"What can I do here? Is there anything serious in the difficulty?" said Forester, hurriedly; for he was in no humor to enjoy the abstract speculations in which Heffernan indulged.
"It might have been a very troublesome business," replied Heffernan, quietly: "the judge might have issued a bench warrant against you, if he did not want your cousin to make him chief baron; and Justice Conolly might have been much more technically accurate, if he was not desirous of seeing his son in an infantry regiment. It's all arranged now, however; there is only one point for your compliance,--you must get out of Ireland as fast as may be. O'Halloran will apply for a rule in the King's Bench, but the proceedings will not extend to England."
"I am indifferent where I go to," said Forester, turning away; "and provided this foolish affair does not get abroad, I am well content."
"Oh! as to that, you must expect your share of notoriety. O'Halloran will take care to display his martyrdom for the people! It will bring him briefs now; Heaven knows what greater rewards the future may have in store from it!"
"You heard the provocation," said Forester, with an unsuccessful attempt to speak calmly,--"the gross and most unpardonable provocation?"
"I was present," replied Heffernan, quietly.
"Well, what say you? Was there ever uttered an attack more false and foul? Was there ever conceived a more fiendish and malignant slander?"
"Not anything worse! No, nor ever one half so bad."
"Well, if you like it, I will agree with you; not one half so bad. It was untrue in all its details, unmanly in spirit. But, let me add, that such philippics have no lasting effect,--they are like unskilful mines, that in their explosion only damage the contrivers. O'Reilly, who was the real deviser of this same attack, whose heart suggested, whose head invented, and whose coffers paid for it, will reap all the obloquy he hoped to heap upon another. Take myself, for instance, an old time-worn man of the world, who has lived long enough never to be sudden in my friendships or my resentments, who thinks that liking and disliking are slow processes,--well, even I was shocked, outraged at this affair; and although having no more intimacy with Darcy than the ordinary intercourse of social life, confess I could not avoid acting promptly and decisively on the subject. It was a question, perhaps, more of feeling than actual judgment,--a case in which the first impulse may generally be deemed the right one." Here Heffernan paused, and drew himself up with an air that seemed to say, "If I am confessing to a weakness in my character, it is at least one that leans to virtue's side."