It appeared from what tidings Dick brought back from the town, that the Nationalists—to give them the much unmerited name by which they called themselves—were determined to show how they could dictate to a jury.
‘There’s law for you!’ cried the old man again.
‘You’ll have to take to vigilance committees, like the Yankees,’ said the major.
‘We’ve had them for years; but they only shoot their political opponents.’
‘They say, too,’ broke in the young man, ‘that Donogan is in the town, and that it is he who has organised the whole prosecution. In fact, he intends to make Battersby’s speech for the plaintiff a great declaration of the wrongs of Ireland; and as Battersby hates the Chief Baron, who will try the cause, he is determined to insult the Bench, even at the cost of a commitment.’
‘What will he gain by that?’ asked Lockwood.
‘Every one cannot have a father that was hanged in ‘98; but any one can go to gaol for blackguarding a Chief-Justice,’ said Kearney.
For a moment or two the old man seemed ashamed at having been led to make these confessions to ‘the Saxon,’ and telling Lockwood where he would be likely to find a brace of cocks, he took his son’s arm and returned homeward.