CHAPTER XXVI.
LORD CASTLEWELL.
The spring and early summer had worn themselves away in London, and Rachel O'Mahony was still singing at the Embankment Theatre. She and her father were still living in Cecil Street. The glorious day of October, which had been fixed at last for the 24th, on which Rachel was to appear on the Covent Garden boards, was yet still distant, and she was performing under Mr. Moss's behests at a weekly stipend of £15, to which there would be some addition when the last weeks of the season had come about, the end of July and beginning of August. But, alas! Rachel hardly knew what she would do to support herself during the dead months from August to October. "Fashionable people always go out of town, father," she said.
"Then let us be fashionable."
"Fashionable people go to Scotland, but they won't take one in there without money. We shan't have £50 left when our debts are paid. And £50 would do nothing for us."
"They've stopped me altogether," said Mr. O'Mahony. "At any rate they have stopped the money-making part of the business. They have threatened to take the man's license away, and therefore that place is shut up."
"Isn't that unjust, father?"
"Unjust! Everything done in England as to Ireland is unjust. They carried an Act of Parliament the other day, when in accordance with the ancient privileges of members it was within the power of a dozen stalwart Irishmen to stop it. The dozen stalwart Irishmen were there, but they were silenced by a brutal majority. The dozen Irishmen were turned out of the House, one after the other, in direct opposition to the ancient privileges; and so a Bill was passed robbing five million Irishmen of their liberties. So gross an injustice was never before perpetrated—not even when the bribed members sold their country and effected the accursed Union."
"I know that was very bad, father, but the bribes were taken by Irishmen. Be that as it may, what are we to do with ourselves next autumn?"