The words went like an ice-bolt through Edward's heart, and even by the torchlight the tormentor could see his victim grew livid.

The fellow who wounded so deeply one so generally beloved as Edward O'Connor was a thorough ruffian. His answer to Edward's query sprang not from love of O'Grady, nor abhorrence of taking human life, but from the opportunity of retort which the occasion offered upon one who had once checked him in an act of brutality.

Yet Edward O'Connor could not reply--it was a home thrust. The death of O'Grady had weighed heavily upon him; for though O'Grady's wound had been given in honourable combat, provoked by his own fury, and not producing immediate death; though that death had supervened upon the subsequent intractability of the patient; yet the fact that O'Grady had never been "up and doing" since the duel tended to give the impression that his wound was the remote if not the immediate cause of his death, and this circ.u.mstance weighed heavily on Edward's spirits. His friends told him he felt over keenly upon the subject, and that no one but himself could entertain a question of _his_ total innocence of O'Grady's death; but when from the lips of a common peasant he got the answer he did, and _that_ beside the grave of his adversary, it will not be wondered at that he reeled in his saddle. A cold shivering sickness came over him, and to avoid falling he alighted and leaned for support against his horse, which stooped, when freed from the restraint of the rein, to browse on the rank verdure; and for a moment Edward envied the unconsciousness of the animal against which he leaned. He pressed his forehead against the saddle, and from the depth of a bleeding heart came up an agonised exclamation.

A gentle hand was laid on his shoulder as he spoke, and, turning round, he beheld Mr. Bermingham.

"What brings you here?" said the clergyman.

"Accident," answered Edward. "But why should I say accident?--it is by a higher authority and a better--it is the will of Heaven. It is meant as a bitter lesson to human pride: we make for ourselves laws of _honour_, and forget the laws of G.o.d!"

"Be calm, my young friend," said the worthy pastor; "I cannot wonder you feel deeply--but command yourself." He pressed Edward's hand as he spoke and left him, for he knew that an agony so keen is not benefited by companionship.

Mr. Bermingham was there by appointment to perform the burial service, and he had not left Edward's side many minutes when a long wild whistle from the waters announced the arrival of the boat and raft, and the retainers ran down to the river, leaving the pine-torch stuck in the upturned earth, waving its warm blaze over the cold grave. During the interval which ensued between the departure of the men and their reappearance, bearing the body to its last resting-place, Mr. Bermingham spoke with Edward O'Connor, and soothed him into a more tranquil bearing. When the coffin came within view he advanced to meet it, and began the sublime burial- service, which he repeated most impressively. When it was over, the men commenced filling up the grave. As the clods fell upon the coffin, they smote the hearts of the dead man's children; yet the boys stood upon the verge of the grave as long as a vestige of the tenement of their lost father could be seen; but as soon as the coffin was hidden, they withdrew from the brink, and the younger boys, each taking hold of the hand of the eldest, seemed to imply the need of mutual dependence:--as if death had drawn closer the bond of brotherhood.

There was no sincerer mourner at that place than Edward O'Connor, who stood aloof, in respect for the feelings of the children of the departed man, till the grave was quite filled up, and all were about to leave the spot; but then his feelings overmastered him, and, impelled by a torrent of contending emotions, he rushed forward, and throwing himself on his knees before Gustavus, he held up his hands imploringly, and sobbed forth, "Forgive me!"

The astonished boy drew back.

"Oh, forgive me!" repeated Edward--"I could not help it--it was forced on me--it was--"

As he struggled for utterance, even the rough retainers were touched, and one of them exclaimed, "Oh, Mr. O'Connor, it was a fair fight!"

"There!" exclaimed Edward--"you hear it! Oh, give me your hand in forgiveness!"

"I forgive you," said the boy, "but do not ask me to give you my hand to-night."

"You are right" said Edward, springing to his feet--"you are right--you are a n.o.ble fellow; and now, remember my parting words, Gustavus:--Here, by the side of your father's grave, I pledge you my soul that through life and till death, in all extremity, Edward O'Connor is your sworn and trusty friend."

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

While the foregoing scene of sadness took place in the lone churchyard, unholy watch was kept over the second coffin by the myrmidons of the law.

