My Lords of Strogue. Volume 1 of 3

'This system of spies is terribly base,' Terence said, sighing. 'Enough to bring down chastisement upon any cause. I don't believe Lord Camden knows of it. The gentry are arming right and left, my mother says, in case the people should be ill-advised enough to rise. Yeomanry corps are being formed in every county. Shane has been this morning applied to, to take the lead in this district.'

'Shane raise a regiment? With what result?' Doreen inquired quickly.

'With none as yet,' answered Terence, laughing; 'because my lord is sleeping off the effects of a terrible bout last night, which ended in two duels and the killing of a baker, and probably will allow my mother and Lord Clare to settle such a thing as that, as they may deem most wise.'

'It is too late for such organisation to be dangerous,' Doreen affirmed gaily. 'Now I'll tell you the great secret, for it is only fair you, Mr. Cassidy, should know, and Terence will not divulge. Now, lend me your ears. The French fleet is almost ready to sail. Our friends will start in two parties before the summer's over, from a northern port; making the one for Cork, the other for some point on the west coast. Hoche himself has promised to lead the expedition. The delegates of our own provincial centres have secret orders. We may expect to look on the ships which shall bring us deliverance by the commencement of the autumn at the latest. Here's Theobald's last letter; you may read it.'

The giant looked eagerly to seaward, sniffing like a war-horse, as though already he could discern the vessels in the offing; and whistled a subdued whistle, as if saying to himself, 'This is news worth taking that early ride for.' With each great fist deep in a breeches-pocket, he listened to the letter, and then said: 'Arme blanche. Eh! He agrees with us then, and is right. The pike's the thing for Paddy. The difficulty of landing powder enough to be of service would be enormous. Moreover, since the Gunpowder Act, Pat knows nothing of its use, and would do more harm to himself in the long-run than to the enemy.'

Doreen declared that of such details she could of course know nothing, to which the giant retorted that there were hosts of reasons in favour of the pike. The Hessian and Hanoverian mercenaries who were being slowly drafted into Ireland were experienced only in the orthodox mode of warfare. The courage of armies is so uncertain that they are often disconcerted and panic-stricken by a style of fighting to which they are unaccustomed.

'See here!' the giant said, drawing a paper from his pocket and presenting it to Terence. 'This is a model by which thousands are being made all over the country. Long, flat, ugly no doubt-but easily forged. Could ye improve on that?'

Now Terence, had he been wise, would have refused the challenge, sapiently declining to know anything of the model pike, for the giant was bent somehow on securing him-but, intoxicated by the enthusiasm of his pretty cousin, whose cairngorm eyes, under their long lashes, were as usual making sad havoc of his judgment, he took the design and thought he could improve upon it. Cassidy's muddle-headedness stood in the way of his understanding, and the young councillor was forced to sketch out a new design, with elaborate instructions as to how it might be hammered out with a maximum of wounding power and a minimum of labour. Of course 'it was just the thing,' Cassidy declared, delighted, and brought down his sledge-hammer palm upon the other's shoulder.

'We'll have to crimp you?' he vowed, with a peal of merriment in which Doreen softly joined, 'and so gain a gineral, as the Sassanagh gains sailors. Ye'll be with us some day, Masther Terence, see if you aren't!'

And now, too, he declared that he must have more advice about these said pikes-there was terrible difficulty in storing them as they were made. He had an audacious idea. What did Master Terence think of it? Some of the gentry from the Staghouse were, he was informed, constantly on the prowl in search of such information as might be bartered against good living; for Major Sirr laid it down as an initial axiom, that a member of his battalion who remained silent beyond a certain limit of time was to be cashiered as incompetent. It was literally a case of 'singing for supper,' and one of the simplest methods of obtaining credit with the town-major was to discover and denounce a depot of concealed weapons.

Now Jug Coyle (mistress of the shebeen hard-by) – this was a tremendous secret-was deeply involved in the affairs of the society. Her back garden contained many more pike-heads than praties. It stood to reason that she should be so involved, for was she not a collough, a trafficker in charms and simples, who was called in by the peasantry around for the curing of their bodily ills; and was it possible for one who was bone of their bone to refrain from meddling with their wrongs also? Well, she could store no more without awaking the suspicions of the Staghouse gentry, who seemed already to suspect that seditious meetings were held under her thatch; and yet it was very necessary that many more weapons should be stored somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood of the city. The question was, where could a spot be found for them to lie snugly-a place where folks would least suspect their existence?

