“Perhaps you are thinking of doing something of the kind,” he suggested with the demon which was in him looking threateningly out of his eyes.
“No,” she said wearily; “I do not care about anything for myself now, it was only for the children’s sake I spoke; only to get them away from a place where their father’s sins are sung through the streets, where—”
He did not let her finish the sentence. He struck her down where she stood, and with a parting piece of advice to “keep a quieter tongue in her head or it would be worse for her and her brats too,” left the room, banging the door after him.
There was nothing in this so particularly new as to astonish Nettie. She was not much hurt, but as she raised herself slowly to a sitting position, she put her hand to her head with a gesture as of one suffering some cruel pain.
“How long,” she murmured, “how long can I bear it? God grant me strength to endure to the end. If mothers could foresee what ‘Deliver us from evil’ may some day come to mean, they might hope their babies would never live to learn a prayer.”
Mr. Brady’s mother it may reasonably be supposed had been tempted to indulge in somewhat similar thoughts before death considerately removed her from a contemplation of her son’s demerits; and certainly public opinion had so rapidly discovered all the shortcomings of the owner of Maryville that it was tacitly admitted (so far as human judgment could understand), if he had never been born it would have been better for him and all belonging to him.
One of the effects of this widely-spread prejudice against a man who, determined to rise by his own efforts, had certainly spared no pains in the attempt, was that from having his wrongs comparatively speaking overlooked Amos Scott became at once a popular and distinguished individual. Letters were sent to certain newspapers on the subject of tenantright, in which Scott’s case was mentioned. Leaders were written referring directly to the still unsettled dispute at the Castle Farm, and indirectly to the attempt of one of the disputants to appropriate the inheritance of a gentleman of whom the county was deservedly proud.
Mr. Brady threatened to proceed against the proprietor of one of the Kilcurragh papers unless an apology were inserted, but the proprietor inserted no apology, and no proceedings were instituted. A man who has a whole county against him may well be excused for dreading the cross-examination of an Irish barrister, and this man dreaded it with a wholesome horror, and was discreet accordingly.
All this time Amos Scott was retailing his grievances to lawyer after lawyer, walking many miles to “get speech” of gentlemen he thought might take his part, and get him his rights as he called them.
He would be off early in the morning—a piece of oat-cake, or griddle bread, in the pocket of his home-spun blue frieze coat, and he would come home at night foot-sore and weary, having broken his fast with no other food save that mentioned, washed down by a draught of water from some way-side brook, too tired to eat, too sick at heart to sleep.