Are there not proofs enough?
Or can the stubborn mind reject all truth
And cling to fallacy?
The Will.
What a change did Tubbermore present to its aspect of the day before!
All the emblems of joy and festivity, all the motley of pleasure, all
the gay troops of guests hastening onward in glowing eagerness and
anticipation, were gone; and in their stead a dreary and mysterious
silence brooded over the place, interrupted at intervals by the bustle
of some departure. For thus, without one word of sympathy, without even
a passing good-bye, Roland's “friends” hurried away, as if flying from
the very memories of the spot.
It was a dreary winter's day; the dark leaden clouds that flitted past,
and the long-sighing wind, seemed to add their sad influence to the
melancholy. The house itself already appeared to feel its altered
fortunes. Most of the windows were closed and shuttered; the decorations
of rare plants and shrubs and lamps were removed; instead of the
movement of liveried servants to and fro, ill-favored and coarse-clad
men, the underlings of the law, crept stealthily about, noticing each
circumstance of the locality, and conferring together in mysterious
whispers. Mounted messengers, too, came and went with a haste that boded
urgency; and post-horses were each moment arriving to carry away those
whose impatience to leave was manifested in a hundred ways. Had the
air of the place been infected with some pestilential malady, their
eagerness could scarce have been greater. All the fretful irritability
of selfishness, all the peevish discontent of petty natures, exhibited
themselves without shame; and envious expressions towards those
fortunate enough to “get away first,” and petulant complaints over their
own delay, were bandied on every side.
A great table was laid for breakfast in the dining-room, as usual. All
the luxuries and elegances that graced the board on former occasions
were there, but a few only took their places. Of these, Frobisher and
some military men were the chief; they, indeed, showed comparatively
little of that anxiety to be gone so marked in the others. The monotony
of the barrack and the parade was not attractive, and they lingered
like men who, however little they had of pleasure here, had even less of
inducement to betake them elsewhere.
Meek had been the first to make his escape, by taking the post-horses
intended for another, and already was many miles on his way towards
Dublin. The Chief Justice and his family were the next. From the hour
of the fatal event, Mrs. Malone had assumed a judicial solemnity of
demeanor that produced a great impression upon the beholders, and seemed
to convey, by a kind of reflected light, the old judge's gloomiest
forebodings of the result.
Mrs. Leicester White deferred her departure to oblige Mr. Howie, who was
making a series of sketches for the “Pictorial Paul Pry,” showing not
only the various façades of Tubbermore House, but several interesting
“interiors:” such as the “Ball-room, when the fatal tidings arrived:”
“Dressing-room of Roland Cashel, Esq., when entered by the Chief Justice
and his party;” the most effective of all being a very shadowy picture
of the “Gap of Ennismore--the scene of the murder;” the whole connected
by a little narrative so ingeniously drawn up as to give public opinion
a very powerful bias against Cashel, whose features, in the woodcut,
would in themselves have made a formidable indictment.
Of the Kennyfecks, few troubled themselves with even a casual inquiry:
except the fact that a fashionable physician had been sent for to
Dublin, little was known about them. But where was Linton all this
while? Some averred that he had set out for the capital, to obtain
the highest legal assistance for his friend; others, that he was so
overwhelmed by the terrible calamity as to have fallen into a state
of fatuous insensibility. None, however, could really give any correct
account of him; he had left Tubbermore, but in what direction none could
tell.
As the day wore on, a heavy rain began to fall; and of those who still
remained in the house, little knots of two and three assembled at the
windows, to watch for the arrival of their wished-for “posters,” or
to speculate upon the weather. Another source of speculation there was
besides. Some hours before, a magistrate, accompanied by a group of
ill-dressed and vulgar-looking men, had been seen to pass the house,
and take the path which led to the Gap of Ennismore. These formed the
inquest, who were to inquire into the circumstances of the crime, and
whose verdict, however unimportant in a strictly legal sense, was looked
for with considerable impatience by some of the company. To judge from
the anxious looks that were directed towards the mountain road, or the
piercing glances which at times were given through telescopes in that
direction, one would have augured that some, at least, of those there,
were not destitute of sympathy for him whose guests they had been, and
beneath whose roof they still lingered. A very few words of those
that passed between them will best answer how this impression is well
founded.
