CHAPTER II.
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 in 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 highly gifted gentlemen who should first pounce upon the victim; and when the skill of their caste is taken into consideration, who will doubt that every feasible expedient for securing him was resorted to?
While writs were struck against him in Dublin, emissaries were despatched to the various surrounding counties to procure others in the event of his escape.

_Ne exeats_ were sworn, and water-bailiffs engaged to follow him on the high seas; and as the great Nassau balloon did not exist in those days, no imaginable mode of escape appeared possible, and bets were offered at long odds that within twenty-four hours the late member would be enjoying his _otium cum dignitate_ in his Majesty's jail of Newgate.
Expectation was at the highest, confidence hourly increasing, success all but certain, when in the midst of all this high-bounding hope the dreadful rumor spread that O'Malley was no more.

One had seen it just five minutes before in the evening edition of Falkner's paper; another heard it in the courts; a third overheard the Chief-Justice stating it to the Master of the Rolls; and lastly, a breathless witness arrived from College Green with the news that Daly's Club-House was shut up, and the shutters closed.
To describe the consternation the intelligence caused on every side is impossible; nothing in history equals it,--except, perhaps, the entrance of the French army into Moscow, deserted and forsaken by its former inhabitants.