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CHAPTER H. THE ESCAPE. When the dissolution of Parliament was announced the following morning in Dublin, its interest in certain circles was manifestly increased by the fact that Godfrey O'Malley was at last open to arrest; for as in olden times certain gifted individuals possessed some happy immunity against death by fire or sword, so the worthy O'Malley seemed to enjoy a no less valuable privilege, and for many a year had passed among the myrmidons of the law as writ-proof. Now, however, the charm seemed to have yielded; and pretty much with the same feeling as a storming party may be supposed to experience on the day that a breach is reported as practicable, did the honest attorneys retained in the various suits against him rally round each other that morning iu the Four Courts. Bonds, mortgages, post-obits, promissory notes in fact, every imaginable species of invention for raising the O'Malley exchequer for the preceding thirty years were handed about on all sides, suggesting to the mind of an uninterested observer the notion that had the aforesaid O'Malley been an independent and absolute monarch, instead of merely being the member for Galway, the kingdom over whose destinies he had been called to preside would have suffered not a little from a depreciated currency and an extravagant issue of paper. Be that as it might, one thing was clear, the whole estates of the family could not possibly pay one fourth of the debt; and the only question was one which occasionally arises at a scanty dinner on a mail-coach road, who was to be the lucky individual to carve the joint, where so many were sure to go off hungry ? It was now a trial of address between these various and highlygifted gentlemen who should first pounce upon the victim ; and when the skill of thei...