“Have you sent your groom off, Upton?” asked Frobisher, as he stood
with a coffee-cup in his hand at the window.
“Yes, he passed the window full half an hour ago.”
“They are confoundedly tedious,” said Jennings, half suppressing a
yawn. “I thought those kind of fellows just gave a look at the body, and
pronounced their verdict at once.”
“So they do when it's one of their own class; but in the case of a
gentleman they take a prodigious interest in examining his watch and
his purse and his pocket-book; and, in fact, it is a grand occasion for
prying as far as possible into his private concerns.”
“I 'll double our bet, Upton, if you like,” said Frobisher, languidly.
The other shook his head negatively.
“Why, the delay is clearly in your favor, man. If they were strong in
their convictions, they 'd have brought him in guilty an hour ago.”
“That is my opinion too,” said Jennings.
“Well, here goes. Two fifties be it,” cried Upton.
Frobisher took out his memorandum-book and wrote something with a
pencil.
“Is n't that it?” said he, showing the lines to Upton.
“Just so. 'Wilful murder,'” muttered the other, reading.
“You have a great 'pull' upon me, Upton,” said Frobisher; “by Jove! if
you were generous, you'd give me odds.”
“How so?”
“Why, you saw his face since the affair, and I did n't.”
“It would need a better physiognomist than I am to read it. He looked
exactly as he always does; a thought paler, perhaps, but no other
change.”
“Here comes a fellow with news,” said Jennings, throwing open the
window. “I say, my man, is it over?”
“No, sir; the jury want to see one of Mr. Cashel's boots.”
Jennings closed the sash, and, lighting a cigar, sat down in an
easy-chair. A desultory conversation here arose among some of the
younger military men whether a coroner's verdict were final, and whether
a “fellow could be hanged” when it pronounced him guilty; the astute
portion of the debaters inclining to the opinion that although this
was not the case in England, such would be “law” in Ireland. Then the
subject of confiscation was entertained, and various doubts and surmises
arose as to what would become of Tubbermore when its proprietor had been
executed; with sly jests about the reversionary rights of the Crown,
and the magnanimity of extending mercy at the price of a great landed
estate. These filled up the time for an hour or so more, interspersed
with conjectures as to Cashel's present frame of mind, and considerable
wonderment why he had n't “bolted” at once.
At last Upton's groom was seen approaching at a tremendous pace; and in
a few minutes after he had pulled up at the door, and dismounting with a
spring, hastened into the house.
“Well, Robert, how did it go?” cried Upton, as, followed by the rest, he
met him in the hall.
“You 've lost, sir,” said the man, wiping his forehead.
“Confound the rascals! But what are the words of the verdict?”
“'Wilful murder,' sir.”
“Of course,” said Frobisher, coolly; “they could give no other.”
“It's no use betting against you,” cried Upton, pettishly. “You are the
luckiest dog in Europe.”
“Come, I 'll give you a chance,” said Frobisher; “double or quit that
they hang him.”
“No, no; I 've lost enough on him. I 'll not have it.”
“Well, I suppose we've nothing to wait for now,” yawned Jennings. “Shall
we start?”
“Not till we have luncheon, I vote,” cried an infantry sub.; and his
suggestion met general approval. And while they are seated at a table
where exquisite meats and rarest wines stimulated appetite and provoked
excess, let us turn for a few brief moments to him who, still their
entertainer, sat in his lone chamber, friendless and deserted.
