Miss Daly knew her brother's temper too long and too well either to offer a continued opposition to any strongly expressed resolve, or to question him about a subject on which he showed any desire of reserve.
“Have you no Dublin news for me?” she said, as if willing to suggest some less touching subject for conversation.
“No, Molly; Dublin is deserted. The few who still linger in town seem only half awake to the new condition of events. The Government party are away to England; they feel, doubtless, bound in honor to dispense their gold in the land it came from; and the Patriots—Heaven bless the mark!—they look as rueful as if they began to suspect that Patriotism was too dear a luxury after all.”
“And this burning of Newgate,-what did it mean? Was there, as the newspaper makes out, anything like a political plot connected with it?”
“Nothing of the kind, Molly. The whole affair was contrived among the prisoners. Freney, the well-known highwayman, was in the jail, and, although not tried, his conviction was certain.”
“And they say he has escaped. Can it be possible that some persons of influence, as the journals hint, actually interested themselves for the escape of a man like this?”
“Everything is possible in a state of society like ours, Molly.”
“But a highwayman—a robber—a fellow that made the roads unsafe to travel!”
“All true,” said Daly, laughing. “Nobody ever kept a hawk for a singing-bird; but he 's a bold villain to pounce upon another.”
“I like not such appliances; they scarcely serve a good name, and they make a bad one worse.”