“Are there any relations, or friends?”
“None, not one; I 'm the last of the tree,—the one old rotten branch left. I was thinking of a nunnery, Tiernay, one of those convents in France or the Low Countries; but even there, if he found her out, he could legally demand her to be restored to him,—and he would find her, ay, that he would! There never was a thing yet that man could n't do when he set his heart on it; and the more the obstacles, the greater his wish. I heard him say it with his own lips, that he never had any fancy for my poor Lucy till he overheard her one day saying that 'she never hated any one till she knew him.' From that hour, he swore to himself she should be his wife! Heaven knows if the hate was not better bestowed than the love; and yet, she did love him to the last,—ay, even, after cruelty and desertion, ay, after his supposed death; when she heard that he married another, and was living in splendor at Cadiz, ay,—Tiernay! after all that, she told me on her death-bed, she loved him still!”
“I think the nunnery is the best resource,” said the doctor, recalling the sick man from a theme where his emotions were already too powerfully excited.
“I believe it is,” said the old man, with more of energy than before; “and I feel almost as if Providence would give me strength and health to take her there myself, and see her safe before I die. Feel that pulse now: isn't it stronger?”
“You are better, much better already,” said the doctor; “and now, keep quiet and composed. Don't speak—if it was possible, I 'd say, don't think—for a few hours. The worst is nigh over.”
“I thought so, Tiernay. I felt it was what old Joe Henchy used to call 'a runaway knock.'” And, with a faint smile, the old man pressed his hand, and said, “Good-bye.”
Scarcely, however, had the doctor reached the door, when he called him back.
“Tiernay,” said he, “it's of no use telling me to lie still, and keep quiet, and the rest of it. I continue, asleep or awake, to think over what's coming. There is but one way to give me peace,—give me some hope. I 'll tell you now how that is to be done; but, first of all, can you spare three days from home?”
“To be sure I can; a week, if it would serve you. Where am I to go?”
“To Dublin, Tiernay. You 'll have to go up there, and see this young man, Cashel, yourself, and speak to him for me. Tell him nothing of our present distress or poverty, but just let him see who it is that he is turning out of the lands where their fathers lived for hundreds of years. Tell him that the Corrigans is the oldest stock in the whole country; that the time was, from the old square tower on Garraguin, you could n't see a spot of ground that was n't our own! Tell him,”—and, as he spoke, his flashing eye and heightened color showed how the theme agitated and excited him,—“tell him that if he turns us from hearth and home, it is not as if it was like some poor cotter—” He paused, his lips trembled, and the big tears burst from his eyes and rolled heavily down his face. “Oh! God forgive me for saying the words!” cried he, in an accent of deep agony. “Why wouldn't the humblest peasant that ever crouched to his meal of potatoes, beside the little turf fire of his cabin, love his home as well as the best blood in the land? No, no, Mat, it's little kindness we 'd deserve on such a plea as that.”