The usurer who made the seizure had brought down from Dublin three of the most determined bailiffs from amongst the tribe, and to their care was committed the keeping of the supposed body in the old barn. a.s.sociated with these worthies were a couple of ill-conditioned country blackguards, who, for the sake of a bottle of whisky, would keep company with Old Nick himself, and who expected, moreover, to hear "a power o' news" from the "gentlemen" from Dublin, who, in their turn did not object to have their guard strengthened, as their notions of a rescue in the country parts of Ireland were anything but agreeable. The night was cold, so, clearing away from one end of the barn the sheaves of corn with which it was stored, they made a turf fire, stretched themselves on a good shake-down of straw before the cheering blaze, and circulated among them the whisky, of which they had a good store. A tap at the door announced a new-comer; but the Dublin bailiffs, fearing a surprise, hesitated to open to the knock until their country allies a.s.sured them it was a friend whose voice they recognised. The door was opened, and in walked Larry Hogan, to pick up his share of what was going, whatever it might be, saying--

"I thought you wor for keeping me out altogether."

"The gintlemin from Dublin was afeard of what they call a riskya"

(rescue), said the peasant, "till I told them 't was a friend."

"Divil a riskya will come near you to-night," said Larry, "you may make your minds aisy about that, for the people doesn't care enough about _his_ bones to get their own broke in savin' him, and no wondher.

It's a lantherumswash bully he always was, quiet as he is now. And there you are, my bold squire," said he, apostrophising the coffin which had been thrown on a heap of sheaves. "Faix, it's a good kitchen you kep', anyhow, whenever you had it to spind; and indeed when you _hadn't_ you spint it all the same, for the divil a much you cared how you got it; but death has made you pay the reckoning at last--that thing that filly- officers call the debt o' nature must be paid, whatever else you may owe."

"Why, it's as good as a sarmon to hear you," said one of the bailiffs. "O Larry, sir, discourses iligant," said a peasant.

"Tut, tut, tut," said Larry, with affected modesty: "it's not what _I_ say, but I can tell you a thing that Docthor Growlin' put out on him more nor a year ago, which was mighty 'cute. Scholars calls it an 'epithet of dissipation,' which means getting a man's tombstone ready for him before he dies; and divil a more cutting thing was ever cut on a tombstone than the doctor's rhyme; this is it--

'Here lies O'Grady, that cantankerous creature, Who paid, as all must pay, the debt of nature; But, keeping to his general maxim still, Paid it--like other debts--against his will.'"

[Footnote: These bitter lines on a "bad pay" were written by a Dublin medical wit of high repute, of whom Dr. Growling is a prototype.]

"What do _you_ think o' that, Goggins?" inquired one bailiff from the other; "you're a judge o' po'thry."

"It's _sevare,"_ answered Goggins, authoritatively, "but _coorse,_ I wish you'd brile the rashers; I begin to feel the calls o' nature, as the poet says."

This Mister Goggins was a character in his way. He had the greatest longing to be thought a poet, put execrable couplets together sometimes, and always talked as fine as he could; and his mixture of sentimentality, with a large stock of blackguardism, produced a strange jumble.

"The people here thought it nate, sir," said Larry.

"Oh, very well for the country!" said Goggins; "but 't wouldn't do for town."

"Misther Coggings knows best," said the bailiff who first spoke, "for he's a pote himself, and writes in the newspapers."

"Oh, indeed!" said Larry.

"Yes," said Goggins, "sometimes I throw off little things for the newspapers. There's a friend of mine you see, a gentleman connected with the press, who is often in defficulties, and I give him a hint to keep out o' the way when he's in trouble, and he swears I've a genus for the muses, and encourages me--"

"Humph!" says Larry.

"And puts my things in the paper, when he gets the editor's back turned, for the editor is a consaited chap that likes no one's po'thry but his own; but never mind--if I ever get a writ against that chap, _won't_ I sarve it!"

"And I dar say some day you will have it agen him, sir," said Larry.

"Sure of it, a'most," said Goggins; "them litherary men is always in defficulties."

"I wondher you'd be like them, then, and write at all," said Larry.

"Oh, as for me, it's only by way of amus.e.m.e.nt; attached as I am to the legal profession, my time wouldn't permit; but I have been infected by the company I kept. The living images that creeps over a man sometimes is irresistible, and you have no pace till you get them out o' your head."

"Oh, indeed, they are very throublesome," says Larry, "and are the litherary gintlemen, sir, as you call them, mostly that way?"

"To be sure; it is _that_ which makes a litherary man: his head is full--teems with creation, sir."

"Dear, dear!" said Larry.

"And when once the itch of litherature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen."

"But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any other way you can."

"To be sure," said Goggins, "I have seen a litherary gentleman in a sponging-house do crack things on the wall with a bit of burnt stick, rather than be idle--they must execute."

"Ha!" says Larry.

"Sometimes, in all their poverty and difficulty, I envy the 'fatal fatality,' as the poet says, of such men in catching ideas."