My Lords of Strogue Volume I Part 5

'Yes, Terence,' returned a cheery voice, 'or Councillor Crosbie, if you please, since I have the honour now to act as your worship's junior. Where's Tone? Not gone. Thank goodness! I must clasp the dear lad's hand before he goes.'

Mr. Curran shook his mane back like a retriever that has bathed, which was a trick he had when worried.

'Donkey! what do you here?' he grumbled. 'Are we not fools enough without you? You belong to another race, which has nought in common with our troubles. Take my advice, and just trot home again. If you want to be silly, join the Cherokees as your brother has, or the Blasters, or the h.e.l.lfires. Leave plotting to the children of the soil.'

The young man, who was good-looking, with the comeliness which a fresh complexion gives, showed his white teeth, and broke into a merry laugh.

'In an evil temper,' he remarked. 'Gone without dinner, eh? If I am not a drunkard and a gambler, whose fault is it, sir, but yours? Who taught me that as a younger son I have my way to carve through life?

Who made me choose the Bar? Who superintended my studies, and gave a helping hand? _You_--you cross Curran! and, believe me, I'm not ungrateful, though a bit more idle than you like.'

'Then get you gone, and leave us to our folly,' was the testy rejoinder. 'I won't have your mother saying some day that I brought her boy to danger, and instilled ideas into his vacant mind which put his neck in danger.'

'Fiddlededee!' laughed the good-humoured scapegrace. 'You are no more a conspirator than I. Why are you here, and why have you brought my cousin if awful rites are going forward?'

'Because I'm an a.s.s!' growled the other. 'Conspirator--why not, pray?

My heart is sick when I look round me. Why should I not be maddened as others are? Do I love Erin less? Doreen belongs through her religion to the people, and it is fitting she should sorrow with them. Yes, it is maddening?' he pursued, kindling suddenly, and breaking through the crust in which for prudence' sake he cased himself, as the thoughts over which he had been brooding took form. 'What is to become of us?

It would have been merciful if Spencer's desire had been gratified, and the land turned into a seapool. Our travail is long, and endeth not. Our master gives us a hangman and a taxgatherer; what more should such as we require? His laws are like shoes sent forth for exportation. 'Twere idle to take our measures, for if they pinch us, what matters it? We stand between a social Scylla and Charybdis. Poets and visionaries, like this poor fool here, work on the hare-brained people, whose craving for freedom is whetted to voracity; and, led by the blind, they tumble into traps, at which a less ardent nation would be moved to laughter. Temerity, despair, annihilation--that is the _mot d'ordre_. See if I am not a true prophet. And the luxurious n.o.bles--do they help with their counsel? Not they! Their twin-G.o.ds are their belly and their l.u.s.t. They have nothing in common with the people.'

'The French shall drive them into the sea,' remarked Tone, placidly.

'The French, the French!' retorted Curran. 'Much good may they do us!

A revolution achieved by such means would merely mean a change of masters. You live in a fool's paradise, Theobald. I can see farther into futurity than you, for I'm older, worse luck. I see a time coming--nay, it's close at hand--when a spectre will be set up and nicknamed Justice; which, if G.o.d wills, it shall be my mission to tear down. Yet what may I do with my little weight? A mean weak man with feeble health. May I be the log to stop the wheels of the triumphal car? Verily, the ways of Heaven are inscrutable!'

It was rarely that the little advocate spoke out so plainly. His friends knew that he ever regarded his country with the idolatry of a lover, that to her he gave freely all he had to give; through the stages of her pride, her hope, her struggles and despondency, his heart was hers for better and for worse; and therefore many marvelled that, actively, he should have held aloof from the patriot band.

n.o.body could charge him with cowardice. Terence himself had never solved this mystery, although as his junior he saw more than most of the workings of Curran's mind. He had wondered at his chief's coldness in a careless way, till now, when it became patent to him, as to the rest, that Curran's second sight beheld the possibility of state trials in the future, where one would be needed to stand up for the accused whose heart was steadfast, whose courage was indomitable.

Terence felt sure his chief was wrong--the beardless are always wisest in their own esteem--for to the honest boy it seemed impossible that Albion could be so base.

Yet the notion was grand that, despising dignities, the little lawyer should be keeping himself in reserve for a Herculean labour, that he should be deliberately laying himself out to stand by those whom others would desert; and so, to the knot of bystanders in the gloaming, the ugly pigmy of a man appeared sublime, as he sat in an att.i.tude of profound dejection, with the sweat of strong emotion in beads upon his forehead and on the black elflocks of his untidy hair.

