Kearney shook his head doubtingly, and muttered, ‘There’s a great deal said about wounded pride and injured feelings, but the truth is, these things are like a bad colic, mighty hard to bear, if you like, but nobody ever dies of it.’
‘From all I hear about young Mr. O’Shea,’ said Holmes, ‘I am led to believe he will scarcely live through an imprisonment.’
‘To be sure! Why not? At three or four-and-twenty we’re all of us high-spirited and sensitive and noble-hearted, and we die on the spot if there’s a word against our honour. It is only after we cross the line in life, wherever that be, that we become thick-skinned and hardened, and mind nothing that does not touch our account at the bank. Sure I know the theory well! Ay, and the only bit of truth in it all is, that we cry out louder when we’re young, for we are not so well used to bad treatment.’
‘Right or wrong, no man likes to have the whole press of a nation assailing him and all the sympathies of a people against him,’ said Holmes.
‘And what can you and your brothers in wigs do against that? Will all your little beguiling ways and insinuating tricks turn the Pike and the Irish Cry from what sells their papers? Here it is now, Mr. Holmes, and I can’t put it shorter. Every man that lives in Ireland knows in his heart he must live in hot water; but somehow, though he may not like it, he gets used to it, and he finds it does him no harm in the end. There was an uncle of my own was in a passion for forty years, and he died at eighty-six.’
‘I wish I could only secure your attention, my lord, for ten minutes.’
‘And what would you do, counsellor, if you had it?’
‘You see, my lord, there are some very grave questions here. First of all, you and your brother magistrates had no right to accept bail. The injury was too grave: Gill’s life, as the doctor’s certificate will prove, was in danger. It was for a judge in Chambers to decide whether bail could be taken. They will move, therefore, in the Queen’s Bench, for a mandamus—’
‘May I never, if you won’t drive me mad!’ cried Kearney passionately; ‘and I’d rather be picking oakum this minute than listening to all the possible misfortunes briefs and lawyers could bring on me.’
‘Just listen to Holmes, father,’ whispered Dick. ‘He thinks that Gill might be got over—that if done by you with three or four hundred pounds, he’d either make his evidence so light, or he’d contradict himself, or, better than all, he’d not make an appearance at the trial—’