The Landleaguers Part 34

"He has changed it altogether."

"You know what I mean. I am not going to yield to him or to any of them. I mean to hold my own against it as far as I can do so. I'll go to church, and to b.a.l.l.s, and I'll visit my friends, and I'll eat my dinner every day of my life just as though Pat Carroll didn't exist.

He's in prison just at present, and therefore so far we have got the best of him."

"But we can't sell a head of cattle without sending it up to Dublin.

And we can't find a man to take charge of it on the journey. We can't get a shilling of rent, and we hardly dare to walk about the place in the broad light of day lest we should be shot at. While things are in this condition it is no time for dancing at b.a.l.l.s. I am so broken-hearted at the present moment that but for my father and for you I would cut the place and go to America."

"Taking Rachel with you?" said Edith.

"Rachel just now is as prosperous as we are the reverse. Rachel would not go. It is all very well for Rachel, as things are prosperous with her. But here we have the reverse of prosperity, and according to my feelings there should be no gaiety. Do you ever realise to yourself what it is to think that your father is ruined?"

"We ought not to have gone," said Ada.

"Never say die," said Edith, slapping her little hand down on the gunwale of the boat. "Morony Castle and Ballintubber belong to papa, and I will never admit that he is ruined because a few dishonest tenants refuse to pay their rents for a time. A man such as Pat Carroll can do him an injury, but papa is big enough to rise above that in the long run. At any rate I will live as becomes papa's daughter, as long as he approves and I have the power." Discussing these matters they reached the quay near Morony Castle, and Edith as she jumped ash.o.r.e felt something of triumph in her bosom. She had at any rate succeeded in her object. "I am sure we were right to go,"

she whispered to Ada.

Their father received them with but very few words; nor had Florian much to say as to the glories of the ball. His mind was devoted at present to the coming trial. And indeed, in a more open and energetic manner, so was the mind of Captain Clayton. "This will be the last holiday for me," he had said to Edith at the ball, "before the great day comes off for Patrick Carroll, Esq. It's all very well for a man once in a way, but there should not be too much of it."

"You have not to complain deeply of yourself on that head."

"I have had my share of fun in the world," he said; "but it grows less as I grow older. It is always so with a man as he gets into his work. I think my hair will grow grey very soon, if I do not succeed in having Mr. Carroll locked up for his life."

"Do you think they will convict him?"

"I think they will? I do think they will. We have got one of the men who is ready to swear that he a.s.sisted him in pulling down the gates."

"Which of the men?" she asked.

"I will tell you because I trust you as my very soul. His own brother, Terry, is the man. Pat, it seems, is a terrible tyrant among his own friends, and Terry is willing to turn against him, on condition that a pa.s.sage to America be provided for him. Of course he is to have a free pardon for himself. We do want one man to corroborate your brother's evidence. Your brother no doubt was not quite straight at first."

"He lied," said Edith. "When you and I talk about it together, we should tell the simple truth. We have pardoned him his lie;--but he lied."

"We have now the one man necessary to confirm his testimony."

"But he is the brother."

"No doubt. But in such a case as this anything is fair to get at the truth. And we shall employ no falsehoods. This younger Carroll was instigated by his brother to a.s.sist him in the deed. And he was seen by your brother to be one of those who a.s.sisted. It seems to me to be quite right."

"It is very terrible," Edith said.

"Yes; it is terrible. A brother will have to swear against a brother, and will be bribed to do it. I know what will be said to me very well. They have tried to shoot me down like a rat; but I mean to get the better of them. And when I shall have succeeded in removing Mr.

Pat Carroll from his present sphere of life, I shall have a second object of ambition before me. Mr. Lax is another gentleman whom I wish to remove. Three times he has shot at me, but he has not hit me yet."

From that time forth there had certainly been no more dances for Captain Clayton. His mind had been altogether devoted to his work, and amidst that work the trial of Pat Carroll had stood prominent.

"He and I are equally eager, or at any rate equally anxious;" he had said to Edith, speaking of her brother, when he had met her subsequent to the ball. "But the time is coming soon, and we shall know all about it in another six weeks." This was said in June, and the trial was to take place in August.

CHAPTER XXVI.

LORD CASTLEWELL.

The spring and early summer had worn themselves away in London, and Rachel O'Mahony was still singing at the Embankment Theatre. She and her father were still living in Cecil Street. The glorious day of October, which had been fixed at last for the 24th, on which Rachel was to appear on the Covent Garden boards, was yet still distant, and she was performing under Mr. Moss's behests at a weekly stipend of 15, to which there would be some addition when the last weeks of the season had come about, the end of July and beginning of August. But, alas! Rachel hardly knew what she would do to support herself during the dead months from August to October. "Fashionable people always go out of town, father," she said.

"Then let us be fashionable."

"Fashionable people go to Scotland, but they won't take one in there without money. We shan't have 50 left when our debts are paid. And 50 would do nothing for us."

"They've stopped me altogether," said Mr. O'Mahony. "At any rate they have stopped the money-making part of the business. They have threatened to take the man's license away, and therefore that place is shut up."

"Isn't that unjust, father?"

"Unjust! Everything done in England as to Ireland is unjust. They carried an Act of Parliament the other day, when in accordance with the ancient privileges of members it was within the power of a dozen stalwart Irishmen to stop it. The dozen stalwart Irishmen were there, but they were silenced by a brutal majority. The dozen Irishmen were turned out of the House, one after the other, in direct opposition to the ancient privileges; and so a Bill was pa.s.sed robbing five million Irishmen of their liberties. So gross an injustice was never before perpetrated--not even when the bribed members sold their country and effected the accursed Union."

"I know that was very bad, father, but the bribes were taken by Irishmen. Be that as it may, what are we to do with ourselves next autumn?"

"The only thing for us is to seek for a.s.sistance in the United States."

"They won't lend us 100."

"We must overrun this country by the force of true liberal opinion.

The people themselves will rise when they have the Americans to lead them. What is wanted now are the voices of true patriots loud enough to reach the people."

"And 100," said she, speaking into his ear, "to keep us alive from the middle of August to the end of October."

"For myself, I have been invited to come into Parliament. The County of Cavan will be vacant."

"Is there a salary attached?"

"One or two leading Irish members are speaking of it," said Mr.

O'Mahony, carried away by the grandeur of the idea, "but the amount has not been fixed yet. And they seem to think that it is wanted chiefly for the parliamentary session. I have not promised because I do not quite see my way. And to tell the truth, I am not sure that it is in Parliament that an honest Irishman will shine the best. What's the good when you can be silenced at a moment's notice by the word of some mock Speaker, who upsets all the rules of his office to put a gag upon a dozen men. When America has come to understand what it is that the lawless tyrant did on that night when the Irishmen were turned out of the House, will she not rise in her wrath, and declare that such things shall no longer be?" All this occurred in Cecil Street, and Rachel, who well understood her father's wrath, allowed him to expend in words the anger which would last hardly longer than the sound of them.

"But you won't be in Parliament for County Cavan before next August?"

she asked.

"I suppose not."

"Nor will the United States have risen in their wrath so as to have settled the entire question before that time?"

"Perhaps not," said Mr. O'Mahony.

"And if they did I don't see what good it would do to us as to finding for us the money that we want."

"I am so full of Ireland's wrongs at this moment, and with the manner in which these policemen interfered with me, that I can hardly bring myself to think of your autumn plans."

"What are yours?" she asked.