If there was anything strange or inexplicable in the appearance of one
of Maitland's pretensions in an unfrequented and obscure part of the
world,--if there was matter in it to puzzle the wise heads of squires,
and make country intelligences look confused,--there is no earthly
reason why any mystification should be practised with our reader. He, at
least, is under our guidance, and to him we impart whatever is known to
ourselves. For a variety of reasons, some of which this history later on
will disclose,--others, the less imminent, we are free now to avow,--Mr.
Norman Maitland had latterly addressed much of his mind to the political
intrigues of a foreign country: that country was Naples. He had known
it--we are not free to say how, at this place--from his childhood; he
knew its people in every rank and class; he knew its dialect in all its
idioms. He could talk the slang of the lazzaroni, and the wild _patois_
of Calabria, just as fluently as that composite language which the King
Ferdinand used, and which was a blending of the vulgarisms of the Chiaja
with the Frenchified chit-chat of the Court. There were events happening
in Italy which, though not for the moment involving the question of
Naples, suggested to the wiser heads in that country the sense of a
coming peril. We cannot, at this place, explain how or why Maitland
should have been a sharer in these deeds; it is enough to say that he
was one of a little knot who had free access to the palace, and enjoyed
constant intercourse with the king,--free to tell him of all that went
on in his brilliant capital of vice and levity, to narrate its duels,
its defalcations, its intrigues, its family scandals and domestic
disgraces,--to talk of anything and everything but one: not a word on
politics was to escape them; never in the most remote way was a syllable
to drop of either what was happening in the State, or what comments the
French or English press might pass on it. No allusion was to escape on
questions of government, nor the name of a minister to be spoken, except
he were the hero of some notorious scandal. All these precautions could
not stifle fear. The menials had seen the handwriting on the wall before
Belshazzar's eyes had fallen on it. The men who stood near the
throne saw that it rocked already. There was but one theme within the
palace,--the fidelity of the army; and every rude passage between the
soldiery and the people seemed to testify to that faithfulness. Amongst
those who were supposed to enjoy the sovereign confidence--for none
in reality possessed it--was the Count Caffarelli, a man of very
high family and large fortune; and though not in the slightest degree
tinctured with Liberalism in politics, one of the very few Neapolitan
nobles who either understood the drift, or estimated the force of the
party of action. He foresaw the coming struggle, and boded ill of its
result. With Mr. Maitland he lived in closest intimacy. The Italian,
though older than the Englishman, had been his companion in years
of dissipation. In every capital of Europe these two men had left
traditions of extravagance and excess. They had an easy access to the
highest circles in every city, and it was their pleasure to mix in all,
even to the lowest Between them there had grown what, between such men,
represented a strong friendship,--that is, either would readily have
staked his life or his fortune; in other words, have fought a duel, or
paid the play-debts of the other. Each knew the exact rules of honor
which guided the conduct of the other, and knew, besides, that no other
principles than these held any sway or influence over him.
Caffarelli saw that the Bourbon throne was in danger, and with it the
fortunes of all who adhered to the dynasty. If all his prejudices and
sympathies were with monarchy, these would not have prevented him from
making terms with the revolution, if he thought the revolution could be
trusted; but this was precisely what he did not, could not believe.
“_Ceux qui sont Bleus restent Bleus_” said the first Napoleon; and
so Caffarelli assured himself that a _canaille_ always would be a
_canaille_. Philip Égalité was a case in point of what came of such
concessions; therefore he decided it was better to stand by the
monarchy, and that real policy consisted in providing that there should
be a monarchy to stand by.
To play that mock game of popularity, the being cheered by the
lazzaroni, was the extent of toleration to which the king could be
persuaded. Indeed, he thought these _vivas_ the hearty outburst of a
fervent and affectionate loyalty; and many of his Ministers appeared
to concur with him. Caffarelli, who was Master of the Horse, deemed
otherwise, and confessed to Maitland that, though assassination
was cheap enough in the quarter of Santa Lucia, there was a most
indiscriminating indifference as to who might be the victim, and that
the old Marquess of Montanara, the Prefect of the Palace, would not cost
a _carlino_ more than the veriest follower of Mazzini.
