Passage Illustrated: The Crucial Evidence and a Critical Decision

“And you — and you — you —” cried D'Esmonde, gasping.

“I am your father. Ay, you can hear the words here, and needn't start at the sound of them. We're in the condemned cell of a jail, and nobody near us. You are my son. Mr. Godfrey paid for you as a student till — till — But it's all over now. I never meant you to know the truth; but a lie wouldn't serve you any longer. Oh, Matthew, Matthew!” cried he — and of a sudden his voice changed, and softened to accents of almost choking sorrow — “haven't you one word for me? — one word of affection for him that you brought to this, and who forgives you for it? — one word, even to call me your own father?” He fell at the other's feet, and clasped his arms around his knees as he spoke, but the appeal was unheard.

Pale as a corpse, with his head slightly thrown forward, and his eyes wildly staring before him, D'Esmonde sat, perfectly motionless. At last the muscles of his mouth fashioned themselves into a ghastly smile, a look of mockery so dreadful to gaze upon that the prisoner, terror-stricken at the sight, rushed to the door, and beat loudly against it, as he screamed for help. It was opened on the instant, and the Jailer, followed by two others, entered.

“He's ill; his reverence is taken bad,” said the old man, while he trembled from head to foot with agitation.

“What's this paper? What is he clutching in his hands?” cried the jailer.

D'Esmonde started at the words. For the first time a gleam of intelligence shot over his features, and as suddenly he bent a look of withering hate on the speaker; and then, with a passionate vehemence that told of a frantic brain, he tore the paper into fragments, and, with a wild yell, as if of triumph, he fell senseless on the ground. [Chapter LXXIX, "The Retribution," pp. 694-695]

Commentary: The Revelation of a Plot Secret

"You, Samuel Eustace, will be taken from the bar of this court to the place from whence you came, the jail, and thence to the place of execution, there to be hung by the neck till you are dead —”

“Can I see my priest, —— may the priest come to me?” cried the prisoner, fiercely; for not even the appalling solemnity of the moment could repress the savage energy of his nature.

“Miserable man,” said the judge, in a faltering accent, “I beseech you to employ well the few minutes that remain to you in this world, and carry not into the next that spirit of defiance by which you would brave an earthly judgment-seat. And may God have mercy on your soul!” [Conclusion of Chapter LXXVIII, "The Court-house of Kilkenny"]

Until the subsequent prison-cell confessional, D'Esmonde believes — erroneously — that he is an illegitimate scion of the Godfreys, and therefore the rightful heir to the Corrig-O'Neal estate — and, moreover, as a descendant of a noble family, eligible to join the College of Cardinals in Rome. The prisoner's confession dashes all of the scheming Abbé's hopes for preferment. Lever's readers would have been wondering for some time about the connection between the young seminary student Eustace D'Esmonde, the Irish landowner Mr.Godfrey, and his malcontented steward Samuel Eustace — and what, if anything, D'Esmonde knows about Godfrey's murder all those years ago. The illustration underscores the climatic moment when "Black Sam," Mr. Godfrey's murderer, reveals that he and not Godfrey is in fact D'Esmonde's natural father. The condemned prisoner shows the Rev. Mr. "Eustace" documentary proof of the parentage of "Matthew," the son whom Godfrey sponsored at the Salamanca Seminary.

The stunned Abbé in the illustration stares vacantly forward, clutching his father's papers — “There's your birth proved and certified: 'Matthew, son of Samuel and Mary Eustace, of Ballykinnon, baptized by me this 10th day of April, 18 ——. Joseph Barry, P. P.' There's the copy of your admission into the convent, and here's the superior's receipt for the first quarter's payment as a probationer" [695]. D'Esmonde now suffers a catastrophic stroke, and will never speak again.

A Bibliographical Note to the 1859 Cheap Edition

In the Cheap Edition (1859), this is the last of only eight 1852 engravings reproduced from the original program of forty-eight. The other seven are as follows:

• the fine vertical frontispiece, A Journey (ii),
• Frank Visits his Uncle (facing 18),
• A Discovery (facing 52),
• Teaching the Old Idea how to shoot (Chapter 51),
• The Benediction (facing 115),
• Abel Narrowly escapes Caning (facing 161),
• Norwood's Exit (facing 267),

Bibliography

Browne, John Buchanan. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1978.

Downey, Edmund. Charles Lever: His Life in Letters. 2 vols. London: William Blackwood, 1906.

Fitzpatrick, W. J. The Life of Charles Lever. London: Downey, 1901.

Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Lever, Charles. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1852, rpt. 1859, and 1872. [Two volumes as one, with separate page numbers in the 1859 volume, after I: 362.]

_______. The Daltons and A Day's Ride. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). Vol VI of Lever's Works. New York: P. F. Collier, 1882. [This large-format American edition reproduces only six of the original forthy-eight Phiz illustrations.]

Lever, Charles James. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Vol. 2. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32062/32062-h/32062-h.htm

Skinner, Anne Maria. Charles Lever and Ireland. University of Liverpool. PhD dissertation. May 2019.

Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell & Russell, 1939, rpt. 1969.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

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Created 3 June 2022