So rapid had been the succession of events which occupied one single
night, that Roland could not believe it possible months had not
passed over. Even then, he found it difficult to disentangle the real
circumstances from those fancied results his imagination had already
depicted; many of the true incidents appearing far more like fiction
than the dreamy fancies his mind invented. His meeting with Enrique, for
instance, was infinitely less probable than that he should have fought
a duel with Linton; and so, in many other cases, his faculties
wavered between belief and doubt, till his very senses reeled with the
confusion. Kennyfeck's death alone stood out from this chaotic mass,
clear, distinct, and palpable, and, as he sat brooding over this
terrible fact, he was totally unconscious of its bearing upon his own
fortunes. Selfishness formed no part of his nature; his fault lay in
the very absence of self-esteem, and the total deficiency of that
individuality which prompts men to act up to a self-created standard.
He could sorrow for him who was no more, and from whom he had received
stronger proofs of devotion than from all his so-called friends; he
could grieve over the widowed mother and the fatherless girls, for
whose destitution he felt, he knew not how, or wherefore, a certain
culpability; but of himself and his own critical position, not a thought
arose. The impressions that no effort of his own could convey fell with
a terrific shock upon him when suggested by another.
He was seated at his table, trying, for the twentieth time, to collect
his wandering thoughts, and determine what course to follow, when a tap
was heard at his door, and it opened at the same instant.
“I am come, sir,” said Mr. Goring, with a voice full of feeling, “to
bring you sad tidings; but for which events may have, in a measure,
prepared you.” He paused, perhaps hoping that Cashel would spare him the
pain of continuing; but Roland never spoke.
“The inquest has completed its labors,” said Goring, with increasing
agitation; “and the verdict is one of 'wilful murder.'”
“It was a foul and terrible crime,” said Cashel, shuddering; “the poor
fellow was animated with kind intentions and benevolent views towards
the people. In all our intercourse he displayed but one spirit--”
“Have a care, sir,” said Goring, mildly. “It is just possible that, in
the frankness of the moment something may escape you which hereafter you
might wish unsaid; and standing in the position you now do--”
“How so? What position, sir, do I occupy, that should preclude me from
the open expression of my sentiments?”
“I have already told you, sir, that the verdict of the jury was wilful
murder, and I hold here in my hand the warrant for your arrest.”
“As the criminal? as the murderer?” cried Cashel, with a voice almost
like a shriek of agony. Goring bowed his head, and Roland fell powerless
on the floor.
Summoning others to his aid, Goring succeeded in lifting him up and
placing him on a bed. A few drops of blood that issued from his mouth,
and his heavy snoring respiration, indicated an apoplectic seizure.
Messengers were sent in various directions to fetch a doctor. Tiernay
was absent, and it was some hours ere one could be found. Large bleeding
and quiet produced the usual effects, and towards evening Cashel's
consciousness had returned; but memory was still clouded and incoherent,
and he lay without speaking, and almost without thought.
After the lapse of about a week he was able to leave his bed and creep
about his chamber, whose altered look contributed to recall his mind to
the past. All his papers and letters had been removed; the window was
secured with iron stanchions; and policemen stood sentry at the door. He
remembered everything that had occurred, and sat down in patient thought
to consider what he should do.
He learned without surprise, but not without a pang, that of all his
friends not one had remained,--not one had offered a word of counsel
in his affliction, or of comfort in his distress. He asked after
Mr. Corrigan, and heard that he had quitted the country, with his
granddaughter, on the day before the terrible event. Tiernay, it was
said, had accompanied them to Dublin, and not since returned. Roland
was, then, utterly friendless! What wonder if he became as utterly
reckless, as indifferent to life, as life seemed valueless? And so was
it: he heard with indifference the order for his removal to Limerick,
although that implied a Jail! He listened to the vulgar but kindly meant
counsels of his keepers, who advised him to seek legal assistance, with
a smile of half-contempt. The obdurate energy of a martyrdom seemed
to take possession of him; and, so far from applying his mind to
disentangle the web of suspicion around him, he watched, with a strange
interest, the convergence of every minute circumstance towards the proof
of his guilt; a secret vindictiveness whispering to his heart that the
day would come when his innocence should be proclaimed; and then, what
tortures of remorse would be theirs who had brought him to a felon's
death!
