My Lords of Strogue Volume Iii Part 15

A sharp ring of hoofs clattered on the road--nearer--nearer--nearer still. A band of hors.e.m.e.n were approaching at a gallop from the quay; behind--in the distance--a host of cavalry; from the opposite direction the tramp of many feet. The Castle-gates had been opened; the infantry were pouring forth; the mob, finding itself hemmed in, smote right and left in a frantic effort to escape.

The smaller band of hors.e.m.e.n, headed by Shane and Ca.s.sidy, were the first to reach the coach. They drew their _couteaux-de-cha.s.se_, and, beating aside the unwieldy pikes, which were too long for such close quarters, trampled the insurgents down.

'The lady, Lord Glandore!' Ca.s.sidy shouted. 'Now's your time!'

'Oh, save her!' raved Robert, in remorse. 'My G.o.d, what have I done?

Save her, Lord Glandore!'

Shane stretched out his hand towards his cousin. Chance was favouring him. Under pretext of protecting her, the project planned by the giant could without difficulty be accomplished now. Doreen shrank back.

'Begone!' she wailed, filled with the anguish of that heap upon the ground. 'What have you done with your brother--b.a.s.t.a.r.d!'

Shane winced, as from a whip-cut on the cheek. She, too, then knew the fatal secret; but it mattered not, for she was in his power. The military were closing in upon the mob. In the scurry and the darkness he would bear her far away. He was well known; what more natural than that her cousin should rescue the bereaved Miss Wolfe from such a scene?

Dismounting, he strode over the corpse of Lord Kilwarden, and calling on his friends to rally round the coach, prepared to withdraw it from the _melee_.

Upon hearing the name, twice repeated, the man who had held the pistol to the coachman's ear turned sharply round.

'You then are Lord Glandore?' he asked. 'The curse of G.o.d has found you, murderer! You and a few like you slew my father four years agone in sport on Stephen's Green! Do you recall it? He was only an old man--a shoemaker. Maybe you don't, for you've done many such deeds, and you were drunk!'

Shane thrust the importunate babbler aside, and ordered the coachman to urge on his horses.

'I've waited for my revenge all this while, my lord,' muttered the man, 'and you don't escape me now.'

Raising his pistol with steady aim, he shot Shane through the heart, and, diving, vanished in the crowd.

Ca.s.sidy was taken aback. Hitherto everything had moved according to his desire. Were his well-constructed schemes to be disconcerted now?

He looked up the street and down the street at the compact bodies of troops advancing, then with a rage of longing at Doreen. Yes! his plan was overthrown; a new one must spring out of its ashes. Shane, by virtue of his cousinship, might have borne the young lady with safety through the ranks. He, Ca.s.sidy, could hope for no such privilege.

Well, better luck next time. But it would not do to lose his footing at Strogue Abbey. _Le roi est mort; vive le roi!_ He bethought him of a certain prisoner within the provost, kidnapped the other day, whose position was quite changed by that untoward pistol-shot. All things considered, Mr. Ca.s.sidy could not have acted with more wisdom than he did. He left Doreen to the tender mercies of the soldiery, and spurred with utmost speed towards the provost.

CHAPTER XII.

MOILEY'S LAST MEAL.

Doreen speedily recovered her presence of mind, shaken for an instant by the sudden shock of the predicament in which she found herself. The ringleaders of the riot were, with a few exceptions, netted. The young officers of militia, many of whom had danced at b.a.l.l.s with the beautiful Miss Wolfe, were loud in their outcry over the tragedy, vociferous in promises of vengeance. Would she wish the rascals to be lashed, or would pitchcaps please her fancy? The malefactors should swing, every one; that would be a comfort to her, no doubt.

