Anthony Trollope

“ Thady's disposition had not been prone to hope; he had never been too sanguine—never sanguine enough. From the years to which his earliest memory could fall back, he had been fighting an earnest, hard battle with the world's cares, and though not thoroughly vanquished, he had always been worsted. He had never experienced what men called luck, and he therefore never expected it. Few men in any rank of life had known so little joy as he had done, or had so little pleasure; his only object in life had been to drive the wolf from his father's door and to keep a roof over him and his sister. ”

“ Oh, what an easy, quiet mind, thought Thady, must that man have—how devoid of care and fear must he be, to be able to sit there motionless all the live-long day, and not feel it dreary, long, endless, insupportable, as he did.
The girl was still absent, and Thady again sat himself down by the fire, the blazing turf on which gave the only signs that the old man had moved. Again he counted the rafters, counted the miserable scraps of furniture, counted the sods of turf, speculated where the turf was cut—who cut it? who was the landlord of the cabin? what rent was paid? ”

“ McKeon, both to you and to dear Lyddy and Louey, who have been so very kind to me. It is a deal better for me to be at home with my father; my heart's nearly broken with all I've gone through; but he'll bear with me, for he's used to me. Give my compliments to Doctor Blake. Pray beg him not to come to Ballycloran. I am in his debt a great deal already, and how will I ever pay him? Besides, I'm a deal better now, as you see, in health; it's only the heart now that ails me. Give my kind love to Lyddy and Louey. ”

“ She never asked him—indeed, she did not dare to ask; she did not like to press him; and Captain Ussher had a frown about him, which, somehow, Feemy had already learnt to fear.
He treated her too a little cavalierly, and her father and brother not a little. He ridiculed openly all that with her, hitherto, had been most sacred—her priest and her religion. She was not angry at this; she was hardly aware of it; and, in fact, was gradually falling into his way of thinking; but the effect upon her was the same—it made her uncomfortable. A girl should never obey her lover till she is married to him ”

“ This is no place for her now. They never open the front door now. This is no place for any one now, but just father and me. But tell her how I love her. I'll never forget her; no, not in my grave!"
"But I've another message for you, Feemy."
"Is it from her?"
"No, not from her, well as she loves you; it's from one who loves you better than she does; it is from one who loves you better than any ever did, since your poor mother died."
Feemy raised her eyes, and clasped her hands, as she listened to Father John's words, and marked his solemn tones. No thought of Thady entered her mind ”

“ Well, dearest, you needn't quarrel with them; say you're ill, and wish to be at home; but don't make difficulties, love; don't look so unhappy; you'll be as happy as the day is long, when we're once away—that is, if you still love me, Feemy. I hope, after all I'm doing for you, you'll not be sullen and cold to me because you're leaving such a hole as Ballycloran. If you don't love me, Feemy, say so, and you may stay where you are. ”

“ Thady now shook in his chair, as though he could hardly keep his seat; he felt the perspiration stand upon his brow, and he wiped it off with his sleeve; he did not dare to deny that he had done this, of which Father John was accusing him, though he felt that he had been far from instigating them to any crime like murder. Father John continued:
"If you have joined these men,—if you have bound yourself to these men by any oath,—if there is any league between you and them, let me implore you to disregard it; nothing can be binding, that is only to bind you to greater wickedness. ”

“ No wife could love her husband more truly than Feemy loved that man: unworthy as he was, he was all in all to her. Would it not, therefore, show more heartlessness in her to forget him that is now dead, than the brother who killed him? Of course she loved him better than her brother, as every woman loves the man she does love better than all the world. How can she forget him? Be gentle to her, Father John, and I think she will do what you desire."
Father John promised that he would comply with Mrs. McKeon's advice, and he was as good as his word. ”

“ He grumbled at his dinner, which consisted of nothing but potatoes, some milk, and an egg, and he scolded Feemy for having no meat; after dinner she mixed him a tumbler of punch, for there was still a little of Tony's whiskey in the house; and whether it was that she made it stronger for him and better than that which Mary McGovery was in the habit of mixing, or that the action to which he had been for so many years accustomed roused some pleasant memory within him, when he tasted it, he said—
"Heaven's blessing on you, Feemy, my daughter; may you live many happy years with the man you love." ”

“ Too much pace isn't good for Pat, no how; he'll never do no good, you'll see, when he comes to have so much of his own way. 'Deed then, the heart's low within me, to be laving Pat this way!" And Miss Brady put the tail of her gown into the corner of her eye.
"But Mary, you'll have to be caring more for your husband now. I suppose you love Denis McGovery, don't you? I'd never marry a man unless I loved him." ”

“ Vainly you think to yourself that it can hardly be of such vital import that you, her father's friend, saw little Letty Murphy's hand ensconced one evening in the brawny palm of that false Lothario O'Flanagan; yes, of serious import is it—if not to Letty, or to Terence—yet to that facetious barrister, Mr. O'Laugher, who, at your expense, is going to amuse the dull court for a brief half-hour,—and of importance to yourself, who are about to become the laughing-stock of your county for the next twelve months. ”

