The Kellys and the O'Kellys Part 1

The Kellys and the O'Kellys.

by Anthony Trollope.

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 a.s.sociation, 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.

[FOOTNOTE 1: The historical events described here form a backdrop to the novel. Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847) came from a wealthy Irish Catholic family. He was educated in the law, which he practiced most successfully, and developed a pa.s.sion for religious and political liberty. In 1823, together with Lalor Sheil and Thomas Wyse, he organized the Catholic a.s.sociation, whose major goal was Catholic emanc.i.p.ation. This was achieved by act of parliament the following year.

O'Connell served in parliament in the 1830's and was active in the pa.s.sage of bills emanc.i.p.ating the Jews and outlawing slavery. In 1840 he formed the Repeal a.s.sociation, whose goal was repeal of the 1800 Act of Union which joined Ireland to Great Britain. In 1842, after serving a year as Lord Mayor of Dublin, O'Connell challenged the British government by announcing that he intended to achieve repeal within a year. Though he openly opposed violence, Prime Minister Peel's government considered him a threat and arrested O'Connell and his a.s.sociates in 1843 on trumped-up charges of conspiracy, sedition, and unlawfule a.s.sembly. They were tried in 1844, and all but one were convicted, although the conviction was later overturned in the House of Lords. O'Connell did serve some time in jail and was considered a martyr to the cause of Irish independence.]

Even at this short interval Irishmen can now see how completely they put judgment aside, and allowed feeling and pa.s.sion 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 inst.i.tuting his trial, its determination to put down proceedings of which they did not approve. On the other hand, that cla.s.s 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt [3]. The country shouted for joy when he was set free, and expended all its enthusiasm in the effort.

[FOOTNOTE 2: The Irish often referred to Daniel O'Connell as "the liberator."]

[FOOTNOTE 3: enfranchis.e.m.e.nt--being set free. This is a political observation by Trollope.]

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 pa.s.sionately canva.s.sed 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 a.s.sailed; 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.

[FOOTNOTE 4: traversers--Trollope repeatedly refers to the defendants as "traversers." The term probably comes from the legal term "to traverse," which is to deny the charges against one in a common law proceeding.

Thus, the traversers would have been those who pled innocent.]

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.

[FOOTNOTE 5: sang froid--(French) coolness in a trying situation, lack of excitability]

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.

[FOOTNOTE 6: The Four Courts was a landmark courthouse in Dublin named for the four divisions of the Irish judicial system: Common Pleas, Chancery, Exchequer, and King's Bench.]

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.

[FOOTNOTE 7: Conciliation Hall, Dublin, was built in 1843 as a meeting place for O'Connell's Repeal a.s.sociation.]

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 cla.s.s, 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s, when similarly situated, are willing to owe to compa.s.sion.

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 circ.u.mstances of his family are narrated.

[FOOTNOTE 8: gauger--a British revenue officer often engaged in the collection of duties on distilled spirits.]

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 a.s.sist in the work of the house; one, an antiquated female named Sally, who was more devoted to her tea-pot than ever was any baccha.n.a.lian to his gla.s.s. 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 la.s.s, who washed the potatoes, fed the pigs, and ate her food n.o.body 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-c.o.c.k, 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 coa.r.s.e 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 embarra.s.sments 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 G.o.d, 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 sh.e.l.l 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?