The giant was becoming so earnest, and so lucid in his earnestness, that Doreen quite marvelled at him. She knew more of Jug Coyle's manage than he was aware of, and listened with growing interest, for red-polled Biddy, whilst acting as Theobald's post-office, was constantly declaring that she felt like living on a powder-magazine.

'It has been suggested,' the giant went on, 'that Mrs. Gillin of the Little House should take some; but that would not be wise, for she is a Catholic whose opinions are well known, though latterly she has cultivated a discreet tongue. It might enter the head of the town-major to search her place.'

'It would certainly be unwise!' Terence said. 'Remember her daughter's connection with my brother. May she be trusted? There are female spies as well as male, I suppose. You people are dreadfully rash, Cassidy.'

'Never fear, Master Terence,' returned the giant, with a twinkle in his eye. 'Both she and her daughter are children of the people, who would sacrifice this lord and many another to boot for the good cause, if need were. Her heart is with us, like many another; but in this case at least it's best she should play blind.'

'But what is your suggestion?' Doreen inquired, for the giant was beating about the bush in an exasperating manner.

'This is it. Don't cry out now when ye hear it.' He glanced round with caution, and lowered his voice. 'The ould armoury above in the young men's wing there.'

'What! Here at the Abbey!' Terence exclaimed. 'You are mad.'

Cassidy was watching him in sidelong fashion as he felt his way.

'Sure there's a power of blackguard knives there already, which no one touches from year's end to year's end, as the cobwebs show. I'd stake my life ye've not been in there yourself this year or two. Nobody would search there, would they? They might be passed up from the shebeen at night-time-Biddy and your man Phil would see to it-over the old ivy wall, and exchange a kiss or two into the bargain.'

'Phil is not affiliated,' objected Terence.

'Is he not?' grunted the giant, shortly. 'It's surprised I'd be if he could not tell us as much about a green bough in England's crown as is known to you or I.'

Doreen's eyes were on her cousin. Her face wore its usual serene look. The enormity of the proceeding did not seem so great to her as it did to him. He did not take into consideration the sublime manner in which women look straight to a goal, without marking the mud which may have to be crossed to reach it. A thought shot through his brain, flooding it with joy. If she could contemplate such a trick being played upon the earl, she could not care about him. That was a rare thing to know. And why should it not be played on him? The brothers were so estranged, that the younger one felt no call to interfere in such a matter on behalf of the elder. It was impossible that he should have lived so long on terms of familiarity with the disaffected without being unconsciously tainted to at least a small extent with their oft-repeated complaints. Not that he was prepared to admit that these modern grievances were well-founded. No doubt it had been very improper-all those years ago-for a Protestant invader to seize, vi et armis, the territory of a Catholic nation-to eject the sons of the soil by force, in favour of themselves and their heirs. But really it was too late now to remedy that misfortune.

The English were to all seeming a happy and contented people, who had long since given up groaning over the Norman invasion and the freebooting proceedings of William the Conqueror. It was merely a matter of time. Ireland must accept the past, and pick out the thorns from the bed on which she lay as well as she could. Thus was Terence, in his idle good-humoured way, accustomed to argue when his personal friends gnashed their teeth at the Sassanagh. But these new theories that were beginning to be broached-even by Mr. Curran himself-charging the executive with motives which, if they in truth existed, were lèse-patrie of the most heinous kind, caused even his careless junior to pause and think. And then he consoled himself with considering that high-principled King George could not be Blunderbore-that my Lord Clare was not a Feefofum. Yet there was no doubt that my Lord Clare was unduly harsh-that the low-bred squireens were apt to treat the common folk cruelly to curry favour with the Castle. He did not pause to ask himself why cruelty to common folk should be pleasing in the Castle's eye. These yeomanry corps were likely to be productive of much evil. Terence had said as much to his mother but now. It was possible that Shane, in his overbearing pride of birth and fierce tendency to fire-eating, might become a terrible flail if he accepted the task of organising a regiment-indeed from his nature he was sure to do so. It would be a whimsical revenge for the people that he should be unconsciously guarding their weapons for them.

