My Lords of Strogue Volume Iii Part 16

'A useful sacrifice, truly!' the incensed lawyer rejoined. 'You don't think of _her_--whom you are killing!'

'The breath of the tomb is on me!' implored the lad, with a dry mouth.

'Spare any addition to my misery. I was infatuated, too certain of success, and knew she would be so glad when I succeeded. Those lives--those lives! Would success have blotted out the recollection of them? I go, and it is well that I should go, though I leave to so many a legacy of sorrow.'

There was a dreamy resignation about the youth, as of one who does wrong and leaves others to bear the brunt, which infuriated Curran. If ever there was a moment for prompt.i.tude to the exclusion of dreaminess, this was that moment, for the sake of others as well as himself; and here he stood, soliloquising like a Hamlet--the unpractical dangerous dreamer!

'You might have got away, and did not,' said the lawyer, tartly. 'Do you know that the country is being scoured for you--that if you are taken the scrag-boy will make short work of you? You don't care, maybe. Is it nothing to us--to _her?_'

'Perhaps there is still time. Get ye gone by the postern in the rosary. The peasantry are staunch. You might lie in a cabin under the bed-furniture till night, and then steal out to sea under cover of the darkness.'

'If I fall into their hands I will speak my own defence, sir,'

murmured Emmett, without moving.

'And much good may it do you--fool!' shouted the enraged councillor.

'Don't stand shilly-shallying here like a great goose. Sara, order him to go. If he's hanged you'll have yourself to thank for it.'

Sara took no heed, but lay back, watching the dear youth--as white as wax, like one in a trance.

There was a turmoil in the next room, a rustle of silk, an upsetting of chairs, and Mrs. Gillin darted through the doorway. 'Is he gone?'

she asked. 'Then it's too late! There's a body of sodgers marching in.

They are surrounding the house.'

Robert pa.s.sed his hands through his matted hair. His belief in his star was gone. He was plainly not destined to be a Joshua. He panted to join those who had crossed the rubicon. On the boundary-line of the other life we are apt to plunge into a selfish beat.i.tude, forgetting the trouble which our exit may entail on those whom we leave behind.

In a few moments his fate was fixed. The regular tramp of disciplined men was heard on the gravel with a ring of matchlocks. Then a figure darkened the cas.e.m.e.nt. It was Major Sirr demanding admittance. Robert opened the window himself, and the town-major's lambs streamed in.

Doreen gave a sharp exclamation of surprise--for one of the group was Ca.s.sidy--another, who came forward with arms outstretched, was Terence--safe and sound.

The town-major's bushy eyebrows came down upon his nose, as, grinning, he struck Robert on the shoulder. 'Do you recollect, young fellow,' he railed, 'how anxious you twice were to be arrested? I told you then that your turn would come soon enough. It has come now, and I hope you are satisfied, though I fear I shan't keep you long.'

Robert Emmett bowed absently, as if he but half-heard, and, kneeling by Sara's chair again, muttered--forgetful of lookers-on: 'Oh, my love--my love. Do we part thus? I hoped to have been a prop, round which your affections might have clung; but a rude blast has snapped it--they have fallen across a grave!' Then, twining her fair hair about his fingers with affectionate regret, he fell a dreaming, whilst Madam Gillin gulped down her sobs.

'I go into my cold and silent tomb,' he whispered, as he stroked the baby-fingers of his mistress. My lamp of life is nearly extinguished; the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom.'

Major Sirr perceived with his usual tact that this sentimental scene was producing a bad impression, and must be interrupted. The extreme youth and woe-begone appearance of Robert--his half-distracted, half-inspired look--moved the spectators to tears. Surely he was too young--too much of a visionary--to be held really accountable for the storm that he had raised. As to the frail girl, she appeared to be beyond sublunary cares. Lulled by angel-strains, she was gazing upon a world which has nothing in common with ours--what she saw was beautiful, and true, and real--the people flitting round her couch were the unreal shades. The town-major tapped his prisoner's arm, and begged him to make haste. 'I must obey orders,' he said. 'They are straightforward, and concise as Lord Clare's always are. I've brought one prisoner here, and must take another hence. Come along!'

Mrs. Gillin, unhooking a pair of scissors from her girdle, between convulsive hiccups, handed them to Doreen. The one woman understood the other's thought. Doreen gently cut the longest tress from Sara's golden head and pressed it into Robert's palm.

'Thanks,' he said, with a quiver of the lip. 'I will wear this in my bosom when I mount the scaffold. I am ready, gentlemen, and will not detain you. Before I leave the world--and I leave it now when I leave my friends--I have one request to make. May the charity of oblivion be accorded to my memory! Let no one write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dares now to vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed!'

This would never do. Major Sirr grasped him roughly by the coat-tail to drag his prisoner away. The soldiers, accustomed to the business, closed in quickly. But ere Robert went, Mr. Curran, with tears streaming down his rugged features, placed his arms about his neck, and held him in a long embrace.

