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The mother and daughters had been well trained to load and even to discharge fire-arms; and now they were both competent and willing to take an important part in defense of their own lives, as well as those who were so dear to them. "Well," said John Purcel, when every necessary preparation had been made, "I never could, have dreamt that Frank M'Carthy was either a coward or a traitor."
As for my part, I am glad you have got money, for I do assure you, I never stood so much in need of it in my life." "The very papers, sir," continued Purcel, who could not prevent himself from proceeding, "might enable you to see the state of the country." "Oh, d n the papers," said the parson, "I am sick of them.
He was by no means in his usual spirits, it is true, but then he was in much better health, and a vague report of something in the shape of a loan to the clergy, to the tune of a million, gave him a considerable degree of cheerfulness. John Purcel, having dispatched his business with him as quickly as he could, called upon M'Carthy in college.
"Hem hem this, I persave, turns out to be a very important and difficult case, Mr. Purcel a very difficult case, Hourigan a a a case indeed that requires great deliberation and coolness. Here is strong provocation on one hand, and prompt punishment on the other. Can you swear, Mr. Purcel, to the accuracy and substance of the language you say Hourigan uttered?"
I beg your pardon come into the office till I see what I can do for you at all events." He accordingly preceded Purcel to his office, accompanied by Sam Finigan, a kind of thorough male domestic who acted as his clerk. Here he took his seat with a good deal of ceremony, hemmed several times, and desired Hourigan to be admitted.
"Talk of the devil, Mr. English," replied a stern voice from the listeners, "and he will appear; look down the road there and you'll see Purcel himself an' his family drivin' to mass on the sweat and groans of the people!"
Here he looked significantly among the mob, especially as he perceived that the man's eyes were not fixed upon him whilst he spoke, and having thrust his tongue into his cheek, half in derision, and half as it were by a natural action, he succeeded at all events in creating a general laugh; but so easily is a laugh, among such an audience, created, that it is not altogether within our power or penetration to determine the point which occasioned their mirth, unless it were the grimace with which his words were accompanied or stay perhaps it was the strong evil odor in which Purcel, the subject of their conversation, must have been held.
In fact, the change appeared to Purcel to have been an exceedingly beneficial one. The gross carnal character of his whole appearance was gone; his person had become comparatively thin, and had a far and distant, but still an approximating, tendency to something of the apostolic.
"You don't mean to say, Purcel, that circumstances are as bad as you report them as bad as desperate, I should say and as ruinous?" "I fear," said Purcel, "they go beyond the gloomiest and most desponding views you could take of them. The conspiracy, for such we must term it, is, in point of fact, deepening down to the very foundations, if I may use the expression, of society.
Misther Purcel, darlin', isn't it a poor thing not to have an estate of ten thousand a year?" and here he looked wistfully at the smiling Julia, and shrugged his shoulders like a man who knew he was never likely to gain his wishes. "I would buy something," said Mary, "but, like Julia, I am penniless."