My Lords of Strogue. Volume 3 of 3

'I've done my best already with Lord Cornwallis,' he said; 'but he heeds me no more than a crazy table. I begged him to quash this last trial; to show leniency with regard to your cousin. He retorted that he was forbidden to be lenient; that he had promised to let the trials run their course; that I had myself to thank for it, having complained of him to Mr. Pitt. I cannot stop this trial. Mr. Pitt is as ungrateful, I find, as other men. He made use of me, then flung me aside without the least compunction. I see it now-too late. As for the other-'

Doreen sank on her knees before the chancellor.

'As for Tone,' he went on, severely, 'it is right and fit that he should die. I would not move a finger to save him from the hangman. The mischief-maker! Come, my carriage shall take you back to Strogue. An officer shall ride behind to protect it.' Then, seeing how distressed she looked, he took her hand, and continued, in a kinder voice, 'I'm not so heartless as you imagine. Girls should not trouble their pretty heads with politics, which they are unable to understand. You think it very shocking to be giving feasts at such a time? Yet both your cousin Shane and your father are here for state reasons. These festivities have a political meaning. Now, get you home and go to bed to refresh your roses. My word! Madam Gillin, if I mistake not? A strange companion for my lady's niece! Good-night. For his sake I will not tell your father of this escapade.'

And so the maiden's effort was as vain as the little lawyer's was. She sat sedate and still as the coach rattled on, murmuring once, in an undertone, 'That I, who never kneel to any one but God, should have knelt at that man's feet in vain!' She thought of Theobald. What was he doing? Was he praying, or sleeping a last sleep? It must need all a soldier's courage to walk calmly to a scaffold. A cause should be a good one that has power to produce such martyrs.

* * * * *

While Curran and Doreen were straining every nerve for him, Tone stared moodily out into his prison-yard and watched the building of a new gallows there. 'A soldier's end was all I asked,' he sighed, 'and they even deny me that small grace.'

In the evening he took a tender farewell of Terence, and moved into an adjoining cell, which, as for a distinguished person who was condemned to death, had been set apart for him.

'Let us sit together to the last,' Terence objected, with a mournful smile. 'Why should we be parted who are both hovering on the confines of eternity? Well, come in and look at me again before you go.'

Theobald embraced his friend with clinging warmth, and whispering once more, 'We shall meet again,' withdrew. When the gaolers came to lead him to the gallows-foot they were too late. His body lay cold upon the pallet. An ensanguined mark was on his throat. He had escaped the scrag-boy-cheated 'Jack the Breath-stopper'-and was gone!

CHAPTER V.

THE ALTAR OF MOLOCH

Though Shane roared out gay toasts to the health of Nelson, he was by no means happy in his mind. No dwelling could be more disagreeable than Strogue. His supposed participation in the capture of the arch-martyr was speedily punished by the people. His cattle were houghed. It happened to be a late season; all his corn was cut and trampled in one night by unseen avengers. He was in constant dread of Moiley, of being sent to his account from behind a hedge-ignominious exit for a king of Cherokees. He even felt inclined to do as many fellow-proprietors did, namely, to barricade himself in his Abbey and endure a state of siege till better times should come. In order to curry favour with the executive he underlined his open disavowal of his brother's acts, spoke flippantly of traitors; an unfeeling course which did not raise him in the esteem of blunt Lord Cornwallis. That nobleman expressed his opinion of Pat in no measured terms, vowing, as testily he poked the fire, that the Irish were unfit to govern themselves; that, independent of the benefit which would accrue to England, the sooner a legislative union could be brought about, the better it would be for Ireland herself. The few months of his residence in Dublin had melted all his scruples on that head. On principle, Mr. Pitt's game was an iniquitous one. There could be no two opinions as to that. But the new Viceroy was not long in discovering that a union would materially improve the condition of the people by freeing them from the persecution of bigoted factions, provided that the King could only be brought to allow that the Catholics should be permitted to exist. After all, how could a scuffle about a union affect the lower orders? Under home-rule were they not always slaves? Did they not profess to hate the yoke of English and Anglo-Irish equally? It would be a change of masters; a change from tyranny to mildness; for it was understood by Lord Cornwallis that the Reign of Terror had been brought about to disgust the country with its ruling classes; and that that result being attained, a skilfully contrasted millennium was to be inaugurated instantly. The members of the senate had been cajoled, with a few exceptions, into disgracing themselves beyond redemption. Could they be coaxed a stage lower-just one? Possibly. The Marquis Cornwallis, so far as his private honour was concerned, drew the line at this. He would supervise the stew, without direct personal interference in its brewing. It did not behove a man who had won immortal laurels in the field, to stoop to put salt on the tails of the Irish Lords and Commons. No! That unworthy work must be done by the chancellor and such others as were ready to paddle in the cloaca. This is how it was that, despite the paling of his star, my Lord Clare was giving dinners-symposia intended to act as birdlime to fluttering legislators-feasts at which hints were dropped of the future emoluments that awaited the complaisant. Mr. Pitt's ball was rolling steadily to the goal, while my Lord Clare swept clear its course. The bloody drama was all but concluded now. One more trial and the pageant at the Sessions-House would come to a close, and those who had escaped so far would probably be permitted to disappear in the medley. Nearly all had been tried who could be safely sentenced; there were some left whom it would be best not to try. The last serious state-trial must be got over without more ado-a trial complicated by private venom and a series of false statements which were twisted into attempted murder as well as treason; a trial which must be so conducted as to bear sifting by the opposition, examination by the scrutiny of Europe-a trial wherein both sides would wrestle with all their strength and cunning. Which was to enact Jacob, and which the angel?