Then was the last of Moiley's victims marched away under a strong guard, and the rest were left to their own sombre meditations. A stillness of oppression fell on all as Curran, Terence, and Doreen gathered round prostrate Sara. Mr. Ca.s.sidy found himself awkwardly situated, for n.o.body took any notice of him. Vainly his boots creaked, while he coughed behind his hand. Mrs. Gillin was no longer afraid, for she as well as others saw that, the tussle over, the final clearing away of Catholic disabilities was only a matter of time--that even if he launched the thunderbolt at her, in terror of which she had held her peace concerning what she knew of him, it would signify little. With the Union a new era was dawning--all the Catholics felt that--one in which Irish and English interests would grow to be the same in the future, when the sea of blood was bridged--one in which the last vile fragments of the Penal Code must soon be swept away--a relic of the dark ages. Even if Mr. Ca.s.sidy were to declare publicly that she took her Protestant daughter with her to the ma.s.s, it was possible she might escape tribulation for the enormity. So Mr. Ca.s.sidy coughed at her in vain. Curran had never liked him. Doreen knew too much of him. It was a satisfaction to all, himself included, when, with a clumsy excuse, he twirled his fine beaver and backed himself out of the apartment.

The old earl, his parent, smirked from his frame upon the new wearer of the coronet. Was the simper more full of meaning than it used to be, or was it merely the limner's conventional flattery? The desire expressed with such solemnity upon his deathbed was accomplished; the wrong was righted now--at last.

An unconscious mesmeric sympathy beyond their own volition fixed the gaze of three people upon that portrait of the wicked earl, while the same thought struck each of them in turn. Doreen withdrew her eyes, and they fell on Terence, who nodded, and striding towards his mother's bedchamber, opened the door softly and entered. Though the day was bright and mild there was a large fire on the hearth, before which crouched my lady, wrapped in a loose white wrapper, supported by many pillows. The windows were dimmed to twilight. Shane's favourite hounds, Aileach and Eblana, sat on their haunches with their muzzles on her lap, in wistful expectancy of that which they might never see.

She took no notice of the intruder, supposing that it was Doreen, till recognising a heavier footstep and a dreaded voice, she shrank away from him with a moan, as if she had received a blow.

'Mother!' Terence began.

My lady crawled along the carpet on her knees--a bundle of loose draperies--her head bent down, her white hair straggling, towards her son, who recoiled. The aspect of this piteous ruin--this soul-stricken wreck, the mainspring of whose life was broken, whose courage had ebbed quite away--suffused the heart of Terence with unutterable pity.

He raised his mother in his stalwart arms, and pressing his warm lips to hers, whispered:

'Hush, hush! I know all. You have but one child now. Bless me!'

But little more remains to be told. Evil, though it seemeth to flourish like the bay-tree, doth not always prosper in the long run.

Lord Cornwallis turned his back on Ireland, glad to depart. Ca.s.sidy and Sirr came to blows, and fought a duel on the subject of Terence's release. For those worthies had arranged to share together the reward which Shane was to have given for their little service. But Shane's murder altered the face of matters, and Ca.s.sidy, with a presence of mind which did him honour, flew off at once to set free the new Lord Glandore and claim the merit of having done so. The town-major, however, knew his man. The giant's endeavours were fruitless, and Sirr found him bl.u.s.tering at the provost-gate when, in obedience to Lord Clare's behest, he came, with feigned surprise, to carry the new lord back to his ancestral home. Sirr saw through his crony's intention, and branded him hotly with being 'no gintleman,' and a 'mean fellow;'

whereupon the two met on Stephen's Green, and, after a few pa.s.ses, declared 'honour satisfied.' The nests of both were well feathered.

One became noted for pious works; the other set up as a patron of art, and formed the finest collection of snuff-boxes in the three kingdoms.

Robert Emmett was hanged in Thomas Street, and met his fate with fort.i.tude. The same enthusiasm which allured him to his doom enabled him to support with serene courage its utmost rigour. His extreme youth and well-known talents filled the spectators with grief. He sang 'The Sword' with a firm and mellow voice, which never quailed till, the board on which he stood being tilted up, he was set free to join the band that were impatiently awaiting him beyond the Styx.

Lord Clare's ambition was not gratified. He who had been so unprincipled and arrogant, so insolent and overbearing, his cleverness no longer needed, was tossed aside by his employers. He carried his pretensions into the English senate, and was ignominiously insulted there by his Grace the Duke of Bedford. Pitt gave him no comfort, observing with a yawn that he was sorry his lordship was a failure; that he would do well, perhaps, to return to Ireland. He who had so deceived was himself betrayed. For a few years he lingered in obscurity, being heard on one occasion, when near his end, to mutter with sombre meaning: 'Earl and Lord Chancellor! It would have been better for Ireland if I had lived a sweep!' He died--some said of chagrin, and some of remorse. Showers of dead cats were thrown upon his coffin. His last eager directions were that his papers should be carefully destroyed unread.

