Tom Burke Of "Ours", Volume II

“Were you ever called ‘Fire-the-Haggard’?”

“I was, often.”

“For no reason, of course?”

“Divil a may son. The boys said it in sport, just as they talk of yer honor out there in the hall.”

“How do you mean, – talk of me?”

“Sure I heard them say myself, as I was coming in, that you wor a clever man and a ‘cute lawyer. They do be always humbugging that way.”

A titter ran round the benches of the barristers at this speech, which was delivered with a naïve simplicity that would deceive many.

“You were a United Irishman, Mr. M’Keown, I believe?” rejoined the counsel, with a frown of stern intimidation.

“Yes, sir; and a White Boy, and a Defender, and a Thrasher besides. I was in all the fun them times.”

“The Thrashers are the fellows, I believe, who must beat any man they are appointed to attack; isn’t that so?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So that, if I was mentioned to you as a person to be assaulted, although I had never done you any injury, you ‘d not hesitate to waylay me?”

“No, sir, I wouldn’t do that. I’d not touch yer honor.”

“Come, come; what do you mean? Why wouldn’t you touch me?”

“I’ d rather not tell, av it was plazing to ye.”

“You must tell, sir; speak out! Why wouldn’t you attack me?”

“They say, sir,” said Darby, – and as he spoke, his voice assumed a peculiar lisp, meant to express great modesty, – “they say, sir, that when a man has a big wart on his nose there, like yer honor, it’s not lucky to bate him, for that’s the way the divil marks his own.”

This time the decorum of the court gave way entirely, and the unwashed faces which filled the avenues and passages were all expanded in open laughter; nor was it easy to restore order again amid the many marks of approval and encouragement bestowed on Darby by his numerous admirers.

“Remember where you are, sir,” said the judge, severely.

“Yes, my lord,” said Darby, with an air of submission. “‘T is the first time I was ever in sich a situation as this. I ‘m much more at my ease when I ‘m down in the dock there; it’s what I ‘m most used to, God help me.”

The whining tone in which he delivered this mock lament on his misfortunes occasioned another outbreak of the mob, who were threatened with expulsion from the court if any future interruption took place.

“You were, then, a member of every illegal society of the time, Mr. Darby?” said the lawyer, returning to the examination. “Is it not so?”

“Most of them, anyhow,” was the cool reply.

“You took an active part in the doings of the year ‘98 also?”

“Throth I did, – mighty active. I walked from beyant Castlecomer one day to Dublin to see a trial here. Be the same token, it was Mr. Curran made a hare of yer honor that day. Begorrah I wonder ye ever held up yer head after.”

Here a burst of laughter at the recollection seemed to escape Darby so naturally, that its contagious effects were felt throughout the assembly.

“You are a wit, Mr. M’Keown, I fancy, eh?”

“Bedad I ‘m not, sir; very little of that same would have kept out of this to-day.”

“But you came here to serve a friend, – a very old friend, he calls you.”

“Does he?” said Darby, with an energy of tone and manner very different from what he had hitherto used. “Does Master Tom say that?”

As the poor fellow’s cheek flushed, and his eyes sparkled with proud emotion, I could perceive that the lawyer’s face underwent a change equally rapid. A look of triumph at having at length discovered the assailable point of the witness’s temperament now passed over his pale features, and gave them an expression of astonishing intelligence.

“A very natural thing it is, Darby, that he should call you so. You were companions at an early period, – at least of his life; fellow-travellers, too, if I don’t mistake?”

Although these words were spoken in a tone of careless freedom, and intended to encourage Darby to some expansion on the same theme, the cunning fellow had recovered all his habitual self-possession, and merely answered, if answer it could be called, —

“I was a poor man, sir, and lived by the pipes.”

The advocate and the witness exchanged looks at this moment, in which their relative positions were palpably conveyed. Each seemed to say it was a drawn battle; but the lawyer returned with vigor to the charge; desiring Darby to mention the manner in which our first acquaintance began, and how the intimacy was originally formed.

