My Lords of Strogue Volume Iii Part 4

'You are a common informer!' was all she could bring forth.

Ca.s.sidy lost his temper. It is aggravating when your overtures of compromise are scornfully repulsed.

'Have it your own way, then!' he laughed, with a reckless snap of the finger, which the Parisian deemed ill-bred in the presence of a lady.

'Mind, if you are hanged it will be your own fault. A man must live.

Would ye have me rob the mail? Mine's as honest a trade as any other.

Sure, don't the Lords and Commons think it mighty honourable, and my Lord Clare too; or why do they make so much of us? It's a rebel that ye are, Theobald. Rebels are no judges of what's honest and what's not.'

With this half-apology for having at last decided which course of two opposite ones should guide him in the future, the giant left the room with heavy strides--to return a few minutes later as if nothing unpleasant had occurred, with a cheery warning that dinner would be ready soon.

The Parisian, who had been quite baffled in his attempt to understand the scene, gave a sigh of satisfaction. These persons, who seemed old acquaintances, had been indulging in a family quarrel and had made it up again. His knowledge of the English tongue was limited; but he did understand 'dinner,' and after the excitement of the morning was afflicted with inconvenient appet.i.te.

Punctiliously polite, the countess and her son came upstairs presently to conduct their unfortunate guests with solemn ceremony to the banquet which was spread below. Neither showed any sign of recognising Theobald. Shane, being dull of comprehension, had looked to his mother, taking his cue from her. By virtue of his uniform the stranger was a general; by virtue of this morning's fight he was unfortunate.

Vanquished braves of high military rank cannot be treated with too much courtesy.

With the quieting of the excitement their fear of Medusa lowered again on the squireens. One or two of them indeed were tremblingly conscious of having seized the Gorgon's arm and shaken it. These humbly chose the lowest place at the long table which occupied the garden's length, whilst all stood up and hid their hands and shoes as host and hostess pa.s.sed.

Sir Borlase was in immense spirits. He declared himself grieved to break up so pleasant a gathering, but in the gloaming his prisoners must go. His Majesty should certainly hear of my lord's exemplary conduct. He pledged the two French generals who (Commodore Bompart being slain in action) had managed the ship so intrepidly. He tried to explain himself in broken French jargon to them. Both shrugged their shoulders and smiled to the nodding of their heavy plumes, giving thereby to understand that he had the advantage in languages, but that they considered his speech to be complimentary. 'Lar Bel Fraunce!' he kept repeating, winking his grey eye and poking their ribs with a finger, and tossing off b.u.mper after b.u.mper, laughing the while consumedly, as though all must perceive that the sentiment was witty, and he a model jester (an English joker, not an Irish one).

Doreen sat next to Theobald. The waning sun, creeping in blotches through the improvised awning, touched her neck with gold, showing that warm blood circulated under the rich skin. But for this homage of the sun the squireens might have taken her for a victim of Medusa, so frozen was her manner. She was like one magnetised, who, her power of volition being gone, is obeying the dictates of a foreign power. Meats were brought to her; she tasted them. Claret was poured into her goblet. As through a film she saw the weatherbeaten visage of Sir Borlase moping at her. With mechanical movement she mowed at him in return.

'Your pretty daughter's going to faint,' whispered the admiral to the dowager. 'Such sights as I provided for you this morning are all very well for males; but females--except Spaniards and low-cla.s.s Frenchwomen--don't care about such things. She supervised the dressing of the wounds--Heaven bless her! 'Twas a strain on a delicate nature.

She looks ill and overwrought.'

The countess remarked curtly that Sir Borlase was very good, without condescending to explain that the girl was not her daughter. She knew well the cause of the poor maiden's anguish, and felt both for him and her. The constant contemplation of late of her own private spectre had softened her. Terence on a gallows, who, but for circ.u.mstances over which his mother _had_ control, might have ended so differently, was burned on her brain as a scathing reproach for ever. Theobald, whom she was used to contemplate as a crackbrained enthusiast, a.s.sumed a new interest in her eyes. There was about him a deep-seated hopelessness which is a gruesome sight in a man of thirty-six, and the contemplation of it struck a chord of sympathy in her. The case of Terence she shrank from considering at all. But this young man whose existence was no reproach: she might feel pity for him without stabbing her own soul with red-hot daggers by the impulse.

