“Oh, never mind them,” exclaimed Mrs. Cavanagh, glancing at her daughter, “if you have any 'other news let us hear it—pass over the M'Mahons—they're not worth our talk, at least some o' them.”
“Pardon me, Mrs. Cavanagh;—if Achilles at the head of his myrmidons was to inform me to that effect, I'd tell him he had mistaken his customer. My principle, ma'am—and 'tis one I glory in—is to defend the absent in gineral, for it is both charitable and ginerous to do so—in gineral, I say; but when I know that they are unjustly aspersed, I contemplate it as' an act of duty on my part to vindicate them.”
“Well,” replied Mrs. Cavanagh, “that's all very right an' thrue, Mr. Finigan.”
“It is, Mr. Finig—O'Finigan,” observed James Cavanagh, who was present, “and your words are a credit and an honor to you.”
“Thanks, James, for the compliment; for it is but truth. The scandal I say (he proceeded without once regarding the hint: thrown out by Mrs. Cavanagh) which has! been so studiously disseminated against Bryan M'Mahon—spare your nods and winks, Mrs. Cavanagh, for if you winked at me with as many eyes as Argus had, and nodded at me wid as many heads as Hydra, or that baste in the Revelaytions, I'd not suppress a syllable of truth;—no, ma'am, the suppressio veri's no habit of mine; and I say and assert—ay, and asseverate—that that honest and high-spirited young man, named Bryan or Bernard M'Mahon, is the victim of villany and falsehood—ay, of devilish hatred and ingenious but cowardly vituperation.”
“Kathleen,” whispered her sister, “will you come out, darlin'? this talk must be painful to you.”
Kathleen gave her a look of much mingled sorrow and entreaty as went to her heart. Hanna, whose head had been lovingly reclining on her sister's bosom, pressed her gently but affectionately to her heart, and made no reply.
“You wor always a friend of his,” replied Mrs. Cavanagh, “an' of course you spake as a friend.”
“Yes,” said Finigan, “I always was a friend of his, because I always knew his honesty, his love of truth, his hatred of a mane action, ay, and his generosity and courage. I knew him from the very egg, I may say—ab ovo—Mrs. Cavanagh; it was I instilled his first principles into him. Oh! I know well! I never had a scholar I was so proud out of. Hycy Burke was smart, quick, and cunning; but then he was traicherous—something of a coward when he had his match—strongly addicted to fiction in most of his narratives, and what was still a worse point about him, he had the infamous ingenuity, whenever he had a point to gain—such as belying a boy and taking away his characther—of making truth discharge all the blackguard duties of falsehoood. Oh! I know them both well! But who among all I ever enlightened wid instruction was the boy that always tould the truth, even when it went against himself?—why, Bryan M'Mahon. Who ever defended the absent?—why, Bryan M'Mahon. Who ever and always took the part of the weak and defenceless against the strong and tyrannical?—why, Bryan M'Mahon. Who fought for his religion, too, when the young heretics used to turn it, or try to turn it, into ridicule—ay, and when cowardly and traicherous Hycy used to sit quietly by, and either put the insult in his pocket, or curry favor wid the young sneering vagabonds that abused it? And yet, at the time Hycy was a thousand times a greater little bigot than Bryan. The one, wid a juvenile rabble at his back, three to one, was a tyrant over the young schismatics; whilst Bryan, like a brave youth as he was, ever and always protected them against the disadvantage of numbers, and insisted on showing them fair play. I am warm, Mrs. Cavanagh,” he continued, “and heat, you know, generates thirst. I know that a drop o' the right sort used to be somewhere undher this same roof; but I'm afraid if the fama clamosa be thrue, that the side of the argument I have taken isn't exactly such as to guarantee me a touch at the native—that is, taking it for granted that there's any in the house.”
This request was followed by a short silence. The Cavanagh's all, with the exception of Kathleen, looked at each other, but every eye was marked either by indecision or indifference. At length Hanna looked at her sister, and simply said, “dear Kathleen!”