Excruciating cats should be manufactured to oblige her. No punishment could be too severe for wretches who had dared to kill two members of the peerage. Where should they take their beautiful charge? Would she go to the Castle, or to her lamented parent's mansion? Wherever Venus liked, there would Mars escort her. Disciplined by sorrow, Doreen could even at this dark hour consider the grief of others before her own. The Countess of Glandore was sick and shattered. Since Terence's vanishing she had returned to the condition of an owl; what would be the effect on her frayed nerves of the sudden death of her favourite son? Doreen decided, postponing the consideration of her own loss, to drive at once to Strogue, lest tidings should reach her aunt more abruptly than her state would warrant.

It was dawn when Miss Wolfe reached the Abbey--the cold raw dawn of early summer, when nature a.s.serts her right to live despite the tyranny of winter--and she was seized with a new pain on entering the hall; for wan Sara was sitting where she had sank down, to await she knew not what. Alas! for her, too, was she a bearer of evil tidings, and Sara read them on her face, and sighed. The look of deep compa.s.sion told but too plainly that her worst forebodings were realised; and that, as a daughter of Erin, she must accept her place in the grim procession of the bereaved. She did not ask for news--preferred, indeed, to hear none, for what news was there that could bring aught but misery? Like a tired child she closed her eyes, and clung to the older maiden in a mute entreaty not to be left alone.

This speechless sorrow was painful to witness. The offices of Miss Wolfe were needed elsewhere, for there was another in the stricken household who must be attended to before the sad _cortege_ should arrive. My lady would have to be told that she had lost both a brother and a son. It was with relief then that she heard a creaking on the stairs and perceived Mr. Curran coming down, who, by his appearance, had evidently not been to bed. She, who had learned what loss is, knew the full value of a father's love. Beckoning him to his daughter, she disentangled the cold fingers from about her neck and went away to my lady's bedroom.

Mr. Curran was himself in dolorous mood. Extremely troubled by the rocket which he too had seen, and by hints which, during the past week, had reached him through the proprietress of the Little House, he had been unable to sleep. Groaning in spirit he saw the shambles reopened; the reign of terror recommenced. His country was dead now; Moiley had eaten her up to the last crumb. Might not the sacrifice of her existence bring peace unto her sons? As leaning his cheek upon his hand he sat looking across the tranquil bay at the twinkling lights beyond, his heart became exceeding sorrowful while he reviewed the efforts of his life. Memory stood by in a sable robe. Though he had held himself erect whilst others grovelled; though his courage had remained unshaken whilst others quaked and fawned; how little--how very little--it had been given to him to accomplish! Yet there was nothing he had wittingly left undone. His political honour was so bright that malice could detect no stain on it. He had worked for others--not for himself. Instead of lifting himself as he might have done above the stormy agitation of his time, he had clung to the heaving of the wave--to rise and fall with it--perchance to be dashed with it upon a rock--with how little result--how little--how very little! Yet he saw not how he could have acted otherwise. As dawn began to sparkle on the bay, he took up a book to change the current of his pondering--a volume of the grand Greek poets. It opened at the 'Seven Against Thebes,' and he read thoughts which were a painful echo of his own. 'The happiest destiny is never to have been born; the next best to return quickly to the nothingness from which we came.' Grand old t.i.tan aeschylus! Was that all his genius could discern? Never to have been born! Was that the conviction of the great philosopher? Mr.

Curran looked out on the panorama stretched before him, as fair a prospect as man may desire to look upon. The glittering waters were strewn with flakes of silver; the looming hills steeped in a golden haze. The beautiful world! Was its beauty a mockery of human trouble--no more? It seemed so. Those lovely hills were teeming with desperate men, reduced by the branding-iron of oppression to the condition of wild beasts. In the blue shadow of those picturesque ravines were cottages--charred, unroofed, deserted. That fairy city that mirrored its whiteness in the bay--glistering, silver-crowned--had been but t'other day the scene of perhaps the most hideous carnival of human wickedness which ever disgraced humanity.

Perchance even at this very instant, while the wizened little man was gazing out so dreamily, fresh horrors were being enacted. Truly, 'twere the happiest of destinies never to have looked on the false sheen of the sepulchre at all. But though we may drag at them, the tough fibres of existence are deeply imbedded in our flesh.