Things were going as smoothly as could be expected. Shane's little party had developed into a banquet which would become historical. Her firstborn would receive honours from the King which should counterbalance the disgrace wherewith the second seemed destined to endow his family. The French prisoners of war would be exchanged in time, returning to the bosoms of their distracted loves unhurt. There was nothing really, my lady decided in her mind, to make her niece break down, who was wont to be so unduly self-reliant. She looked like a corpse. My lady, who formerly was discomfited in hand-to-hand encounters, began to wonder whether she might conquer after all, and bring about the match for which she yearned.

At the other end of the long table Ca.s.sidy kept the company in a roar.

Now that he shilly-shallied no longer, his native spirits had come back to him. His jests were racy, of the soil, and coa.r.s.e--just such as could be appreciated by squireens who were far enough removed from the grandees to give free rein to their hilarity. They voted him the funniest dog; threw themselves forward in a 'Haw-haw!' and flung themselves back with a 'Hee-hee!' slapped their kerseymere shorts; wagged their heads, and giggled, without any tremor now as to the sit of pigtails over high collars. Would the radiant boy come and stop at Letterkenny? He should have the run of the barracks; should be free to go peasant-baiting whensoever he listed. Horses should become his without regard to whom they belonged. His life should be one round of jollity and junketing, if he only would come and sit down at Letterkenny.

'Ah, now, lads, be asy!' he cried, betwixt two sallies. 'Do yez think the likes o' me can stop up here? It's Dublin that's crying for me this blessed minute, and won't be comforted. To Dublin I return to-morrow. Good luck to yez for kind wishes, though. By my sowl, and if there isn't a friend up yonder on whom I've not clapped eyes this long time!'

The repast was over. The countess was sweeping the crumbs out of her lap preparatory to leaving the gentlemen to the superior attractions of the bottle, when she perceived Ca.s.sidy, gla.s.s in hand, making his way along to the upper end where she sat enthroned. Doreen perceived him too, and losing all self-control, dropped her head upon the table with a moan.

'Mr. Wolfe Tone, I think?' Ca.s.sidy shouted out in his big voice.

'Bedad, ye're welcome home! It's long since we met.'

The shade of Banquo broke up with no greater quickness the feast of King Macbeth than did this guileless little speech the party of Lord Glandore. The squireens rose to their feet with one accord; craned out their necks, with jaws dropped and eyes goggling.

Hesitating but for a second, Theobald threw down his cards.

'My name is Theobald Wolfe Tone!' he admitted calmly, and stood waiting for what would follow.

'What a pity!' sighed the English admiral; then, holding forth his hand, 'Ignorance is bliss sometimes,' he said, scowling at the importunate giant. 'Ye're a brave young man. I won't say what I think of _him_. I can't help it--can I?'

But Ca.s.sidy, having a.s.sumed his role, was not to be so easily scowled down. 'I've done my duty to his Majesty,' he said, very loud; 'and I call on you, Sir Borlase Warren, to report the fact that I denounced that traitor!'

The squireens twittered like scarlet birds. A vanquished foreign brave was one thing, a proscribed rebel--the very head and front of the Directory's offending--quite another. Their temporary gentleness was past; their native savagery bloomed forth again.

'Bind him!' one bawled, 'lest he thry to drown himself, and rob good Mr. Ca.s.sidy of the reward.'

'When we get him to Letterkenny,' howled another, 'we'll put irons on him before he starts south. Ah! the spalpeen! the rogue! the beast!

the pig!'

A chorus of expletives poured forth. Even the presence of Medusa was forgotten.

One fetched a rope and bound it roughly round his limbs. With a burst of indignation he turned for protection to the English admiral. 'I wear the uniform of the Great Republic. Let it not be disgraced!' he pleaded.