The jolly giant Ca.s.sidy rapped out a huge oath, and vowed with a string of expletives that he should be 'shillooed' forthwith. The Emmett brothers fairly wept; tears stood in the eyes of the statuesque Doreen; Theobald knelt down before him on the dewy gra.s.s, and entreated a farewell blessing ere he went.

'The Lord bless and keep you, my poor friend!' Curran whispered in a broken voice. 'Whether He wills that you should die an exile, or that you should return to us with glory, G.o.d be with you! May it never be my lot to stand up in court for you! or if it must be so, may inspired words be given me to save you from your danger! Now we must be separating, or we'll have the Castle spies on us.'

Followed by many a G.o.d-speed Tone vanished in the darkness. All listened to his retreating steps, wondering when and how they might ever meet again. Curran heaved a sigh, and was the cynical man of the world once more, with the dancing eye and whimsical half-melancholy smile, who threw all the judges on circuit into convulsions with his wit, and stirred the jury to unseemly laughter.

'Terence,' he said, linking his arm in that of his junior, while the young ladies, helped by the Emmetts, mounted their horses, 'you were wrong to come here. My lady will be angry if you mix with the common riffraff. What would you say if she pulled her purse-strings tight, you extravagant young dog? The idea of one of your birth worrying himself about the people's wrongs is of course preposterous; therefore, to please your mother, you had best give them a wide berth.

My Lord Clare shall get you a snug post with nothing to do, and vast emoluments such as becomes a lord's brother, and then you'll be rich and independent in no time, while I am still prosing over briefs.'

Terence, in whose face the wicked Glandore expression was tempered by good-nature, was not pleased with the banter of his chief, for his cousin was at his elbow, who always persisted in looking on him as a boy, though he was a great fellow of four-and-twenty who was constantly arraying himself in gorgeous clothes to please her. A tantalising cousin was Miss Doreen to him; suggesting broidered capes and becoming ruffles when amiably disposed, which, when with pain and grief he got them made, received no notice from her whatsoever. He chose to imagine that he was desperately in love with the beautiful Miss Wolfe, and was proud of his pa.s.sion, though she laughed at him.

Vainly he sighed; yet no worm fed upon his damask cheek. Albeit he pretended to be very wretched, he was not; for his life was before him and he enjoyed it thoroughly, and was the victim of an amazing appet.i.te, and would probably have forgotten all about Miss Wolfe in a week (though he would have smitten you with a big stick if you dared to hint as much) if her lithe figure had been removed from his sight for that brief period. Sometimes he took it into his head that she fancied Shane, and then he was pierced through and through with jealousy, for the brothers never could get on, and the younger one knew my lord to be not only thick of skull, but drunken and dissolute too, even beyond the average of his compeers; a fire-eater, whose hand was never off his sword, who cared more for dogs than women, more for himself than either, and who as a husband would be certain to bring misery upon the girl. Then again he would be consoled for an instant by the reflection that it does not answer at all for first cousins to marry; and then his longings would get the better of him, as he marked the wealth of the brown hair which had a golden ripple through it, the finely developed bust, the eyes like peat.w.a.ter. She was interesting, and his heart was soft. He watched her furtively sometimes in her fits of sadness; when she sat behind a tambour at the Strogue hall-window, gazing, with eyes that saw nothing, at the fishing-boats upon the bay, as they splashed along with yellow sails and clumsy oars upon their mirrored doubles, till tears fell one by one upon her work, like thunderdrops upon a window-pane; and he could tell that she was dreaming of her people. Then his heart yearned towards Doreen. He longed to seize her in his l.u.s.ty arms, crying:

'My beloved! I am poor, and you are rich' (for Mr. Wolfe had put by a cosy nest-egg). 'Our tastes are simple. I will try to live upon love and my allowance. You shall keep all your fortune to yourself--only be mine, my very own!' But somehow he never said the words, for something told him that she would only smile, and on second thoughts he was glad he had not spoken.

It would have been wrong in her to scoff, for the proposal would have been as unusual as disinterested; but girls will laugh at improper moments. Miss Wolfe was an heiress as times went, and likely to be richer; impecunious squires and squireens were legion; and the abduction clubs not yet quite stamped out. This, indeed, was one reason why she spent most of her time at Strogue instead of with her father in Dublin; for he, easygoing in most things, was painfully alive to the possibility of finding his daughter stolen one day when he was in court, to be bucketed about the country without a change of linen till his reluctant consent was wrung to a match with some ne'er-do-well.

At Strogue such a thing could hardly happen, for the prestige of the Glandores was hedged about with terror, and every ne'er-do-well knew that to play Paris to the Helen of the fair Doreen--to carry her off from the sanctuary of Strogue Abbey--would be to call down dolorous reprisals from her two stalwart cousins.