Both Caffarelli and Maitland enjoyed secret sources of information. They
were members of that strange league which has a link in every grade and
class of Neapolitan society, and makes the very highest in station the
confidant and the accomplice of the most degraded and the meanest This
sect, called La Camorra, was originally a mere system of organized
extortion, driving, by force of menace, an impost on every trade and
occupation, and exacting its dues by means of agents well known to be
capable of the greatest crimes. Caffarelli, who had long employed its
services to assist him in his intrigues or accomplish his vengeances,
was a splendid contributor to its resources. He was rich and munificent;
he loved profusion, but he adored it when it could be made the
mainspring of some dark and mysterious machinery. Though the Camorra was
not in the remotest degree political, Caffarelli learned, through its
agency, that the revolutionary party were hourly gaining strength and
courage. They saw the growing discontent that spread abroad about
the ruling dynasty, and they knew how little favor would be shown
the Bourbons by the Western Powers, whose counsels had been so flatly
rejected, and whose warnings despised. They felt that their hour was
approaching, and that Northern Italy would soon hasten to their aid if
the work of overthrow were once fairly begun. Their only doubts were
lest the success, when achieved, should have won nothing for them. It
may be as in Forty-eight, said they; we may drive the king out of
Naples as we drove the Austrians out of Milan, and, after all, only be
conquering a larger kingdom for the House of Savoy. Hence they hesitated
and held back; nor were their fears causeless. For what had revolution
poured forth its blood like water in Paris? To raise up the despotism of
the Second Empire!
Caffarelli was in possession of all this; he knew what they hoped
and wished and feared. The Camorra itself numbered many professed
revolutionists (“Reds,” as they liked to be called) in its sect, but
was itself untinctured by politics. The wily Count thought that it was
a pity so good an organization should be wasted on mere extortion and
robbery. There were higher crimes they might attain to, and grander
interests they might subserve. Never, perhaps, was the world of Europe
so much in the hands of a few powerful men. Withdraw from it, say, half
a dozen,--one could name them at once,--and what a change might come
over the Continent! Caffarelli was no assassin; but there are men, and
he was one of them, that can trifle with great crimes, just as children
play with fire; who can jest with them, laugh at them, and sport with
them, till, out of mere familiarity, they forget the horror they should
inspire and the penalty they enforce. He had known Orsini intimately,
and liked him; nor did he talk of his memory with less affection that he
had died beneath the guillotine. He would not himself engage in a crime
that would dishonor his name; but he knew there were a great number of
people in the world who could no more be punctilious about honor than
about the linen they wore,--fellows who walked in rags and dined
off garlic. Why should they stick at trifles? _They_ had no noble
escutcheons to be tarnished, no splendid names, no high lineage to be
disgraced. In fact, there were crimes that became them, just as certain
forms of labor suited them. They worked with their hands in each case.
Amongst the Camorra he knew many such. The difficulty was to bring the
power of the sect to bear upon the questions that engaged him. It would
not have been difficult to make them revolutionists,--the one word
“pillage” would have sufficed for that; the puzzle was how to make them
royalists. Mere pay would not do. These fellows had got a taste for
irregular gain. To expect to win them over by pay, or retain them
by discipline, was to hope to convert a poacher by inviting him to a
battue. Caffarelli had revolved the matter very long and carefully; he
had talked it over scores of times with Maitland. They agreed that the
Camorra had great capabilities, if one only could use them. Through the
members of that league in the army they had learned that the troops,
the long-vaunted reliance of the monarchy, could not be trusted. Many
regiments were ready to take arms with the Reds; many more would disband
and return to their homes. As for the navy, they declared there was not
one ship's company would stand by the Sovereign. The most well-affected
would be neutral; none save the foreign legions would fight for the
king. The question then was, to reinforce these, and at once,--a matter
far more difficult than it used to be. Switzerland would no longer
permit this recruitment. Austria would give none but her criminals.
America, it was said, abounded in ardent adventurous spirits that would
readily risk life in pursuit of fortune; but then the cause was not one
which, by any ingenuity, could be made to seem that of liberty. Nothing
then remained but Ireland. There there was bravery and poverty both;
thousands, who had no fears and very little food, ready for any
enterprise, but far readier for one which could be dignified as being
the battle of the Truth and the cause of the Holy Father.
