Part 18 (2/2)

”What marks?”

”The print of an elegant boot. I saw it myself; it is small in the heel, and sharp in the toe,--very unlike yours or mine, Tim.”

”Begad! so much the better,” said the other, laughing.

”And I 'll tell you more,” resumed the former speaker: ”it was a dress-sword--what they wear at the Castle--killed him. You could scarce see the hole. It 's only a little blue spot between the ribs.”

”Oh, dear! oh, dear!” exclaimed a woman's voice; ”and they say he was an elegant, fine man!”

”As fine a figure of a man as ever ye looked at!”

”And n.o.body knows the reason of it at all?” asked she again.

”I'll engage it was about a woman!” muttered a husky, old, cracked voice, that was constantly heard, up to this moment, bargaining for oranges.

And f.a.gan quickly made a sign to my father to listen attentively.

”That's Denny Ca.s.sin,” whispered he, ”the greatest newsmonger in Dublin.”

”The devil recave the fight ever I heerd of hadn't a woman in it, somehow or other; an' if she did n't begin it, she was sure to come in at the end, and make it worse. Was n't it a woman that got Hemphill Daly shot? Was n't it a woman was the death of Major Brown, of Coolmiues? Was n't it a woman--”

”Arrah! bother ye, Denny!” broke in the representative of the s.e.x, who stood an impatient listener to this long indictment; ”what's worth fightin' for in the world barrin' ourselves?”

A scornful laugh was all the reply he deigned to this appeal; and he went on,--

”I often said what Barry Rutledge 'ud come to,--ay, and I told himself so. 'You 've a bad tongue,' says I, 'and you 've a bad heart. Some day or other you 'll be found out;' and ye see, so he was.”

”I wonder who did it!” exclaimed another.

”My wonder is,” resumed Denny, ”that it was n't done long ago; or instead of one wound in his skin, that he had n't fifty. Do you know that when I used to go up to the officers' room with oranges, I'd hear more wickedness out of his mouth in one mornin' than I 'd hear in Pill Lane, here, in a month of Sundays. There was n't a man dined at the Castle, there was n't a lady danced at the Coort, that he had n't a bad story about; and he always began by saying: 'He and I were old schoolfellows,' or 'She 's a great friend of mine.' I was up there the morning after the Coort came home from Carew Castle; and if ye heard the way he went on about the company. He began with Curtis, and finished with Carew himself.”

f.a.gan closed the door here, and, walking over, sat down beside my father's chair.

”We 've heard enough now, sir,” said he, ”to know what popular opinion will p.r.o.nounce upon this man. Denny speaks with the voice of a large ma.s.s of this city; and if they be not either very intelligent or exalted, they are at least fellows who back words by deeds, and are quite ready to risk their heads for their convictions,--a test of honesty that their betters, perhaps, would shrink from. From what he says, there will be little sympathy for Rutledge. The law, of course, will follow its due path; but the law against popular feeling is like the effort of the wind to resist the current of a fast river: it may ruffle the surface, but never will arrest the stream. Now, sir, just tell me, in a few words, what took place between you?”

My father detailed everything, from the hour of his arrival in Dublin, down to the very moment of his descending at f.a.gan's door. He faltered, indeed, and hesitated about the conversation of the coffee-room, for even in all the confidence of a confession, he shrunk from revealing the story of his marriage. And in doing so, he stammered and blundered so much that f.a.gan could collect little above the bare facts, that my mother had been wagered at a card-table, and won by my father.

Had my father been in a cooler mood, he could not have failed to remark how much deeper was the interest f.a.gan took in the story of his first meeting with my mother than in all the circ.u.mstances of the duel. So far as it was safe,--further than it would have been so at any other moment,--the Grinder cross-questioned my father as to her birth, the manner of her education, and the position she held before her marriage.

”This is all beside the matter,” cried my father, at last, impatiently.

”I am now to think what is best to be done here. Shall I give myself up at once?--And why not, f.a.gan?” added he, abruptly, interrogating the look of the other.

”For two sufficient reasons, sir: first, that you would be needlessly exposing yourself to great peril; and, secondly, you would certainly be exposing another to great--” He stopped and faltered, for there was that in my father's face that made the utterance of a wrong word dangerous.

”Take care what you say, Master Tony; for, however selfish you may deem me, I have still enough of heart left to consider those far worthier of thought than myself.”

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