Each day added to the number of these seeming proofs, and the
newspapers, in paragraphs of gossiping, abounded with circumstances that
had already convinced the public of Cashel's guilt: and how often do
such shadowy convictions throw their gloom over the prisoner's dock! One
day, the fact of the boot-track tallying precisely with Roland's, filled
the town; another, it was the pistol-wadding--part of a letter addressed
to Cashel--had been discovered. Then, there were vague rumors afloat
that the causes of Cashel's animosity to Kennyfeck were not so secret as
the world fancied; that there were persons of credit to substantiate
and explain them; and, lastly, it was made known that among the papers
seized on Cashel's table was a letter, just begun by himself, but to
whom addressed uncertain, which ran thus:--
“As these in all likelihood may be the last lines I shall eyer write--”
Never, in all the gaudy glare of his prosperity, had he occupied more
of public attention. The metaphysical penny-a-liners speculated upon the
influence his old buccaneer habits might have exercised upon a mind so
imperfectly trained to civilization; and amused themselves with guesses
as to how far some Indian “cross” in blood might not have contributed
to his tragic vengeance. Less scrupulous scribes invented deeds of
violence: in a word, there seemed a kind of impulse abroad to prove
him guilty; and it would have been taken as a piece of casuistry, or a
mawkish sympathy with crime, to assume the opposite. Not, indeed,
that any undertook so ungracious a task; the tide of accusation ran
uninterrupted and unbroken. The very friendless desolation in which
he stood was quoted and commented on to this end. One alone of all his
former friends made an effort in his favor, and ventured to insinuate
that his guilt was far from certain. This was Lord Charles Frobisher,
who, seeing in the one-sidedness of public opinion the impossibility of
obtaining a bet, tried thus to “get up” an “innocent party,” in the hope
of a profitable wager.
But what became of Linton all this time? His game was a difficult one;
and to enable him to play it successfully he needed reflection. To
this end he affected to be so shocked by the terrible event as to be
incapable of mixing in society. He retired, therefore, to his cottage
near Dublin, and for some weeks lived a life of perfect seclusion. Mr.
Phillis accompanied him; for Linton would not trust him out of his sight
till--as he muttered in his own phrase--“all was over.”
This was, indeed, the most eventful period of Linton's life; and with
consummate skill he saw that any move on his part would be an error.
It is true that, through channels with whose workings he was long
conversant, he contributed the various paragraphs to the papers by which
Cashel's guilt was foreshadowed; his knowledge of Roland suggesting many
a circumstance well calculated to substantiate the charge of crime. If
he never ventured abroad into the world, he made himself master of
all its secret whisperings; and heard how he was himself commended for
delicacy and good feeling, with the satisfaction of a man who glories
in a cheat. And how many are there who play false in life, less from the
gain than the gratification of vanity!--a kind of diabolical pride in
outwitting and overreaching those whose good faith has made them weak!
The polite world does not take the same interest in deeds of terror
as do their more humble brethren; they take their “horrors” as they do
their one glass of Tokay at dessert,--a something, of which a little
more would be nauseating. The less polished classes were, therefore,
those who took the greatest pleasure in following up every clew and
tracing each circumstance that pointed to Roland's guilt; and so, at
last, his name was rarely mentioned among those with whom so lately he
had lived in daily, almost hourly, companionship.
When Linton, then, deemed the time expired which his feelings of grief
and shame had demanded for retirement, he reappeared in the world pretty
much as men had always seen him. A very close observer, if he would have
suffered any one to be such, might have perhaps detected the expression
of care in certain wrinkles round his mouth, and in the extra blackness
of his whiskers, where gray hairs had dared to show themselves; but to
the world at large these signs were inappreciable. To them he was the
same even-tempered, easy-mannered man they ever saw him. Nor was this
accomplished without an effort; for, however Linton saw the hour of his
vengeance draw nigh, he also perceived that all his personal plans of
fortune and aggrandizement had utterly failed. The hopes he had so often
cherished were all fled. His title to the cottage, his prospect of a
seat in Parliament, the very sums he had won at play, and which to
a large amount remained in Cashel's hands, he now perceived were all
forfeited to revenge. The price was, indeed, a heavy one! and already he
began to feel it so. Many of his creditors had abstained from pressing
him so long as his intimacy with Cashel gave promise of future solvency.