An Irish legion, some five or six thousand devout Catholics and valiant
soldiers, was a project that the Minister of War at once embraced. His
Excellency saw Maitland on it, and talked over the whole plan. Maitland
was himself to direct all its operations. Caffarelli would correspond
with him from Naples, and, in case of any complication or difficulty,
shroud the Minister from attack. Ample funds would be provided. The men
could be engaged as laborers upon some great public work, and forwarded
in small drafts to a convenient port. Arms could be easily procured
from Liège. Officers could be readily obtained, either Irish or Poles or
Hungarians, who could speak English. In a word, all the details had been
well discussed and considered; and Maitland, on arriving in London, had
again talked over the project with wise and crafty heads, whose prudent
counsels showed him how little fit he was, personally, to negotiate
directly with the Irish peasant, and how imperative above all things it
was to depute this part of his task to some clever native, capable of
employing the subordinates he needed. “Hide yourself,” said they, “in
some out-of-the-way spot in Wales or Scotland; even the far North
of Ireland will do; remain anywhere near enough to have frequent
communication with your agent, but neither be seen nor known in the plot
yourself. Your English talk and your English accent would destroy more
confidence than your English gold would buy.”
Such an agent was soon found,--a man admirably adapted in many respects
for the station. He had been an adventurer all his life; served with the
French in Austria, and the Austrians in the Banat; held an independent
command of Turks during the Crimean War; besides, episodically, having
“done a little,” as he called it, on the Indian frontier with the
Yankees; and served on the staff of Rosas, at La Plata; all his great
and varied experiences tending to one solitary conviction, that no real
success was ever to be attained in anything except by means of Irishmen;
nor could order, peace, and loyalty be ever established anywhere without
their assistance. If he was one of the bravest men living, he was one
of the most pushing and impertinent. He would have maintained a point of
law against the Lord Chancellor, and contested tactics with a Marshal of
France. He thought himself the ornament of any society he entered, and
his vanity, in matters of intellect, was only surpassed by his personal
conceit. And now one word as to his appearance. With the aid of cleverly
constructed boots he stood five feet four, but was squarely, stoutly
built, broad in the chest, and very bow-legged; his head was large, and
seemed larger from a mass of fiery red hair, of which he was immensely
vain as the true Celtic color; he wore great whiskers, a moustache, and
chin-tuft; but the flaming hue of these seemed actually tamed and toned
down beside his eyes, which resembled two flaring carbuncles. They were
the most excitable, quarrelsome, restless pair of orbs that ever beamed
in a human head. They twinkled and sparkled with an incessant mischief,
and they darted such insolent glances right and left as seemed to say,
“Is there any one present who will presume to contradict me?”
His boundless self-conceit would have been droll if it had not been so
offensive. His theory was this: all men detested him; all women adored
him. Europe had done little better than intrigue for the last quarter
of a century what country could secure his services. As for the insolent
things he had said to kings and emperors, and the soft speeches that
empresses and queens had made to himself, they would fill a volume.
Believe him, and he had been on terms of more than intimacy in every
royal palace of the Continent. Show the slightest semblance of doubt in
him, and the chances were that he 'd have had you “out” in the morning.
Amongst his self-delusions, it was one to believe that his voice and
accent were peculiarly insinuating. There was, it is true, a certain
slippery insincerity about them, but the vulgarity was the chief
characteristic; and his brogue was that of Leinster, which, even to
Irish ears, is insufferable.
Such was, in brief, the gentleman who called himself Major
M'Caskey, Knight-Commander of various Orders, and C.S. in the Pope's
household,--which, interpreted, means Cameriere Secreto,--a something
which corresponds to gentleman-in-waiting. Maitland and he had never
met. They had corresponded freely, and the letters of the Major had by
no means made a favorable impression upon Maitland, who had more than
once forwarded extracts from them to the committees in London, pettishly
asking, “if something better could not be found than the writer of this
rubbish.” And yet, for the work before him, “the writer of this rubbish”
was a most competent hand. He knew his countrymen well,--knew how to
approach them by those mingled appeals to their love of adventure
and love of gain; their passion for fighting, for carelessness, for
disorder; and, above all, that wide uncertainty as to what is to
come, which is, to an Irishman's nature, the most irresistible of
all seductions. The Major had established committees--in other words,
recruiting-depots--in several county towns; had named a considerable
number of petty officers; and was only waiting Maitland's orders whether
or not he should propose the expedition to adventurous but out-at-elbows
young fellows of a superior station,--the class from which officers
might be taken. We have now said enough of him and the project that
engaged him to admit of our presenting him to our readers in one of his
brief epistles. It was dated,--
“Castle Dubbow, August--, 18--.
