, which deepened into quite funereal gloom as he asked the last question; but he was so uniformly solemn, that this had not struck Lord Ballindine. Besides, an appearance of solemnity agreed so well with Lord Cashel’s cast of features and tone of voice, that a visage more lengthened, and a speech somewhat slower than usual, served only to show him off as so much the more clearly identified by his own characteristics. Thus a man who always wears a green coat does not become remarkable by a new green coat; he is only so much the more than ever, the man in the green coat.
Lord Ballindine, therefore, answered the question without the appearance of that surprise which Lord Cashel expected he would feel, if he had really not yet heard of the occurrence about to be related to him. The earl, therefore, made up his mind, as indeed he had nearly done before, that Frank knew well what was going to be told him, though it suited his purpose to conceal his knowledge. He could not, however, give his young brother nobleman the lie; and he was, therefore, constrained to tell his tale, as if to one to whom it was unknown. He was determined, however, though he could not speak out plainly, to let Frank see that he was not deceived by his hypocrisy, and that he, Lord Cashel, was well aware, not only that the event about to be told had been known at Handicap Lodge, but that the viscount’s present visit to Grey Abbey had arisen out of that knowledge.
Lord Ballindine, up to this moment, was perfectly ignorant of this event, and it is only doing justice to him to say that, had he heard of it, it would at least have induced him to postpone his visit for some time. Lord Cashel paused for a few moments, looking at Frank in a most diplomatic manner, and then proceeded to unfold his budget.
‘I am much surprised that you should not have heard of it. The distressing news reached Grey Abbey yesterday, and must have been well known in different circles in Dublin yesterday morning. Considering the great intercourse between Dublin and the Curragh, I wonder you can have been left so long in ignorance of a circumstance so likely to be widely discussed, and which at one time might have so strongly affected your own interests.’ Lord Cashel again paused, and looked hard at Frank. He flattered himself that he was reading his thoughts; but he looked as if he had detected a spot on the other’s collar, and wanted to see whether it was ink or soot.
Lord Ballindine was, however, confounded. When the earl spoke of ‘a circumstance so likely to be widely discussed’, Mat Tierney’s conversation recurred to him, and Lord Kilcullen’s public declaration that Fanny Wyndham’s match was off. It was certainly odd for Lord Cashel to call this an occurrence in Miss Wyndham’s family, but then, he had a round-about way of saying everything.
‘I say,’ continued the earl, after a short pause, ‘that I cannot but be surprised that an event of so much importance, of so painful a nature, and, doubtless, already so publicly known, should not before this have reached the ears of one to whom, I presume, Miss Wyndham’s name was not always wholly indifferent. But, as you have not heard it, my lord, I will communicate it to you,’ and again he paused, as though expecting another assurance of Lord Ballindine’s ignorance.
‘Why, my lord,’ said Frank, ‘I did hear a rumour, which surprised me very much, but I could not suppose it to be true. To tell the truth, it was very much in consequence of what I heard that I came to Grey Abbey today.’
It was now Lord Cashel’s turn to be confounded. First, to deny that he had heard anything about it and then immediately to own that he had heard it, and had been induced to renew his visits to Grey Abbey in consequence! Just what he, in his wisdom, had suspected was the case. But how could Lord Ballindine have the face to own it?
I must, however, tell the reader the event of which Frank was ignorant, and which, it appears, Lord Cashel is determined not to communicate to him.
Fanny Wyndham’s father had held a governorship, or some golden appointment in the golden days of India, and consequently had died rich. He left eighty thousand pounds to his son, who was younger than Fanny, and twenty to his daughter. His son had lately been put into the Guards, but he was not long spared to enjoy his sword and his uniform. He died, and his death had put his sister in possession of his money; and Lord Cashel thought that, though Frank might slight twenty thousand pounds, he would be too glad to be allowed to remain the accepted admirer of a hundred thousand.
‘I thought you must have heard it, my lord,’ resumed the senior, as soon as be had collected his shreds of dignity, which Frank’s open avowal had somewhat scattered, ‘I felt certain you must have heard it, and you will, I am sure, perceive that this is no time for you excuse me if I use a word which may appear harsh it is no time for any one, not intimately connected with Miss Wyndham by ties of family, to intrude upon her sorrow.’
