"Not for that, indeed," said Mary; "it is to see you--to give you his last kiss--his last blessing--to forgive you and be forgiven. Remember that he is alone, deserted by all that once were his. Your father and mother and sisters are all gone to America, and poor old Mat lingers on,--nay, the journey is nigh ended. Oh, do not delay, lest it be too late. Come now--now."

"And if I see him once, can I ever come back to this?" cried Joan, in bitter agony. "Will I ever be able to hear his words and live as I do now?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: 162]

"Let your own good heart guide you for that," cried Mary; "all I ask is that you should see him and be with him. I have pledged myself for your coming, and you will not dishonor my words to one on his death-bed."

"And I 'll be an outcast for it. Tom will drive me from the door and never see me again. I know it,--I know _him_!"

"You are wrong, Joan Landy."

"Joan!--who dares to call me Joan Landy when I'm Mrs. Magennis of Barnagheela? and if _I'm_ not _your_ equal, I 'm as good as any other in the barony. Was it to insult me you came here to-night, to bring up to me who I am and where I came from? That 's the errand that brought you through the storm! Ay," cried she, lashed to a wilder pa.s.sion by her own words,--"ay! ay! and if you and yours had their will we 'd not have the roof to shelter us this night. It 's only to-day that we won the trial against you."

"Whatever my errand here this night," said Mary, with a calm dignity, "it was meant to serve and not insult you. I know, as well as your bitterest words can tell me, that this is not my place; but I know, too, if from yielding to my selfish pride I had refused your old grandfather this last request, it had been many a year of bitter reproach to me."

"Oh, you 'll break my heart, you will, you will!" cried Joan, bitterly.

"You 'll turn the only one that's left against me, and I 'll be alone in the world."

"Come with me this night, and whatever happen I 'll befriend you," said Mary.

"And not desert me because I 'm what I am?"

"Never, Joan, never!"

"Oh, my blessings on you,--if the blessing of one like me is any good,"

cried she, kissing Mary's hand fervently. "Oh, they that praised you said the truth; you have goodness enough in your heart to make up for us all! I 'll go with you to the world's end."

"We'll pa.s.s Cro' Martin, and you shall have my horse--"

"No, no, Miss Mary, I 'll go on my feet; it best becomes me. I 'll go by Burnane--by the Gap--I know it well--too well!" added she, as the tears rushed to her eyes. As she was speaking, she took off the cap she wore and threw it from her; and then removing her dress, put on the coa.r.s.e woollen gown of her daily wear. "Oh, G.o.d forgive me!" cried she, "if I curse the day that I ever wore better than this."

Mary a.s.sisted her with her dress, fastening the hood of her cloak over her head, and preparing her, as best she might, for the severe storm she was to encounter; and it was plain to see that Joan accepted these little services without a thought of by whom they were rendered, so intensely occupied was her mind by the enterprise before her. A feverish haste to be away marked all she did. It was partly terror lest her escape might be prevented; partly a sense of distrust in herself, and that she might abandon her own resolution.

"Oh, tell me," she cried, as the tears streamed from her eyes, and her lips quivered with agony,--"oh, tell me I'm doing right; tell me that G.o.d's blessing is going with me this night, or I can't do it."

"And so it is, dear Joan," said Mary; "be of good heart, and Heaven will support you. I 'm sure the trial is a sore one."

"Oh, is it not to leave this--to leave him--maybe forever? To be sure, it's forever," cried she, bitterly. "He 'll never forgive me!"

A wild burst of revelry now resounded from the parlor, and the discordant sounds of half-drunken voices burst upon their ears.

Joan started, and gazed wildly around her. The agonized look of her features bespoke her dread of detection; and then with a bound she sprung madly from the spot, and was away. Mary followed quickly; but before she had secured her horse and mounted, the other was already half-way down the mountain. Now catching, now losing sight of her again, Mary at last came up with her.

"Remember, dear Joan," said Mary, "there are nine weary miles of mountain before you."

"I know it well," was the brief reply.

"And if you go by Burnane the rocks are slippy with the rain, and the path to the sh.o.r.e is full of danger."

"If I was afeard of danger, would I be here?" cried she. "Oh, Miss Mary," added she, stopping and grasping her hand in both her own, "leave me to myself; don't come with me,--it's not one like you ought to keep me company."

"But Joan,--dear Joan,--I have promised to be your friend, and I am not one who forgets a pledge."

"My heart will break; it will break in two if you talk to me. Leave me, for the love of Heaven, and let me go my road all alone. There, at the two trees there, is the way to Cro' Martin; take it, and may the Saints guide you safe home!"

"And if I do, Joan, will you promise me to come straight back to Cro'

Martin after you 've seen him? Will you do this?"

"I will,--I will," cried she, bathing Mary's hand with her tears as she kissed it.

"Then G.o.d bless and protect you, poor girl!" said Mary. "It is not for me to dictate to your own full heart. Goodbye,--good-bye."

Before Mary had dried the warm tears that rose to her eyes, Joan was gone.

CHAPTER XIV. THE END OF A BAR MESS

There are few things more puzzling to the uninitiated than the total separation lawyers are able to exercise between their private sentiments and the emotions they display in the wear and tear of their profession.

