My Lords of Strogue. Volume 3 of 3

'Ah, now, lads, be asy!' he cried, betwixt two sallies. 'Do yez think the likes o' me can stop up here? It's Dublin that's crying for me this blessed minute, and won't be comforted. To Dublin I return to-morrow. Good luck to yez for kind wishes, though. By my sowl, and if there isn't a friend up yonder on whom I've not clapped eyes this long time!'

The repast was over. The countess was sweeping the crumbs out of her lap preparatory to leaving the gentlemen to the superior attractions of the bottle, when she perceived Cassidy, glass in hand, making his way along to the upper end where she sat enthroned. Doreen perceived him too, and losing all self-control, dropped her head upon the table with a moan.

'Mr. Wolfe Tone, I think?' Cassidy shouted out in his big voice. 'Bedad, ye're welcome home! It's long since we met.'

The shade of Banquo broke up with no greater quickness the feast of King Macbeth than did this guileless little speech the party of Lord Glandore. The squireens rose to their feet with one accord; craned out their necks, with jaws dropped and eyes goggling.

Hesitating but for a second, Theobald threw down his cards.

'My name is Theobald Wolfe Tone!' he admitted calmly, and stood waiting for what would follow.

'What a pity!' sighed the English admiral; then, holding forth his hand, 'Ignorance is bliss sometimes,' he said, scowling at the importunate giant. 'Ye're a brave young man. I won't say what I think of him. I can't help it-can I?'

But Cassidy, having assumed his role, was not to be so easily scowled down. 'I've done my duty to his Majesty,' he said, very loud; 'and I call on you, Sir Borlase Warren, to report the fact that I denounced that traitor!'

The squireens twittered like scarlet birds. A vanquished foreign brave was one thing, a proscribed rebel-the very head and front of the Directory's offending-quite another. Their temporary gentleness was past; their native savagery bloomed forth again.

'Bind him!' one bawled, 'lest he thry to drown himself, and rob good Mr. Cassidy of the reward.'

'When we get him to Letterkenny,' howled another, 'we'll put irons on him before he starts south. Ah! the spalpeen! the rogue! the beast! the pig!'

A chorus of expletives poured forth. Even the presence of Medusa was forgotten.

One fetched a rope and bound it roughly round his limbs. With a burst of indignation he turned for protection to the English admiral. 'I wear the uniform of the Great Republic. Let it not be disgraced!' he pleaded.

'I can't help it, poor lad!' returned Sir Borlase, with disgust. 'If you're Wolfe Tone, ye're a subject of Britain, in arms against the King, and will surely suffer as a traitor. As for these ruffians, I am powerless. They, and such as they, have long ago shamed their country and their cloth.'

'Then their bonds,' Theobald answered calmly, as he took off his coat, 'shall never degrade the insignia of the free nation I have served.'

Bound hand and foot, he was conveyed to the cabin of the yacht and placed under lock and key. Sir Borlase took no pains to disguise his opinion of the squireens. Bidding farewell to the countess, he retired abruptly with his suite, while the commandant of Letterkenny busied himself with the bestowal of the prisoners. My Lord Glandore, feeling like second fiddle, bethought him that the beacon had not been lighted whose mission was to speed to Dublin news of a French invasion, just as, two hundred years before, the lighting of tar-barrels had signalled the coming of the Armada. He remedied the omission without delay.

The fleet of boats passed down Lough Swilly without danger, though clouds obscured the moon and stars-for the circle of fire was complete, cutting out the dark skyline of each crag, marking the position of each tower with a special wave of light. The chain was as complete (turning the sky to crimson) as the chain of the giant's treachery. As she looked out on it from her window, Doreen pressed feverish fingers to her burning head; then packed her clothes together in hot haste. At cockcrow the family was to start for the capital. She felt that, once there, she could do something-she knew not what. Terence and Tone could not both be sacrificed. Was ever human wickedness so base as that of this false friend?