That illusion was now dispelled, and each post brought him dunning
epistles, and threatening notices of various kinds. Exposures menaced
him from men whose vindictiveness he was well aware of; but far more
perilous than all these were his relations with Tom Keane, who continued
to address letter after letter to him, craving advice and pecuniary
assistance, in a tone where menace was even more palpable than entreaty.
To leave these unreplied to might have been dangerous in the extreme; to
answer them even more perilous. No other course was, then, open than to
return to Tubbermore, and endeavor, in secret, to confer with this man
face to face. There was not any time to lose. Cashel's trial was to take
place at the ensuing assizes, which now were close at hand. Keane was to
figure there as an important witness. It was absolutely necessary to see
him, and caution him as to the nature of the evidence he should give,
nor suffer him in the exuberance of his zeal to prove “too much.”
Under pretence, therefore, of a hurried trip to London, he left his
house one evening, and went on board the packet at Kingstown, dismissing
his carriage as if about to depart; then, suddenly affecting to discover
that his luggage had been carried away by mistake, he landed, and set
out with post-horses across country towards the western road. Before
midnight he was safe in the mail, on his way to Limerick; and by
daybreak on the following morning he was standing in the wood of
Tubbermore, and gazing with a thoughtful head upon the house, whose
shuttered windows and barred doors told of its altered destiny.
From thence he wandered onward towards the cottage--some strange,
inexplicable interest over him--to see once more the spot he had so
often fancied to be his own, and where, with a fervor not altogether
unreal, he had sworn to pass his days in tranquil solitude. Brief as
had been the interval since last he stood there, the changes were
considerable. The flower-plots were trampled and trodden down, the
palings smashed, the ornamental trees and shrubs were injured and broken
by the cattle; traces of reckless haste and carelessness were seen in
the broken gates and torn gate-posts; while fragments of packing-cases,
straw, and paper littered the walks and the turf around.
Looking through the windows, broken in many places, he could see the
cottage was perfectly dismantled. Everything was gone: not a trace
remained of those who for so many years had called it home! The
desolation was complete; nor was it without its depressing influence
upon him who stood there to mark it; for, strange enough, there are
little spots in the minds of those, where evil actions are oftenest
cradled, that form the refuge of many a tender thought! Linton
remembered the cottage as he saw it bright in the morning sun; or, more
cheerful still, as the closed curtains and the blazing fire gave a look
of homelike comfort to which the veriest wanderer is not insensible; and
now it was cold and dark. He had no self-accusings as to the cause. It
was, to him, one of those sad mutations which the course of fortune is
ever effecting. He even went further, and fancied how different had been
their fate if they had not rejected his own alliance.
“In this world of ours,” muttered he, “the cards we are dealt by Fortune
would nearly always suffice to win, had we but skill. These people had a
noble game before them, but, forsooth, they did not fancy their partner!
And see what is come of it--ruin on every side!”
Gloomy thoughts over his own opportunities neglected--over eventful
moments left to slip by unprofitably--stole over him. Many of his late
speculations had been unsuccessful; he had had heavy losses on the
“turf” and the “'Change.” He had failed in promises by which menacing
dangers had been long averted. His enemies would soon be upon him,
and he was ill provided for the encounter. Vengeance alone, of all his
aspirations, seemed to prosper; and he tried to revel in that thought as
a compensation for every failure.
