'No; that wouldn't have done at all. The fat would have been in the fire then, with a vengeance. But, as it is, they have no cause for complaint.'
It turned out as Fitzgerald said. When the case was brought before them for a preliminary hearing, the magistrates decided that in the face of his victim's refusal to testify against Trevor there was no case for a jury. At this decision there was agitation in some quarters, and talk about class feeling and the straining of justice on behalf of individuals; but everybody felt that both sides were tarred with the same brush, and the Catholics no doubt perceived that they had sold themselves: the better sort amongst them sympathized with Trevor's misfortune, and held aloof from the more extreme element. The matter was not vigorously pushed, and soon dropped into oblivion.
But the incident left its permanent mark upon Trevor. He was too soft-fibred to pass through such a fiery ordeal unscathed. Added to the fact of having a fellow-creature's life upon his hands, a man of his inoffensive type could not feel a whole community thirsting for his blood and show no sign thereafter. From that day he retired completely into himself, holding aloof from his neighbors, and within a few months had grown old and broken down before his time.
A BORDER WAR
'For God's sake give me a drink of whisky and soda to wash my heart down; it's been in my mouth all day,' said Fitzgerald, clattering into the room in his war panoply, his sword clanking against his spurs, and throwing himself into my favorite easy chair.
'What's the matter?' I asked, as I filled him a three-finger drink and put the decanter and siphon beside him.
'What! Haven't you heard the news, you benighted heathen? Why, the whole country's ringing with it.'
'Cease to praise your own exploits, and trot out your story,' I said firmly, 'or I'll take away the whisky.'
'Well,' he began, after draining his glass at a draught, 'from information received, as they say in the force, I learnt yesterday that there had been the beginnings of a pretty little fight up in the near end of Robertson's district. And I knew that he was due at the Assizes at the other end of the County to-day, so I thought I'd keep my eye on the case for him.