Lord Castlereagh, as all the world knows, cut his throat.

Government, acting on the advice of the Marquis Cornwallis, accorded a free pardon to the new Lord Glandore, whose romantic history softened King George's heart--even though he added yet another to his sins by marrying a Catholic. It is possible that his Majesty's ire might have found vent in a seizure of the property of the incorrigible traitor; but, happily for the latter and for the nation, the King's few wits deserted him, and he was shut up--as he should have been many years before.

Lord and Lady Glandore sojourned abroad awhile, basking in the softness of a kindlier clime. They had suffered too much in Ireland to feel aught but pain in dwelling there. Moreover, they had those under their care whose sorrow hung over them, whilst theirs was at length a.s.suaged.

The old countess and the Currans travelled over Europe with them. My lady never fully rallied. Though her son and daughter lavished every attention upon her which affection could dictate, the ghost was never laid, the startled expression never departed from her face. When they were present she tried to a.s.sume cheerfulness; but if one or other came on her unawares, it was to feel that her heart was not with them--that it was buried in the vault on the verge of Dublin Bay, by the side of the unlucky Shane.

Curran did rally to a certain extent, and returned to Ireland to win new esteem as Master of the Rolls. But that was long after gentle Sara died, an event which caused Doreen deep grief, though Terence reminded her that it was for the best. Her reason went from her, so that she never knew of Robert's fate, but would sit crooning the weird ditties of her native land for hours together, and hearken for his coming with a vacant glee that was heartrending to those who loved her: and all who knew her loved gentle Sara. Slowly she faded and sank to rest--peacefully, serenely, with no last buffeting against the trammels of this life--as an infant sinks into refreshing slumber. To her, if not to others, was Heaven kind. Though she was given a cross to bear, yet she never felt its weight, nor knew that she stood in the ranks of the bereaved. It was of her that a gifted poet sang:

'Oh! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest When they promise a glorious morrow; They'll shine o'er her sleep like a smile from the West, From her own loved island of sorrow!'

TO THE READER.

It has been the habit of novelists, for some reason or another with which we have nothing to do at present, to a.s.sociate the Irish character with rollicking fun, nave bungling, and mighty fine tastes of the brogue; and it occurred to me some time since that English readers who are surfeited with orthodox Hibernian jollities might be glad, for a change, to look on Pat from his shadowed side; to contemplate his dreary pilgrimage through the Valley of the Shadow of Death; to pause for a moment over the events which have bound round his character with sorrow and hedged him about with grief. The history of Ireland has been so perverted by mendacious faction that the truth lies deeply interred. Protestant has vilified Catholic, and Catholic Protestant, to the extent which is inevitably a.s.sociated with religious rancour. My sympathies being specially with neither party, I have endeavoured to weigh the evidence in a free and independent spirit, and have come to the conclusion, as might have been expected, that both were in a measure right and both wrong, considering that both were actuated by grievances of a more or less awful character, which, being tinged by a colour of religion, drove them both to madness and excess.

One of the chief difficulties with which an historical novelist has to contend, is the question how far imagination may be permitted successfully to fight with fact. Conversely, even reverend historians are beset by this trouble. Walter Scott, Chateaubriand, Michelet, hardly allow us to separate romance from history, and history from romance.

Being desirous of giving a true picture of a time, clothed in romantic garb, I, in my last novel, conscientiously pointed out the peccadilloes which lay cunningly in ambush in its chapters; and, being still anxious to keep my conscience clear, I deem it advisable now to repeat the process.

In the construction of this work I was deliberately guilty of two crimes, both of which, I consider, are attended with extenuating circ.u.mstances.

The first concerns the compact between the Executive and the state-prisoners, and is a sin of omission; for although the facts and the disgraceful behaviour of the English King and Government are truthfully related, it did not suit the scheme of the story to enter into all the motives which impelled the United Irishmen to sacrifice their feelings, and agree to so singular an arrangement. The rebel leaders submitted to examination by the secret council in hopes of saving the life of Oliver Bond; but as Oliver Bond was not one of my chosen puppets, I considered it permissible to leave him in his grave.

The second crime is one of much greater enormity. To suit the purpose of the weft, I have presumed to ante-date Emmett's rising by two years and a half. The United standard first waved over Dublin Castle on January 1,1801, whilst Emmett's riot did not take place till July, 1803. But I hold that, for the purposes of romance, the romancist may be permitted to draw events together, though he is in no case to be allowed to transpose them. At the time of the Union Robert Emmett was away in France on treasonable business; but it is in every way probable that if he had been in Ireland he would have acted as I have made him act. There is ample testimony to prove that the dwellers in the country (as opposed to the dwellers in the towns) were ready as early as the winter of '79 to make a new attempt if they could have found a leader, and that they waited for two years simply because Emmett did not call them to arms till then.