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"Kitty," said Elk MacNair, in a coarse whisper, "my brother has broken my heart!" "Stay!" said Miss Dunlevy; "he staggers in his seat as if he were about to fall. A page has run to him with a letter. He reads it. Elk, for Heaven's sake, go to his help! He is dying!" There was a rush of members about the new chairman of committee. Confusion reigned upon the floor of Congress.
Among the leading and earliest colonists of the "Blue Grass State" who accompanied Daniel Boone, the ubiquitous Irish were represented by men bearing such names as Mooney, McManus, Sullivan, Drennon, Logan, Casey, Fitzpatrick, Dunlevy, Cassidy, Doran, Dougherty, Lynch, Ryan, McNeill, McGee, Reilly, Flinn, and the noted McAfee brothers, all natives of Ireland or sons of Irish immigrants.
The two elderly men retired to an adjacent apartment, which seemed, from its appointments and the character of needlework and literature strewn about, to be the boudoir of Miss Dunlevy; and the Judge, who was somewhat past the prime of life, plunged into a long story about Ross Valley and its early settlement, speaking much of the time with his eyes closed in a sort of half reverie, while Jabel, who occupied a seat nearer to the library, was meantime overhearing a conversation between Kate Dunlevy and young Elk MacNair, who had followed hard upon Jabel's heels.
Kate Dunlevy, who had expected to marry purely for love, found with a little chagrin that she was also marrying for money. The Judge was led to remark upon the curiosities of a speculative age and a fluctuating currency, and said he longed for the solid times of hard coin, cheap prices, easy stages, and a Jeffersonian republic.
"It can be nothing, if Arthur is the arbiter and your happiness the subject," said Miss Dunlevy. "It is a point of honor differently taken by two men," said Elk MacNair; "and the issue is a matter of character. It is a matter of fortune besides, and if neither relents both will suffer."
"Jabel," said the young Congressman, "you must have some treasure laid up there, old friend. And not only in heaven, but in this world also. Look on this happy family redeemed by your sacrifice!" Jabel Blake opened his eyes wider, and they fell upon Judge Dunlevy. "This is a great honor," he said; "Ross Valley brings her great citizen back."
But the free clansmen of Ulidia, though surprised, were not intimidated. Under their lord Rory, son of Dunlevy, they rallied to expel the invader. Cardinal Vivian, the Papal Legate, who had just arrived from Man and Scotland, on the neighbouring coast, proffered his mediation, and besought de Courcy to withdraw from Down.
He returned to his rest never to arise; for now a fever laid hold upon the old captain, and he talked in his delirium of Judge Dunlevy and his bank, and he was attended all the while by Arthur MacNair. One night, in a little spell of relief, Jabel Blake opened his eyes and said, "Arty, I dreamed old Jabel Blake was in heaven, and that he had founded a bank there!"
To Jabel's clannish and religious nature Judge Dunlevy represented the loftiest possibilities of human character; and that one of the two poor orphans the sons of a wood-cutter and log-roller on the Alleghenies, and the victim of intemperance at last whom Jabel had watched and partly reared, should now be betrothed to Catharine Dunlevy, the judge's only daughter, affected every remaining sentiment in Jabel's heart.
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