Decidedly Mr. Cassidy was master of the situation.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SHAMBLES

When it became known in Dublin that the apostle of Irish Liberty had come and was taken, the gloom which saddened the city was yet further deepened. The citizens went about their business with weary tread and pinched lips. The Terror which reigned in Paris under Jacobin rule, or in Rome under Tiberius and Nero, was not more crushing than that which rocked Erin in its iron arms towards the end of this awful year. Comparing Jacobins with Orangemen, the palm for cruelty may safely be assigned to the latter. Both factions might plead the excuse of extreme peril; but the danger of invasion by the armies of the Coalition which brought about the diabolical delirium of the Jacobins was greater than the danger to which the Irish ascendency party was exposed: and it must be remembered too that the Jacobin party was almost entirely composed of men taken from the lowest ranks, whereas many of the most iniquitous Irish terrorists were persons of the highest social position and fair education. The ferocity of the Jacobins, again, was in a slight degree redeemed by fanaticism. Their objects were not entirely selfish. They murdered aristocrats, not only because they hated them, but because they imagined them to stand in the way of a millennium which, according to Rousseau, was awaiting the acceptance of regenerated mankind.

Essex Bridge was fringed with heads as whilom London Bridge was; though faithful friends, when they found a chance, stole and buried them. There was a rage for trials by court-martial; a constant outcry for more victims. A mania for mimicking the Bench took possession of the military, officers of inferior rank vying with each other in an assumption of judicial functions. Whilst my Lords Carleton and Kilwarden and Messrs. Curran and Toler were plodding through a legal farce at the Sessions-House, talking through night after night to 'juries of the right sort,' the gentlemen of the yeomanry at the Exchange were making the shortest possible work of the lives under their control. Once dragged thither, conviction followed arrest as the day the night. The sun was not allowed to set upon the accused. Although prepared to close his eyes to much, the new Viceroy found his patience and temper sorely tried; and at last, in spite of expostulation in high quarters, issued general orders condemning the conduct of the soldiery. He failed to see, he declared, how torture could be a good opiate, and was even foolish enough to suggest that banishment for a short term of years would serve all the state purposes quite as well as hanging. To this the incensed chancellor retorted by reams of jeremiads addressed to Mr. Pitt, wherein he laid stress on the new troubles which would inevitably come on all good Protestants in consequence of such deplorable backsliding from Lord Camden's able system. In his turn Lord Cornwallis pointed out the reasons for his conduct. Private enemies were daily in the most unblushing manner haled before courts-martial and consigned to Moiley. Some of the lesser gentry even went so far as openly to plunder the country houses whose owners had fled from them in fear. The behaviour of underlings was subversive of all discipline. They held back documents unless paid for honesty; Sirr admitted that what was planned by his superiors in council was made of none effect in his own office. The chancellor scored one. Lord Cornwallis found himself compelled to apologise for his leniency. He received a rap upon the knuckles from a Gr-t P-rs-n-ge in a letter which may be found in the Cornwallis correspondence, and sat down to pour out his vexations to an old brother-in-arms, as his way was when specially provoked. 'My conduct,' he wrote, 'gets me abused by both sides, being too coercive for the one, too lenient for the other; but my conscience approves.'

The more we look into the matter, the more assured do we become that the true marplot was the Gr-t P-rs-n-ge. The first gentleman in the land set a fatal example to the Orangemen. By virtue of the royal purple he was all-wise, despite his ignorance. He was a Protestant. Ergo, those who presumed to be anything else must be well trounced for their contumely. If the law was not rigorous enough already, its cords must be double-knotted, for the flagellation of those who dared to disagree with M-j-sty. Good King George, who hated Catholics in as insane a manner as James II. hated Protestants, was determined that so long as he clutched the sceptre, their bread should be bitter in their mouths. Lord Cornwallis was as convinced as Mr. Pitt, that the key to Irish troubles was the Penal Code. But the King flew in a rage at the bare mention of Catholic Emancipation; so the Viceroy was obliged to bow his head with a good grace, as Mr. Pitt had done long ago; as even the leader of the opposition had found himself compelled to do. At this juncture Marplot went further than usual; for instead of merely insisting in general terms that the Papists must be evilly entreated, he personally meddled in the fate of the state-prisoners, with whose long-continued persecution the Viceroy had shown signs of interfering.