Mr. Curran, from his station, marked the return of Lord Kilwarden's coach--the pallid concern of the servants, who were speaking in hushed tones, as though in the awful presence of the Pilgrim. He went downstairs to learn what had happened. It was worse than he expected.

Deluded Robert--insane enthusiast! Alas! The advocate would have to stand forth yet once again and wrestle for a life; would have to rouse himself from his dejection to do all that was possible to save this lad. With the urgent need for action Mr. Curran recovered his mental steadiness. He resolved to seek tidings at once of Robert and of Terence; to raise his voice in their behalf. Were both concerned in the disastrous riot? Were both captured? had both escaped? As he rode past the Little House, Madam Gillin called out that she had something to say. Anxious, on account of Terence's disappearance, the kind lady had sent Jug into town for several days past to ferret out the truth.

The hag had discovered that men had been remarked loitering about the Abbey gates; that Terence one evening had been observed by a pa.s.sing peasant to emerge into the road and go to the water's edge; that there he had been accosted by these self-same suspicious men, who had a boat with them. It was certain that Terence had never been seen in the neighbourhood of young Robert's _depot_, or in the _melee_ of last night. Hence it was clear that he had departed. Where and why? Was it of his own accord? As for Robert, he was not among the captives. Jug examined them every one, as, heavily ironed, they were marched to Kilmainham in detachments. A man in a uniform plastered thick with gold was rowed out to sea by four st.u.r.dy rowers an hour or two ago. In all probability that man was Robert, who had provided for his escape by means of one of the many vessels that were cruising in the Channel.

Utterly mad in all other ways, he had shown prudence and forethought in this. He was gone. His n.o.ble young life would not be thrown away for nothing--he whose sin was too fond a love for unhappy motherland.

Mr. Curran gave a sigh of thankfulness. Small mercies keep us from breaking down at times. This was good news, at any rate. With courage revived, he could go to the Castle now and demand with a high hand that inquiries as to the fate of Terence should be set afoot. If anything unpleasant was said about Emmett, he could snap his fingers in the Viceroy's face--for the boy was gone, thank goodness, out of his clutches. Moiley would grind her gums for her last morsel in vain.

The hungry ogress! She had eaten Ireland and quaffed the best blood of Ireland's children. Her appet.i.te was delicate, it seemed, and clamoured for the best. She declined to lunch off the Battalion of Testimony. The flesh of Sirr and Ca.s.sidy was bitter, and she spat it out. She absolutely refused even to nibble, much less to swallow, either of these honest gentlemen.

At mention of Ca.s.sidy, Gillin, whose cheeks had puckered into dimples at Curran's badinage, grew grave again. She felt, scarcely knowing why, that Ca.s.sidy had something to do with the affair of Terence, who was Earl of Glandore, secret or no secret, now. The difficulty had been solved in a quite unexpected manner; and in her heart of hearts the worthy woman was glad, though she would have to abandon her desire of seeing Norah adorning the a.s.sembly of the _elite_. Ah! deary me, she sighed to herself. There were other fish in the sea. Norah was a comely colleen, who would get a good husband somehow--maybe a better one than Shane would ever have made, though he was lord of broad acres and had a coronet to bestow on the girl who touched his fancy. But where was the new Earl of Glandore? Curran trotted off to make it his business to find out.

This last armed attempt to free Ireland was the vulgarest and weakest of riots, which would never have been recorded, or have occupied any place in history at all, but for the unfortunate murder of the Lord Chief Justice and his nephew. Their fate--especially that of Lord Kilwarden, who was a kindhearted gentleman--demanded a scapegoat.

