Of course, I immediately performed my promise.  I had always intended that not only the young lady, but her father, should know what we thought of Patrick, and what he might have been, if he had lived.  I wrote to that potential personage, telling him of all the facts of the case, except the poverty, which might be omitted as essentially a slight and temporary circumstance.  I reported of his life of industry and simple self-denial,—­of his prospects, his friendships, his sweet and gay decline and departure, and his honorable funeral.  No answer was needed; and I had supposed there would hardly be one.  If there should be one, it was not likely to be very congenial to the mood of Patrick’s friends:  but I could hardly have conceived of anything so bad as it was.  The man wrote that it was not wonderful that any young man should get on under the advantage of my patronage; and that it was to be hoped that this young man would have turned out more worthy of such patronage than he was when he ungratefully returned his obligations to his employer by engaging the affections of his daughter.  The young man had caused great trouble and anxiety to one who, now he was dead, was willing to forgive him; but no circumstance could ever change the aspect of his conduct, in regard to his treacherous behavior to his benefactor; and so forth.  There was no sign of any consciousness of imprudence on the father’s own part; but strong indications of vindictive hatred, softened in the expression by being mixed up with odious flatteries to Patrick’s literary friends.  The only compensation for the disgust of this letter was the confirmation it afforded of Patrick’s narrative, in which, it was clear, he had done no injustice to his oppressor.

I have not bestowed so much thought as this on the man and his letter, from the day I received it, till now; but it was necessary to speak of it at the close of the story.  I lose sight of the painful incidents in thinking of Patrick himself.  I only wish I had once seen his face, that I might know how near the truth is the image that I have formed of him.

There may have been, there no doubt have been, other such young Irishmen, whose lives have been misdirected for want of the knowledge which Patrick gained in good time by the accident of his coming to England.  I fear that many such have lived a life of turbulence, or impotent discontent, under the delusion that their country was politically oppressed.  The mistake may now be considered at an end.  It is sufficiently understood in Ireland that her woes have been from social and not political causes, from the day of Catholic emancipation.  But it is a painful thought what Patrick’s short life might have been, if he had remained under the O’Connell influence; and what the lives of hundreds more have been,—­rendered wild by delusion, and wretched by strife and lawlessness, for want of a gleam of that clear daylight which made a sound citizen of a passionate Young Repealer.