Frank was completely bothered. He thought that if she were so sorrowful, if she grieved so deeply at the match being broken off, that was just the reason why he should see her. After all, it was rather flattering to himself to hear of her sorrows; dear Fanny! was she so grieved that she was forced to part from him?
‘But, Lord Cashel,’ he said, ‘I am ready to do whatever you please. I’ll take any steps you’ll advise. But I really cannot see why I’m to be told that the engagement between me and Miss Wyndham is off, without hearing any reason from herself. I’ll make any sacrifice you please, or she requires; I’m sure she was attached to me, and she cannot have overcome that affection so soon.’
‘I have already said that we require Miss Wyndham requires no sacrifice from you. The time for sacrifice is past; and I do not think her affection was of such a nature as will long prey on her spirits.’
‘My affection for her is, I can assure you ’
‘Pray excuse me but I think this is hardly the time either to talk of, or to show, your affection. Had it been proved to be of a lasting, I fear I must say, a sincere nature, it would now have been most valued. I will leave yourself to say whether this was the case.’
‘And so you mean to say, Lord Cashel, that I cannot see Miss Wyndham?’
‘Assuredly, Lord Ballindine. And I must own, that I hardly appreciate your delicacy in asking to do so at the present moment.’
There was something very hard in this. The match was to be broken off without any notice to him; and when he requested, at any rate, to hear this decision from the mouth of the only person competent to make it, he was told that it was indelicate for him to wish to do so. This put his back up.
‘Well, my lord,’ he said with some spirit, Miss Wyndham is at present your ward, and in your house, and I am obliged to postpone the exercise of the right, to which, at least, I am entitled, of hearing her decision from her own mouth. I cannot think that she expects I should be satisfied with such an answer as I have now received. I shall write to her this evening, and shall expect at any rate the courtesy of an answer from herself.’
‘My advice to my ward will be, not to write to you; at any rate for the present. I presume, my lord, you cannot doubt my word that Miss Wyndham chooses to be released from an engagement, which I must say your own conduct renders it highly inexpedient for her to keep.’
‘I don’t doubt your word, of course, Lord Cashel; but such being the case, I think Miss Wyndham might at least tell me so herself.’
‘I should have thought, Lord Ballindine, that you would have felt that the sudden news of a dearly loved brother’s death, was more than sufficient to excuse Miss Wyndham from undergoing an interview which, even under ordinary circumstances, would be of very doubtful expediency.’
‘Her brother’s death! Good gracious! Is Harry Wyndham dead!’
Frank was so truly surprised so effectually startled by the news, which he now for the first time heard, that, had his companion possessed any real knowledge of human nature, he would at once have seen that his astonishment was not affected. But he had none, and, therefore, went on blundering in his own pompous manner.
‘Yes, my lord, he is dead. I understood you to say that you had already heard it; and, unless my ears deceived me, you explained that his demise was the immediate cause of your present visit. I cannot, however, go so far as to say that I think you have exercised a sound discretion in the matter. In expressing such an opinion, however, I am far from wishing to utter anything which may be irritating or offensive to your feelings.’
‘Upon my word then, I never heard a word about it till this moment! Poor Harry! And is Fanny much cut up?’
‘Miss Wyndham is much afflicted.’
‘I wouldn’t for worlds annoy her, or press on her at such a moment. Pray tell her, Lord Cashel, how deeply I feel her sorrows: pray tell her this, with my kindest best compliments.’ This termination was very cold but so was Lord Cashel’s face. His lordship had also risen from his chair; and Frank saw it was intended that the interview should end. But he would now have been glad to stay. He wanted to ask a hundred questions how the poor lad had died? whether he had been long ill? whether it had been expected? But he saw that he must go; so he rose and putting out his hand which Lord Cashel just touched, he said,
‘Good bye, my lord. I trust, after a few months are gone by, you may see reason to alter the opinion you have expressed respecting your ward. Should I not hear from you before then, I shall again do myself the honour of calling at Grey Abbey; but will write to Miss Wyndham before I do so.’
Lord Cashel had the honour of wishing Lord Ballindine a very good morning, and of bowing him to the door; and so the interview ended.