Nor was this unmixed with fear. What if Cashel should enter upon a
defence by exposing the events of that last night at Tubbermore? What
if he should produce the forged deed in open court? Who was to say that
Enrique himself might not be forthcoming to prove his falsehood? Again:
how far could he trust Tom Keane? might not the fellow's avarice suggest
a tyranny impossible to endure? Weighty considerations were these, and
full of their own peril. Linton paused beside the lake to ruminate, and
for some time was deep buried in thought A light rustling sound at last
aroused him; he looked up, and perceived, directly in front of him, the
very man of whom he was thinking--Tom Keane himself.
Both stood still, each fixedly regarding the other without speaking.
It seemed a game in which he who made the first move should lose. So,
certainly, did Linton feel; but not so Tom Keane, who, with an easy
composure that all the other's “breeding” could not compass, said,--
“Well, sir, I hope you like your work?”
“_My_ work! _my_ work! How can you call it _mine_, my good friend?”
replied Linton, with a great effort to appear as much at ease as the
other.
“Just as ould Con Corrigan built the little pier we're standin' on this
minit, though his own hands did n't lay a stone of it.”
“There's no similarity between the cases whatever,” said Linton, with a
well-feigned laugh. “Here there was a plan--an employer--hired laborers
engaged to perform a certain task.”
“Well, well,” broke in Keane, impatiently; “sure we're not in 'Coort,'
that you need make a speech. 'T was your own doing: deny it if you like,
but don't drive me to prove it.”
The tone of menace in which these words were uttered was increased by
the fact, now for the first time apparent to Linton, that Tom Keane
had been drinking freely that morning, and was still under the strong
excitement of liquor.
Linton passed his arm familiarly within the other's, and in a voice of
deep meaning, said: “Were you only as cautious as you are courageous,
Tom, there's not a man in Europe I 'd rather take as my partner in a
dangerous enterprise. You are a glorious fellow in the hour of peril,
but you are a child, a mere child, when it's over.”
Keane did not speak, but a leer of inveterate cunning seemed to answer
this speech.
“I say this, Tom,” said Linton, coaxingly, “because I see the risk to
which your natural frankness will expose you. There are fellows prowling
about on every side to scrape up information about this affair; and as,
in some unguarded moment, when a glass too much has made the tongue run
freely, any man may say things, to explain which away afterwards he is
often led to go too far--You understand me, Tom?”
“I do, sir,” said the other, nodding shortly.
“It was on that account I came down here to-day, Tom. The trial is fixed
for the 15th: now, the time is so short between this and that, you can
surely keep a strict watch over yourself till 'all is over'?”
“And what then, sir?” asked Tom, with a cunning glance beneath his
brows.
“After that,” rejoined Linton, affecting to mistake the meaning of
the question--“after that, the law takes its course, and you trouble
yourself no more on the matter.”
“And is that all, Mr. Linton?--is that all?” asked the man, as, freeing
himself from the other's arm, he drew himself up to his full height, and
stood directly in front of him.
“I must own, Tom, that I don't understand your question.”
“I'll make it plain and azy for you, then,” said Keane, with a hardened
determination in his manner. “'T was you yourself put me up to this
business. 'T was you that left the pistol in my possession. 'T was you
that towld me how it was to be done, and where to do it; and”--here
his voice became deep, thick, and guttural with passion--“and, by the
'mortal God! if I 'm to hang for it, so will you too.”
“Hang!” exclaimed Linton. “Who talks of hanging? or what possible danger
do you run--except, indeed, what your own indiscreet tongue may bring
upon you?”
“Is n't it as good to die on the gallows as on the roadside?” asked the
other, fiercely. “What betther am I for what I done, tell me that?”
“I have told you before, and I tell you again, that when 'all is over'
you shall be amply provided for.”
“And why not before?” said he, almost insolently.
“If you must know the reason,” said Linton, affecting a smile, “you
shall hear it. Your incaution would make you at once the object of
suspicion, were you to be seen with money at command as freely as you
will have it hereafter.”
“Will you give me that in writin'?--will you give it to me undher your
hand?” asked Keane, boldly.
“Of course I will,” said Linton, who was too subtle a tactician to
hesitate about a pledge which could not be exacted on the instant.
