第28章 CHAPTER VII CONDEMNED(4)

"And I suppose you know that she is the prisoner's wife?"

"An' why wud ye be afther supposin' such a thing?"

"Well! well! Do you know it?"

"Do I know what?"

"Do you know that this woman, Paulina Koval, is the wife of the prisoner?"

"She might be."

"Oh, come now, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, we are not splitting hairs. You know perfectly well that this woman is the prisoner's wife."

"Indade, an' it's the cliver man ye are to know what I know better than I know mesilf."

"Well, well," said Mr. Staunton impatiently, "will you say that you do not consider this woman the prisoner's wife?"

"I will not," replied Mrs. Fitzpatrick emphatically, "any more than I won't say she's yer own."

"Well, well, let us get on. Let us suppose that this woman is his wife. How did the prisoner treat this woman?"

"An' how should he trate her?"

"Did he support her?"

"An' why should he, with her havin' two hands av her own?"

"Well now, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, surely you will say that it was a case of cruel neglect on the part of the prisoner that he should leave her to care for herself and her children, a stranger in a strange land."

"Indade, it's not fer me to be runnin' down the counthry," exclaimed Mrs. Fitzpatrick. "Sure, it's a good land, an' a foine counthry it is to make a livin' in," she continued with a glow of enthusiasm, "an' it's mesilf that knows it."

"Oh, the country is all right," said Mr. Staunton impatiently; "but did not this man abandon his wife?"

"An' if he's the man ye think he is wudn't she be the better quit av him?"

The lawyer had reached the limit of his patience.

"Well, well, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, we will leave the wife alone. But what of his treatment of the children?"

"The childer?" exclaimed Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "the childer, is it?

Man dear, but he's the thrue gintleman an' the tinder-hearted father fer his childer, an' so he is."

"Oh, indeed, Mrs. Fitzpatrick. I am sure we shall all be delighted to hear this. But you certainly have strange views of a father's duty toward his children. Now will you tell the court upon what ground you would extol his parental virtues?"

"Faix, it's niver a word I've said about his parental virtues, or any other kind o' virtues. I was talkin' about his childer."

"Well, then, perhaps you would be kind enough to tell the court what reason you have for approving his treatment of his children?"

Mrs. Fitzpatrick's opportunity had arrived. She heaved a great sigh, and with some deliberation began.

"Och! thin, an' it's just terrible heart-rendin' an' so it is. An' it's mesilf that can shpake, havin' tin av me own, forby three that's dead an' gone, God rest their sowls! an' four that's married, an' the rest all doin' well fer thimsilves. Indade, it's mesilf that has the harrt fer the childer. You will be havin' childer av yer own," she added confidentially to the lawyer.

A shout of laughter filled the court room, for Staunton was a confirmed and notorious old bachelor.

"I have the bad fortune, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, to be a bachelor," he replied, red to the ears.

"Man dear, but it's hard upon yez, but it's Hivin's mercy fer yer wife."

The laughter that followed could with difficulty be suppressed by the court crier.

"Go on, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, go on with your tale," said Staunton, who had frankly joined in the laugh against himself.

"I will that," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick with emphasis. "Where was I?

The man an' his childer. Sure, I'll tell Yer 'Anner." Here she turned to the judge. "Fer he," with a jerk of her thumb towards the lawyer, "knows nothin' about the business at all, at all. It was wan night he came to me house askin' to see his childer. The night o' the dance, Yer 'Anner. As I was sayin', he came to me house where the childer was, askin' to see thim, an' him without a look o' thim fer years. An' did they know him?" Mrs. Fitzpatrick's voice took a tragic tone. "Not a hair av thim. Not at the first.

Ah, but it was the harrt-rendin' scene, with not a house nor a home fer him to come till, an' him sendin' the money ivery month to pay fer it. But where it's gone, it's not fer me to say. There's some in this room" (here she regarded Rosenblatt with a steady eye), "might know more about that money an' what happened till it, than they know about Hivin. Ah, but as I was sayin', it wud melt the harrt av a Kerry steer, that's first cousin to the goats on the hills fer wildness, to see the way he tuk thim an' held thim, an' wailed over thim, the tinder harrt av him! Fer only wan small hour or two could he shtay wid thim, an' then aff to that haythen counthry agin that gave him birth. An' the way he suffered fer that same, poor dear! An' the beautiful wife he lost! Hivin be kind to her! Not her," following the judge's glance toward Paulina, "but an angel that need niver feel shame to shtand befure the blissid Payther himsilf, wid the blue eyes an' the golden hair in the picter he carries nixt his harrt, the saints have pity on him! An' how he suffered fer the good cause! Och hone! it breaks me harrt!" Here Mrs. Fitzpatrick paused to wipe away her tears.

"But, Mrs. Fitzpatrick," interrupted Mr. Staunton, "this is all very fine, but what has this to do--"

"Tut! man, isn't it that same I'm tellin' ye?" And on she went, going back to the scene she had witnessed in her own room between Kalmar and his children, and describing the various dramatis personae and the torrential emotions that had swept their hearts in that scene of final parting between father and children.

Again and again Staunton sought to stay her eloquence, but with a majestic wave of her hand she swept him aside, and with a wealth of metaphor and an unbroken flow of passionate, tear-bedewed rhetoric that Staunton himself might well envy, she held the court under her sway. Many of the women present were overcome with emotion.

O'Hara openly wiped away his tears, keeping an anxious eye the while upon the witness and waiting the psychological moment for the arresting of her tale.