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THE KELLYS AND THE O'KELLYS

by

ANTHONY TROLLOPE





Contents

I. The Trial
II. The Two Heiresses
III. Morrison's Hotel
IV. The Dunmore Inn
V. A Loving Brother
VI. The Escape
VII. Mr Barry Lynch Makes a Morning Call
VIII. Mr Martin Kelly Returns to Dunmore
IX. Mr Daly, the Attorney
X. Dot Blake's Advice
XI. The Earl of Cashel
XII. Fanny Wyndham
XIII. Father and Son
XIV. The Countess
XV. Handicap Lodge
XVI. Brien Boru
XVII. Martin Kelly's Courtship
XVIII. An Attorney's Office in Connaught
XIX. Mr Daly Visits the Dunmore Inn
XX. Very Liberal
XXI. Lord Ballindine at Home
XXII. The Hunt
XXIII. Dr Colligan
XXIV. Anty Lynch's Bed-Side; Scene the First
XXV. Anty Lynch's Bed-Side; Scene the Second
XXVI. Love's Ambassador
XXVII. Mr Lynch's Last Resource
XXVIII. Fanny Wyndham Rebels
XXIX. The Countess of Cashell in Trouble
XXX. Lord Kilcullen Obeys His Father
XXXI. The Two Friends
XXXII. How Lord Kilcullen Fares in His Wooing
XXXIII. Lord Kilcullen Makes Another Visit to the Book-Room
XXXIV. The Doctor Makes a Clean Breast of It
XXXV. Mr Lynch Bids Farewell to Dunmore
XXXVI. Mr Armstrong Visits Grey Abbey on a Delicate Mission
XXXVII. Veni; Vidi; Vici
XXXVIII. Wait Till I Tell You
XXXIX. It Never Rains but It Pours
XL. Conclusion





I. THE TRIAL


During the first two months of the year 1844, the greatest possible
excitement existed in Dublin respecting the State Trials, in which
Mr O'Connell, [1] his son, the Editors of three different repeal
newspapers, Tom Steele, the Rev. Mr Tierney--a priest who had taken
a somewhat prominent part in the Repeal Movement--and Mr Ray, the
Secretary to the Repeal Association, were indicted for conspiracy.
Those who only read of the proceedings in papers, which gave them as
a mere portion of the news of the day, or learned what was going on
in Dublin by chance conversation, can have no idea of the absorbing
interest which the whole affair created in Ireland, but more especially
in the metropolis. Every one felt strongly, on one side or on the
other. Every one had brought the matter home to his own bosom, and
looked to the result of the trial with individual interest and
suspense.

[FOOTNOTE 1: The historical events described here form a backdrop
to the novel. Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847) came from
a wealthy Irish Catholic family. He was educated in
the law, which he practiced most successfully, and
developed a passion for religious and political
liberty. In 1823, together with Lalor Sheil and
Thomas Wyse, he organized the Catholic Association,
whose major goal was Catholic emancipation. This was
achieved by act of parliament the following year.
O'Connell served in parliament in the 1830's and was
active in the passage of bills emancipating the Jews
and outlawing slavery. In 1840 he formed the Repeal
Association, whose goal was repeal of the 1800 Act
of Union which joined Ireland to Great Britain. In
1842, after serving a year as Lord Mayor of Dublin,
O'Connell challenged the British government by
announcing that he intended to achieve repeal within
a year. Though he openly opposed violence, Prime
Minister Peel's government considered him a threat
and arrested O'Connell and his associates in 1843
on trumped-up charges of conspiracy, sedition, and
unlawfule assembly. They were tried in 1844, and all
but one were convicted, although the conviction was
later overturned in the House of Lords. O'Connell did
serve some time in jail and was considered a martyr
to the cause of Irish independence.]

Even at this short interval Irishmen can now see how completely they
put judgment aside, and allowed feeling and passion to predominate in
the matter. Many of the hottest protestants, of the staunchest foes
to O'Connell, now believe that his absolute imprisonment was not to
be desired, and that whether he were acquitted or convicted, the
Government would have sufficiently shown, by instituting his trial, its
determination to put down proceedings of which they did not approve. On
the other hand, that class of men who then styled themselves Repealers
are now aware that the continued imprisonment of their leader--the
persecution, as they believed it to be, of "the Liberator" [2]--would
have been the one thing most certain to have sustained his influence,
and to have given fresh force to their agitation. Nothing ever so
strengthened the love of the Irish for, and the obedience of the Irish
to O'Connell, as his imprisonment; nothing ever so weakened his power
over them as his unexpected enfranchisement [3]. The country shouted
for joy when he was set free, and expended all its enthusiasm in the
effort.

