THE FAREWELL.
O'Connor was the first to speak. In a low voice, which trembled with
agitation, he said,--
"Sir Henry Ashwoode, I have come here in answer to a note which reached
me but a few minutes since. You desired a conference with me; is there
any commission with which you would wish to charge me?--if so, let me
know it, and it shall be done."
"None, none, Mr. O'Connor, thank you," rejoined Ashwoode, recovering
his characteristic self-possession, and continuing proudly, "if you add
to your visit a patient audience of a few minutes, you will have
conferred upon me the only favour I desire. Pray, sit down; it is
rather a hard and a homely seat," he added, with a haggard, joyless
smile--"but the only one this place supplies."
Another silence followed, during which Sir Henry Ashwoode restlessly
shifted his attitude every moment, in evident and uncontrollable
nervous excitement. At length he arose, and walked twice or thrice up
and down the narrow chamber, exhibiting without any longer care for
concealment his pale, wasted face in the full light which streamed in
through the grated window, his sunken eyes and unshorn chin, and worn
and attenuated figure.
"You hear that sound," said he, abruptly stopping short, and looking
with the same strange smile upon O'Connor; "the clank upon the flags as
I walk up and down--the jingle of the fetters--isn't it strange--isn't
it odd--like a dream--eh?"
Another silence followed, which Ashwoode again abruptly interrupted.
"You know all this story?--of course you do--everybody does--how the
wretches have trapped me--isn't it terrible--isn't it dreadful? Oh! you
cannot know what it is to mope about this place alone, when it is
growing dark, as I do every evening, and in the night time. If I had
been another man, I'd have been raving mad by this time. I said
_alone_--did I?" he continued, with increasing excitement; "oh! that it
were!--oh! that it were! He comes there--_there_," he screamed, pointing
to the foot of the bed, "with all those infernal cloths and fringes
about his face, morning and evening. Ah, God! such a thing--half idiot,
half fiend; and still the same, though I curse him till I'm hoarse, he
won't leave it. Can't they wait--can't they wait? for-ever is a long
day. As I'm a living man, he's with me every night--there--there is the
body, gaping and nodding--_there_--_there_--_there_!"
As he shouted this with frantic and despairing horror, shaking his
clenched hands toward the place of his dreaded nightly visitant,
O'Connor felt a thrill of horror such as he had never known before, and
hardly recovered from this painful feeling, when Sir Henry Ashwoode
turned to the little table on which, among many things, a vessel of
water was placed, and filling some out into a cracked cup, he added to
it drops from a phial, and hastily swallowed the mixture.
"Laudanum is all the philosophy or religion I can boast; it's well to
have even so much," said he, returning the bottle to his pocket. "It's
a dead secret, though, that I have got any; this is a present from the
doctor they allow me to see, and I'm on honour not--to poison
myself--isn't it comical?--for fear he should get into a scrape; but
I've another game to play--no fear of that--no, no."
Another silence followed, and Sir Henry Ashwoode said quickly,--
"What do the people say about it? Do they think I forged that accursed
bond? Do they think me guilty?"
O'Connor declared his entire ignorance of public rumour, alleging his
own illness, and consequent close confinement, as the cause of it.
"They sha'n't believe me guilty, no, they sha'n't. Look ye, sir, I have
one good feeling left," he resumed, vehemently; "I will not let my name
suffer. If the most resolute firmness to the very last, and the most
solemn renunciation of the charges preferred against me, reiterated at
the foot of the gallows, with the halter about my neck--if these can
beget a belief of my innocence, my name shall be clear--my name shall
not suffer; this last outrage I will avert; but oh, my God! is there no
chance yet--must I--_must_ I perish? Will no one save me--will no one
help me? Oh, God! oh, God! is there no pity--no succour; must it come?"
Thus crying, he threw himself forward upon the table, while every joint
and muscle quivered and heaved with fierce hysterical sobs which, more
like a succession of short convulsive shrieks than actual weeping,
betrayed his agony, while O'Connor looked on with a mixture of horror
and pity, which all that was past could not suppress.
At length the paroxysm subsided. The wretched man filled out some more
water, and mingling some drops of laudanum in it, he drank it off, and
became comparatively composed.
"Not a word of this to any living being, I charge you," said he,
clutching O'Connor's arm in his attenuated hand, and fixing his sunken
fiery eyes upon his; "I would not have my folly known; I'm not always
so weak as you have seen me. It _must_ be, that's all--no help for it.
It's rather a novel thing, though, to hang a baronet--ha! ha! You look
scared--you think my wits are unsettled; but you're wrong. I don't
sleep; I hav'n't for some time; and want of rest, you know, makes a
man's manner odd; makes him excitable--nervous. I'm more myself now."
After a short pause, Sir Henry Ashwoode resumed,--
"When we had that affray together, in which would to God you had run me
through the heart, you put a question to me about my sister--poor Mary;
I will answer that now, and more than answer it. That girl loves you
with her whole heart; loves you alone; never loved another. It matters
not to tell how I and my father--the great and accursed first cause of
all our misfortunes and miseries--effected your estrangement. The
Italian miscreant told you truth. The girl is gone I know not whither,
to seek an asylum from me--ay, from _me_. To save my life and honour. I
would have constrained her to marry the wretch who has destroyed me. It
was he--_he_ who urged it, who cajoled me. I joined him, to save my
life and honour! and now--oh! God, where are they?"
O'Connor rose, and said somewhat sternly,--
"May God pardon you, Sir Henry Ashwoode, for all you have done against
the peace of that most noble and generous being, your sister. What I
have suffered at your hands I heartily forgive."
"I ask forgiveness nowhere," rejoined Ashwoode, stoically; "what's done
is done. It has been a wild and fitful life, and is now over. What
forgiveness can you give me or she that's worth a thought?--folly,
folly!"
"One word of earnest hope before I leave you; one word of solemn
warning," said O'Connor; "the vanities of this world are fading fast
and for ever from your view; you are going where the applause of men
can reach you no more! I conjure you, then, for the sake of your
eternal peace, if your sentence be a just one, do not insult your
Creator by denying your guilt, and pass into His awful presence with a
lie upon your lips."
Ashwoode paused for a moment, and then walked suddenly up to O'Connor,
and almost in a whisper said,--
"Not a word of that, my course is chosen; not one word more. Observe,
what has passed between us is private; now leave me." So saying,
Ashwoode turned from him, and walked toward the narrow window of his
cell.
"Farewell, Sir Henry Ashwoode, farewell for ever; and may God have
mercy upon you," said O'Connor, passing out upon the dark and narrow
corridor.
The turnkey closed the door with a heavy crash upon his prisoner, and
locked it once more, and thus the two young men, who had so often and
so variously encountered in the unequal path of life, were parted never
again to meet in the wayward scenes of this chequered and changeful
existence. Tired and agitated, O'Connor threw himself into the first
coach he met, and was deposited safely in the "Cock and Anchor." It
were vain to attempt to describe the ecstasies and transports of honest
Larry Toole at the unexpected recovery of his long-lost master; we
shall not attempt to do so. It is enough for our purpose to state that
at the "Cock and Anchor" O'Connor received two letters from his old
friend, Mr. Audley, and one conveying a pressing invitation from Oliver
French of Ardgillagh, in compliance with which, early on the next
morning, he mounted his horse, and set forth, followed by his trusty
squire, upon the high road to Naas, resolved to task his strength to
the uttermost, although he knew that even thus he must necessarily
divide his journey into many more stages than his impatience would have
allowed, had more rapid travelling in his weak condition been possible.