Councillor Crosbie laughed loud at the conceit, declaring that he saw no reason why pikeheads should not be added to the 'blackguard knives' in the armoury, and his cousin gave him such a distracting look of thanks that he chid himself for considering the matter at all; while Cassidy, who also caught the look, glared out to seaward, clenching his fists in his deep pockets.

'That eccentric person, Mrs. Gillin!' Terence cried gaily. 'So she's mixed up with all this plotting, is she? Has she taken the oath, or is she but a privileged outsider like myself? And my man Phil, too-that's to please red-polled Biddy, doubtless. Let's take the oath, Doreen, while we can make a favour of it, for all Ireland will, it seems, be in it soon. The good lady was in her garden as I passed this morning, strutting about with leather gloves and garden-shears, and bowed solemnly to me as I passed. What a queer woman! At the Rotunda the other day she came and stood before me, though we have never been introduced, and said, "Are you sure, young man, that you left your home of your free will?" When I said "Certainly," she gave a satisfied nod and disappeared in the crowd. If her daughter is pining for Shane, her mother evidently sets her cap at me. I trust you will all be civil to the future Madam Crosbie. This is the way she walks-' and the irreverent scapegrace proceeded to waddle up and down with so exact an imitation of Mrs. Gillin's peculiarities that Cassidy fairly shouted. That lady and her doings being a tabooed subject at the Abbey, there was special delight in talking of her on the sly.

All three were guiltily startled by the opening of my lady's bedroom window (which looked upon the courtyard), and the apparition of Queen Bess in a bad temper, summoning Miss Wolfe to her presence.

CHAPTER XI.

STORMY WEATHER

My lady was walking up and down the tapestry-saloon with hands clasped behind her back, when her niece joined her-a prey evidently to considerable agitation. Doreen marked the deepened wrinkles on her forehead, the tightening of the thin lips, the contraction of the nostrils, and waited with accustomed self-possession to hear her elder's pleasure. The countess was displeased about something. Her fine face was pale, her eyes tinged with red. Her majestic draperies seemed to whisper in their soft rustle that something was seriously disturbing the spirit of the chatelaine. Wheeling round presently, she faced her niece, and, scrutinising her narrowly, spoke.

'Terence has come home to live,' she remarked. 'Mr. Curran cannot bear him any more, and I am not surprised. We must put up with him; he's enough to vex a saint!'

Doreen's cheek flushed with swift anger at his mother's unwarrantable speech.

'Oh, aunt!' she said, 'dare you speak thus of your own child!'

'Ah!' ejaculated the countess, still frowning at Miss Wolfe, 'let us understand each other at once. I will never allow of any nonsense between you and that boy-do you hear? – NEVER. I presume that he would not dare to marry without my consent. You are capable of anything, I know. I sincerely believe that he, as yet, is one shade less undutiful. He has been showing much independence lately, though. There's no knowing,' she went on in a low absent manner, 'what he might not do if he knew-'

'Knew what?' asked Doreen.

My lady started and pushed her fingers through her white hair. 'Nothing, nothing! Mind this-I will never give my consent to a union between you and my second son. Understand this, once and for all.'

'You need not distress yourself, aunt,' Doreen replied.

'Doreen!' my lady said abruptly, after a pause, 'you were talking about that woman at the kennel gate just now. I could see you were, by Terence's mimicry. What was it about?'

This was the real cause of her aunt's ill-humour: the red rag, Mrs. Gillin. That foolish idea about Terence was of course only a cloak to conceal unreasonable wrath. It was quite too tyrannical of her, though. They were speaking no ill of their neighbour.

'We were talking of Norah and Shane,' the girl replied, with a touch of hauteur. 'Nothing wonderful in that, for all the world talks about them. I suppose I may be bridesmaid, aunt?'

To her surprise the blood faded slowly from my lady's face, leaving her lips white, while her breast heaved and her fingers tightened. The girl regretted her pert remark, though her aunt speedily recovered herself.

'You could stop this disgrace if you would,' she said in husky tones. 'Last year I thought that you encouraged Shane; then you turned round again. For shame! That Arthur Wolfe's daughter should be a flirt! But it's the other blood that's working in you. Your father was always too weak and too indulgent. You are a sly, artful girl! Yes, it is right that you should hear the truth. You do no credit to your bringing-up. Is it maidenly to receive letters from a man in secret-to retire, as I have ofttimes seen you do, to a secluded spot in the rosary, there to gloat over them-and that man married, and an outlaw! Fie upon you! Your father is not aware of this, or it would break his heart; for, God help him! he loves you beyond your deserts. But there, there! I will not waste my breath in railing; for what else could be expected of your blood and your religion?'

