Tom Burke Of "Ours" Volume I Part 16

"Yes," said Kelly, springing forward, "he was at the churchyard with the other; I'll swear to that."

"I think we can do without your valuable aid in this business," said Barton, smiling maliciously. "Come along, young gentleman; we 'll try and finish the education that has begun so prosperously."

My eyes involuntarily turned to the table where De Meudon's pistols were lying. The utter hopelessness of such a contest deterred me not, I sprang towards them; but as I did so, the strong hand of Barton was on my collar, and with a hoa.r.s.e laugh, he threw me against the wall, as he called out,--

"Folly, boy! mere folly. You are quite sure of the rope without that.

Here, take him off!"

As he spoke, two soldiers seized me on either side, and before a minute elapsed, pinioned my arms behind my back. In another moment the men fell in, the order was given to march, and I was led away between the files, Kelly following at the rear; while Barton's voice might be heard issuing from the cabin, as he gave his orders for the burial of the body, and the removal of all the effects and papers to the barrack at Glencree.

We might have been about an hour on the road when Barton overtook us.

He rode to the head of the party, and handing a paper to the sergeant, muttered some words, among which I could only gather the phrase, "Committed to Newgate;" then, turning round in his saddle, he fixed his eyes on Kelly, who, like a beast of prey, continued to hang upon the track of his victim.

"Well, Dan," cried he, "you may go home again now. I am afraid you 've gained nothing this time but character."

"Home!" muttered the wretch in a voice of agony; "is it face home after this morning's work?"

"And why not, man? Take my word for it, the neighbors will be too much afraid to meddle with you now."

"Oh, Mister Barton! oh, darling! don't send me back there, for the love of Heaven! Take me with you!" cried the miserable wretch, in tones of heart-moving misery.

"Oh, young gentleman," said he, taming towards me, and catching me by the sleeve, "spake a word for me this day!"

"Don't you think he has enough of troubles of his own to think of, Dan?"

said Barton, with a tone of seeming kindliness. "Go back, man; go back!

there 's plenty of work before you in this very county. Don't lay your hand on me, you scoundrel; your touch would pollute a hangman."

The man fell back as if stunned at the sound of these words; his face became livid, and his lips white as snow. He staggered a pace or two, like a drunken man, and then stood stock-still, his eyes fixed upon the road.

"Quick march!" said the sergeant.

The soldiers stepped out again; and as we turned the angle of the road, about a mile farther, I beheld Kelly still standing in the self same att.i.tude we left him. Barton, after some order to the sergeant, soon left us, and we continued our march till near nine o'clock, when the party halted to breakfast. They pressed me to eat with every kind entreaty, but I could taste nothing, and we resumed our road after half an hour. But the day becoming oppressively hot, it was deemed better to defer our march till near sunset; we stopped, then, during the noon, in a shady thicket near the roadside, where the men, unbuckling their knapsacks and loosening their stocks, lay down in the deep gra.s.s, either chatting together or smoking. The sergeant made many attempts to draw me into conversation, but my heart was too full of its own sensations either to speak or listen; so he abandoned the pursuit with a good grace, and betook himself to his pipe at the foot of a tree, where, after its last whiff escaped, he sank into a heavy sleep.

Such of the party as were not disposed for sleep gathered together in a little knot on a small patch of green gra.s.s, in the middle of a beech clump, where, having arranged themselves with as much comfort as the place permitted, they began chatting away over their life and its adventures pleasantly and freely. I was glad to seek any distraction from my own gloomy thoughts in listening to them, as I lay only a few yards off; but though I endeavored with all my might to attend to and take interest in their converse, my thoughts always turned to him I had lost forever,--the first, the only friend I had ever known. All care for myself and what fortune awaited me was merged in my sorrow for him. If not indifferent to my fate, I was at least unmindful of it, and although the words of those near me fell upon my ear, I neither heard nor marked them.

From this dreamy lethargy I was at last suddenly aroused by the hearty bursts of laughter that broke from the party, and a loud clapping of hands that denoted their applause of something or somebody then before them.

"I say, George," said one of the soldiers, "he's a queer 'un, too, that piper."

"Yes, he 's a droll chap," responded the other solemnly, as he rolled forth a long curl of smoke from the angle of his mouth.

"Can you play 'Rule Britannia,' then?" asked another of the men.

"No, sir," said a voice I at once knew to be no other than my friend Darby's,--"no, sir. But av the 'Fox's Lament,' or 'Mary's Dream;'

wasn't uncongenial to your sentiments, it would be a felicity to me to expatiate upon the same before yez."