He narrated with clearness and accuracy every step of our early wanderings; and while never misstating a single fact, contrived to exhibit my career as totally devoid of any participation in the treasonable doings of the period. Indeed, he laid great stress on the fact that my acquaintance with Charles de Meudon had withdrawn me from all relations with the insurgent party, between whom and the French allies feelings of open dislike and distrust existed. Of the scene at the barrack his account varied in nothing from that I had already given; nor was all the ingenuity of a long and intricate cross-examination able to shake his testimony in the most minute particular.

“Of course, then, you know Sir Montague Crofts? It is quite clear that you cannot mistake a person with whom you had a struggle such as you speak of.”

“Faix, I’d know his skin upon a bush,” said Darby, “av he was like what I remember him; but sure he may be changed since that. They tell me I’m looking ould myself; and no wonder. Hunting kangaroos wears the constitution terribly.”

“Look around the court, now, and say if he be here.”

Darby rose from his seat, and shading his eyes with his hand, took a deliberate survey of the court. Though well knowing, from past experience, in what part of the assembly the person he sought would probably be, he seized the occasion to scrutinize the features of the various persons, whom under no other pretence could he have examined.

“It’s not on the bench, sir, you need look for him,” said the lawyer, as M’Keown remained for a considerable time with his eyes bent in that direction.

“Bedad there’s no knowing,” rejoined Darby, doubtfully; “av he was dressed up that way, I wouldn’t know him from an old ram.”

He turned round as he said this, and gazed steadfastly towards the bar. It was an anxious moment for me: should Darby make any mistake in the identity of Crofts, his whole testimony would be so weakened in the opinion of the jury as to be nearly valueless. I watched his eyes, therefore, as they ranged over the crowded mass, with a palpitating heart; and when at last his glance settled on a far part of the court, very distant from that occupied by Crofts, I grew almost sick with apprehension lest he should mistake another for him.

“Well, sir,” said the lawyer; “do you see him now?”

“Arrah, it’s humbugging me yez are,” said Darby, roughly, while he threw himself down into his chair in apparent ill temper.

A loud burst of laughter broke from the bar at this sudden ebullition of passion, so admirably feigned that none suspected its reality; and while the sounds of mirth were subsiding, Darby dropped his head, and placed his hand above his ear. “There it is, by gorra; there’s no mistaking that laugh, anyhow,” cried he; “there’s a screech in it might plaze an owl.” And with that he turned abruptly round and faced the bench where Crofts was seated. “I heard it a while ago, but I couldn’t say where. That’s the man,” said he, pointing with his finger to Crofts, who seemed actually to cower beneath his piercing glance.

“Remember, sir, you are on your solemn oath. Will you swear that the gentleman there is Sir Montague Crofts?”

“I know nothing about Sir Montague,” said Darby, composedly, while rising he walked over towards the edge of the table where Crofts was sitting, “but I’ll swear that’s the same Captain Crofts that I knocked down while he was shortening his sword to run it through Master Burke; and by the same token, he has a cut in the skull where he fell on the fender.” And before the other could prevent it, he stretched out his hand, and placed it on the back of the crown of Crofts’s head. “There it is, just as I tould you.”

The sensation these words created in the court was most striking, and even the old lawyer appeared overwhelmed at the united craft and consistency of the piper. The examination was resumed; but Darby’s evidence tallied so accurately with my statement that its continuance only weakened the case for the prosecution.

As the sudden flash of the lightning will sometimes disclose what in the long blaze of noonday has escaped the beholder, so will conviction break unexpectedly upon the human mind from some slight but striking circumstance which comes with the irresistible force of unpremeditated truthfulness. From that moment it was clear the jury to a man were with Darby. They paid implicit attention to all he said, and made notes of every trivial fact he mentioned; while he, as if divining the impression he had made, became rigorously cautious that not a particle of his evidence could be shaken, nor the effect of his testimony weakened by even a passing phrase of exaggeration. It was, indeed, a phenomenon worth studying, to see this fellow, whose natural disposition was the irrepressible love of drollery and recklessness, – whose whole heart seemed bent on the indulgence of his wayward, careless humor, – suddenly throw off every eccentricity of his character, and become a steady and accurate witness, delivering his evidence carefully and cautiously, and never suffering his own leanings to repartee, nor the badgering allusions of his questioner, to draw him for a moment away from the great object he had set before him; resisting every line, every bait, the cunning lawyer threw out to seduce him into that land of fancy so congenial to an Irishman’s temperament, he was firm against all temptation, and even endured that severest of all tests to the forbearance of his country, – he suffered the laugh more than once to be raised at his expense, without an effort to retort on his adversary.