“That's what I call talkin fair,” said Keane; “an', by my sowl, it's the
best of your play to trate me well.”
“There is only one thing in the world could induce me to do otherwise.”
“An' what's that, sir?”
“Your daring to use a threat to me!” said Linton, sternly. “There never
was the man that tried that game--and there have been some just as
clever fellows as Tom Keane who did try it--who did n't find that they
met their match.”
“I only ax what's right and fair,” said the other, abashed by the daring
effrontery of Linton's air.
“And you shall have it, and more. You shall either have enough to settle
in America, or, if you prefer it, to live abroad.”
“And why not stay at home here?” said Tom, doggedly.
“To blurt out your secret in some drunken moment, and be hanged at
last!” said Linton, with a cutting irony.
“An', maybe, tell how one Misther Linton put the wickedness first in my
head,” added Tom, as if finishing the sentence.
Linton bit his lip, and turned angrily away to conceal the mortification
the speech had caused him. “My good friend,” said he, in a deliberate
voice, “you think that whenever you upset the boat you will drown _me_;
and I have half a mind to dare you to it, just to show you the shortness
of your calculation. Trust me”--there was a terrible distinctness in his
utterance of these words--“trust me, that in all my dealings with the
world, I have left very little at the discretion of what are called men
of honor. I leave nothing, absolutely nothing, in the power of such as
you.”
At last did Linton strike the right chord of the fellow's nature; and in
his subdued and crestfallen countenance might be read the signs of his
prostration.
“Hear me now attentively, Keane, and let my words rest well in your
memory. The trial comes on on the 15th; your evidence will be the most
important of all; but give it with the reluctance of a man who shrinks
from bringing his landlord to the scaffold. You understand me? Let
everything you say show the desire to screen Mr. Cashel. Another point:
affect not to know anything save what you actually saw. You never can
repeat too often the words, 'I did n't see it.' This scrupulous reliance
on eyesight imposes well upon a jury. These are the only cautions I have
to give you. Your own natural intelligence will supply the rest. When
all is finished you will come up to Dublin, and call at a certain
address which will be given you hereafter. And now we part. It is your
own fault if you lose a friend who never deserted the man that stood by
him.”
“An' are you going back to Dublin now, sir?” asked Keane, over whose
mind Linton's influence had become dominant, and who actually dreaded to
be left alone, and without his guidance.
Linton nodded an assent.
“But you 'll be down here at the trial, sir?” asked Tom, eagerly.
“I suspect not,” said Linton. “If not summoned as a witness, I'll
assuredly not come.”
“Oh, murther!” exclaimed Tom. “I thought I 'd have you in the 'Coort,'
just to look up at you from time to time, to give me courage and make
me feel bowld; for it does give me courage when I see you so calm and so
azy, without as much as a tremble in your voice.”
“It is not likely that I shall be there,” rejoined Linton; “but mind,
if I be, that you do _not_ direct your eyes towards me. Remember, that
every look you give, every gesture you make, will be watched and noted.”
“I wondher how I'll get through it!” exclaimed the other, sorrowfully.
“You'll get through it admirably, man, if you'll only think that you are
not the person in peril. It is your conscience alone can bring you into
any danger.”
“Well, I hope so! with the help of--” The fellow stopped short, and a
red flush of shame spread itself over features which in a whole life
long had never felt a blush.
“I 'd like to be able to give you something better than this, Tom,” said
Linton, as he placed a handful of loose silver in the other's palm,
“but it is safer for the present that you should not be seen with much
money.”
“I owe more than this at Mark Shea's 'public,'” said Tom, looking
discontentedly at the money.
“And why should you owe it?” said Linton, bitterly. “What is there in
your circumstances to warrant debts of this kind?”
“Did n't I earn it--tell me that?” asked the ruffian, with a savage
earnestness.
“I see that you are hopeless,” said Linton, turning away in disgust.
“Take your own course, and see where it will lead you.”
“No--you mean where it will lead us,” said the fellow, insolently.