Theobald Wolfe Tone having vanished from the scene, the eyes of Dublin were still turned fearfully to the selfsame cell at the provost, wherein the companion of his last hours lingered. The people counted the moments that were left to him. Coronachs were crooned in secret before their time in many a cabin, with beatings of the breast. None doubted but that Charon, resting on his oars, awaited his next fare with confidence. As Terence himself expressed it-he stood on an isthmus between two lives. If one was desperately turbid, was it not better cheerfully to turn his back on it, and plunge with courage into the other?

Strogue Abbey from within, was no more pleasant to its owner than from without. Doreen's serenity, which for years had made Shane uncomfortable, assumed now a preternatural repulsion. Odours as of gravecloths seemed to emanate from her garments. The phosphorescence of the charnel-house was a nimbus to her head. Her brow was circled by the calm that appertains not to mundane matters; which chills the creeping souls of those who cling to earth. Instead of being shocked that Theobald should have evaded the offices of the scrag-boy, she was content. Her hero was beyond the reach of vulgar slings and arrows. His fretted rope was snapped; the boundary was passed, the inevitable plunge taken, and he slept. A few brief days of swiftly speeding hours and Terence would be conveyed with him in the boat of Charon, who was waiting, to a less rugged shore. A little, little patience, and he too would sleep. Then she, less blessed than they, would withdraw from the troubles that weighed her down, and, meekly kneeling, would await the unveiling of the White Pilgrim. What a message was his! 'Home to the homeless; to the restless rest!' Doreen's manner had something awful about it which scared another besides Shane-poor Sara, whose Robert was unscathed and well. The cairngorm eyes of the elder damsel were opened to their full width with the far-seeing blindness of a somnambulist. Her obstinate moods and perverse waywardness were quelled. She went about her avocations with mechanical deliberation; dusted her cousin's fishing-rods and guns in his little sanctum, as if he were only gone away upon a visit; wore her best clothes to please her aunt; tendered regularly each morning to cousin Shane a corpse-cheek whose coldness took away the little appetite which he could boast of; conversed calmly about events-all but the one event, which for that matter each member of the household was equally desirous to shun. Strogue was full of spectres, and they rattled their bones in grim concert.

Councillor Curran, who looked like a moulting bird, grey-skinned, unkempt, essayed to speak words of comfort; but she seemed not to understand. What comfort could there be for one whose fairest prospect was the cloister and the grave? Theobald had passed; a procession of young shades like Banquo's sons had passed; Terence was prepared to join the shadowy convoy into spirit-land. Why prate of comfort? Had not Mr. Curran done all that might be done by man to prevent this hideous nightmare? Then he murmured something of a postponement-of a delay which might save the life of the last victim; but Doreen only shook her graceful head. It was better, she averred, to put aside illusions, and look straight into Truth's hard face. The postponement of the trial was impossible, and it was better so, for a speedy end was the best boon for a true Irishman to pray for. Mr. Curran's heart died within him to hear this girl, in the full flush of youth and beauty, speaking of this life as though existence had no charms.

