University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.

“At this moment I must think for you,” said
Dr. Eustance to Mr. Carroll, after the family had
withdrawn from the chamber of death; “of course
you will wish to avoid for the present the public
disclosure of the circumstance recently developed?”

“Certainly.”

“Then lay what restrictions you please on Mrs.
Carroll and the children, I will take care that Conolly
does not gossip.” Accordingly the funeral
rites were performed in a private and quiet manner.
The clergyman, and the few necessary assistants
were struck with the grief of the family being disproportioned
to the event; `but,' said they, `death
is always an affecting circumstance, and the Carrolls
are tender-hearted.'

On the morning after the funeral Mrs. Carroll
was washing the breakfast-things, her head busy
with various thoughts. To some she gave utterance
and suppressed others, pretty much after the following
manner: “Charles, my dear, I think we had
best give Conolly Mr. Flavel's—la! how can I always
forget—our dear father's clothes; I believe it
is customary in England for people of fortune to
do so.”

“Give Conolly what consideration you please,

Sarah, but leave my father's personal effects undisturbed.”

Mrs. Carroll nodded assent, “I do wonder,” she
continued, “what cousin Anne will say now! she
did ridicule our taking in a pauper, as she called
him, beyond every thing”—to herself, “I did keep
it as secret as possible, but we shall be rewarded
openly! what a mercy Charles never suspected his
riches; if he had, he would just have sent him to
lodgings;” aloud, “Only think, dear, the children
the other day in Mr. Flavel's—how can I!—our
father's room, asked me to send them to dancing
school; I told them I could not afford it; he
smiled, I little thought for what—dear souls! they
shall go now as soon as it is proper”—to herself,
“can't afford it—thank heaven, I have done for
ever with that hateful, vulgar phrase.” “By the
way, Charles, I saw in the Evening Post, that the
Roscoes' house is to be sold next week; it would
just suit us.”

“The Roscoes' house; my dear wife, the Roscoes
have been my best, at one time, my only
friends; I could not be happy where I was continually
reminded of their reverse of fortune.”

“Oh, well; I do not care about that house in
particular; there are others that would suit me quite
as well; but I hope you will attend to it at once;
this house is so excessively small and inconvenient.”
Mr. Carroll assured his wife that she must suppress
her new-born sensibility to the discomforts of her
dwelling; “for his own part,” he said, “he had no
heart for immediate change. His mind was occupied
with sad reflections, softened, he trusted, by

gratitude for singular mercies. Besides, it was
necessary, and he rejoiced it was so, before he
could receive any portion of his father's property,
that his claim to it should be admitted in England,
where it was vested; he wished, therefore, that Mrs.
Carroll would not at present make the slightest variation
in their mode of life. She submitted, but
not without betraying her reluctance, by saying,
she wondered what forms of business were for, they
were too provoking, too stupid, and so utterly unnecessary!

Mr. Carroll made no farther secret of the change
in his prospects. He assumed the name of Clarence,
and forwarded the necessary documents to
England. In other respects he kept on the even
tenor of his way.

About six months after a certain John Rider,
Esq., a lawyer better known for his professional
success in the mayor's court than for his distinction
before any higher tribunal, joined a knot
of Irishmen who were hovering round a grocerydoor,
and earnestly debating some question that
had kindled their combustible passions. It appeared
they were at the moment particularly jealous
of the interference of an officer of the law, for one
and all darted at him looks of impatient inquiry and
fierce defiance. The leader of the gang advanced
with a half articulated curse. He was pulled back
by one of his companions. “Be civil, man,” he
said, “it's his honor, Lawyer Rider; he'll ne'er be
the one to scald his mouth with other folks' broth,”

“Ah, Conolly, is that you?”

“Indeed is it, your honor; was it me your honor
was wanting?”

“Yes; I have been to your house, and Biddy
told me I should probably find you here.”

“And what for was she sending your honor to the
grocer's? She might better have guided you any
way else to find me.”