"Eh, Bell," cried a rough voice, "does that beat you now?"

"No," said another, "not a bit. He means he 'll give us something Irish instead; he don't know 'Rule Britannia! '"

"Not know 'Rule Britannia!' Why, where the devil were you ever bred or born, man,--eh?"

"Kerry, sir, the kingdom of Kerry, was the nativity of my father; my maternal progenitrix emanated from Clare. Maybe you 've heard the adage,--

"'From Keiry his father, from Clare came his mother; He 's more rogue nor fool on one side and the other.'

Not but that, in my humble individuality, I am an exceptions ill.u.s.tration of the proverbial catastrophe."

Another shout of rude laughter from his audience followed this speech, amid the uproar of which Darby began tuning his pipes, as if perfectly unaware that any singularity on his part had called forth the mirth.

"Well, what are we to have, old fellow, after all that confounded squeaking and grunting?" said he who appeared the chief spokesman of the party.

"'Tis a trifling production of my own muse, sir,--a kind of biographical, poetical, and categorical dissertation of the delights, devices, and daily doings of your obaydient servant and ever submissive slave, Darby the Blast."

Though it was evident very little of his eloquent announcement was comprehended by the party, their laughter was not less ready, and a general chorus proclaimed their attention to the song.

Darby accordingly a.s.sumed his wonted dignity of port, and having given some half dozen premonitory flourishes, which certainly had the effect of astonishing and overawing the audience, he began, to the air of "The Night before Larry was stretched," the following ditty:--

DARBY THE BLAST.

Oh! my name it is Darby the Blast; My country is Ireland all over; My religion is never to fast, But live, as I wander, in clover; To make fun for myself every day, The ladies to plaise when I 'm able, The boys to amuse as I play, And make the jugs dance on the table.

Oh! success to the chanter, my dear!

Your eyes on each side you may cast, But there is n't a house that is near ye But they 're glad to have Darby the Blast, And they 'll tell ye 'tis he that can cheer ye.

Oh! 't is he can put life in a feast; What music lies under his knuckle; As he plays "Will I send for the Priest?"

Or a jig they call "Cover the Buckle."

Oh! good luck to the chanter, your sowl!

But give me an audience in rags; They 're illigant people for list'ning; 'T is they that can humor the bags As I rise a fine tune at a christ'ning.

There 's many a weddin' I make Where they never get further nor sighing; And when I perform at a wake, The corpse looks delighted at dying.

Oh! success to the chanter, your sowl!

"Eh! what's that?" cried a gruff voice; "the corpse does what?"

"'T is a rhetorical amplification, that means he would if he could,"

said Darby, stopping to explain.

"I say," said another, "that's all gammon and stuff; a corpse could n't know what was doing,--eh, old fellow?"

"'T is an Irish corpse I was describin'," said Darby, proudly, and evidently, while sore pushed for an explanation, having a severe struggle to keep down his contempt for the company that needed it.

An effort I made at this moment to obtain a nearer view of the party, from whom I was slightly separated by some low brushwood, brought my hand in contact with something sharp; I started and looked round, and to my astonishment saw a clasp knife, such as gardeners carry, lying open beside me. In a second I guessed the meaning of this. It had been so left by Darby, to give me an opportunity of cutting the cords that bound my arms, and thus facilitating my escape. His presence was doubtless there for this object, and all the entertaining powers he displayed only brought forth to occupy the soldiers' attention while I effected my deliverance. Regret for the time lost was my first thought; my second, more profitable, was not to waste another moment. So, kneeling down I managed with the knife to cut some of my fastenings, and after some little struggle freed one arm; to liberate the other was the work of a second, and I stood up untrammelled. What was to be done next? for although at liberty, the soldiers lay about me on every side, and escape seemed impossible. Besides, I knew not where to turn, where to look for one friendly face, nor any one who would afford me shelter. Just then I heard Darby's voice raised above its former pitch, and evidently intended to be heard by me.

"Sure, there's Captain Bubbleton, of the Forty-fifth Regiment, now in Dublin, in George's Street Barracks. Ay, in George's Street Barracks,"

said he, repeating the words as if to impress them on me. "'T is himself could tell you what I say is thrue; and if you wouldn't put confidential authentification on the infirmation of a poor leather-squeezing, timber-tickling crayture like myself, sure you 'd have reverential obaydience to your own commissioned captain."