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. While terror and dismay, therefore, spread amidst that wide
and respectable body who formed O'Malley's creditors, the preparations
for his funeral were going on with every rapidity. Relays of horses were
ordered at every stage of the journey, and it was announced that, in
testimony of his worth, a large party of his friends were to accompany his
remains to Portumna Abbey,--a test much more indicative of resistance
in the event of any attempt to arrest the bo