“What! do you dare to threaten me? Now, once for all, let this have an
end. I have hitherto treated you with candor and with kindness. If you
fancy that my hate can be more profitable than my friendship, say so,
and before one hour passes over your head I 'll have you committed to
prison as an accessory to the murder.”
“I ax your pardon humbly--I did n't mean to anger yer Honer,” said the
other, in a servile tone. “I'll do everything you bid me--and sure you
know best what ought to be done.”
“Then let us part good friends,” said Linton, holding out his hand
towards him. “I see a boat coming over the lake which will drop me at
Killaloe; we must not be seen together--so good-bye, Tom, good-bye.”
“Good-bye, and a safe journey to yer Honer,” said Tom, as, touching his
hat respectfully, he retired into the wood.
The boat which Linton descried was still above a mile from the shore,
and he sat down upon a stone to await its coming. Beautiful as that
placid lake was, with its background of bold mountains, its scattered
islands, and its jutting promontories, he had no eye for these, but
followed with a peering glance the direction in which Tom Keane had
departed.
“There are occasions,” muttered he to himself, “when the boldest courses
are the safest. Is this one of these? Dare I trust that fellow, or
would this be better?” And, as if mechanically, he drew forth a
double-barrelled pistol from his breast, and looked fixedly at it.
He arose from his seat, and sat down again--his mind seemed beset
with hesitation and doubt; but the conflict did not last long, for he
replaced the weapon, and walking down to the lake, dipped his fingers in
the water and bathed his temples, saying to himself,--
“Better as it is: over-caution is as great an error as foolhardiness.”
With a dexterity acquired by long practice, he now disguised his
features so perfectly that none could have recognized him; and by the
addition of a wig and whiskers of bushy red hair, totally changed the
character of his appearance. This he did, that at any future period he
might not be recognized by the boatmen, who, in answer to his signal,
now pulled vigorously towards the shore.
He soon bargained with them to leave him at Killaloe, and as they rowed
along engaged them to talk about the country, in which he affected to
be a tourist. Of course the late murder was the theme uppermost in every
mind, and Linton marked with satisfaction how decisively the current of
popular belief ran in attributing the guilt to Cashel.
With a perversity peculiar to the peasant, the agent whom they had so
often inveighed against for cruelty in his lifetime, they now discovered
to have been the type of all that was kind-hearted and benevolent; and
had no hesitation in attributing his unhappy fate to an altercation in
which he, with too rash a zeal, was the “poor man's advocate.”
The last words he was heard to utter on leaving Tub-bermore were quoted,
as implying a condemnation on Cashel's wasteful extravagance, at a time
when the poor around were “perishing of hunger.” Even to Linton, whose
mind was but too conversant with the sad truths of the story, these
narratives assumed the strongest form of consistency and likelihood;
and he saw how effectually circumstantial evidence can convict a man in
public estimation, long before a jury are sworn to try him.
Crimes of this nature, now, had not been unfrequent in that district;
and the country people felt a species of savage vengeance in urging
their accusations against a “gentleman,” who had not what they reckoned
as the extenuating circumstances to diminish or explain away his guilt.
“He was n't turned out of his little place to die on the roadside,”
muttered one. “He wasn't threatened, like poor Tom Keane, to be
'starminated,'” cried another.
“And who is Tom Keane?” asked Linton.
“The gatekeeper up at the big house yonder, sir; one that's lived man
and boy nigh fifty years there; and Mr. Cashel swore he 'd root him out,
for all that!”
“Ay!” chimed in another, in a moralizing whine, “an' see where he is
himself, now!”
“I wondher now if they'd hang him, sir?” asked one.
“Why not,” asked Linton, “if he should be found guilty?”
“They say, sir, the gentlemen can always pay for another man to
be hanged instead of them. Musha, maybe 'tis n't true,” added he,
diffidently, as he saw the smile on Linton's face.
“I think you 'll find that the right man will suffer in this case,” said
Linton; and a gleam of malignant passion shot from his dark eyes as he
spoke.