Chapter IX: Part IV (3)

“Some foolish friends,” said he, “have given my father liquor, an' it has got into his head--indeed, it overcame him the more as I never remember him to taste a drop of spirits during his life before. I can see no body now an' him in this state; but if they wish me well, let them take care of him, and leave him safe at his own house, and tell them I'll be glad if I can see them tomorrow, or any other time.”

With considerable difficulty Fardorougha was removed from Connor, whom he clung to with all his strength, attempting also to drag him away. He then wept bitterly, because he declined to accompany him home, that he might comfort his mother, and enjoy the imagined recovery of his money from P----e, and the conviction which he believed they had just succeeded in getting against that notorious defaulter.

After they had departed, Connor sat down upon his hard pallet, and, supporting his head with his hand, saw, for the first time, in all its magnitude and horror, the death to which he found himself now doomed. The excitement occasioned by his trial, and his increasing firmness, as it darkened on through all its stages to the final sentence, now had--in a considerable degree abandoned him, and left his heart, at present, more accessible to natural weakness than it it had been to the power of his own affections. The image of his early-loved Una had seldom since his arrest been out of his imagination. Her youth, her beauty, her wild but natural grace, and the flashing glances of her dark enthusiastic eye, when joined to her tenderness and boundless affection for himself--all caused his heart to quiver with deadly anguish through every fibre. This produced a transition to Flanagan--the contemplation of whose perfidious vengeance made him spring from his seat in a paroxysm of indignant but intense hatred, so utterly furious that the swelling tempest which it sent through his veins caused him to reel with absolute giddiness.

“Great God!” he exclaimed, “you are just, and will this be suffered?”

He then thought of his parents, and the fiery mood of his mind changed to one of melancholy and sorrow. He looked back upon his aged father's enduring struggle--upon the battle of the old man's heart against the accursed vice which had swayed its impulses so long--on the protracted conflict between the two energies, which, like contending fivmies in the field, had now left little but ruin and desolation behind them. His heart, when he brought all these things near him, expanded, and like a bird, folded its wings about the gray-haired martyr to the love he bore him. But his mother--the caressing, the proud, the affectionate, whose heart, in the vivid tenderness of hope for her beloved boy, had shaped out his path in life, as that on which she could brood with the fondness of a loving and delighted spirit--that mother's image, and the idea of her sorrows prostrated his whole strength, like that of a stricken infant, to the earth.

“Mother, mother,” he exclaimed, “when I think of what you reared me for, and what I am this night, how can my heart do otherwise than break, as well on your account as on my own, and for all that love us! Oh! what will become of you, my blessed mother? Hard does it go with you that you're not about your pride, as you used to call me, now that I'm in this trouble, in this fate that is soon to cut me down from your loving arms! The thought of you is dear to my heart, dear, dearer, dearer than that of any--than my own Una. What will become of her, too, and the old man? Oh, why, why is it that the death I am to suffer is to fall so heavily on them that love me best?”

He then returned to his bed, but the cold and dreary images of death and ruin haunted his imagination, until the night was far spent, when at length he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

By the sympathy expressed at his trial, our readers may easily conceive the profound sorrow which was felt for him, in the district where he was known, from the moment the knowledge of his sentence had gone abroad among the people. This was much strengthened by that which, whether in man or woman, never fails to create an amiable prejudice in its favor--I mean youth and personal beauty. His whole previous character was now canvassed with a mournful lenity that brought out his virtues into beautiful relief; and the fate of the affectionate son was deplored no less than that of the youthful, but rash and inconsiderate lover. Neither was the father without his share of compassion, for they could not forget that, despite of all his penury and extortion, the old man's heart had been fixed, with a strong but uncouth affection, upon his amiable and only boy. It was, however, when they thought of his mother, in whose heart of hearts he had been enshrined as the idol of her whole affection, that their spirits became truly touched. Many a mother assumed in her own person, by the force of imagination, the sinking woman's misery, and poured forth, in unavailing tears, the undeniable proofs of the sincerity with which she participated in Honor's bereavement. As for Flanagan, a deadly weight of odium, such as is peculiar to the Informer in Ireland, fell upon both him and his. Nor was this all. Aided by that sagacity which is so conspicuous in Irishmen, when a vindictive or hostile feeling is excited among them, they depicted Flanagan's character with an accuracy and truth astonishingly correct and intuitive. Numerous were the instances of cowardice, treachery, and revenge remembered against him, by those who had been his close and early companions, not one of which would have ever occurred to them, were it not that their minds had been thrown back upon the scrutiny by the melancholy fate in which he had involved the unhappy Connor O'Donovan. Had he been a mere ordinary witness in the matter, he would have experienced little of this boiling indignation at their hands; but first to participate in the guilt, and afterwards, for the sake of the reward, or from a worse and more flagitious motive, to turn upon him, and become his accuser, even to the taking away of the young man's life--to stag against his companion and accomplice--this was looked upon as a crime ten thousand times more black and damnable than that for which the unhappy culprit had been consigned to so shameful a death.

