“That's Denny Cassin,” whispered he, “the greatest newsmonger in Dublin.”
“The devil recave the fight ever I heerd of hadn't a woman in it, somehow or other; an' if she did n't begin it, she was sure to come in at the end, and make it worse. Was n't it a woman that got Hemphill Daly shot? Was n't it a woman was the death of Major Brown, of Coolmiues? Was n't it a woman—”
“Arrah! bother ye, Denny!” broke in the representative of the sex, who stood an impatient listener to this long indictment; “what's worth fightin' for in the world barrin' ourselves?”
A scornful laugh was all the reply he deigned to this appeal; and he went on,—
“I often said what Barry Rutledge 'ud come to,—ay, and I told himself so. 'You 've a bad tongue,' says I, 'and you 've a bad heart. Some day or other you 'll be found out;' and ye see, so he was.”
“I wonder who did it!” exclaimed another.
“My wonder is,” resumed Denny, “that it was n't done long ago; or instead of one wound in his skin, that he had n't fifty. Do you know that when I used to go up to the officers' room with oranges, I'd hear more wickedness out of his mouth in one mornin' than I 'd hear in Pill Lane, here, in a month of Sundays. There was n't a man dined at the Castle, there was n't a lady danced at the Coort, that he had n't a bad story about; and he always began by saying: 'He and I were old schoolfellows,' or 'She 's a great friend of mine.' I was up there the morning after the Coort came home from Carew Castle; and if ye heard the way he went on about the company. He began with Curtis, and finished with Carew himself.”
Fagan closed the door here, and, walking over, sat down beside my father's chair.
“We 've heard enough now, sir,” said he, “to know what popular opinion will pronounce upon this man. Denny speaks with the voice of a large mass of this city; and if they be not either very intelligent or exalted, they are at least fellows who back words by deeds, and are quite ready to risk their heads for their convictions,—a test of honesty that their betters, perhaps, would shrink from. From what he says, there will be little sympathy for Rutledge. The law, of course, will follow its due path; but the law against popular feeling is like the effort of the wind to resist the current of a fast river: it may ruffle the surface, but never will arrest the stream. Now, sir, just tell me, in a few words, what took place between you?”
My father detailed everything, from the hour of his arrival in Dublin, down to the very moment of his descending at Fagan's door. He faltered, indeed, and hesitated about the conversation of the coffee-room, for even in all the confidence of a confession, he shrunk from revealing the story of his marriage. And in doing so, he stammered and blundered so much that Fagan could collect little above the bare facts, that my mother had been wagered at a card-table, and won by my father.