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