It had been decided, as we have seen, on the motion of Arthur Wolfe, that it would be well to negotiate with the state-prisoners. Mr. Curran had been employed as go-between, and, in accordance with his advice, the young men incarcerated at Kilmainham undertook to disclose the principles and ramifications of their society, upon certain well-defined conditions. Curran pointed out to them that the grand fiasco which is known as the 'Hurry' had removed for the present all chance of freeing Ireland, and they saw with pain that blood was being made to flow in rivers. To stem that torrent by all means available was clearly their first duty now. At first the negotiations broke down, but a few executions brought the patriots to their senses. They accordingly drew up for the benefit of Government an account of the rise, progress, and proceedings of the United Irishmen, adding an opinion that a general amnesty to all but ringleaders would do much to tranquillise the public mind. They agreed that it would be best for the ruling spirits to submit to banishment, and it was settled that a number of excepted persons should migrate to America and stop there. But now Marplot intervened. The King declined to permit traitors to cross the Atlantic, and the American minister, to please the King, also declared that such an arrangement could not answer. The Viceroy urged that the members of the Directory had completed their portion of the compact, and that it would be disgraceful if Government did not follow suit. It could not be helped, was the brief response. The executive must crawl out of the difficulty as it best might. Mr. Curran was frantic; Lord Clare jubilant. Tom Emmett and the others only smiled. Had they ever expected anything from England except wickedness? She was perjured and forsworn. What could an extra crime or two signify to one who was notoriously a murderess?

The Privy Council anxiously debated as to the neatest way out of the dilemma. Of course his Majesty must be humoured. The state-trials must run their course, but with exceeding tact of management. Mr. Pitt threatened his puppets with a beating, if they blundered. Juries of the right sort must be told not to exaggerate their functions, or Lord Moira (who was woefully independent) might stir up a new pother at St. Stephen's.

Lord Cornwallis was sulky, for he appreciated the falseness of his position; but, having accepted the viceroyalty, he considered it his duty to retain it until at least the special object for which he had come could be accomplished. His experience and native shrewdness told him that a return to the tactics of his predecessor would be fraught with the gravest dangers to both countries. Fate had picked him out to play the mediator; he would do his best, even though fettered by the ignoble desires of the King. If he failed in his task, the fault would be Marplot's, not his.

After considerable wrangling, it was decided to deny that the Directory had carried out their portion of the agreement. Government was to have been let in to the secrets of the society. The paper which was drawn up was no better than a panegyric of sedition. A piece of hair-splitting this, for which the chancellor took to himself much credit. So the state-trials droned along, while the vagaries of drumhead justice kept the world awake. Several of those at Kilmainham were condemned, despite the compact, and suffered; the rest, giving up all for lost, cared little now what was to be their destiny.

Lord Clare made a great effort on behalf of Terence, but received no encouragement, either from the Viceroy or the English premier. Both said that it would never do to make an exception in favour of one whose sins were the more scarlet on account of his position in society. He must take his trial like the rest. There was no help for it. If his friends could manipulate the jury, that was their own affair.

The chancellor looked grave, for, adept though he was in manipulating juries, he knew of a foe of Terence's who would do what he could to ruin him; and he was more and more mystified at the behaviour of the young man's family. Neither my lady nor Lord Glandore seemed to realise the position of affairs. Would they calmly endure while one of their noble name was being strung up as a felon? It seemed so. The young lord was a brilliant specimen of the Irish House of Peers. But surely he would not carry his slavish complaisance so far as to sacrifice his only brother to the English dragon? Lord Clare did not know what to make of it. His own influence was terribly on the wane. He went to see Terence at the provost, and found Curran there, who eyed him with undisguised impertinence, and gibed about gingerbread-nuts. But the chancellor kept his temper this time. He was no longer the all-powerful despot. A new Herod had arisen, who did not choose to recognise Joseph. He found himself thwarted by his new master at every turn. Fortune is a cruel jade! The owner of the golden coach found himself compelled to lower himself to petty plotting like ordinary men. He suggested to Curran that it would be well to push on Councillor Crosbie's trial with all speed. The little lawyer, instead of meeting him half-way, answered bluntly that the young man's wound was not healed; that the vultures were strangely impatient to devour his flesh; that, though the young patrician's life was by no means merry, he would be no party to shortening it.