If his stately cousin was a kill-joy in the household, Shane's mother was no better than she. My lady alternated between fevered activity, without apparent object, and helpless lassitude. Her own ghost kept faithful watch and ward over the countess. When Lord Clare told her gently that all hope of saving her son was gone, she gave herself over to the phantom hand and foot; and her old friend blamed himself for rushing, as we all have a proneness to do, to hasty conclusions of blame. It was evident that my lady was not indifferent to the fate of her younger-born. On the contrary, she was overwhelmed by a remorseful, fascinating ecstasy, which haunted her day and night-something connected with Terence in the past, which took from his mother the power to reason in clear sequence. She blinked like a white owl in the great chair in the tapestry saloon, heeding goers or comers no more than drifting leaves-engrossed all day by withering meditation till Doreen announced to her that it was time for bed. Then she permitted herself to be undressed and laid upon her back without a word, and blinked on at the ceiling through the still hours; and then was dressed and propped up again in the great chair. Some said she was broken; some that her circulation was weak; some that paralysis was imminent. Lord Clare and Curran alone amongst her friends perceived that it was her mind that was diseased-that there was a rooted sorrow festering there which no mortal hand might have strength to pluck away.

News of the countess's state was brought by Shane to the Little House, whither he escaped whene'er he could, to forget his dismal home in the company of Norah. But his welcome there was no longer what it used to be, even though through his good offices the dreadful infliction of soldiers' wives had been removed. Madam Gillin felt too strongly the heartless selfishness of Lord Glandore to be decently civil to him, even though by civility her child might win a coronet. For a host of reasons, her sympathies were all with Terence. When Shane talked querulously about his mother, she listened eagerly, seeing in fancy the dying man at Daly's, who implored his stern wife to save herself from the torment he then suffered. But she would not. Nemesis, if slow of foot, is sure-her vengeance complete, if tardy.

The fatal day in due course arrived which was big with the fate of Terence. Curran implored Doreen to stop at home-in vain. Her resolve was immutable. Since her cousin's trial could not be postponed, she decided to see the last of him whom she had dared to doubt. Under escort of the little advocate, she entered the Sessions-House, and took her seat close to the dock. When the inevitable sentence should come to be spoken, the brown hand which he loved best in all the world would grasp his firmly. His courage would not waver. He was too good and true for that. But he should in that supreme moment read the love that went out from her, and with it a promise that she would not stay long behind.

Her father was to occupy the bench with my Lord Carleton. Toler (bully, butcher, and buffoon), whose nose was like a scarlet pincushion well studded, was down for the prosecution; he of the silver tongue for the defence. The hall was close and inconvenient; its murky skylight thick with dust, its jaundiced walls sallow and blotched with damp. A lofty seat was prepared for the judges under a canopy at one end, surmounted by the royal arms. Below this were three crazy benches for counsel and attorneys; then came an open space on the floor of the hall; then a barrier enclosing a small pen, which was intended for public use, but which was already more than half monopolised by soldiers of the yeomanry. On the right side of the counsellors' benches was the dock; on the left, the jury-paddock, and a low table with a chair on it for the accommodation of witnesses. These, till they were wanted, leaned against the wall behind, conversing in loud tones with other members of the Battalion of Testimony, or fawning with fulsome scrapings about Major Sirr, who, with the pompous airs of a jack-in-office, acted as master of the judicial ceremonies. Government tried to make proceedings look less dirty by making much of the informers; did its best to dignify them in the eyes of those who were selected to decide the fate of the accused. These men, as all the world knew, were capable of anything, deeming that he was a pitiful fellow who, to please his master, would stick at a little perjury.

