“To punish you, Fardorougha? Fareer gaih avourneen, arn't we all punished? look at my worn face, and think of what ten days' sorrow can do in a mother's heart—think, too, of the boy. Oh no, no—do you think I've have nothin' to be punished for? But we have all one comfort, Fardorougha, and that is, that God's ever and always willin' to re-save us, when we turn to Him wid a true heart? Nobody, avillish, can forget and forgive as He does.”
“Honor, why didn't you oftener spake to me this a-way than you did?”
“I often did, dear, an' you may remember it; but you were then strong; you had your wealth; everything flowed wid you, an' the same wealth—the world's temptation—was strong in your heart; but God has taken it from you I hope as a blessing—for, indeed, Fardorougha, I'm afeard if you had it now, that neither he nor—but I won't say it, dear, for God sees I don't wish to say one word that 'ud distress you now, avourneen. Any how, Fardorougha, never despair in God's goodness—never do it; who can tell what may happen?”
Her husband's grief was thus checked, and a train of serious reflection laid, which, like some of those self-evident convictions that fastened on the awakened conscience, the old man could not shake off.
Honor, in her further conversation with him, touching the coming interview with the unhappy culprit, desired him, above all things, to set “their noble boy” an example of firmness, and by no means to hold out to him any expectation of life.
“It would be worse than murdher,” she exclaimed, “to do so. No—prepare him by your advice, Fardorougha, ay, and by your example, to be firm—and tell him that his mother expects he will die like an innocent man—noble and brave—and not like a guilty coward, afeard to look up and meet his God.”
Infidels and hypocrites, so long as their career in vice is unchecked by calamity, will no doubt sneer when we assure them, that Fardorougha, after leaving his wife that morning once more to visit his son, felt a sense of relief, or, perhaps we should say, a breaking of faint light upon his mind, which, slight as it was, afforded him more comfort and support than he ever hoped to experience. Indeed, it was almost impossible for any heart to exist within the influence of that piety which animated his admirable wife, and not catch the holy fire which there burned with such purity and brightness.
Ireland, however, abounds with such instances of female piety and fortitude, not, indeed, as they would be made to appear in the unfeminine violence of political turmoil, in which a truly pious female would not embroil herself; but in the quiet recesses of domestic life—in the hard struggles against poverty, and in those cruel visitations, where the godly mother is forced to see her innocent son corrupted by the dark influence of political crime, drawn within the vortex of secret confederacy, and subsequently yielding up his life to the outraged laws of that country which he assisted to distract. It is in scenes like these that the unostentatious magnanimity of the pious Irish wife or mother may be discovered; and it is here where, as the night and storms of life darken her path, the holy fortitude of her heart shines with a lustre proportioned to the depth of the gloom around her.
When Fardorougha reached the town in which his ill-fated son occupied the cell of a felon, he found to his surprise that, early as were his habits, there were others whose movements were still more early than his own. John O'Brien had come to town—been with his attorney—had got a memorial in behalf of Connor to the Irish government, engrossed, and actually signed by more than one—half of the jury who tried him—all before the hour of ten o'clock. A copy of thi's document, which was written by O'Brien himself, now lies before us, with the names of all the jurors attached to it; and a more beautiful or affecting piece of composition we have never read. The energy and activity of O'Brien were certainly uncommon, and so, indeed, were his motives. As he himself told Fardorougha, whom he met as the latter entered the town—
“I would do what I have done for Connor, although I have never yet exchanged a syllable with him. Yet, I do assure you, Fardorougha, that I have other motives—which you shall never know—far stronger than any connected with the fate of your son. Now, don't misunderstand me.”