Lord Clare grew impatient, and retorted with hauteur:

'You can have naught to do with fixing the date of trial. I was merely asking your opinion.'

And Curran, with suspicious looks, inquired the reason of his impatience. That there was a reason was evident. Would the other show his hand? No. The other held his peace, and, sighing fretfully, departed.

Events must shape themselves as Fortune chose to dictate. He could not humiliate himself before his enemy by stating what he knew of Cassidy, and explaining the wisdom of settling the young man's case during the absence from Dublin of that person. So Curran, unaware of pitfalls dug by jealousy, returned sadly to the cell where Terence lay tossing in his fever, almost wishing that the wound might prove mortal.

Always fond of him, by reason of his genial nature, the little advocate had been drawn very close to Terence by events. Their mutual friends were perishing around them; Terence himself was grievously compromised. Now he was to be tried for his life. With what result? Alas, there could be little doubt. Weak men, who while success was probable might be trusted to cling together, were anxious now to save themselves by making a clean breast of all they knew. Curran's instinct told him that somebody or other would surely stand up to prove the military position which his unlucky junior had arrogated to himself; to babble of his interviews on the shore near the Little House; of his arrangements for the capture of Dublin by surprise; which, but for his own timely taking, would certainly have been carried out.

Of course the advocate who had won such forensic distinction as was his would do his very best for a client who was so dear to his heart as this one; but what he could do was little after all, fighting, as he always was, against packed juries and false-witnesses. His wondrous eloquence and marvellous versatility had indeed more than once torn a doomed man from the gallows by exciting passions of such force as to conquer even the violence of fear and greed by which the juries were beset; but such miracles were not to be counted on, and it was with gloomy thoughts that the lawyer looked forward to the contest. What arguments, for instance, could have prevailed in the case of Orr, whose life was juggled away between two bumpers? After all, perhaps the proceedings of courts-martial were less bad than these legal masquerades. For in the purely military tribunal there was no doubt as to how the case would go from the beginning. Was it not better that time and breath should be economised, when cases were so notoriously prejudged? So it came about that Curran, in profound dejection, looked down upon the young man whom he loved, and prayed that he might die of his wound.

But in this case, as in a good many others, prayers received no answer. The yeoman, when he fired at Terence to prevent his escape, broke his arm by the shot. Neglect, and the amenities of Major Sirr, produced fever and inflammation, which the dampness of the provost did not tend to improve.

Mrs. Gillin (who had been enduring purgatory on her own account at the hands of drunken soldiers' wives at free-quarters) stuck sturdily to her protégé, however. She hung about the antechambers of the great; worried the judges who in happier days had been her guests; importuned them for leave of free access to the invalid, till they wished they had never seen the claret she had lavished on them; and, as obstinate women generally do, carried her point. She nursed the patient in his fever with untiring devotion; amazed the gaolers almost into civility; even assailed the terrible major himself in his stronghold, taunting him with ugly words and scathing epithets, till he too wished he had never beheld the dreadful woman. She insisted that an invalid should have a cell to himself, instead of being crowded up with malodorous peasants in a low den deprived of air; arrived three times a week with good things for him in baskets, which Cerberus allowed to pass without investigation; and dragged him, whom she had sworn to watch over, by main force to convalescence. Once or twice he had begged that his servant Phil might be permitted to keep him company, but on this point the major was obdurate. His calves still bore the cicatrices cut on them by the farrier's knife, and the major was not one to forgive an injury. He bore in mind, too, that but for his coat of mail he would have been left dead upon the road that day. Phil, therefore, was set apart for private torment; was not even handed over to the tender mercies of a court-martial.

Mrs. Gillin, for Terence's sake, commissioned old Jug to discover news of him, who went about her business in mysterious fashion, declining to divulge what she discovered, until one day, some months after his disappearance, she told her protectress, with weird mutterings, that 'the boy was near his end.'

'How's that?' her mistress asked, frowning. 'Ye look as if ye were glad that ill should come to him. How's that?'