“To seek you, may be, Conolly, but not to find
you.”

“Ah, your honor's caught me there; but I'll
tache the old woman.”

Rider perceived from Conolly's flushed cheek,
that he was in a humour to demonstrate some domestic
problems that might not be agreeable to a
spectator, and therefore instead of accompanying
him to his own room, to transact some private business
he had with him, he proposed to him to walk
up the street. Conolly assented, saying to his companions
as he left them, “Stay a bit, lads, and I'll
spake to Lawyer Rider about it.”

“About what is that, Conolly?”

“Is it that your honor has not heard about
Jemmy McBride and Dr. Eustace?” The doctor's
name was followed by an imprecation that expressed
but too plainly, `Jemmy and the whole Irish nation
versus the doctor.'

“I have heard something of this unlucky affair,
but you may tell me more, Conolly.”

“Indeed can I; for wasn't I there while his
knife was yet red with the blood of him? and wasn't
Jem my father's own brother's son?”

“But Conolly, you do not believe the doctor had
any thing to do with McBride's death?”

“That I do not say. But I believe, by my soul I
do, the doctors have more to do with death than

life, the heretics in particular, saving your honor's
presence. Any way, Jemmy McBride died in his
hands, and the very time he had said the poor fellow
was mending; but that was all to keep the priest
away. Never a confession did Jem make; never a
bit prayer was said over him, nor the holy sign put
on him; nor, Mr. Rider, as true as my name's Pat
Conolly, was there a light lighted for his soul to
pass by. The next night the doctor told Jemmy's
wife, a poor innocent cratur that knew no better,
that he was going to examine the body to look after
the disease a bit; and so she, God forgive her, gives
him a light, and he goes in the room and makes
fast the door. But you see, the old woman, Jem's
wife's mother, looked through the key-hole, and she
saw him at his devil's work, and she ran, wild-like,
to the neighbors, and there were a dozen of us at
Roy McPhelan's, that were thinking to keep poor
Jemmy's wake that night, and we made a rush of it,
and forced the door, and there stood he over poor
Jem, and such cutting and slashing, och! my heart
bleeds to think of it; indeed does it, and poor
Jemmy's soul tormented the while; for it's sure,
your honor, his soul was there looking on his body
handled that way by a heretic. Roy seized his
knife, and would have had the life of him, but Jem's
wife set up such a howling, and she held Roy's arm,
and made us all stand back while she said the doctor
had shown kindness to her and hers, and we should
first kill her before a hair of him should be the worse
for it. And then he calls to me, and he says,
`Conolly,' for he knew me, it's six months past
when I was nurse to one Flavel, and he says, `Conolly,
my friend,' (the devil a bit friend to the like of
him!) `Conolly,' he says, `you'll get yourselves
into trouble at this mad rate. Go, like honest men,
and make your complaint of me, and let the law
take its course.' And there was one McInster
among us, who is but half an Irishman, for his
grandmother was full Scotch, and he's always for
keeping the sword in the scabbard, and he would
be for persuading us to the law, and while we were
all giving our advice, in a breath like, Jemmy's
wife whips the doctor through a side door, down a
back passage; and once at the street-door, he made
a bird's flight of it. But we'll have our revenge. A
hundred oaths are sworn to it.”

“Don't be rash, Conolly. Have you consulted
a lawyer?”

“That have we, Mr. Rider, and he says there's
no law for us, and sure is it the laws are made for
cowards, and we'll stand by ourselves.”

“Listen to my advice, Conolly, you know I
am a friend to the Irish—you know how hard I
worked for you all in Billy McGill's business.”

“Ay, your honor, sure you did make black
white there. Did not I say you was a lawyer,
every hair of you?”

Rider was compelled to swallow Conolly's compliment,
equivocal as it was, and he replied, “I do
indeed know something of the law, and believe me,
it will be the worse for you all if you take any violent
measures. The doctor, though a young man,
is well known, and has many friends in the city.
That Mr. Carroll, or Clarence as he calls himself,
at whose house you first knew him, is ready to uphold

him in every thing. You have not heard,
perhaps, Conolly, that the old man you nursed left
a grand fortune?”