Foolish young Robert was the first cause of the disaster. It was essential that he should be held up as an example. Could anything be more provoking than that he should get away? Perhaps he was not gone--perhaps he had landed somewhere. The town-major was commanded to scour the country in all directions. His battalion was well paid and had been very idle of late. It was time that its members should do some service to earn their bread-and-b.u.t.ter. Such were the orders which issued from the Castle, and Curran knew well that they did not emanate from Lord Cornwallis. He was not much surprised, therefore, after crossing Castle-yard, to be ushered into a morning-room, garnished with a huge bureau, at which was sitting, in handsome black velvet trimmed with sable fur, the Chancellor.

Lord Clare beheld with evident pleasure the entrance of his enemy, the man who had been his stumbling-block through his career; for this was the moment of his triumph. He held out his jewelled fingers with a polished bow; rasped out a welcome in his least pleasant voice; and explained that, in the overflow of labour which sprang from the details of yesterday's Great Measure and last night's deplorable catastrophe, both Viceroy and Chief Secretary were so worked off their legs that they had been delighted to accept of his poor services for the transaction of ordinary business.

Lord Clare was rather sorry for Kilwarden, though he had always despised him as a ninc.u.mp.o.o.p. But this transient cloud of annoyance was dissipated by the sun of yesterday's success and the new vista of power which it opened to his ambition; and Curran looked at him in wonder as he strutted and fussed about, with the comical majesty of a raven.

It has been observed that the greatest political and religious crimes are due to public spirit out of gear. The Irish chancellor was probably honest in his conviction that union was the best thing for Ireland, and it was not his fault if his duty and his interest jumped in the same direction. His standard of morals was so low that the desperate patriotism of such men as Tone or Terence, or Robert Emmett, were as unknown tongues to him. He despised Kilwarden, though he liked him, because he was weak; but he hated Curran with all his heart, because, while brave as any lion, ho had an inconvenient knack of putting his finger on the chancellor's weak places. But Lord Clare was so jubilant this morning that he was prepared to be generous even to this enemy. Difficulties were over; he could almost feel the flapping of the united banner overhead, almost hear the packing of the trunks of my Lord Cornwallis. He observed, too, that the crab-apple features of the little man before him seemed old and dried; that the eyes were glazed which used to flash with fire and dance with fun. He was one of the fools whose heart was broken over a chimera; of course the successful statesman could afford to be generous to so pitiable a wreck. So he said:

'Delighted to see my respected Curran--friend, I suppose, I may not say? Ah! well. You always wronged me, my good fellow. Civility was never among your faults. But demagogues would lose half their prestige if they were not crabbed. No wonder you are rude, for you have lost all your tricks. Had you not, in a huff, thrown up your seat in parliament, you might have done much to hurt us; and that makes you spiteful, I suppose. What do you gain by this ghastly display of martyrdom? Believe me, Curran, that if you are too good for the world you live in, it will be more comfortable to yourself as well as others to go out of it. That's why Wolfe Tone helped himself out of it, I presume, and I for one am vastly obleeged to him. Talking of that reminds me of last night's folly--a sad affair--a sad affair; but can't be helped, you know. A drop of trouble in the sea of bliss which yesterday's decision gave us. You don't feel quite that way? Ah! well.

People's opinions differ, don't they? The one I'm most distressed about is our old friend the countess. She will feel that fellow's fate most terribly, the more so that he was a ne'er-do-well; though there are reasons why it's best as it is. Your _protege_ is the holder of the family honours now?'

Curran nodded, wondering what his enemy was aiming at; while the latter, scanning his features, perceived with pleasure that my lady's secret had never been divulged to him. It was well that that secret should lie in as few hands as possible.

'Where is Terence?' Curran inquired bluntly.

'Terence! I know not,' replied the other, in his turn surprised. 'Has anything befallen him?'

'You _really_ do not? Then it's Ca.s.sidy who's done it,' cried out Curran. 'He's been kidnapped for some h.e.l.lish purpose!'