“Sir,--I have the honor to report for your information that I yesterday
enrolled in this town and neighborhood eighteen fine fellows for H. N.
M. Two of them are returned convicts, and three more are bound over to
come up for sentence at a future assizes, and one, whom I have named a
corporal, is the notorious Hayes, who shot Captain Macon on the fair
green at Ballinasloe. So you see there's little fear that they'll want
to come back here when once they have attained to the style and dignity
of Neapolitan citizens. Bounty is higher here by from sixteen to twenty
shillings than in Meath; indeed, fellows who can handle a gun, or are
anyways ready with a weapon, can always command a job from one of the
secret clubs; and my experiences (wide as most men's) lead me entirely
to the selection of those who have shown any aptitude for active
service. I want your permission and instruction to engage some young
gentlemen of family and station, for the which I must necessarily be
provided with means of entertainment. _Tafel Gelt ist nicht Teufel's
Gelt_, says the Austrian adage; and I believe a very moderate outlay,
assisted by my own humble gifts of persuasion, will suffice. _Séduction
de M'Casky_, was a proverb in the 8th Voltigeurs. You may ask a certain
high personage in France who it was that told him not to despair on a
particular evening at Strasbourg. A hundred pounds--better if a hundred
and fifty--would be useful. The medals of his Holiness have done well,
but I only distribute them in the lower ranks. Some titles would be very
advisable if I am to deal with the higher class. Herewith you have a
muster-roll of what has been done in two counties; and I say it without
fear, not a man in the three kingdoms could have accomplished it but
Miles M'Marmont could plan, but not execute; Masséna execute, but not
organize; Soul could do none but the last. It is no vanity makes me
declare that I combine all the qualities. You see me now 'organizing;'
in a few days you shall judge me in the field; and, later on, if my
convictions do not deceive me, in the higher sphere of directing the
great operations of an army. I place these words in your hands that they
may be on record. If M'Caskey falls, it is a great destiny cut off; but
posterity will see that he died in the full conviction of his genius. I
have drawn on you for thirty-eight, ten-and-six; and to-morrow will draw
again for seventy-four, fifteen.
“Your note has just come. I am forced to say that its tone is not that
to which, in the sphere I have moved, I have been accustomed. If I am
to regard you as my superior officer, duty cries, 'Submit.' If you be
simply a civilian, no matter how exalted, I ask explanation. The dinner
at the Dawson Arms _was_ necessary; the champagne was _not_ excessive;
none of the company were really drunk before ten o'clock; and the
destruction of the furniture was a _plaisanterie_ of a young gentleman
from Louth who was going into holy orders, and might most probably not
have another such spree in all his life again. Are you satisfied? If
not, tell me what and where any other satisfaction may meet your wishes.
You say, 'Let us meet.' I reply, 'Yes, in any way you desire.' You
have not answered my demand--it was demand, not request--to be Count
M'Caskey. I have written to Count Caffarelli on the subject, and have
thoughts of addressing the king. Don't talk to me of decorations. I
have no room for them on the breast of my coat. I am forced to say these
things to you, for I cannot persuade myself that you really know or
understand the man you correspond with. After all, it took Radetzky a
year, and Omar Pasha seventeen months, to arrive at that knowledge which
my impatience, unjustly perhaps, complains that you have not attained
to. Yet I feel we shall like each other; and were it not like
precipitancy, I'd say, believe me, dear Maitland, very faithfully your
friend,
“Miles M'Caskey.”
The answer to this was very brief, and ran thus:--
“Lyle Abbey, August.
“Sir,--You will come to Coleraine, and await my orders
there,--the first of which will be to take no liberties of
any kind with your obedient servant,
“Norman Maitland.
“Major M'Caskey, 'The Dawson Arms, Castle Durrow.
“P. S. Avoid all English acquaintances on your road. Give
yourself out to be a foreigner, and speak as little as
possible.”