So, having her constantly before his vision, Terence adored the damsel wildly by fits and starts, hating her when she snubbed him, taking a loyal interest, for her sake, in the Penal Code and the United Irishmen; and was not aware that he stood on the verge of the political maelstrom, in whoso eddies so many good Irishmen had come to drowning.

Terence professed in nowise to be a patriot. He said openly that the United Irishmen deceived themselves, that they were fond of inventing imaginary terrors, that Lord Clare, though personally he disliked him, was an estimable statesman, the right man in the right place. Doreen was angry with him at times for this. Then he had an excuse for kissing her to make it up, for the flash from her grave eyes was only summer lightning. But to be accused of mercenary motives, even in banter, was quite another thing, because all the world knew that the Irish aristocracy, as a body, did not shine in the way of unselfishness, and Terence's nature was too open and honest, his carelessness as to money too deep-seated, for him to feel aught but disgust at being coupled with the pensioners. It was not true that he was mercenary, but it might easily have been so. Who knows what might have been if my lady had not proved liberal--a kind mother? Many are virtuous so long as they are not tempted. Yes. You will doubtless be surprised to hear that my lady had worked no evil to her second son.

Madam Gillin's singular office had for the s.p.a.ce of twelve years been a sinecure. The Countess never refused him money when he asked for it, and was apparently a model mother to the youth, though she certainly showed a strong partiality for Shane, which may be accounted for by the fact that mothers invariably doat upon their prodigals, and milord resembled his father not a little.

Now Curran, being quite at home at the Abbey, knew all these ins and outs and petty details. Terence's indignation, therefore, amused him.

He burst into a peal of merriment when the young man asked, tartly, what he meant by his insinuations.

'I know Lord Clare offered me a place,' he said, with a side-glance of apology at his cousin; 'but I refused it with disdain. Though he's a worthy man I don't like him, because he orders us about, and I would not be under any obligation to him for the world. My mother's too fond of the chancellor----'

'What if you were a.s.sured that he's a traitor?' Curran asked, with mock gravity.

'I'd become a United Irishman to upset him!' returned the prompt scapegrace.

'Nonsense!' replied his friend, growing serious. 'No, no. It's an ill subject for jesting. Treason is a dangerous pastime, which it behoves you to keep clear of for the sake of your n.o.ble name. Don't forget that, being half an Englishman, half of your allegiance is due to the British Crown--at least so the Lords think. With us it's different. To try the bird, the spur must touch his blood. Come, let's be off.

Good-night, boys!'

And so the conference terminated.

The elder Emmett rode moodily to Dublin, concocting inflammatory articles for the benefit of the newspaper which he edited, reflecting too, not without misgivings, upon the mantle which had fallen, unbidden, on his shoulders. Robert, his excitable brother, walked home to Trinity College with elastic step, his brain still whirling with the outlaw's parting words. The rest were bound for Strogue, where my lady sat wondering, no doubt, what could keep them out so late.

Ca.s.sidy, who was a good singer, and amusing in other ways, had been invited to the Abbey by Terence. As for Curran and his daughter, they often sojourned there, and were certain of a hearty welcome, for their own sake now, as well as Arthur Wolfe's.

None of the party spoke as they cantered briskly by the sh.o.r.e. Curran was upbraiding himself for want of caution in betraying his true sentiments even to close friends. Few saw as far as he, and the very air of Innisfail breathed treachery. His daughter, gentle Sara, whose fair locks cl.u.s.tered like silk coc.o.o.ns about her baby-face, was in an ecstatic trance as she b.u.mped up and down on her rough pony.

What signified b.u.mps, when the subject of her thoughts was Robert, the dear, delightful undergraduate? She would have b.u.mped all the world over for him, though she was modesty itself, and he oblivious that she existed. It was pleasant to think that he, at least, was bound by no rash oath. It would be a sweet task, if possible, to keep him from the toils.

Doreen rode ahead, plunged in one of her sad moods, as she thought of the future of the wanderer, who had given up all he possessed in the world to bring about the freeing of her people. Might any woman's platonic worship make good that loss to him? Would she ever see him again, and under what circ.u.mstances?

