The Kellys and the O’Kellys
or, Landlords and Tenants
by Anthony Trollope
1848
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
CHAPTER 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 £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 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 £400 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 £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-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 _cortège_, 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.