[FOOTNOTE 2: The Irish often referred to Daniel O'Connell as
"the liberator."]

[FOOTNOTE 3: enfranchisement--being set free. This is a political
observation by Trollope.]

At the time, however, to which I am now referring, each party felt the
most intense interest in the struggle, and the most eager desire for
success. Every Repealer, and every Anti-Repealer in Dublin felt that
it was a contest, in which he himself was, to a certain extent,
individually engaged. All the tactics of the opposed armies, down to
the minutest legal details, were eagerly and passionately canvassed in
every circle. Ladies, who had before probably never heard of "panels"
in forensic phraseology, now spoke enthusiastically on the subject;
and those on one side expressed themselves indignant at the fraudulent
omission of certain names from the lists of jurors; while those on the
other were capable of proving the legality of choosing the jury from
the names which were given, and stated most positively that the
omissions were accidental.

"The traversers" [4] were in everybody's mouth--a term heretofore
confined to law courts, and lawyers' rooms. The Attorney-General,
the Commander-in-Chief of the Government forces, was most virulently
assailed; every legal step which he took was scrutinised and abused;
every measure which he used was base enough of itself to hand down his
name to everlasting infamy. Such were the tenets of the Repealers. And
O'Connell and his counsel, their base artifices, falsehoods, delays,
and unprofessional proceedings, were declared by the Saxon party to be
equally abominable.

[FOOTNOTE 4: traversers--Trollope repeatedly refers to the
defendants as "traversers." The term probably comes
from the legal term "to traverse," which is to deny
the charges against one in a common law proceeding.
Thus, the traversers would have been those who pled
innocent.]

The whole Irish bar seemed, for the time, to have laid aside the
habitual _sang froid_ [5] and indifference of lawyers, and to have
employed their hearts as well as their heads on behalf of the different
parties by whom they were engaged. The very jurors themselves for a
time became famous or infamous, according to the opinions of those
by whom their position was discussed. Their names and additions were
published and republished; they were declared to be men who would stand
by their country and do their duty without fear or favour--so said the
Protestants. By the Roman Catholics, they were looked on as perjurors
determined to stick to the Government with blind indifference to their
oaths. Their names are now, for the most part, forgotten, though so
little time has elapsed since they appeared so frequently before the
public.

[FOOTNOTE 5: sang froid--(French) coolness in a trying situation,
lack of excitability]

Every day's proceedings gave rise to new hopes and fears. The evidence
rested chiefly on the reports of certain short-hand writers, who had
been employed to attend Repeal meetings, and their examinations and
cross-examinations were read, re-read, and scanned with the minutest
care. Then, the various and long speeches of the different counsel,
who, day after day, continued to address the jury; the heat of one,
the weary legal technicalities of another, the perspicuity of a third,
and the splendid forensic eloquence of a fourth, were criticised,
depreciated and admired. It seemed as though the chief lawyers of the
day were standing an examination, and were candidates for some high
honour, which each was striving to secure.

The Dublin papers were full of the trial; no other subject, could, at
the time, either interest or amuse. I doubt whether any affair of the
kind was ever, to use the phrase of the trade, so well and perfectly
reported. The speeches appeared word for word the same in the columns
of newspapers of different politics. For four-fifths of the contents of
the paper it would have been the same to you whether you were reading
the Evening Mail, or the Freeman. Every word that was uttered in the
Court was of importance to every one in Dublin; and half-an-hour's
delay in ascertaining, to the minutest shade, what had taken place in
Court during any period, was accounted a sad misfortune.

The press round the Four Courts [6], every morning before the doors
were open, was very great: and except by the favoured few who were able
to obtain seats, it was only with extreme difficulty and perseverance,
that an entrance into the body of the Court could be obtained.

[FOOTNOTE 6: The Four Courts was a landmark courthouse in Dublin
named for the four divisions of the Irish judicial
system: Common Pleas, Chancery, Exchequer, and King's
Bench.]

