There was, however, another individual upon whose heart the calamity of
the _Cooleen Bawn_ fell like a blight that seemed to have struck it into
such misery and sorrow as threatened to end only with life. This was
the faithful and attached Ellen Connor. On the day of Reilly's trial
she experienced the alternations of hope, uncertainty, and despair, with
such a depth of anxious feeling, and such feverish excitement, that the
period of time which elapsed appeared to her as if it would never come
to an end. She could neither sit, nor stand, nor work, nor read, nor
take her meals, nor scarcely think with any consistency or clearness
of thought. We have mentioned hope--but it was the faintest and the
feeblest element in that chaos of distress and confusion which filled
and distracted her mind. She knew the state and condition of the country
too well--she knew the powerful influence of Mr. Folliard in his native
county--she knew what the consequences to Reilly must be of taking
away a Protestant heiress; the fact was there--plain, distinct, and
incontrovertible, and she knew that no chance of impunity or acquittal
remained for any one of his creed guilty of such a violation of the
laws--we say, she knew all this--but it was not of the fate of Reilly
she thought. The girl was an acute observer, and both a close and clear
thinker. She had remarked in the _Cooleen Bawn_, on several occasions,
small gushes, as it were, of unsettled thought, and of temporary
wildness, almost approaching to insanity. She knew, besides, that
insanity was in the family on her father's side; * and, as she had so
boldly and firmly stated to that father himself, she dreaded the
result which Reilly's conviction might produce upon a mind with such
a tendency, worn down and depressed as it had been by all she had
suffered, and more especially what she must feel by the tumult and
agitation of that dreadful day.