But, alas, of what avail was all this sympathy and indignation to the unfortunate youth himself or to those most deeply interested in his fate? Would not the very love and sorrow felt towards her son fall upon his mother's heart with a heavier weight of bitterness and agony? Would not his Una's soul be wounded on that account with a sharper and more deadly pang of despair and misery? It would, indeed, be difficult to say whether the house of Bodagh Buie or that of Fardorougha was then in the deeper sorrow. On the morning of Connor's trial, Una arose at an earlier hour than usual, and it was observed when she sat at breakfeast, that her cheek was at one moment pale as death, and again flushed and feverish. These symptoms were first perceived by her affectionate brother, who, on witnessing the mistakes she made in pouring out the tea, exchanged a glance with his parents, and afterwards asked her to allow him to take her place. She laid down the tea-pot, and, looking him mournfully in the face, attempted to smile at a request so unusual.

“Una, dear,” said he, “you must allow me. There is no necessity for attempting to conceal what you feel--we all know it--and if we did not, the fact of your having filled the sugar-bowl instead of the tea-cup would soon discover it.”

She said nothing, but looked at him again, as if she scarcely comprehended what he said. A glance, however, at the sugar-bowl convinced her that she was incapable of performing the usual duties of the breakfast table. Hitherto she had not raised her eyes to her father or mother's face, nor spoken to them as had been her wont, when meeting at that strictly domestic meal. The unrestrained sobbings of the mother now aroused her for the first time, and on looking up, she saw her father wiping away the big tears from his eyes.

“Una, avourneen,” said the worthy man, “let John make tay for us--for, God help you, you can't do it. Don't fret, achora machree, don't, don't, Una; as God is over me, I'd give all I'm worth to save him, for your sake.”

She looked at her father and smiled again; but that smile cut him to the heart.

“I will make the tea myself, father,” she replied, “and I _won't_ commit any more mistakes;” and as she spoke she unconsciously poured the tea into the slop--bowl.

“Avourneen,” said her mother, “let John do it; acushla machree, let him do it.”

She then rose, and without uttering a word, passively and silently placed herself on her brother's chair--he having, at the same time, taken that on which she sat.

“Una,” said her father, taking her hand, “you must be a good girl, and you must have courage; and whatever happens, my darling, you'll pluck up strength, I hope, and bear it.”

“I hope so, father,” said she, “I hope so.”

“But, avourneen machree,” said her mother, “I would rather see you cryin' fifty times over, than smilin' the way you do.”

“Mother,” said she, “my heart is sore--my heart is sore.”

“It is, ahagur machree; and your hand is tremblin' so much that you can't bring the tay--cup to your mouth; but, then, don't smile so sorrowfully, anein machree.”

“Why should I cry, mother?” she replied; “I know that Connor is innocent. If I knew him to be guilty, I would weep, and I ought to weep.”

“At all events, Una,” said her father, “you know it's the government, and not us, that's prosecuting him.”

To this Una made no reply, but, thrusting away her cup, she looked with the same mournful smile from one to the other of the little circle about her. At length she spoke.

“Father, I have a request to ask of you.”

“If it's within my power, Una darling, I'll grant it; and if it's not, it'll go hard with me but I'll bring it within my power. What is it, asthore machree?”

“In case he's found guilty, to let John put off his journey to Maynooth, and stay with me for some time--it won't be long I'll keep him.”

“If it pleases you, darling, he'll never put his foot into Maynooth again.”

“No,” said the mother, “dhamnho to the step, if you don't wish him.”

“Oh, no, no,” said Una, “it's only for a while.”

“Unless she desires it, I will never go,” replied the loving brother; “nor will I ever leave you in your sorrow, my beloved and only sister--never--never--so long as a word from my lips can give you consolation.”

The warm tears coursed each other down his cheeks as he spoke, and both his parents, on looking at the almost blighted flower before them, wept as if the hand of death had already been upon her.

“Father, and John are going to his trial,” she observed; “for me I like to be alone;--alone; but when you return to-night, let John break it to me. I'll go now to the garden. I'll walk about to-day--only before you go, John, I want to speak to you.”

Calmly and without a tear, she then left the parlor, and proceeded to the garden, where she began to dress and ornament the hive which contained the swarm that Connor had brought to her on the day their mutual attachment was first disclosed to each other.

“Father,” said John, when she had gone, “I'm afraid that Una's heart is broken, or if not broken, that she won't survive his conviction long--it's breaking fast--for my part, in her present state, I neither will nor can leave her.”

The affectionate father made no reply, but, putting his handkerchief to his eyes, wept, as did her mother, in silent but bitter grief.

“I cannot spake about it, nor think of it, John,” said he, after some time, “but we must do what we can for her.”

“If anything happens her,” said the mother, “I'd never get over it. Oh marciful Savior! how could we live widout her?”

“I would rather see her in tears,” said John--“I would rather see her in outrageous grief a thousand times than in the calm but ghastly resolution with which she is bearing herself up against the trial of this day. If he's condemned to death, I'm afraid that either her health or reason will sink under it, and, in that case, God pity her and us, for how, as you say, mother, could we afford to lose her? Still let us hope for the best. Father, it's time to prepare; get the car ready. I am going to the garden, to hear what the poor thing has to say to me, but I will be with you soon.”

Her brother found her, as we have said, engaged calmly, and with a melancholy pleasure, in adorning the hive which, on Connor's account, had become her favorite. He was not at all sorry that she had proposed this short interview, for, as his hopes of Connor's acquittal were but feeble, if, indeed, he could truly be said to entertain any, he resolved, by delicately communicating his apprehensions, to gradually prepare her mind for the worst that might happen.