“Lord help us! no. I have been out of the
city ever since the old gentleman's funeral, till
Easter Sunday, the very day poor Jemmy died.”

“I suppose you know that this Carroll claims to
be son to the old gentleman?”

“Ay, sure, did not I hear him with my own ears
call him so?”

“Just state to me, Conolly, precisely what you
recollect about this matter.”

“Some other time, your honor, the fellows are
waiting for me now.”

“Heaven and earth, man! you must not put it
off; it's a matter of the first importance, and here's
something to make all right with your friends.”

Conolly pocketed the douceur, smirking, and
saying, “Sure I'll do my best to pleasure you Mr.
Rider; but my head's all in a snarl with Jemmy and
this d—d doctor.”

“Begin and you will soon get it clear—you were
some time at Carroll's?”

“That was I, and for a time it was all plain sailing,
though the old gentleman used to mutter so
in his sleep, and look at Mr. Carroll so through and
through like, that I thought there was more on his
mind than we knew of; and, I was sure from the
first he was no poor body, for he had the ways of a
gentleman entirely, and you know they are as different
as fish and flesh.”

“Yes, yes, Conolly, go on, we all know he was
a gentleman.”

“And you know too, may be, that he had epileptics.
Well one day after they had had a long nonsense
talk about riches, Mr. Carroll sent us all out of the
room to stay till he rung, and sure he did ring, distracted
like; when we came in the room the old gentleman
was in fits, and Mr. Carroll was not much
better; and from that time he was an altered man;
he had been kind before, but now it was quite entirely
a different thing. It was plain, his life was
bound up in the old gentleman's. I had nothing
worth speaking of to do any more, he gave him all
his medicines, and his eyes was never off him day or
night, and they would often be alone together. I
had my own thoughts, for there was something in
their looks, I need not describe it to ye, Mr. Rider,
for if you've had either father or son you know what
it is.”

For an instant the current of Rider's feelings
turned, it was but an instant, and he said, “Yes, I
that he found himself to be just on the launch, and
he told Mr. Carroll to call in the family, and then it
all came out just as I expected, your honor. He
called them all his children, and Mr. Carroll `my
son' again and again, and talked to the child, that's
Frank Carroll, about being his grandfather. I could
tell you just the words if you please.”

“No, they are of no consequence.”

“Then, your honor, there's not much more to
tell. They all cried of course you know, and I
cried too, and that's what I have not done before,

since I quitted home. He spoke but few words,
but they were rightly said as if he'd had them from
the priest's lips, and then he just sunk away like an
infant falling asleep.”

Rider hesitated for a few moments; Conolly's
statement was particularly hostile to his wishes, and
the course to be pursued required some deliberation;
“These epileptic fits,” he said, “are very
apt to derange the mind—the doctors tell me they
always weaken it.”

“Sure they lie then;” and here followed an execration
of the whole faculty; “I've seen men die,
many a one, both at home and here in America,
and never did I see one behave himself to the very
last, in a more discreet, regular, gentale-like manner,
than this Mr. Flavel; I don't know how he
lived, but he died like a gentleman, any way.”

“I must strike another key,” thought Rider;
“Conolly,” he said, “it is not worth while to dilly-dally
about this matter any longer; I know I may
confide in you. This Mr. Flavel, or rather Clarence,
had an own brother's son in England, whom
he hated, and had wronged. If he died without
children, and without a will, his nephew would, of
course, be his natural heir. Now, is it not possible,
that, feeling very grateful to this Carroll, he
might consent to pass him off for his son; just to
call him so, you know?”

“No, no, Mr. Rider; he did not die like a man
that was going off with a lie in his mouth.”

