“I have nothing to forgive you, sir,” replied Reilly; “whatever you did proceeded from your excessive affection for your daughter; I am more than overpaid for any thing I may have suffered myself; had it been ages of misery, this one moment would cancel the memory of it for ever.”

“I cannot give you my estate, Reilly,” said the old man, “for that is entailed, and goes to the next male issue; but I can give you fifty thousand pounds with my girl, and that will keep you both comfortable for life.”

“I thank you, sir,” replied Reilly, “and for the sake of your daughter I will not reject it; but I am myself in independent circumstances, and could, even without your generosity, support Helen in a rank of life not unsuitable to her condition.”

It is well known that, during the period in which the incidents of our story took place, no man claiming the character of a gentleman ever travelled without his own servant to attend him.  After Reilly’s return to his native place, his first inquiries, as might be expected, were after his Cooleen Bawn; and his next, after those who had been in some degree connected with those painful circumstances in which he had been involved previous to his trial and conviction.  He found Mr. Brown and Mr. Hastings much in the same state in which he left them.  The latter, who had been entrusted with all his personal and other property, under certain conditions, that depended upon his return after the term of his sentence should have expired, now restored to him, and again reinstated him on the original terms into all his landed and other property, together with such sums as had accrued from it during his absence, so that he now found himself a wealthy man.  Next to Cooleen Bawn, however, one of his first inquiries was after Fergus Reilly, whom he found domiciled with a neighboring middleman as a head servant, or kind of under steward.  We need not describe the delight of Fergus on once more meeting his beloved relative at perfect liberty, and free from all danger in his native land.

“Fergus,” said Reilly, “I understand you are still a bachelor—­how does that come?”

“Why, sir,” replied Fergus, “now that you know every thing about the unhappy state of the Cooleen Bawn, surely you can’t blame poor Ellen for not desartin’ her.  As for me I cared nothing about any other girl, and I never could let either my own dhrame, or what you said was yours, out o’ my head.  I still had hope, and I still have, that she may recover.”

Reilly made no reply to this, for he feared to entertain the vague expectation to which Fergus alluded.

“Well, Fergus,” said he, “although I have undergone the sentence of a convict, yet now, after my return, I am a rich man.  For the sake of old times—­of old dangers and old difficulties—­I should wish you to live with me, and to attend me as my own personal servant or man.  I shall get you a suit of livery, and the crest of O’Reilly shall be upon it.  I wish you to attend upon me, Fergus, because you understand me, and because I never will enjoy a happy heart, or one day’s freedom from sorrow again.  All hope of that is past, but you will be useful to me—­and that you know.”