It was on the eleventh morning of the proceedings, on the day on which
the defence of the traversers was to be commenced, that two young men,
who had been standing for a couple of hours in front of the doors of
the Court, were still waiting there, with what patience was left to
them, after having been pressed and jostled for so long a time. Richard
Lalor Sheil, however, was to address the jury on behalf of Mr John
O'Connell--and every one in Dublin knew that that was a treat not to
be lost. The two young men, too, were violent Repealers. The elder of
them was a three-year-old denizen of Dublin, who knew the names of
the contributors to the "Nation", who had constantly listened to the
indignation and enthusiasm of O'Connell, Smith O'Brien, and O'Neill
Daunt, in their addresses from the rostrum of the Conciliation Hall
[7]; who had drank much porter at Jude's, who had eaten many oysters
at Burton Bindon's, who had seen and contributed to many rows in the
Abbey Street Theatre; who, during his life in Dublin, had done many
things which he ought not to have done, and had probably made as
many omissions of things which it had behoved him to do. He had that
knowledge of the persons of his fellow-citizens, which appears to be so
much more general in Dublin than in any other large town; he could tell
you the name and trade of every one he met in the streets, and was a
judge of the character and talents of all whose employments partook, in
any degree, of a public nature. His name was Kelly; and, as his calling
was that of an attorney's clerk, his knowledge of character would be
peculiarly valuable in the scene at which he and his companion were so
anxious to be present.

[FOOTNOTE 7: Conciliation Hall, Dublin, was built in 1843 as a
meeting place for O'Connell's Repeal Association.]

The younger of the two brothers, for such they were, was a somewhat
different character. Though perhaps a more enthusiastic Repealer
than his brother, he was not so well versed in the details of Repeal
tactics, or in the strength and weakness of the Repeal ranks. He was a
young farmer, of the better class, from the County Mayo, where he held
three or four hundred wretchedly bad acres under Lord Ballindine, and
one or two other small farms, under different landlords. He was a
good-looking young fellow, about twenty-five years of age, with that
mixture of cunning and frankness in his bright eye, which is so common
among those of his class in Ireland, but more especially so in
Connaught.

The mother of these two young men kept an inn in the small town of
Dunmore, and though from the appearance of the place, one would be
led to suppose that there could not be in Dunmore much of that kind
of traffic which innkeepers love, Mrs Kelly was accounted a warm,
comfortable woman. Her husband had left her for a better world some
ten years since, with six children; and the widow, instead of making
continual use, as her chief support, of that common wail of being a
poor, lone woman, had put her shoulders to the wheel, and had earned
comfortably, by sheer industry, that which so many of her class, when
similarly situated, are willing to owe to compassion.

She held on the farm, which her husband rented from Lord Ballindine,
till her eldest son was able to take it. He, however, was now a
gauger [8] in the north of Ireland. Her second son was the attorney's
clerk; and the farm had descended to Martin, the younger, whom we have
left jostling and jostled at one of the great doors of the Four Courts,
and whom we must still leave there for a short time, while a few more
of the circumstances of his family are narrated.

[FOOTNOTE 8: gauger--a British revenue officer often engaged in
the collection of duties on distilled spirits.]

Mrs Kelly had, after her husband's death, added a small grocer's
establishment to her inn. People wondered where she had found the means
of supplying her shop: some said that old Mick Kelly must have had
money when he died, though it was odd how a man who drank so much could
ever have kept a shilling by him. Others remarked how easy it was to
get credit in these days, and expressed a hope that the wholesale
dealer in Pill Lane might be none the worse. However this might be,
the widow Kelly kept her station firmly and constantly behind her
counter, wore her weeds and her warm, black, stuff dress decently and
becomingly, and never asked anything of anybody.

At the time of which we are writing, her two elder sons had left her,
and gone forth to make their own way, and take the burden of the world
on their own shoulders. Martin still lived with his mother, though his
farm lay four miles distant, on the road to Ballindine, and in another
county--for Dunmore is in County Galway, and the lands of Toneroe, as
Martin's farm was called, were in the County Mayo. One of her three
daughters had lately been married to a shop-keeper in Tuam, and rumour
said that he had got L500 with her; and Pat Daly was not the man to
have taken a wife for nothing. The other two girls, Meg and Jane, still
remained under their mother's wing, and though it was to be presumed
that they would soon fly abroad, with the same comfortable plumage
which had enabled their sister to find so warm a nest, they were
obliged, while sharing their mother's home, to share also her labours,
and were not allowed to be too proud to cut off pennyworths of tobacco,
and mix dandies of punch for such of their customers as still preferred
the indulgence of their throats to the blessing of Father Mathew.