Doreen's cheek, too, had paled. She trembled violently, and was forced to cling to a table ere she could still her anger sufficiently to answer. At length she mastered her voice, which rang out low but clear.

'Lady Glandore,' she said, with flashing eyes, 'it ill becomes one of your years to say cruel things to one of mine, for if you crush out my respect for you as a woman, I choose to remember your white hairs. However bitter you may allow your tongue to be, I will not lower myself to a retort; but let me beg you to remember that some things spoken intemperately will rankle in the heart for ever. No after-apologies will quite wash them out.'

Oh, naughty damsel, to prate of white hair, and suggest that my lady was an octogenarian! She was no more than five-and-fifty, as her niece knew right well-but, bless my heart! we must not survey feminine weapons too closely.

'I am a disgrace to my bringing-up!' pursued Doreen, warming to the fray. 'Yet she who brought me up condescends to act the spy on me! A flirt, am I? I never, upon my honour, gave the least encouragement to either of your sons. They are not such Admirable Crichtons! Seeing that you are beset by some hallucination on this subject, I have again and again implored my father to take me hence in vain. I hereby swear to you by the Holy Mother and my hopes of salvation, that I will never be Shane's wife-never, never, never! Perhaps now you will leave me at peace. Though I am a Catholic, madam, I decline to brook insult. Here are my cards-face upwards on the table. Show me yours.'

The girl, who was usually so quiet and grave, had lashed her wrath to foam, and was grievously exercised to restrain fast-gathering tears. She would rather have died, however, than have lowered her standard to my lady. With a violent effort, then, she kept them back, and faced the chatelaine with a front as proud as hers.

This was all very shocking: the ill-mannered allusion to hoary locks, the rash oath never to marry Shane, the truculent bearing. Mild Arthur's counsel was wise. My lady generally got the worst of it in conflicts with this girl. It would have been best to have vented her ill-humour upon Terence: who was forbearing towards his mother. But then her victories over him were too easily gained to be worth anything, for he was good-tempered, and respected his mother greatly; and besides, every well-ordered man will always gladly resign to a female antagonist the glory of winning a battle of words.

My lady stalked in silence up and down, retiring behind the entrenchments of her outraged dignity. But Doreen perceived that to make her triumph good she must dare another sortie, and disarm her antagonist; so, after a pause for breath, she repeated:

'I have shown you my cards, Lady Glandore-show me yours. You are bent upon my marrying Shane-the compliment is great-far greater than my poor worth deserves. Though you constantly fling insults at me about my manners, my blood, and my religion, yet you are willing-nay, anxious-condoning these crimes, to accept me as a daughter! Why? The lady of the Little House, who is good and charitable, if innocently vulgar, is a standing bugbear to you. Why? Yet, by a singular contradiction, you allow your paragon to make himself at home with her, and make much of her child, who, to be sure, is a Protestant, but low-born. She is penniless-I am an heiress: hence, of the two, I should be the better prize for him. I see that; but what, in Heaven's name! is to prevent his sallying forth in Dublin, and finding there a fitting partner? Sure there's not a noble Protestant family in Ireland that wouldn't jump at him! A drunkard, no doubt, and a fire-eater-which some folks are rude enough to translate murderer-what of that? It is the custom of his cloth. A coronet well filled with gold covers a multitude of sins! No doubt Mrs. Gillin would dearly like such a son-in-law-it's the way of the world, and I do not blame her-but you, I know, would not care for such a daughter as Norah. Are you not afraid that some fine morning holy Church will join them, and that you will come down to breakfast to find them in an edifying position on their knees, claiming mamma's blessing?'

My lady had sunk into a chair, her pale face paler.

'No, no,' she murmured; 'that could not be. He toys with a pretty wench as a young spark will. Why would I gladly have him marry you? Because I know he has faults-the faults of youth, which time will remedy-and I feel, dear Doreen, that your strong common-sense will be a stay to his weakness. Once united to you, he will change, and you will be very happy together.'

There was something so pitiable in this abject discomfiture-in this refusal to be insulted-that Miss Wolfe's resolution failed her. Yet her curiosity was too thoroughly roused to permit of dropping the subject.

