The Speaker fixed his red eyes on his son, and said,
"Alick, I must tell you something. I've heard on good authority that they are going to hang that girl."
"They can't. Some of them would like to, but they can't."
"They can and they will, I tell you."
"Then I'll .... I'll murder...."
"There you are! That's what Farrell says. A little more and you'll be capable of anything. Go away, my boy. Think of me. It has taken me forty years to get to where I am. I was born neither an aristocrat nor a pauper, but I've got my hand on all of them. That's just the kind of man both sorts would like to pull down. If my son disgraced me I should have to give up everything. Go, my son, go."
"I can't, father, I can't."
The old man passed his hand over his bald head and in a low voice he said,
"Perhaps I've not been a good father exactly, but there's your mother. Bad as it would be for me it would be worse for her. She has only one son—one child you might say—and since that affair at Castletown she has never been out of doors—just creeping over the fire with her feet in the fender. If you don't want to bring your mother to her grave...."
Gell felt as if his heart were breaking.