Mrs. Kelly kept two ordinary in-door servants to assist in the work of
the house; one, an antiquated female named Sally, who was more devoted
to her tea-pot than ever was any bacchanalian to his glass. Were there
four different teas in the inn in one evening, she would have drained
the pot after each, though she burst in the effort. Sally was, in all,
an honest woman, and certainly a religious one;--she never neglected
her devotional duties, confessed with most scrupulous accuracy the
various peccadillos of which she might consider herself guilty; and
it was thought, with reason, by those who knew her best, that all the
extra prayers she said,--and they were very many,--were in atonement
for commissions of continual petty larceny with regard to sugar. On
this subject did her old mistress quarrel with her, her young mistress
ridicule her; of this sin did her fellow-servant accuse her; and,
doubtless, for this sin did her Priest continually reprove her; but
in vain. Though she would not own it, there was always sugar in
her pocket, and though she declared that she usually drank her tea
unsweetened, those who had come upon her unawares had seen her
extracting the pinches of moist brown saccharine from the huge slit
in her petticoat, and could not believe her.

Kate, the other servant, was a red-legged lass, who washed the
potatoes, fed the pigs, and ate her food nobody knew when or where.
Kates, particularly Irish Kates, are pretty by prescription; but Mrs.
Kelly's Kate had been excepted, and was certainly a most positive
exception. Poor Kate was very ugly. Her hair had that appearance of
having been dressed by the turkey-cock, which is sometimes presented by
the heads of young women in her situation; her mouth extended nearly
from ear to ear; her neck and throat, which were always nearly bare,
presented no feminine charms to view; and her short coarse petticoat
showed her red legs nearly to the knee; for, except on Sundays, she
knew not the use of shoes and stockings. But though Kate was ungainly
and ugly, she was useful, and grateful--very fond of the whole family,
and particularly attached to the two young ladies, in whose behalf she
doubtless performed many a service, acceptable enough to them, but of
which, had she known of them, the widow would have been but little
likely to approve.

Such was Mrs. Kelly's household at the time that her son Martin left
Connaught to pay a short visit to the metropolis, during the period of
O'Connell's trial. But, although Martin was a staunch Repealer, and had
gone as far as Galway, and Athlone, to be present at the Monster Repeal
Meetings which had been held there, it was not political anxiety alone
which led him to Dublin. His landlord; the young Lord Ballindine, was
there; and, though Martin could not exactly be said to act as his
lordship's agent--for Lord Ballindine had, unfortunately, a legal
agent, with whose services his pecuniary embarrassments did not
allow him to dispense--he was a kind of confidential tenant, and
his attendance had been requested. Martin, moreover, had a somewhat
important piece of business of his own in hand, which he expected would
tend greatly to his own advantage; and, although he had fully made up
his mind to carry it out if possible, he wanted, in conducting it, a
little of his brother's legal advice, and, above all, his landlord's
sanction.

This business was nothing less than an intended elopement with an
heiress belonging to a rank somewhat higher than that in which Martin
Kelly might be supposed to look, with propriety, for his bride; but
Martin was a handsome fellow, not much burdened with natural modesty,
and he had, as he supposed, managed to engage the affections of
Anastasia Lynch, a lady resident near Dunmore.

All particulars respecting Martin's intended--the amount of her
fortune--her birth and parentage--her age and attractions--shall,
in due time, be made known; or rather, perhaps, be suffered to make
themselves known. In the mean time we will return to the two brothers,
who are still anxiously waiting to effect an entrance into the august
presence of the Law.

Martin had already told his brother of his matrimonial speculations,
and had received certain hints from that learned youth as to the proper
means of getting correct information as to the amount of the lady's
wealth,--her power to dispose of it by her own deed,--and certain other
particulars always interesting to gentlemen who seek money and love at
the same time. John did not quite approve of the plan; there might have
been a shade of envy at his brother's good fortune; there might be
some doubt as to his brother's power of carrying the affair through
successfully; but, though he had not encouraged him, he gave him the
information he wanted, and was as willing to talk over the matter as
Martin could desire.

