E-text prepared by Andrew Turek and revised and annotated by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.



THE KELLYS AND THE O'KELLYS

by

ANTHONY TROLLOPE



Contents

I. The Trial II. The Two Heiresses III. Morrison's Hotel IV. The Dunmore Inn V. A Loving Brother VI. The Escape VII. Mr Barry Lynch Makes a Morning Call VIII. Mr Martin Kelly Returns to Dunmore IX. Mr Daly, the Attorney X. Dot Blake's Advice XI. The Earl of Cashel XII. Fanny Wyndham XIII. Father and Son XIV. The Countess XV. Handicap Lodge XVI. Brien Boru XVII. Martin Kelly's Courtship XVIII. An Attorney's Office in Connaught XIX. Mr Daly Visits the Dunmore Inn XX. Very Liberal XXI. Lord Ballindine at Home XXII. The Hunt XXIII. Dr Colligan XXIV. Anty Lynch's Bed-Side; Scene the First XXV. Anty Lynch's Bed-Side; Scene the Second XXVI. Love's Ambassador XXVII. Mr Lynch's Last Resource XXVIII. Fanny Wyndham Rebels XXIX. The Countess of Cashell in Trouble XXX. Lord Kilcullen Obeys His Father XXXI. The Two Friends XXXII. How Lord Kilcullen Fares in His Wooing XXXIII. Lord Kilcullen Makes Another Visit to the Book-Room XXXIV. The Doctor Makes a Clean Breast of It XXXV. Mr Lynch Bids Farewell to Dunmore XXXVI. Mr Armstrong Visits Grey Abbey on a Delicate Mission XXXVII. Veni; Vidi; Vici XXXVIII. Wait Till I Tell You XXXIX. It Never Rains but It Pours XL. Conclusion



I. THE TRIAL

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, [1] 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.

[FOOTNOTE 1: The historical events described here form a backdrop to the novel. Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847) came from a wealthy Irish Catholic family. He was educated in the law, which he practiced most successfully, and developed a passion for religious and political liberty. In 1823, together with Lalor Sheil and Thomas Wyse, he organized the Catholic Association, whose major goal was Catholic emancipation. This was achieved by act of parliament the following year. O'Connell served in parliament in the 1830's and was active in the passage of bills emancipating the Jews and outlawing slavery. In 1840 he formed the Repeal Association, whose goal was repeal of the 1800 Act of Union which joined Ireland to Great Britain. In 1842, after serving a year as Lord Mayor of Dublin, O'Connell challenged the British government by announcing that he intended to achieve repeal within a year. Though he openly opposed violence, Prime Minister Peel's government considered him a threat and arrested O'Connell and his associates in 1843 on trumped-up charges of conspiracy, sedition, and unlawfule assembly. They were tried in 1844, and all but one were convicted, although the conviction was later overturned in the House of Lords. O'Connell did serve some time in jail and was considered a martyr to the cause of Irish independence.]

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" [2]—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 [3]. The country shouted for joy when he was set free, and expended all its enthusiasm in the effort.

[FOOTNOTE 2: The Irish often referred to Daniel O'Connell as "the liberator."]

[FOOTNOTE 3: enfranchisement—being set free. This is a political observation by Trollope.]

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" [4] were in everybody's mouth—a term heretofore confined to law courts, and lawyers' rooms. The Attorney-General, the Commander-in-Chief 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.

[FOOTNOTE 4: traversers—Trollope repeatedly refers to the defendants as "traversers." The term probably comes from the legal term "to traverse," which is to deny the charges against one in a common law proceeding. Thus, the traversers would have been those who pled innocent.]

The whole Irish bar seemed, for the time, to have laid aside the habitual sang froid [5] 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.

[FOOTNOTE 5: sang froid—(French) coolness in a trying situation, lack of excitability]

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 [6], 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.

[FOOTNOTE 6: The Four Courts was a landmark courthouse in Dublin named for the four divisions of the Irish judicial system: Common Pleas, Chancery, Exchequer, and King's Bench.]

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 [7]; 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.

[FOOTNOTE 7: Conciliation Hall, Dublin, was built in 1843 as a meeting place for O'Connell's Repeal Association.]

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 [8] 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.

[FOOTNOTE 8: gauger—a British revenue officer often engaged in the collection of duties on distilled spirits.]

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 L500 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 in-door 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-in-law. 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 L400 a-year in my pocket, and a good wife to the fore."

"The L400 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 the 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 marry 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 L400 a-year of her own."

"'Deed then, John, and that's what I don't know. May-be 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!"

"May-be 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 L400 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-in-law 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 cortege, as they drew up to the front of 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 off.

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.



II. THE TWO HEIRESSES

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 her 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 [9] 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.

[FOOTNOTE 9: ci-devant—(French) former, previous]

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 counthry."

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, open-hearted 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 eclat; 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 division 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 looks, 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.



III. MORRISON'S HOTEL

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 [10] to your lordship and we never pay that till next May."

[FOOTNOTE 10: gale—rent payment. Gale day was the day on which rent was due.]

"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 may-be 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-in-law. 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."

"May-be 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 mane to 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-in-law. 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 be 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, may-be, 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, to-morrow, 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 to-morrow, 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's 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."

"May-be 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 to-morrow, 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 protege 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."