Terence read her thoughts, and was cross at her devotion to this outlaw, a condition of mind which even he perceived was not proper in a well-brought-up young lady. Of course everybody respected Tone, and liked him, too, for his excellent qualities. She could not marry him, that was one comfort, for he was already married to the sister of this great hulking giant, Ca.s.sidy, who chirruped out sc.r.a.ps of song as though Erin was the most prosperous of motherlands. But it certainly seemed wrong, to the sage youth, that a handsome young woman should be on confidential terms with so many strange young men. Her aunt, he knew, objected to it strongly, but unaccountably held her peace. Then he laughed, in spite of his displeasure, at the conceit of any one interfering with Doreen--the demure damsel who pursued her calm way, enslaving all and taking note of none, as though she had taken vows of perpetual maidenhood--had cut herself adrift for the role of a Jeanne d'Arc.

CHAPTER V.

STROGUE ABBEY.

The home of the Glandores on Dublin Bay is a unique place, perched on rising ground, shaded by fine old timber. Originally an ecclesiastical establishment, it was turned into a fortress by Sir Amorey Crosbie in 1177, and has been altered and gutted, and rebuilt, with here a wing and here a bay, and there a winding staircase, or mysterious recess, to suit the whim of each succeeding owner, till it has swelled into a stunted honeycomb of meandering suites of rooms, whose geography puzzles a stranger on his first visit there. The only portions of it which remain intact, are (as may be seen by the great thickness of the walls) the hall, a long, low, narrow s.p.a.ce, panelled in black oak and ceiled in squares; the huge kitchen, where meat might be roasted for an army; and the dungeons below ground. The remaining rooms (many of them like monkish cells) are of every shape and pattern, alike only in having heavy cas.e.m.e.nt frames set with diamond panes, enormous obstinate doors, which creak and moan, declining to close or open unless violently coerced, and worm-eaten floors that slope in every freak of crooked line except the normal horizontal one. Indeed, the varied levels of the bedroom floor (there is but one storey) are so wildly erratic, that a visitor, who wakes for the first time in one of the pigeonholes that open one on the other, like the alleys of a rabbit warren, clings instinctively to his bedclothes as people do at sea, and, on second thoughts, is seized with a new panic lest the house be about to fall--an idle fear, as my lady is fond of showing; for the cyclopean rafters, that were laid in their places by the crumbled monks, are hard and black as iron, so seasoned by sea-air that they will possibly stand good so long as Ireland remains above the water. A gloomier abode than this it is scarce possible to picture; for the window-sashes are of exceeding clumsiness, the ornamentation of a ponderous flamboyancy in which all styles are twisted, without regard for canons, into curls and scrolls; and yet there is a blunt cosiness about the ensemble which seems to say, 'Here at least you are safe. If Dublin Bay were full of hostile ships, the adjacent land teeming with the enemy in arms, they might batter on for ever. They might beat at our portals till the last trump should summon them to more important business, but our panels would never budge.

On approaching the Abbey by the avenue, you are not aware of it--so masked is it by trees and ivy--till a sharp turn brings you upon a gravelled quadrangle, three sides of which are closed in by walls, while the fourth is marked out by a row of statues (white nymphs with pitchers), whose background is the chameleon sea. Directly facing these figures--at the opposite end of the square, that is--a short wide flight of steps, and a low terrace paved with coloured marbles, lead to the front entrance. The left side of the quadrangle is the 'Young Men's Wing,' sacred to whips and fishing-tackle, pierced by separate little doors for convenience on hunting mornings--two sets of separate chambers, in fact, which may be entered without pa.s.sing through the hall; and above them is the armoury, a neglected museum of rusty swords and matchlocks, an eyrie of ghosts and goblins, which is never disturbed by household broom. The right side is bounded by a close-clipped ivied wall, pierced by an archway which gives access to the stables and the kennels, ended by a mouldering turret, converted long since into a water-tower.

The grand hall, low and dark as it is with sable oak and stiff limnings of dead Crosbies, occupies the whole length and width of the central portion of the house, or rather of the narrow band which joins the two side blocks together. You may learn, by looking at the time-discoloured map which hangs over its sculptured mantelpiece, that the ground-plan of the Abbey is shaped like the letter H, whose left limb forms the young men's wing, the offices, and dining-room; whose right limb is made up of my lady's bedroom, the staircase vestibule, and the reception saloons; while the grand hall, or portrait gallery, reproduces the connecting bar. Five steps, with a curiously-carved banister, lead out of the grand hall at either end; that to the left opening into the dining-room--a finely-proportioned chamber, panelled from floor to ceiling with trophies of rusty armour breaking its sombre richness; that to the right communicating with my lady's bedroom, painted apple-green with arabesques of gold, which is chiefly remarkable for luxuriously-cushioned window-seats, from whence a fine view may be obtained of the operations in the stable-yard. The late lord used to sip his chocolate here in brocaded morning-gown and nightcap, haranguing his whipper-in and bullying the horse-boys, or tossing sc.r.a.ps to favourite hounds as they were trotted by for his inspection; and my lady has continued the practice through her widowhood, for it gratifies her vanity, as chatelaine, to watch the numberless grooms and lacqueys, the feudal array of servants and retainers. An odd nest for a lady, no doubt; but the countess chooses to inhabit it, she says, till her son brings home a bride, for the late lord sent for Italian workmen to decorate it according to her taste, and in it she will remain till the hour for abdication shall arrive.