'Then I'm to be the scapegoat?' she said, with a tinge of scorn. 'I'm to lick the whelp into shape-no matter if my heart is broken in the process. Thank you! A vow once sworn need never be repeated. Yet do not forget, aunt, if you please, that it is registered. He refuses to go into highborn society where noble ladies are, preferring play and duelling-clubs, and you dread his making a mésalliance, rather than which you would accept poor me as a pis-aller.' (Here the young lady made a curtsey.) 'Many thanks. Is this at all like the truth? Pardon my speaking plainly. It's best to be aboveboard. After this time we will, with your good leave, never return to the hateful subject. That I shall not be poor can surely claim no part in your calculations, for he is thirty times wealthier than I can ever be. Rich!' she repeated, with a harsh laugh. 'A rich Catholic will be a curiosity, n'est ce pas? If this is at all your course of thought, why not prevent his going to the Little House? Speak to Mrs. Gillin as harshly as you began to speak to me to-day, and there will surely be an end of the matter. Or,' pursued the crafty maiden, remembering Tone's last epistle, 'brush Norah from his mind by change of scene. Why not remove for a few months to Ennishowen? It is long since you were there. Your presence would do much to keep disloyal tenants quiet in these disloyal times. Would not that be a capital example? The boys used to love Ennishowen. Shane will forget the objectionable Norah whilst pursuing the shy seal or shooting wild birds round Malin Head. Do you remember the delirious delight of him and Terence when they dragged their first seal into the boat under Glas-aitch-é Cliff, and how you told me not to be afraid of looking over the garden parapet into the green water dashing so far below? Ah, those were days!' the girl pursued, kindling. 'Our only care whether the fish would bite or the shot carry-' then she was stopped by a lump rising in her throat, stirred by the thought of how different those days were from these, when the thunderous cloud was drawing lower, lower-and she-a reserved young lady-was becoming alarmingly familiarised with secret despatches; a political phantasmagoria; a threatened collision between two classes, whose hate was bubbling over.

The rebellious tears well-nigh burst their bonds; but a strong will was throned within that shapely head. My lady turned angrily upon her niece; for though discomfited and prepared to run up a flag of truce, it was not to be expected that she should endure this last speech without resenting it. Miss Wolfe's pertness harrowed her proud soul. She had pretended to look on her aunt as in her dotage-a toothless harridan, with no distinguishing attribute except white hair, and had presumed to charge her with ridiculous motives; had torn the dazzling glamour of his rank from Shane, exposing to view a skin as shaggy as the ass's; even going so far as to stigmatise him to his doting mother as a drunkard and a murderer; and, to cap all, had wound up with patronising advice. An ordinary lady of middle age would resent such treatment; how much more then the stern Countess of Glandore, whose nature was toughened by contact with the fire, who was always regarded with awe-stricken terror when she deigned to honour any of the Castle festivities, and who was quite a terrifying personage even to the wives and daughters of contemporary grandees.

Would the stubborn girl be true to her hasty vow? My lady feared she would, though for the moment she was too angry to consider calmly of it. Fierce wrath darted from under her squared brows; her high nose grew thinner; a network of small meshes twitched about her mouth; her long fingers tightly clutched the gold snuffbox which usually lay within them. Yet Miss Wolfe, having recovered her self-possession, looked sombrely at the frost-crowned volcano without a tremor.

'Doreen,' my lady said, 'if your father knew of you what I know, it would kill him; but I elect to hold my tongue, because I love my brother more than you your father. That you should be insolent to me is what I might expect; so I bear that with equanimity. Thank you for showing me how wrong I was in forming a Utopian scheme for joining my brother's child to Shane. We will say no more about that.' (Doreen heaved a sigh of relief.) 'The indelicacy of your proceedings has shown me that such a thing would be an insult to our name. What! a girl who corresponds clandestinely with a married man; who gallops like a trull about the country, regardless, not only of her own fair fame, but of her family's; who is on terms of familiar intercourse with a parcel of scatter-brained youths who make the capital of notoriety out of the jingle of sedition. Is this a girl to be received in respectable society? You spoke plainly; so do I. If I were to publish what I chance to know of you, no decent family would receive you within their doors. But I must bear with you for many reasons; your base mother's blood among the rest. You must be the skeleton in our cupboard. All I beg is, that you will rattle your bones less publicly.'