This, like many other of my early reflections on Ireland, had its grain of truth and its bushel of fallacy; and before I quitted the land I learned to make the distinction.
CHAPTER XIV. THE PARTING
From motives of delicacy towards Miss Bellew I did not call that day at the Rooneys. For many months such an omission on my part had never occurred. Accordingly, when O'Grady returned at night to the Castle, he laughingly told me that the house was in half-mourning. Paul sat moodily over his wine, scarce lifting his head, and looking what he himself called nonsuited. Mrs. Paul, whose grief was always in the active mood, sobbed, hiccupped, gulped, and waved her arms as if she had lost a near relative. Miss Bellew did not appear at all, and Phil discovered that she had written home that morning, requesting her father to send for her without loss of time.
'The affair, as you see,' continued O'Grady, 'has turned out ill for all parties. Dudley has lost his post, you your mistress, and I my money—a pretty good illustration how much mischief a mere fool can at any moment make in society.'
It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when I mounted my horse to ride over to Stephen's Green. As I passed slowly along Dame Street my attention was called to a large placard, which, in front of a house opposite the lower Castle gate, had attracted a considerable crowd around it. I was spared the necessity of stopping to read by the hoarse shout of a ragged ruffian who elbowed his way through the mob, carrying on one arm a mass of printed handbills; the other hand he held beside his mouth to aid the energy of his declamation. 'Here's the full and true account,' cried he, 'of the bloody and me-lan-chc-ly duel that tuk place yesterday morning in the Phaynix Park, between Lord Dudley de Vere and Mr. Hinton, two edge-du-congs to his Grace the Lord Liftinint, wid all the particulars, for one ha'penny.'
'Here's the whole correspondence between the Castle bucks,' shouted a rival publisher—the Colburn to this Bentley—'wid a beautiful new song to an old tune—
“Bang it up, bang it up, to the lady in the Green.”'
'Give me one, if you please,' said a motherly-looking woman, in a grey cloak.
'No, ma'am, a penny,' responded the vendor. 'The bloody fight for a halfpenny! What!' said he; 'would you have an Irish melody and the picture of an illigint female for a copper?'