A second door, at right angles to my lady's, opens from the hall on to the staircase with its heraldic flight of beasts; beyond this is the chintz drawing-room, a cheery pale-tinted chamber which Doreen has taken to herself as a boudoir, although it is practically no better than a pa.s.sage-room leading to the tapestried saloons. She likes it for its brightness, and because it looks out on the garden front, known as 'Miss Wolfe's Plot,' a little square fenced in at one end by the hall, on the further side by the dining-room, while at the other end there is a tall gilt grille of florid design, through which you may wander, if it pleases you, into the pleasaunce. This small quaint enclosure is Doreen's favourite haunt. She has laid it out with her own hands in strange devices of pebbles and clipped box, with a crazy sun-dial for a centre, and sits there for hours with needlework that advances not, dreaming sombrely, and sighing now and then, as her eyes travel along the cut beech hedges, smooth leafy walls, which spread inland in vistas beyond the golden gate, like the arms of some giant starfish. These hedges are the most remarkable things about a very remarkable abode. They are each of them half a mile long, thirty-six feet high, and twelve feet thick, perforated at intervals by arches; and they form together a series of triangular s.p.a.ces sheltered from sea-blasts, in which flourish such a wealth of roses as is a marvel to all comers.

Obese, old-fashioned roses, as big as your fist, hang in cataracts from tottering posts which once were orchard trees; large pink blossoms or bunches of small white ones, whose perfume weighs down the air; b.a.l.l.s of glorious colour, which, when a rare breeze shakes them, shower their sweet petals in a lazy swirl upon the gra.s.s, whence Doreen gleans and harvests them for winter, with cunning condiments, in jars. From time to time the perfume varies, as the wind sets E. or W., from that of Araby the blest to one of the salt sea--a tarry, seaweedy, nautico-piratical odour, with a strong dash of brine in it, which seems wafted upward from below to remind the dwellers in the Abbey of their long line of corsair ancestors.

The most sumptuous of all the apartments is undoubtedly the tapestried saloon, nicknamed by wags my lady's presence-chamber; for there, looking out upon the roses, she loves to sit erect surrounded by ghostly Crosbies whose mighty deeds are recorded on the walls, portrayed by the most skilful hands upon miracles of Gobelin manufacture. Mr. Curran often wondered, as he played cribbage with the chatelaine, whether those deeds were fabulous; for if not, he reflected, judging the present by the past--then were the mighty grievously come down. Here was Sir Amorey alone on a spotty horse trouncing a whole army with his doughty sword. There was Sir Teague at the head of his Kernes, making short work of the French at Agincourt.

Further on the first earl--prince of salt-water thieves, with a vanquished Desmond grimacing underneath his heel. How different were these from the present and last Glandores, whose lives were filled up to overflowing with wine and with debauchery; whose sins lacked the picturesque wickedness of these defunct seafaring murderers. Then, perceiving the countess's eye fixed on him, her crony would feel guilty for his unflattering reflections, and rapidly pursue the game; for my lady as she aged grew just the least bit garrulous, and as he loved not the aristocracy as such, it was afflicting to listen to long-winded dissertations upon the family magnificence, which he declared she invented as she went along. He was never tired though, when he could s.n.a.t.c.h a rare holiday from his professional labours, of exploring the dungeons and chimney recesses and awful holes and crannies. He it was who ferreted out the long-lost secret way beneath the sea from the water-tower to Ireland's Eye; and bitterly he repented later that he had not kept that discovery to himself; for by means of it he might have brought about the vanishing of many of the proscribed, instead of--but we travel on too fast.

My lady sat upright in the tapestried saloon, marvelling that no one filled the teapot. It was with a distressed amazement, like that of Louis XIV. when he waited, that she stared at the silver equipage, at the pathetically hissing urn. Where was Doreen the tea-maker? It was quite dark, and the incorrigible damsel was still galloping about the country, who might tell whither? It really was shocking; no wonder if milady's quills of propriety stood out, after the manner of the fretful one. It's that drop of Papist blood, she muttered; then turned to admonish her brother as to his heiress. But Arthur Wolfe listened without a word, for he was accustomed to his sister's querulous complaining, and built a bulwark of silence against her jeremiads.