The examination lasted three hours; and at its conclusion, every fact I stated had received confirmation from Darby’s testimony, down to the moment when we left the barrack together.

“Now, M’Keown,” said the lawyer, “I am about to call your recollection, which is so wonderfully accurate that it can give you no trouble in remembering, to a circumstance which immediately followed the affair.”

As he got thus far, Crofts leaned over and drew the counsel towards him while he whispered some words rapidly in his ear. A brief dialogue ensued between them; at the conclusion of which the lawyer turned round, and addressing Darby, said, —

“You may go down, sir; I ‘ve done with you.” “Wait a moment,” said the young barrister on my side, who quickly perceived that the interruption had its secret object. “My learned friend was about to ask you concerning something which happened after you left the barrack; and although he has changed his mind on the subject, we on this side would be glad to hear what you have to say.”

Darby’s eyes flashed with unwonted brilliancy; and I thought I caught a glance of triumphant meaning towards Crofts, as he began his recital, which was in substance nothing more than what the reader already knows. When he came to the mention of Fortescue’s name, however, Crofts, whose excitement was increasing at each moment, lost all command over himself, and cried out, —

“It’s false! every word untrue! The man was dead at the time.”

The court rebuked the interruption, and Darby went on.

“No, my lord; he was alive. But Mr. Crofts is not to blame, for he believed he was dead; and, more than that, he thought he took the sure way to make him so.”

These words produced the greatest excitement throughout the court; and an animated discussion ensued, how far the testimony could go to inculpate a party not accused. It was ruled, at last, the evidence should be heard, as touching the case on trial, and not immediately as regarded Crofts. And then Darby began a recital, of which I had never heard a syllable before, nor had I conceived the slightest suspicion.

The story, partly told in narrative form, partly elicited by questioning, was briefly this.

Daniel Fortescue was the son of a Roscommon gentleman of large fortune, of whom also Crofts was the illegitimate child. The father, a man of high Tory politics, had taken a most determined part against the patriotic party in Ireland, to which his son Daniel had shown himself, on more than one occasion, favorable. The consequence was, a breach of affection between them; widened into an actual rupture, by the old man, who was a widower, taking home to his house the illegitimate son, and announcing to his household that he would leave him everything he could in the world.

To Daniel, the blow was all that he needed to precipitate his ruin. He abandoned the university, where already he had distinguished himself, and threw himself heart and soul into the movement of the “United Irish” party. At first, high hopes of an independent nation, – a separate kingdom, with its own train of interests, and its own sphere of power and influence, – was the dream of those with whom he associated. But as events rolled on it was found, that to mature their plans it was necessary to connect themselves with the masses, by whose agency the insurrectionary movement was to be effected; and in doing so, they discovered, that although theories of liberty and independence, high notions of pure government, may have charms for men of intellect and intelligence, to the mob the price of a rebellion must be paid down in the sterling coin of pillage and plunder, – or even, worse, the triumphant dominion of the depraved and the base over the educated and the worthy.

Many who favored the patriotic cause, as it was called, became so disgusted at the low associates and base intercourse the game of party required, that they abandoned the field at once, leaving to others, less scrupulous or more ardent, the path they could not stoop to follow. It was probable that young Fortescue might have been among these, had he been left to the guidance of his own judgment and inclination; for, as a man of honor and intelligence, he could not help feeling shocked at the demands made by those who were the spokesmen of the people. But this course he was not permitted to take, owing to the influence of a man who had succeeded in obtaining the most absolute power over him.

