No: there was not any good news. Counsellor Molyneux had indeed behaved as well as man could do: he had declared that he would undertake to manage and plead their cause in any court of justice on earth; and had expressed the strongest indignation against the villany of Hopkins; but, at the same time, he had fairly told the Grays that this litigious man, if they commenced a suit, might ruin them, by law, before they could recover their rights.
“So we may go to bed this night melancholy enough,” said Robin; “with the certainty that our mill is stopped, and that we have a long lawsuit to go through, before we can see it going again—if ever we do.”
Rose and Stafford looked at one another, and sighed.
“We had better not go to law, to lose the little we have left, at any rate,” said Mrs. Gray.
“Wife, I am determined my boys shall have justice,” said the father, firmly. “I am not fond of law, God knows! I never had a lawsuit in my life; nobody dreads such things more than I do; but I dread nothing in defence of my sons and justice. Whilst I have a penny left in the world, I’ll spend it to obtain them justice. The labour of their lives shall not be in vain; they shall not be robbed of all they have: they shall not be trampled upon by any one living, let him be ever so rich, or ever so litigious. I fear neither his money nor his quirks of law. Plain sense is the same for him and for me; and justice my boys shall have. Mr. Molyneux will plead our cause himself—desire no more. If we fail and are ruined, our ruin be upon the head of him who works it! I shall die content, when I have done all I can to obtain justice for my children.”
As soon as these facts were known, every body in the neighbourhood felt extreme indignation against Hopkins; and all joined in pitying the two brothers, and applauding the spirit of their father. There was not an individual who did not wish that Hopkins might be punished; but he had been engaged in so many lawsuits, and had been so successful in screening himself from justice, and in ruining his opponents, that every body feared the Grays, though they were so much in the right, would never be able to make this appear, according to the forms of law: many, therefore, advised that it might not be brought to trial. But farmer Gray persisted, and Counsellor Molyneux steadily abided by his word, and declared he would plead the cause himself.
Mr. Hopkins sent the counsellor a private hint, that if he directly or indirectly protected the Grays, he must give up all hopes of the forty-six votes which, as the county was now nearly balanced, must turn the election. Mr. Molyneux paid no attention to this hint; but, the very day on which he received it, visited farmer Gray in his cottage, walked with him to Rosanna-mill, and settled how the suit should be carried on.
Hopkins swore he would spare no expense to humble the pride both of the Grays and their protector: an unexpected circumstance, however, occurred. It had often been prophesied by Mr. Molyneux, who knew the species of bargains which Hopkins drove with all manner of people by whose distresses he could make money, that he would sooner or later overshoot his mark, as cunning persons often do. Mr. Molyneux predicted that, amongst the medley of his fraudulent purchases, he would at length be the dupe of some unsound title; and that, amongst the multitudes whom he ruined, he would at last meet with some one who would ruin him. The person who was the means of accomplishing this prophecy was indeed the last that would have been guessed—soft Simon O’Dougherty! In dealing with him, Mr. Hopkins, who thoroughly despised indolent honesty, was quite off his guard; and, in truth, poor Simon had no design to cheat him: but it happened that the lease, which he made over to Hopkins, as his title to the field that he sold, was a lease renewable for ever; with a strict clause, binding the lessee to renew, within a certain time after the failure of each life, under penalty of forfeiting the lease. From the natural laziness of easy Simon, he had neglected to renew, and had even forgotten that the life was dropped: he assigned his lease over a bottle to Mr. Hopkins, who seized it with avidity, lest he should lose the lucky moment to conclude a bargain in which, he thought, he had at once over-reached Simon, and had secured to himself the means of wreaking his vengeance upon the Grays. This lease was of the field adjoining to Rosanna-mill; and by the testimony of some old people in the neighbourhood, he fancied he could prove that this meadow was anciently flooded, and that the mill-course had gone into disuse. In all his subsequent operations, he had carefully kept himself, as he thought, upon his own lands; but, now that a suit against him was instituted, it was necessary to look to his own title, into which he knew Mr. Molyneux would examine.
Upon reading over the lease assigned to him by Simon, he noticed the strict clause, binding the tenant to renew within a certain time. A qualm came over him! He was astonished at himself for not having more carefully perused the lease before he concluded the bargain. Had it been with any one but soft Simon, this could not have happened. He hastened in search of Simon with the utmost anxiety, to inquire whether all the lives were in being. Simon at first said he had such a mist over his memory that he could not exactly recollect who the lives were; but at last he made out that one of them had been dead beyond the time for renewal. The gentleman, his landlord, he said, was in Dublin; and he had neglected, sure enough, to write to him from post to post.
The rage of Mr. Hopkins was excessive: he grew white with anger! Easy Simon yawned, and begged him not to take the thing so to heart: “for, after all,” said he, “you know the loss must be mine. I can’t make good the sale of this field to you, as I have lost it by my own carelessness: but that’s nothing to you; for you know, as well as I do, that to make good the deficiency, you will, somehow or other, get a better piece of ground out of the small remains of patrimony I have left, God help me!”