Knowing Ca.s.sidy as he did, the chancellor looked disturbed. It was quite possible that this worthy might be up to his tricks again. Had not he, Lord Clare, warned the young man against him once, when he was too stupid to take the hint? This scoundrel was still then, with, some dark intent, pursuing him. Why had he not been told of this before? It was most serious. Terence kidnapped, evidently by Ca.s.sidy! It would never do. Would the countess have to bewail both sons? Not if her old friend could help it. Touching a gong, he gave rapid directions that every prison in Dublin should be searched immediately for the missing prisoner; that, if found, he was to be taken back at once to Strogue, whither the chancellor would proceed in his coach, in the company of his esteemed friend.

But the proposed drive, during which Lord Clare promised himself to twit his fallen foe, was not to be. At the bottom of the stairs he was a.s.sailed by a troop of suitors, who would not be refused. Reluctantly he was compelled to allow Curran to trot off on his pony, promising to follow in an hour, at most.

The lawyer rode along, marvelling at the sphynxlike chancellor. Here was a man who reeked of the blood of the peasantry; who would, if he could, have burned all the Catholics in one vast bonfire, and who yet was capable of feeling emotion on behalf of a white-haired old friend.

Then he thought of his dear daughter Sara, who seemed stunned by last night's catastrophe. Did she care so much, then, for this lad? It was fortunate that he should have been able to escape. That would save Sara much agony. She would have to be taken abroad for change of scene, and, peradventure, in a foreign land might find the brook of Lethe. How glad her father would be if he too might find it; but that was past wishing for. He was too old to receive new impressions, while Sara would speedily forget.

With shoulders rounded and head bowed, Mr. Curran trotted back to Strogue. Feeling that he was no longer able to fight as he used to do, it was a wonderful relief to think that Robert was gone away. Time was when it was exhilarating to break a lance with my Lord Clare. But the st.u.r.dy advocate had received his pa.s.sport for the undiscovered country, and, but for Sara's sake, was little inclined to murmur if he were required to use it soon. It was clear to him that there must be an exodus--to America--anywhere. He and Sara should be the first to go; and perhaps he might be permitted to linger on until her future was in some way a.s.sured.

He trotted along the road, absorbed in sorrowful considerations, until, just as he pa.s.sed under the hedge which belonged to the Little House, he was rudely roused from reverie. Madam Gillin was gesticulating like a madwoman.

'Hist!' she whispered. 'The boy's not gone! Whillaloo! 'Twas the baker that escaped! It's at Strogue he is this cursed minute. The candle's there, the moth is booming round it! Maybe there's time still. Bid him be off, jewel, do; and I'll keep watch lest any come. Jug's looking out on the back road.'

'Murther!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Curran, wide awake now. 'They're scouring the country for him. Oh, the silly lad!' And beating his pony with unwonted vehemence, the lawyer galloped through the park-gates, along the short turn of avenue which led to the Abbey, and, leaving the astonished animal to recover how he could, hurried up the steps into the hall.

The door was idly swinging, but no one was visible in the vestibule nor in the dining-room, nor in Miss Wolfe's boudoir. Hark! Subdued voices, murmuring further on, in the tapestry-saloon. He moved quickly thither, and, standing on the threshold, stamped his feet in the impotent fury of his wrath. There was Robert--haggard and unkempt--still in the pinchbeck uniform, torn and bespattered now, with a peasant's frieze-coat thrown over it--a ridiculous disguise. He was kneeling by a couch whereon lay Sara, her face turned towards him, her eyes fixed full on his with a wild unreasoning longing, while he chafed her hands and kissed them. The tall and graceful figure of Doreen leaned against the sculptured garlands of the mantelpiece, as she gave the homage of silent sympathy to the voiceless parting of this pair, while her mind wandered in the cypressed graveyard of her own sorrow. That heap of black satin, p.r.o.ne under the carriage-wheels, would never leave her memory so long as life should last. Stroke had succeeded stroke, and she winced no more.

All three looked up when Curran stamped his feet, and Robert advanced towards him timidly.

'I have done wrong, terribly wrong, sir,' he said, with a sigh. 'I can make no atonement, except by laying down my life.'