This was a certain Maurice Mulcahy, a well-known member of the various illegal clubs of the day, and originally a country schoolmaster. Mulcahy it was who first infected Fortescue’s mind with the poison of this party, – now lending him volumes of the incendiary trash with which the press teemed; now newspapers, whose articles were headed, “Orange outrage on a harmless and unresisting peasantry!” or, “Another sacrifice of the people to the bloody vengeance of the Saxon!” By these, his youthful mind became interested in the fate of those he believed to be treated with reckless cruelty and oppression; while, as he advanced in years, his reason was appealed to by those great and spirit-stirring addresses which Grattan and Curran were continually delivering, either in the senate or at the bar, and wherein the most noble aspirations after liberty were united with sentiments breathing love of country and devoted patriotism. To connect the garbled and lying statements of a debased newspaper press with the honorable hopes and noble conceptions of men of mind and genius, was the fatal process of his political education; and never was there a time when such a delusion was more easy.

Mulcahy, now stimulating the boyish ardor of a high-spirited youth, now flattering his vanity by promises of the position one of his ancient name and honored lineage must assume in the great national movement, gradually became his directing genius, swaying every resolution and ruling every determination of his mind. He never left his victim for a moment; and while thus insuring the unbounded influence he exercised, he gave proof of a seeming attachment, which Fortescue confidently believed in. Mulcahy, too, never wanted for money; alleging that the leaders of the plot knew the value of Fortescue’s alliance, and were willing to advance him any sums he needed, he supplied the means of every extravagance a wild and careless youth indulged in, and thus riveted the chain of his bondage to him.

When the rebellion broke out, Fortescue, like many more, was horror-struck at the conduct of his party. He witnessed hourly scenes of cruelty and bloodshed at which his heart revolted, but to avow his compassion for which would have cost him his life on the spot. He was in the stream, however, and must go with the torrent; and what will not stern necessity compel? Daily intimacy with the base-hearted and the low, hourly association with crime, and perhaps more than either, despair of success, broke him down completely, and with the blind fatuity of one predestined to evil, he became careless what happened to him, and indifferent to whatever fate was before him.

Still, between him and his associates there lay a wide gulf. The tree, withered and blighted as it was, still preserved some semblance of its once beauty; and among that mass of bigotry and bloodshed, his nature shone forth conspicuously as something of a different order of being. To none was this superiority more insulting than to the parties themselves. So long as the period of devising and planning the movement of an insurrection lasts, the presence of a gentleman, or a man of birth or rank, will be hailed with acclamation and delight. Let the hour of acting arrive, however, and the scruples of an honorable mind, or the repugnance of a high-spirited nature, will be treated as cowardice by those who only recognized bravery in deeds of blood, and know no heroism save when allied to cruelty.

Fortescue became suspected by his party. Hints were circulated, and rumors reached him, that he was watched; that it was no time for hanging back. He who sacrificed everything for the cause to be thus accused! He consulted Mulcahy; and to his utter discomfiture discovered that even his old ally and adviser was not devoid of doubt regarding him. Something must be done, and that speedily, – he cared not what. Life had long ceased to interest him either by hope or fear. The only tie that bound him to existence was the strange desire to be respected by those his heart sickened at the thought of.

An attack was at that time planned against the house and family of a Wexford gentleman, whose determined opposition to the rebel movement had excited all their hatred. Fortescue demanded to be the leader of that expedition; and was immediately named to the post by those who were glad to have the opportunity of testing his conduct by such an emergency.

The attack took place at night, – a scene of the most fearful and appalling cruelty, such as the historian yet records among the most dreadful of that dreadful period. The house was burned to the ground, and its inmates butchered, regardless of age or sex. In the effort to save a female from the flames, Fortescue was struck down by one of his party; while another nearly cleft his chest across with a cut of a large knife. He fell, covered with blood, and lay seemingly dead. When his party retreated, however, he summoned strength to creep under shelter of a ditch, and lay there till near daybreak, when he was found by another gang of the rebel faction, who knew nothing of the circumstances of his wound, and carried him away to a place of safety.