“ But I can fancy no case in which death, however much it may be lamented, can lay less of the murderer's stain upon the hand that inflicts it, than one in which a brother interferes to rescue a sister from the violent grasp of a seducer. Such was precisely the case in the instance now before us. My learned friend on the other side has truly told you that Miss Macdermot, the prisoner's sister, had consented to elope with Captain Ussher on the evening on which that man was killed. You have learnt, from evidence which you have no reason to doubt, that she had prepared to do so. ”

“ But if the beautiful girls of this poor country knew but half the charms which neatness has, they would not so often appear as poor Feemy too usually appeared.
Like her brother, she was ardent and energetic, if she had aught to be ardent about; she was addicted to novels, when she could get them from the dirty little circulating library at Mohill; she was passionately fond of dancing, which was her chief accomplishment; she played on an old spinnet which had belonged to her mother; and controlled the motions and actions of the two barefooted damsels who officiated as domestics at Ballycloran. ”

“ Macdermot kept up his heart wonderfully through the whole week. He never repined, nor once even alluded to Keegan. Father John spent the whole of Sunday with him. It was to be his last in this world; the last time he was to watch the light growing out of the darkness—and the darkness following the light. As the minutes flew by, his face became gradually paler, and his hand occasionally trembled. The brave soldier goes to meet Death, and meets him without a shudder when he comes. ”

“ She had great difficulty too in inducing Mary to leave her alone to herself. Had that woman the slightest particle of softness in her composition, anything of the tenderness of a woman about her, Feemy would have made a confidant of her, and her present sufferings would have been immeasurably decreased; but Mary was such an iron creature—so loud, so hard, so equable in her temper, so impenetrable, that Feemy could not bring herself to tell her tale of woe, which otherwise she would have been tempted to disclose. ”

“ Was she at plough after last winter, Pat?"
"She had other work to do, then, for she had to carry me twice a week through the season; and that she did—and that's not light work, I think."
"Carry you, Pat!" said Gayner; "why, you don't mean to say you hunt that old garron you call Diana? Faith, man, you're too bold; your friends ought to look to you; what would the country do if you broke your neck?"
"It's your own is in most danger, I'm thinking," replied Pat; "faith, I wouldn't take all the pick up to-morrow, to ride that devil you're to ride over the course." ”

“ Thady took all the pains he could, and all the patience he could muster, to prove to the old man that he was only desirous to do the best he could for him and Feemy. He had even told him that he had absolutely quarrelled and come to blows with the attorney, on the day of his visit; but it was all in vain, and when he got himself to bed he was puzzled to think whether Keegan and Ussher, or his father and Feemy, caused him most trouble and unhappiness. ”

“ And yet for this abode the man pays rent.
The miserable appearance of Irish peasants, when in the very lowest poverty, strikes one more forcibly in the towns than in the open country. The dirt and filth around them seems so much more oppressive on them; they have no escape from it. There is much also in ideas and associations. On a road-side, or on the borders of a bog, the dusty colour of the cabin walls, the potato patch around it, the green scraughs or damp brown straw which form its roof, all the appurtenances, in fact, of the cabin, seem suited to the things around it. ”

“ McKeon's not the least angry; if you are more at ease here than at Drumsna, she's glad for your sake you're here now, and she bids me tell you how sorry she is she didn't give you the car the day you asked for it."
"Oh, Father John, Mrs. McKeon's been too kind to me. Indeed I love her dearly, though I could never tell her so. Give her my kind love. I never thought she was so kind a woman."
"I will, Feemy; indeed I will. She is a kind woman; and it will please her to the heart to hear how you speak of her. She sends you all manner of loves, and Lyddy and Louey too. ”

“ In such a place as Carrick-on-Shannon, a breach of promise of marriage case is not an every day treat, and, consequently, men are determined to make the most of it. Counsellor O'Laugher runs his hands through his dark grey hair, opens wide his light blue eye, pulls out the needful papers from that bottomless bag, and though but the other moment so signally defeated in the other court, with sure trust in his own resources prepares for victory. ”

“ He got up, and leaving his companion to himself, he went to the lime-kiln and laid himself on the top of it, looking down the mountain towards Loch Allen and Drumshambo, that he might see if any of the police were coming in search of him. The open air was for a time pleasanter than the close heat of the burning turf, and solitude by far preferable to the company of that silent old man,—but it was only for a short time that he felt the relief. ”

“ Which of you will tell me that in avenging the wrongs of a sister, or of a daughter, he would pause to measure the weight of his stick, or the number of his blows. Fancy each of you that you see the form of her you love best in the rough grasp of a violent seducer! Endeavour to bring home to yourselves the feelings to which such a sight would give rise within you! and then, if you can, find that young man guilty of murder, because his heart was warm to feel his sister's wrongs and his hand was strong to avenge them. ”

“ There she sat; how little like the girl that had eclipsed Mary Cassidy at the ball at Mohill! Poor though Feemy was, she could make out a dress, and a handsome dress, for such an occasion as that. Then every hair on her fine head had been in its place; the curls of her rich brown hair were enough to win the heart of any man ”