So widely apart are these two characters, that it is actually difficult to understand how they ever can unite in one man. But so it is. He can pa.s.s his morning in the most virulent a.s.saults upon his learned brother, ridiculing his law, laughing at his logic, arraigning his motives,--nay, sometimes ascribing to him some actually base and wicked. Altercations, heightened by all that pa.s.sion stimulated by wit can produce, ensue.

Nothing that can taunt, provoke, or irritate, is omitted. Personalities even are introduced to swell the acrimony of the contest; and yet, when the jury have given in their verdict and the court breaks up, the gladiators, who seemed only thirsting for each other's blood, are seen laughingly going homeward arm-in-arm, mayhap discoursing over the very cause which, but an hour back, seemed to have stamped them enemies for the rest of life.

Doubtless there is a great deal to be pleased at in all this, and, we ought to rejoice in the admirable temper by which men can discriminate between the faithful performance of a duty and the natural course of their affections. Still, small-minded folk--of which wide category we own ourselves to be a part--may have their misgivings that the excellence of this system is not without its alloy, and that even the least ingenious of men will ultimately discover how much principle is sapped, and how much truthfulness of character is sacrificed in this continual struggle between fiction and reality.

The Bar is the nursery of the Senate, and it would not be a very fanciful speculation were we to ascribe the laxity of purpose, the deficient earnestness, and the insincerity of principle we often deplore in our public men, to this same legal training.

The old lawyer, however, finds no difficulty in the double character.

With his wig and gown he puts on his sarcasm, his insolence, and his incredulity. His brief bag opens to him a Pandora's box of noxious influences; and as he pa.s.ses the precincts of the court, he leaves behind him all the amenities of life and all the charities of his nature. The young barrister does not find the trans.m.u.tation so easy. He gives himself unreservedly to his client, and does not measure his ardor by the instructions in his brief. Let us ask pardon of our reader for what may seem _a mal a propos_ digression; but we have been led to these remarks by the interests of our story.

It was in the large dining-room of the "Martin Arms" at Oughterard, that a party of lawyers spent the evening, some of whose events, elsewhere, our last chapter has recorded. It was the Bar mess of the Western Circuit, and the chair was filled by no less a person than "Father Repton." This able "leader" had determined not to visit the West of Ireland so long as his friend Martin remained abroad; but a very urgent entreaty from Scanlan, and a pressing request for his presence, had induced him to waive that resolve, and come down special to Oughterard for the Magennis case.

A simple case of ejectment could scarcely have called for that imposing array of learned counsel who had repaired to this unfrequented spot; so small a skirmish could never have called for the horse, foot, and dragoons of law,--the wily conveyancer, the clap-trap orator, the browbeater of witnesses, and the light sharpshooter at technicalities; and yet there they were all met, and--with all reverence be it spoken--very jolly companions they were.

An admirable rule precluded the introduction of, or even an allusion to, professional subjects, save when the burden of a joke, whose success might excuse the transgression; and thus these crafty, keen intelligences argued, disputed, jested, and disported together, in a vein which less practised talkers would find it hard to rival. To the practice of these social amenities is doubtless ascribable the absence of any rancor from the rough contests and collisions of public life, and thus men of every shade of politics and party, differing even in cla.s.s and condition, formed admirable social elements, and cohered together to perfection.

As the evening wore on, the company insensibly thinned off. Some of the hard-workers retired early; a few, whose affectation it was to pretend engagements, followed. The "juniors" repaired in different groups to the chambers of their friends, where loo and brandy-and-water awaited them; and at last Repton was left, with only two others, sole occupants of that s.p.a.cious apartment. His companions were, like himself, soldiers of the "Vieille Garde" veterans who remembered Curran and Lawrence Parsons, John Toler and Saurin, and a host of others, who only needed that the sphere should have been greater to be themselves among the great of the nation.

Rawlins was Repton's schoolfellow, and had been his rival at the Bar for nigh fifty years. Niel, a few years younger than either, was the greatest orator of his time. Both had been opposed to Repton in the present suit, and had held heavy retainers for their services.

"Well, Repton," said Rawlins, as soon as they were left thus to themselves, "are you pondering over it still? I see that you can't get it out of your head."

"It is quite true, I cannot," said Repton. "To summon us all down here,--to bring us some fifty miles away from our accustomed beat, for a trumpery affair like this, is totally beyond me. Had it been an election time, I should probably have understood it."

"How so?" cried Niel, in the shrill piercing voice peculiar to him, and which imparted to him, even in society, an air of querulous irritability.

"On the principle that Bob Mahon always puts a thoroughbred horse in his gig when he drives over to a country race. He's always ready for a match with what he jocularly calls 'the old screw I 'm driving this minute;'

so, Niel, I thought that the retainer for the ejectment might have turned out to be a special fee for the election."

"And he 'd have given them a speech, and a rare good one, too, I promise you," said Rawlins; "and even if he had not time to speak it, the county paper would have had it all printed and corrected from his own hand, with all the appropriate interruption of 'vociferous cheering,' and the places where the orator was obliged to pause, from the wild tumult of acclamation that surrounded him."