Curran marked uneasily that the battalion was in great force to-day. Was it out of curiosity, or were they here on business? Long impunity had developed all the native ferocity and brazenness of these Staghouse demons. They wore new modish suits of clothes, with fashionable bows of ribbon at the knee, provided at Government expense. They looked sleek and well-to-do, for they were sumptuously fed and boarded, and provided with three guineas a day for pocket-money. Cockahoop was the jovial crew, for the band was too compact and strong to fear Moiley now; though time was when one of the number who was ill dared not take his medicine, lest haply he should find his quietus in it. Those times were past. The people were cowed and trampled. These men had, for a fee, sworn away the lives of their brothers and then fathers. Moiley had over-eaten herself-was languid through repletion. There was no room in her maw even for a strangled informer. They were growing rich, budding into proprietors; some screening their names under an alias from infamy some too callous to feel any shame at all. Which of the rowdy knot was to do the work to-day? Since the battalion had become so highly trained, Lord Clare's ingenious invention with respect to the testimony of a single witness was a dead letter. That the oath of one person should, at a pinch, consign a man to the scrag-boy was a wholesome and judicious rule that was likely to save much trouble. But when you have a whole pack of hounds at your command, each one taught to yelp at a given signal, it is pretty sport to watch their tricks. Besides, a pile of testimony, more or less irrelevant and contradictory, has an improving effect upon a jury. The Irish are eminently superstitious. These trials sometimes lasted through the night. Men were apt to get frightened at shadows on the wall, at the flickering candles with their guttering winding-sheets. It was well to pile Pelion upon Ossa, to crush out any stray drop of pity. A heap of evidence confused and dazed them. Many crawled home after sentence was pronounced, fully persuaded that they had only done their duty-that so many witnesses, each with his pat story, must of a surety have spoken truth; that they had earned their honest stipend without injuring their souls.

Which of the rowdy knot-and how many-were to do the work to-day? Cassidy-finely dressed in a grand coat of padusoy, with a posy in his breast, and a new bobwig-was lolling on the counsellors' bench cracking jests with Major Sirr, behind whom stood a bevy of admirers. The presence of those two boded no good to either prisoner. The town-major, indeed, had openly told Curran that if his defence was too clever it would be the worse for him; to which the little man had replied, with a finger-snap, 'In court a liar, in the street a bully, in the gaol a fiend-you shall reap your reward, meejor! I don't care that for you or your murderers by the Book!' and so had left him. He was used to threats, and took no heed of them. They might as well have hoped to drive the stars from heaven by violence as to frighten John Curran into abandoning a client. And they were not mere clients for whom he had been pleading, for whose sake he risked his life during these trials. They were dear friends whom he loved, whom as brother-patriots he honoured. Some, despite his impassioned oratory, were slaughtered; others he saved. Ministers were secretly afraid of that silver tongue; for his burning words were reported and circulated, despite the efforts of the executive. All the world respected Curran; his exhortations wormed themselves into men's minds, and warmed into fruition there.

The Sessions-House in Green Street was filled with a strange company that day, as people forced themselves in till it was crammed. There was a buzz of expectation, which rose into a hubbub and fell again. The dock remained empty, though the morning had passed to noon. The heaviness in the air was sickening, by reason of the densely-packed assembly and moist garments; for the sun was veiled, the weather gloomy. A drizzling rain began to fall. Madam Gillin, in gaudy attire-a sight to kill parrots with envy-elbowed a passage through the mob, closely followed by old Jug, who, with her mistress, sat near Doreen. What an odd condition of society was this of Dublin! The prisoners who would stand at the bar presently were closely connected, either by ties of blood or friendship, with advocates, judges, and many more in the surrounding audience. It was quite a family-party.

Mr. Curran reflected that no judge could be more partial than Lord Kilwarden; that some among the jury, with whom he was to intercede, were his own cronies. Yet was he not happy about his case. Lord Clare, for once, would have juggled in opposition to his usual principles; but Lord Clare's hands were tied through his own act. Through his own intervention the Viceroy had promised not to dip his finger in the Staghouse caldron till the cooking was complete. If the Viceroy declined to interfere, no one else could take the initiative. It was a deadlock. A pebble or two, if authorities napped for a moment, might have been inserted to make a wheel veer awry. How was it that the said wheel insisted upon keeping its accustomed track, and that extra celerity was even given to its motion? Some one unseen was pushing. Who was it? If higher powers were debarred from inserting pebbles, there was, unhappily, nothing to prevent interested inferiors from exerting private pressure. Curran felt that Cassidy and Sirr were at the bottom of this. What a cruel chance for Mr. Curran's client that neither Viceroy nor Chancellor could interfere!