As they were standing in the crowd, their conversation ran partly on
Repeal and O'Connell, and partly on matrimony and Anty Lynch, as the
lady was usually called by those who knew her best.

"Tear and 'ouns Misther Lord Chief Justice!" exclaimed Martin, "and are
ye niver going to opin them big doors?"

"And what'd be the good of his opening them yet," answered John, "when
a bigger man than himself an't there? Dan and the other boys isn't in
it yet, and sure all the twelve judges couldn't get on a peg without
them."

"Well, Dan, my darling!" said the other, "you're thought more of here
this day than the lot of 'em, though the place in a manner belongs to
them, and you're only a prisoner."

"Faix and that's what he's not, Martin; no more than yourself, nor so
likely, may-be. He's the traverser, as I told you before, and that's
not being a prisoner. If he were a prisoner, how did he manage to tell
us all what he did at the Hall yesterday?"

"Av' he's not a prisoner, he's the next-door to it; it's not of his own
free will and pleasure he'd come here to listen to all the lies them
thundhering Saxon ruffians choose to say about him."

"And why not? Why wouldn't he come here and vindicate himself? When you
hear Sheil by and by, you'll see then whether they think themselves
likely to be prisoners! No--no; they never will be, av' there's a ghost
of a conscience left in one of them Protesthant raps, that they've
picked so carefully out of all Dublin to make jurors of. They can't
convict 'em! I heard Ford, the night before last, offer four to one
that they didn't find the lot guilty; and he knows what he's about, and
isn't the man to thrust a Protestant half as far as he'd see him."

"Isn't Tom Steele a Protesthant himself, John?"

"Well, I believe he is. So's Gray, and more of 'em too; but there's a
difference between them and the downright murdhering Tory set. Poor Tom
doesn't throuble the Church much; but you'll be all for Protesthants
now, Martin, when you've your new brother-in-law. Barry used to be one
of your raal out-and-outers!"

"It's little, I'm thinking, I and Barry'll be having to do together,
unless it be about the brads; and the law about them now, thank God,
makes no differ for Roman and Protesthant. Anty's as good a Catholic
as ever breathed, and so was her mother before her; and when she's Mrs
Kelly, as I mane to make her, Master Barry may shell out the cash and
go to heaven his own way for me."

"It ain't the family then, you're fond of, Martin! And I wondher at
that, considering how old Sim loved us all."

"Niver mind Sim, John! he's dead and gone; and av' he niver did a good
deed before, he did one when he didn't lave all his cash to that
precious son of his, Barry Lynch."

"You're prepared for squalls with Barry, I suppose?"

"He'll have all the squalling on his own side, I'm thinking, John. I
don't mane to squall, for one. I don't see why I need, with L400 a-year
in my pocket, and a good wife to the fore."

"The L400 a-year's good enough, av' you touch it, certainly," said the
man of law, thinking of his own insufficient guinea a-week, "and you
must look to have some throuble yet afore you do that. But as to the
wife--why, the less said the better--eh, Martin?

"Av' it's not asking too much, might I throuble you, sir, to set
anywhere else but on my shouldher?" This was addressed to a very fat
citizen, who was wheezing behind Martin, and who, to escape suffocation
in the crowd, was endeavouring to raise himself on his neighbour's
shoulders. "And why the less said the better?--I wish yourself may
never have a worse."

"I wish I mayn't, Martin, as far as the cash goes; and a man like me
might look a long time in Dublin before he got a quarter of the money.
But you must own Anty's no great beauty, and she's not over young,
either."

"Av' she's no beauty, she's not downright ugly, like many a girl that
gets a good husband; and av' she's not over young, she's not over old.
She's not so much older than myself, after all. It's only because her
own people have always made nothing of her; that's what has made
everybody else do the same."

"Why, Martin, I know she's ten years older than Barry, and Barry's
older than you!"

"One year; and Anty's not full ten years older than him. Besides,
what's ten years between man and wife?"

"Not much, when it's on the right side. But it's the wrong side with
you, Martin!"

"Well, John, now, by virtue of your oath, as you chaps say, wouldn't
you marry a woman twice her age, av' she'd half the money?--Begad you
would, and leap at it!"

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