'I can't help it, poor lad!' returned Sir Borlase, with disgust. 'If you're Wolfe Tone, ye're a subject of Britain, in arms against the King, and will surely suffer as a traitor. As for these ruffians, I am powerless. They, and such as they, have long ago shamed their country and their cloth.'

'Then their bonds,' Theobald answered calmly, as he took off his coat, 'shall never degrade the insignia of the free nation I have served.'

Bound hand and foot, he was conveyed to the cabin of the yacht and placed under lock and key. Sir Borlase took no pains to disguise his opinion of the squireens. Bidding farewell to the countess, he retired abruptly with his suite, while the commandant of Letterkenny busied himself with the bestowal of the prisoners. My Lord Glandore, feeling like second fiddle, bethought him that the beacon had not been lighted whose mission was to speed to Dublin news of a French invasion, just as, two hundred years before, the lighting of tar-barrels had signalled the coming of the Armada. He remedied the omission without delay.

The fleet of boats pa.s.sed down Lough Sw.i.l.l.y without danger, though clouds obscured the moon and stars--for the circle of fire was complete, cutting out the dark skyline of each crag, marking the position of each tower with a special wave of light. The chain was as complete (turning the sky to crimson) as the chain of the giant's treachery. As she looked out on it from her window, Doreen pressed feverish fingers to her burning head; then packed her clothes together in hot haste. At c.o.c.kcrow the family was to start for the capital. She felt that, once there, she could do something--she knew not what.

Terence and Tone could not both be sacrificed. Was ever human wickedness so base as that of this false friend?

Decidedly Mr. Ca.s.sidy was master of the situation.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SHAMBLES.

When it became known in Dublin that the apostle of Irish Liberty had come and was taken, the gloom which saddened the city was yet further deepened. The citizens went about their business with weary tread and pinched lips. The Terror which reigned in Paris under Jacobin rule, or in Rome under Tiberius and Nero, was not more crushing than that which rocked Erin in its iron arms towards the end of this awful year.

Comparing Jacobins with Orangemen, the palm for cruelty may safely be a.s.signed to the latter. Both factions might plead the excuse of extreme peril; but the danger of invasion by the armies of the Coalition which brought about the diabolical delirium of the Jacobins was greater than the danger to which the Irish ascendency party was exposed: and it must be remembered too that the Jacobin party was almost entirely composed of men taken from the lowest ranks, whereas many of the most iniquitous Irish terrorists were persons of the highest social position and fair education. The ferocity of the Jacobins, again, was in a slight degree redeemed by fanaticism. Their objects were not entirely selfish. They murdered aristocrats, not only because they hated them, but because they imagined them to stand in the way of a millennium which, according to Rousseau, was awaiting the acceptance of regenerated mankind.

Ess.e.x Bridge was fringed with heads as whilom London Bridge was; though faithful friends, when they found a chance, stole and buried them. There was a rage for trials by court-martial; a constant outcry for more victims. A mania for mimicking the Bench took possession of the military, officers of inferior rank vying with each other in an a.s.sumption of judicial functions. Whilst my Lords Carleton and Kilwarden and Messrs. Curran and Toler were plodding through a legal farce at the Sessions-House, talking through night after night to 'juries of the right sort,' the gentlemen of the yeomanry at the Exchange were making the shortest possible work of the lives under their control. Once dragged thither, conviction followed arrest as the day the night. The sun was not allowed to set upon the accused.

Although prepared to close his eyes to much, the new Viceroy found his patience and temper sorely tried; and at last, in spite of expostulation in high quarters, issued general orders condemning the conduct of the soldiery. He failed to see, he declared, how torture could be a good opiate, and was even foolish enough to suggest that banishment for a short term of years would serve all the state purposes quite as well as hanging. To this the incensed chancellor retorted by reams of jeremiads addressed to Mr. Pitt, wherein he laid stress on the new troubles which would inevitably come on all good Protestants in consequence of such deplorable backsliding from Lord Camden's able system. In his turn Lord Cornwallis pointed out the reasons for his conduct. Private enemies were daily in the most unblushing manner haled before courts-martial and consigned to Moiley.

