“I can defend him with one counsel if you wish; but, if anxious to save the boy's life, you ought to enable your attorney to secure a strong bar of the most eminent lawyers he can engage.”
“An' what 'ud it cost to hire three or four of them?”
“The whole expenses might amount to between thirty and forty guineas.”
A deep groan of dismay, astonishment, and anguish, was the only reply made to this for some time.
“Oh, heavens above!” he screamed, “what will—what will become of me! I'd rather be dead, as I'll soon be, than hear this, or know it at all. How could I get it? I'm as poor as poverty itself! Oh, couldn't you feel for the boy, an' defend him on trust; couldn't you feel for him?”
“It's your business to do that,” returned the man of law, coolly.
“Feel for him; me! oh, little you know how my heart's in him; but any way, I'm an unhappy man; everything in the world wide goes against me; but—oh, my darlin' boy—Connor, Connor, my son, to be tould that I don't feel for you—well you know, avourneen machree—well you know that I feel for you, and 'ud kiss the track of your feet upon the ground: Oh, it's cruel to tell it to me; to say sich a thing to a man that his heart's braakin' widin him for your sake; but, sir, you sed this minute that you could defend him wid one lawyer?”
“Certainly, and with a cheap one, too, if you wish; but, in that case, I would rather decline the thing altogether.”
“Why? why? sure if you can defind him chapely, isn't it so much saved? isn't it the same as if you definded him at a higher rate? Sure, if one lawyer tells the truth for the poor boy, ten or fifteen can do no more; an' thin maybe they'd crass in an' puzzle one another if you hired too many of them.”
“How would you feel, should your son be found guilty; you know the penalty is his life. He will be executed.”