''Cause he's a farrier and I'm a collough, as my people have been ever since Ollam Fodlah's day. He's near his end; the curse of Crummell has lit on him. Sure, it's well whipped he's been on the triangles these many times, foreninst the Royal Exchange beyant. The boy's broke, body and sowl; but the young masther'll see him soon enough. I'm tould the two'll be thried togither, for a murderous assault first on the town-meejor, who was doing his duty, when he skelped 'em up, and then for treason afther. Weren't they always togither, masther and man? 'Twould be quare if they were thried separate.'

Terence was convalescent when summer gave place to autumn. Unlike his former cheery hustling self, he sat at his window for whole mornings, gazing into a world of his own, as he leaned his wan face on his thin hand, smiling a faint smile when his kind nurse attempted to rouse him. She came more seldom by degrees, for indeed the poor lady's own life was thickening with disasters. The drunken soldiers' wives (specially selected by Major Sirr for their virago qualities) made a hell of her cosy little home, afflicting her daughter Norah beyond measure. There was no telling whether they might not, in a riotous freak, set the place ablaze if its mistress did not stop at home to watch them. Verily, even my lady's grudge might have been partially effaced, could she have beheld the tribulations which fell upon her ancient rival. Terence, then, lingered on, living a hermit life, whose solitude was broken sometimes by garbled tales of dread, such as his keepers chose to report to him. The world looked black, without a streak of light. He marvelled, in the vague dizzy way of an invalid recovering from illness, whether it would not be best to make an end of it at once. He felt the indifference as to death which distinguishes the faith of Buddha; longed to join the ranks of those who, more blest than he, were marched past his door never to return; envied even the victims of the Foxhunters on the Gibbet-Rath; looked forward to his own trial as a release.

With a bare bodkin who shall fardels carry? His was bare indeed. Worn through, and through-the stuffing gone. The sharp corners of the fardels were ploughing into his back. He longed to lay them down and be at rest. Sometimes he dreamed of Doreen, but not as of one who might be his in this life. He appreciated now what at one time he had contemned as girlish hysteria. Who might presume to talk of love amid the horrors of carnage, where victims had been done to death by hundreds with scarce an effort at defence? If he might live (his youth would assert its rights now and again for a brief instant), then perhaps-perhaps-What? No. He was doomed to die, and knew it-and was glad; for life deprived of all illusions and all flower-blossoms is a hideous thing. His turn would come, and shortly. It was merely a matter of days-of a little patience. The 'scrag-boy,' who wore a demon's dress, with a hump and a horned mask that none might guess who did the hangman's work, was a familiar object in the prison-yard below. He had placed the halter over many a gallant head, though not as yet around a noble's neck. Well! that honour would soon be his-very soon-the sooner the better. With what a bitter laugh did Terence contemplate the honour which awaited the overworked functionary! Now and again he wished it might be given to him to look into Doreen's eyes once more. Their solemn depths would give him courage to face the great peut-être. Courage! With self-upbraiding he spurned the thought, walking round his cell as swiftly as heavy irons would permit. Courage, forsooth! He lacked not courage. 'Twere better that the two should meet no more on this accursed soil. In another world they would wander together in perpetual sunshine, by purling brooks, under softly waving trees-but would they? Was there another world? The spirit of the young man was so bruised that he hoped there might not be; and, his illusion being gone, he yearned for rest only-unceasing-eternal-the long unbroken sleep without a waking. He shrank from the occasional visits of Lord Clare, who had brought his country to this pass-even deprecated those of his friend Curran with a new-born peevishness; for in the face of his old ally he could trace tell-tale lines of weary watching and despondency, which spoke with eloquent meaning of the darkness outside the prison walls; whispering of the universal sorrow he would so gladly have forgotten. Curran became nervous about him, fearing lest his mind should give way. Solitude, and such thoughts to brood over as his were, are good for no man. It was with a sense of relief therefore that the little man heard one day that a companion was to be quartered on the councillor. Who that comrade was to be he wist not; any companionship would be better for him than none. When that comrade came, Terence was feeding on his griefs, as usual. The door opened with the clatter and craunch of keys and bolts which no longer vexed him; a slight figure in a full-skirted coat was pushed in without ceremony, who groped his way and stumbled in the half-obscurity as the door clanged-to again. Terence looked up with the slow glance of one whose faculties are corroded-rough with rust. His eyes met other eyes from which the light of hope had fled. It was Theobald who was to be Terence's new companion.