For some months he lay dangerously ill. Hectic fever, consequent on long suffering, brought him to the very brink of the grave; and at last he managed by stealth to reach Dublin, where a doctor well known to the party resided, and under whose care he ultimately recovered, and succeeded at last in taking a passage to America. Meanwhile his death was currently believed, and Crofts was everywhere recognized as the heir to the fortune.

Mulcahy, of whom it is necessary to speak a few words, was soon after apprehended on a charge of rebellion, and sentenced to transportation. He appealed to many who had known him, as he said, in better times, to speak to his character. Among others, Captain Crofts – so he then was – was summoned. His evidence, however, was rather injurious than favorable to the prisoner; and although not in any way influencing the sentence, was believed by the populace to have mainly contributed to its severity.

Such was, in substance, the singular story which was now told before the court, – told without any effort at concealment or reserve; and to the proof of which M’Keown was willing to proceed at once.

“This, my lord,” said Darby, as he concluded, “is a good time and place to give back to Mr. Crofts a trifling article I took from him the night at the barracks. I thought it was the bank-notes I was getting; but it turned out better, after all.”

With that he produced a strong black leather pocket-book, fastened by a steel clasp. No sooner did Crofts behold it, than, with the spring of a tiger, he leaped forward and endeavored to clutch it. But Darby was on his guard, and immediately drew back his hand, calling out, —

“No, no, sir! I didn’t keep it by me eight long years to give it up that way. There, my lords,” said he, as he handed it to the bench, “there’s his pocket-book, with plenty of notes in it from many a one well known, – Maurice Mulcahy among the rest, – and you’ll soon see who it was first tempted Fortescue to ruin, and who paid the money for doing it.”

A burst of horror and astonishment broke from the assembled crowd as Darby spoke.

Then, in a loud, determined tone, “He is a perjurer!” screamed Crofts. “I repeat it, my lord; Fortescue is dead.”

“Faix! and for a dead man he has a remarkable appetite,” said Darby, “and an elegant color in his face besides; for there he stands.”

And as he spoke, he pointed with his finger to a man who was leaning with folded arms against one of the pillars that supported the gallery.

Every eye was now turned in the direction towards him; while the young barrister called out, “Is your name Daniel Fortescue?”

But before any answer could follow, several among the lawyers, who had known him in his college days, and felt attachment to him, had surrounded and recognized him.

“I am Daniel Fortescue, my lord,” said the stranger. “Whatever may be the consequences of the avowal, I say it here, before this court, that every statement the witness has made regarding me is true to the letter.”

A low, faint sound, heard throughout the stillness that followed these words, now echoed throughout the court; and Crofts had fallen, fainting, over the bench behind him.

A scene of tumultuous excitement now ensued, for while Crofts’s friends, many of whom were present, assisted to carry him into the air, others pressed eagerly forward to catch a sight of Fortescue, who had already rivalled Darby himself in the estimation of the spectators.

He was a tall, powerfully-built man, of about thirty-five or thirty-six, dressed in the blue jacket and trousers of a sailor; but neither the habitude of his profession nor the humble dress he wore could conceal the striking evidence his air and bearing indicated of condition and birth. As he mounted the witness table, – for it was finally agreed that his testimony in disproof or corroboration of M’Keown should be heard, – a murmur of approbation went round, partly at the daring step he had thus ventured on taking, and partly excited by those personal gifts which are ever certain to have their effect upon any crowded assembly.

I need not enter into the details of his evidence, which was given in a frank, straightforward manner, well suited to his appearance; never concealing for a moment the cause he had himself embarked in, nor assuming any favorable coloring for actions which ingenuity and the zeal of party would have found subjects for encomium rather than censure.

His narrative not only confirmed all that Darby asserted, but also disclosed the atrocious scheme by which he had been first induced to join the ranks of the disaffected party. This was the work of Crofts, who knew and felt that Fortescue was the great barrier between himself and a large fortune. For this purpose Mulcahy was hired; to this end the whole long train of perfidy laid, which eventuated in his ruin: for so artfully had the plot been devised, each day’s occurrence rendered retreat more difficult, until at last it became impossible.