“And won’t ye, then, be after letting him off?” continued Mark Antony, warming into Hibernian eloquence, while his cheek flushed, and his dark eyes kindled. “Ye spoke a while ago about my doing you a civil turn—let this poor fellow free, and I’ll do ye twenty more, if you’ll only put me in the way. But if ye’re baste enough to murder him—mona bin diaoul!—the next time you’re in a skrimmage, and tumble over an ould tree, may the divil pick ye up for Mark Antony O’Toole. That’s all I have to say—Tiggum thu?” *
* Anglice, “Do ye understand?”,
The speaker paused. Most of the fosterer’s address Juan Diez comprehended; and such portion of the speech as had been delivered in Irish, being expletive, were not very material. To the appeal, however, he turned a deaf ear, and directed, that after his letter had been written, the prisoner’s sentence should be carried into immediate effect. I was about to remonstrate, but Mark Antony, having the ear of the Court, thus continued:—
“And is this your answer?” he exclaimed. “Ah, then, Empecinado, I have done with ye! Ay—and for all your fine speeches, I’m be-ginning to think you’re no great shakes, after all; and as to your promises, they’re very like what they call pig-shaving in Connaught—much noise and little wool. Come along, Hector, jewel! we won’t remain to see this poor gentleman fairly murdered. God forgive the whole of ye! I put the sign of the cross betune us.” And here the fosterer made a crusial flourish with his thumb in the direction of the guerilla chiefs. “I can only say, that if there are three gentlemen in Spain certain of a warm corner in the next world, I’m just at present taking a parting peep at them. Good morning to ye all. I’ll be obliged if you’ll send one of your understrappers to put us on the right road; and I hope, Mister Diez, that the next dacent lad ye tatter out of bed at cock-crow, to drag into a rookarn first, and a river afterwards—why—that you’ll trate him civiller than ye did me.”
There are few who are proof against eloquence, natural or acquired; and on all it has power alike, whether it be exercised in the fish-market or the Four Courts. On some men it may have opposite effects; and the florid appeal that carries away the judgment of the one, will only alarm the suspicions of another; and thus, the same jury, that on the showing of Mr. Charles Phillips, values an abstracted lady at a thousand pounds, after a prosy address from Sergeant Roundabout, will estimate a similar loss only at a sixpence. Mark Antony had very awkward judges to address; like his greater namesake, “he was no orator,” and possibly it was all the better for his client. We have some doubts, had Mr. Joseph Hume denounced the international illegality of despatching Lieutenant Cammaran of the 16th Voltigeurs, with the arithmetical precision with which, in the House of Commons, he would calculate the waste of human breath, that the brass band of the Guards inflicts on this distressed country,—we have doubts, up say, whether the Empecinado would have been a convert. Had the Liberator of Ireland blessed or banned for an hour by Shrewsbury clock, it would have been all the same to El Manco—and to the remonstrance of the Bench of Bishops, aided by a rescript from the Pope, the Cura would have irreverently played “deaf adder.” And yet, with such unmanageable authorities to deal with, Mark Antony’s eloquence prevailed.
“Stop!” cried Juan Diez, as the fosterer turned his back sullenly round, to wait while the condemned soldier conveyed to his orphan a last farewell.—“Will nothing but this Frenchman’s life acquit the service that I owe thee?”
“Nothing,” returned Mark Antony.—“what other favour could ye grant me? Hav’n’t I the free use of my limbs, and ten dollars besides in my pocket?”
“Well—if it must be so—I will not let thee leave me in thy debt. Frenchman—thou art saved!”
“Then, Pauline, thou mayst yet receive from living lips, that blessing which a dying hand was tracing!” and springing from the bench, the voltigeur flung his arms around the fosterer, and pressed him to his bosom.
“Heaven forbid,” said Juan Diez, addressing Mark Antony—“that I had many creditors like thee! Well—no matter—have I now acquitted all claims upon me to the full?”