“Perhaps you don't consider the whole, Conolly;
it was an innocent deceit—stop, hear me out—Carroll,
who, besides getting the fortune, would gladly

wipe off the disgrace of having been an alms-house
slip, might beguile him on; Eustace combined with
him, at least I suspect so, and,” he added, cautiously
looking about him, “if he keeps the fortune, one
thing is sure, the doctor will have a good slice of
it; he will swear through thick and thin, every
thing Carroll wants.”

“Och! the villain! what will he swear?”

“That the man was of perfect and sound mind;
Conolly, this is a hard case and we must try every
expedient—every way to get justice done; now if
you will stand by us—my client is generous, and he
has authorized me to spare neither pains nor money
to get witnesses for him—name a particular sum,
my good fellow.”

“For what? tell me what I am to do just.”

“Why, in the first place, you are to right your
cause with this doctor; he's more than suspected
already of leaguing with Carroll, and if your testimony
goes against his, he can't live in the city.”

“Ah; that would pleasure me!”

“And if three or four hundred dollars—?”

“Three, or four! four! I have one hundred already,
and that would just make up the sum, and
fetch them all over; the old man, and Peggy, and
Roy, and Davy, and Pat, and just set them down
gentalely in New York—but tell me how deep in, it
is you want me to go?”

“That we must consider; if we could prove the
old gentleman was not in his right mind.”

“No, no, Mr. Rider, I would not like that; it's
ill luck dishonoring the dead that way.”

Rider, like a careful angler, had prepared various

baits for his hook. One refused, he tried another;
“Well, my good fellow, if you cannot on your conscience
say, that you think the old gentleman was a
little out, may you not have been mistaken in
thinking you heard those words, grandfather, son,
father? hey, Conolly?”

“You mane, Mr. Rider,” said Conolly with an
indescribable leer, “whether I can't quite entirely
forget them; that is to say, swear I never heard
them at all?”

Rider, hardened as he was, felt his cheeks tingle
at this sudden and clear exposition of his meaning;
“Why, Conolly, on my honor,” he said, “I believe
that my client has the right of the case, and we
are sometimes forced, you know, to go a crooked
path to get to the right spot. Those words
might have dropped from the old man accidentally,
just as he was going out of the world, and
then Carroll and the doctor between them might
have contrived the rest. The doctor is as cunning
as the devil himself; you know how he hoodwinked
your cousin's wife—a scandalous affair that was—
and yet I don't know how you are to right yourselves;
we have no law for you, Conolly, and you
know our people don't like club-law.”

“D—n the law; the law was made for villains;
I beg your pardon, Mr. Rider. Its true I can't
sleep till we're revenged on the doctor—four hundred
dollars ye say, Mr. Rider? It would be heaven's
mercy to the poor souls that's starving at
home. What is it ye'll have me forget?” Conolly's
conscience had by this time become as confused
as his mind. The opportunity of gratifying his

resentments against the doctor, and of obtaining
the means of bringing to this land of plenty, this
full sheaf, his lean and famished brethren at home,
overpowered his weak principles, and his real good
feeling, and he listened to Rider's lucid and impressive
instructions in relation to the testimony he was
to deliver, with strict attention and with reiterated
promises to abide by them. Rider did not forget
to make Conolly fully sensible of the importance of
keeping the purport of their interview a profound
secret, and then giving him a farther earnest of future
favors, he bade him good night. As Conolly's
`God bless his honor,' and `long life to him,' died
away on the lawyer's ear, he was entering a plea in
arrest of judgment before the tribunal of conscience.
`After all,' he thought, `if I have saved Eustace's
life from these violent devils, I have done more
good than harm; another man might have let them
go on; certain it is, Eustace once out of the way,
the property would have been ours;' his thoughts
diverged a little—`ours?—yes, I may say ours; five
thousand pounds if I gain it; one should work
hard for such a fee!'

Mr. Rider's client had found a fit instrument
to manage his cause; a most unworthy
member of that profession which from Cicero's
day to our own times, has called forth the genius,
the ardor, the self-sacrificing zeal of the noblest
minds of every age.