Some of the lesser gentry even went so far as openly to plunder the country houses whose owners had fled from them in fear. The behaviour of underlings was subversive of all discipline. They held back doc.u.ments unless paid for honesty; Sirr admitted that what was planned by his superiors in council was made of none effect in his own office.

The chancellor scored one. Lord Cornwallis found himself compelled to apologise for his leniency. He received a rap upon the knuckles from a Gr--t P--rs--n--ge in a letter which may be found in the Cornwallis correspondence, and sat down to pour out his vexations to an old brother-in-arms, as his way was when specially provoked. 'My conduct,'

he wrote, 'gets me abused by both sides, being too coercive for the one, too lenient for the other; but my conscience approves.'

The more we look into the matter, the more a.s.sured do we become that the true marplot was the Gr--t P--rs--n--ge. The first gentleman in the land set a fatal example to the Orangemen. By virtue of the royal purple he was all-wise, despite his ignorance. He was a Protestant.

Ergo, those who presumed to be anything else must be well trounced for their contumely. If the law was not rigorous enough already, its cords must be double-knotted, for the flagellation of those who dared to disagree with M--j--sty. Good King George, who hated Catholics in as insane a manner as James II. hated Protestants, was determined that so long as he clutched the sceptre, their bread should be bitter in their mouths. Lord Cornwallis was as convinced as Mr. Pitt, that the key to Irish troubles was the Penal Code. But the King flew in a rage at the bare mention of Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation; so the Viceroy was obliged to bow his head with a good grace, as Mr. Pitt had done long ago; as even the leader of the opposition had found himself compelled to do. At this juncture Marplot went further than usual; for instead of merely insisting in general terms that the Papists must be evilly entreated, he personally meddled in the fate of the state-prisoners, with whose long-continued persecution the Viceroy had shown signs of interfering.

It had been decided, as we have seen, on the motion of Arthur Wolfe, that it would be well to negotiate with the state-prisoners. Mr.

Curran had been employed as go-between, and, in accordance with his advice, the young men incarcerated at Kilmainham undertook to disclose the principles and ramifications of their society, upon certain well-defined conditions. Curran pointed out to them that the grand fiasco which is known as the 'Hurry' had removed for the present all chance of freeing Ireland, and they saw with pain that blood was being made to flow in rivers. To stem that torrent by all means available was clearly their first duty now. At first the negotiations broke down, but a few executions brought the patriots to their senses. They accordingly drew up for the benefit of Government an account of the rise, progress, and proceedings of the United Irishmen, adding an opinion that a general amnesty to all but ringleaders would do much to tranquillise the public mind. They agreed that it would be best for the ruling spirits to submit to banishment, and it was settled that a number of excepted persons should migrate to America and stop there.

But now Marplot intervened. The King declined to permit traitors to cross the Atlantic, and the American minister, to please the King, also declared that such an arrangement could not answer. The Viceroy urged that the members of the Directory had completed their portion of the compact, and that it would be disgraceful if Government did not follow suit. It could not be helped, was the brief response. The executive must crawl out of the difficulty as it best might. Mr.

Curran was frantic; Lord Clare jubilant. Tom Emmett and the others only smiled. Had they ever expected anything from England except wickedness? She was perjured and forsworn. What could an extra crime or two signify to one who was notoriously a murderess?

The Privy Council anxiously debated as to the neatest way out of the dilemma. Of course his Majesty must be humoured. The state-trials must run their course, but with exceeding tact of management. Mr. Pitt threatened his puppets with a beating, if they blundered. Juries of the right sort must be told not to exaggerate their functions, or Lord Moira (who was woefully independent) might stir up a new pother at St.

Stephen's.

Lord Cornwallis was sulky, for he appreciated the falseness of his position; but, having accepted the viceroyalty, he considered it his duty to retain it until at least the special object for which he had come could be accomplished. His experience and native shrewdness told him that a return to the tactics of his predecessor would be fraught with the gravest dangers to both countries. Fate had picked him out to play the mediator; he would do his best, even though fettered by the ign.o.ble desires of the King. If he failed in his task, the fault would be Marplot's, not his.