I took the brief from his hand, glanced my eyes upon the back of it, and read the words—"Taylor against Mortimer."
"Taylor against Mortimer!" I exclaimed, starting from my seat; "what Taylor?—what Mortimer? Not Jessy—my Jessy? Not the villain, Esau?—the supplanter——the——"
"Hold, hold," said the solicitor, in surprise; "such are, indeed, the names of the parties; but, if you are in an ecstasy already, I must take the brief to one who will read it soberly."
"No!" I cried, grasping the brief in my hand—"take back your fee—I will plead this cause for love."
"Keep the money—keep the money," said he, dryly; "it will be of as much service to you in the meantime as love. But let me know the cause of this enthusiasm."
I unbosomed my soul to him. I did not see Miss Mortimer until the day of trial, in the court; and, when I rose to plead for her, she started, the word "Roderic!" escaped from her lips, and tears gushed into her bright eyes. It was at the same moment that Esau Taylor saw and recognised me—his eyes quailed beneath my gaze; his guilt gushed to his face. I commenced my address to the jury—I drew the picture of a fiend. Taylor trembled. Every individual in the court was already convinced of his guilt. He endeavoured to escape amidst the crowd. I called upon the officers to seize him. I gained the cause, and with it, also, won the hand of Jessy Mortimer, to obtain which, from boy-hood I had persevered. Taylor was committed to prison, to stand his trial for the forgeries; but, before the day of trial came, he was buried within the prison walls, with disgrace for his epitaph.
THE IRISH REAPER.
Some years ago, I was proceeding from Runcorn to Manchester, in one of the passage-boats which ply upon the Duke of Bridgewater's canal. There could not be less than a hundred passengers, and they were of as motley a description as the imagination of man could conceive even in a dream. The boats exactly resemble a long, low, flat-roofed wooden house; but sufficiently lofty for a middle-sized person to stand erect between the floor and the roof, or rather the deck. At one end sat about a dozen Primitive Methodists, alternately reading passages of Scripture, or bursting forth, at the extreme pitch of their voice, into a squall of music, singing hymn upon hymn, till my very ears ached, and the timbers of the boat might have started. Near them sat a number of young, rosy-cheeked Welsh women, staring at the vocalists with a look of wondering vacancy, that the goats on their own mountains could not have surpassed. There were, also, manufacturers' wives and children returning from a seven days' visit to Runcorn, for the benefit of a salt-water dip in the Mersey; and six or eight prim, sober, sleek, silent, well-dressed Quakers; with a more than sprinkling of the boys of the Emerald Isle. The loud laugh of one of them was ever and anon heard above the shrill music of the Ranters. He was about five feet seven inches high, and exceedingly strong and well made. He wore an old greatcoat, of a yellowish blanket colour, and a hat, the crown of which had fallen in with service, and its brim was equally turned up before and behind, and on both sides. His feet were thrust into a pair of brogues of true Irish manufacture, which, with a pair of coarse blue worsted stockings and corduroy inexpressibles, completed his outward man. He carried an apparently empty sack under his arm, and was surrounded by about a dozen of his countrymen, who seemed to regard him as an oracle, heartily echoing back his boisterous laughter, and exclaiming, "Well done, Mister M'Carthy!—faith, and it's you that's your mother's own son, at any rate."
O'Connell had sailed from Liverpool on the previous day, and his countrymen were discussing his political merits.