How much longer was the delay to last? It was three o'clock. Sirr and Cassidy had retired and returned refreshed. Curran sent out for sandwiches, which he divided with the ladies. Old Jug somehow seemed feverishly excited; nodding and mumbling to herself, moping and mowing, muttering weird incantations, which were impressed on the air with a gnarled finger. Mrs. Gillin ate her meat with a relish, in spite of grief. There are some appetites which no trouble may vanquish.

Doreen was in a trance-like state. Her skin was mottled, her eyes a dusky fire, surrounded by dark discs; a singular, unearthly smile played about her lips. To please her friend the advocate, she strove to eat, but her throat was contracted by spasms. She looked appealingly to him, and Curran took the food away with a sigh.

Toler came over to discuss matters with his adversary. All this was woefully illegal; but what did that matter? It was a melancholy comfort that a tattered remnant of the robe of Justice yet remained. Maybe in time, with coaxing, the lady would come back to Ireland. Who might tell what would happen next?

'Will ye inform me, Toler,' Curran interrupted, 'who your witnesses are? I'm quite in a muzz, I tell ye.'

Toler clapped the little man upon the back, and roared with hoarse laughter.

'That's the critical brook in the steeple-chase, mee boy!' he chuckled. 'We rely on a surprise to confound the prisoners. But I'll tell ye this, ould chap. Sirr, for some reason, is bent upon a conviction. Nothing you can say will make a difference. So cut it short, and let us out of this nasty hole. Be good-natured, and keep your breath to cool your porridge.'

So his suspicions were correct. Sirr was at the bottom of this, impelled by revenge for those slashes on his calves; urged too, probably, by Cassidy, who had made it up with the town-major. What could they gain by surprising the prisoners? Truly, the mechanism of the law was lamentably out of gear.

At last there was a stamping without-a surge of feet-a murmur of commiseration in the street. The judges, clad in crimson, took their places. Lord Carleton, ponderous and overbearing; Lord Kilwarden, nervous and subdued, with wrinkled brow and downcast visage-the one determined to do his duty, the other to avoid it if he could. Shortly afterwards a side-door opened. Terence and his henchman, Phil, were thrust into the dock. Terence peered round with contracted pupils, unable to distinguish friends from foes in the dim haze. He saw not Doreen, though she was close below. She clasped her hands upon her breast to still a rising sob when she marked how changed he was. Fever had paled his ruddy cheek, shrunken his burly frame. It was not that which shocked her, for that was to be expected. It was the uncanny glitter, the reflection through open portals of a radiance belonging to another world-the look she had last seen in Tone, the glimmer of the grave-that it was which caused her heart to bound. He stood erect, one hand resting on the rail, the other supported by a green scarf about his neck. Even his gaoler had remonstrated as he dressed that morning: 'Don't wear such things. Why prejudice the coort?' To which he had answered, smiling: 'The cause is already judged. It matters not what I wear; Erin will be green again when I rest under her sod-all the greener for her recent soaking.'

In striking contrast to his quiet dignity was the behaviour of his faithful henchman. He walked crooked and stiff, by reason of the whippings he had undergone. Jug Coyle scrutinised him with meaning from beneath her penthouse brows, and seemed satisfied. The trim, obliging, smiling Phil was transmuted into another and quite untidy person. 'Twas not only pain that caused his steps to waver; there could be no doubt about it-he was drunk!

Terence was woundily annoyed; a flush of anger overspread his face as he placed his arm about his companion to check his stumbling, and gave him a savage shaking. Phil drunk, at such a time, who used to be so good and sober! He had not improved under the town-major's auspices. This was no doubt one of the arch-devil's tricks to turn a solemn and impressive scene into a subject for laughter and contempt. It was a pity Phil was not more strong-minded. Had he disguised himself in liquor to steal a march upon his fears? The poor fellow was ignorant and underbred; fortitude was hardly to be expected from such as he. The jury sitting opposite had their orders. Perhaps it was as well for Phil that he could drown the knowledge of the present. On the morrow it would all be over-blessed morrow! Both he and his master would know by dawn the secret which oppresses all of us.