STROGUE ABBEY.
The home of the Glandores on Dublin Bay is a unique place, perched on
rising ground, shaded by fine old timber. Originally an ecclesiastical
establishment, it was turned into a fortress by Sir Amorey Crosbie in
1177, and has been altered and gutted, and rebuilt, with here a wing
and here a bay, and there a winding staircase, or mysterious recess,
to suit the whim of each succeeding owner, till it has swelled into a
stunted honeycomb of meandering suites of rooms, whose geography
puzzles a stranger on his first visit there. The only portions of it
which remain intact, are (as may be seen by the great thickness of the
walls) the hall, a long, low, narrow space, panelled in black oak and
ceiled in squares; the huge kitchen, where meat might be roasted for
an army; and the dungeons below ground. The remaining rooms (many of
them like monkish cells) are of every shape and pattern, alike only in
having heavy casement frames set with diamond panes, enormous
obstinate doors, which creak and moan, declining to close or open
unless violently coerced, and worm-eaten floors that slope in every
freak of crooked line except the normal horizontal one. Indeed, the
varied levels of the bedroom floor (there is but one storey) are so
wildly erratic, that a visitor, who wakes for the first time in one of
the pigeonholes that open one on the other, like the alleys of a
rabbit warren, clings instinctively to his bedclothes as people do at
sea, and, on second thoughts, is seized with a new panic lest the
house be about to fall--an idle fear, as my lady is fond of showing;
for the cyclopean rafters, that were laid in their places by the
crumbled monks, are hard and black as iron, so seasoned by sea-air
that they will possibly stand good so long as Ireland remains above
the water. A gloomier abode than this it is scarce possible to
picture; for the window-sashes are of exceeding clumsiness, the
ornamentation of a ponderous flamboyancy in which all styles are
twisted, without regard for canons, into curls and scrolls; and yet
there is a blunt cosiness about the ensemble which seems to say, 'Here
at least you are safe. If Dublin Bay were full of hostile ships, the
adjacent land teeming with the enemy in arms, they might batter on for
ever. They might beat at our portals till the last trump should summon
them to more important business, but our panels would never budge.
On approaching the Abbey by the avenue, you are not aware of it--so
masked is it by trees and ivy--till a sharp turn brings you upon a
gravelled quadrangle, three sides of which are closed in by walls,
while the fourth is marked out by a row of statues (white nymphs with
pitchers), whose background is the chameleon sea. Directly facing
these figures--at the opposite end of the square, that is--a short
wide flight of steps, and a low terrace paved with coloured marbles,
lead to the front entrance. The left side of the quadrangle is the
'Young Men's Wing,' sacred to whips and fishing-tackle, pierced by
separate little doors for convenience on hunting mornings--two sets of
separate chambers, in fact, which may be entered without passing
through the hall; and above them is the armoury, a neglected museum of
rusty swords and matchlocks, an eyrie of ghosts and goblins, which is
never disturbed by household broom. The right side is bounded by a
close-clipped ivied wall, pierced by an archway which gives access to
the stables and the kennels, ended by a mouldering turret, converted
long since into a water-tower.
The grand hall, low and dark as it is with sable oak and stiff
limnings of dead Crosbies, occupies the whole length and width of the
central portion of the house, or rather of the narrow band which
joins the two side blocks together. You may learn, by looking at the
time-discoloured map which hangs over its sculptured mantelpiece, that
the ground-plan of the Abbey is shaped like the letter H, whose left
limb forms the young men's wing, the offices, and dining-room; whose
right limb is made up of my lady's bedroom, the staircase vestibule,
and the reception saloons; while the grand hall, or portrait gallery,
reproduces the connecting bar. Five steps, with a curiously-carved
banister, lead out of the grand hall at either end; that to the left
opening into the dining-room--a finely-proportioned chamber, panelled
from floor to ceiling with trophies of rusty armour breaking its
sombre richness; that to the right communicating with my lady's
bedroom, painted apple-green with arabesques of gold, which is chiefly
remarkable for luxuriously-cushioned window-seats, from whence a fine
view may be obtained of the operations in the stable-yard. The late
lord used to sip his chocolate here in brocaded morning-gown and
nightcap, haranguing his whipper-in and bullying the horse-boys, or
tossing scraps to favourite hounds as they were trotted by for his
inspection; and my lady has continued the practice through her
widowhood, for it gratifies her vanity, as chatelaine, to watch the
numberless grooms and lacqueys, the feudal array of servants and
retainers. An odd nest for a lady, no doubt; but the countess chooses
to inhabit it, she says, till her son brings home a bride, for the
late lord sent for Italian workmen to decorate it according to her
taste, and in it she will remain till the hour for abdication shall
arrive.
A second door, at right angles to my lady's, opens from the hall on to
the staircase with its heraldic flight of beasts; beyond this is the
chintz drawing-room, a cheery pale-tinted chamber which Doreen has
taken to herself as a boudoir, although it is practically no better
than a passage-room leading to the tapestried saloons. She likes it
for its brightness, and because it looks out on the garden front,
known as 'Miss Wolfe's Plot,' a little square fenced in at one end by
the hall, on the further side by the dining-room, while at the other
end there is a tall gilt grille of florid design, through which you
may wander, if it pleases you, into the pleasaunce. This small quaint
enclosure is Doreen's favourite haunt. She has laid it out with her
own hands in strange devices of pebbles and clipped box, with a crazy
sun-dial for a centre, and sits there for hours with needlework that
advances not, dreaming sombrely, and sighing now and then, as her eyes
travel along the cut beech hedges, smooth leafy walls, which spread
inland in vistas beyond the golden gate, like the arms of some giant
starfish. These hedges are the most remarkable things about a very
remarkable abode. They are each of them half a mile long, thirty-six
feet high, and twelve feet thick, perforated at intervals by arches;
and they form together a series of triangular spaces sheltered from
sea-blasts, in which flourish such a wealth of roses as is a marvel to
all comers.
Obese, old-fashioned roses, as big as your fist, hang in cataracts
from tottering posts which once were orchard trees; large pink
blossoms or bunches of small white ones, whose perfume weighs down the
air; balls of glorious colour, which, when a rare breeze shakes them,
shower their sweet petals in a lazy swirl upon the grass, whence
Doreen gleans and harvests them for winter, with cunning condiments,
in jars. From time to time the perfume varies, as the wind sets E. or
W., from that of Araby the blest to one of the salt sea--a tarry,
seaweedy, nautico-piratical odour, with a strong dash of brine in it,
which seems wafted upward from below to remind the dwellers in the
Abbey of their long line of corsair ancestors.
The most sumptuous of all the apartments is undoubtedly the tapestried
saloon, nicknamed by wags my lady's presence-chamber; for there,
looking out upon the roses, she loves to sit erect surrounded by
ghostly Crosbies whose mighty deeds are recorded on the walls,
portrayed by the most skilful hands upon miracles of Gobelin
manufacture. Mr. Curran often wondered, as he played cribbage with the
chatelaine, whether those deeds were fabulous; for if not, he
reflected, judging the present by the past--then were the mighty
grievously come down. Here was Sir Amorey alone on a spotty horse
trouncing a whole army with his doughty sword. There was Sir Teague at
the head of his Kernes, making short work of the French at Agincourt.
Further on the first earl--prince of salt-water thieves, with a
vanquished Desmond grimacing underneath his heel. How different were
these from the present and last Glandores, whose lives were filled up
to overflowing with wine and with debauchery; whose sins lacked the
picturesque wickedness of these defunct seafaring murderers. Then,
perceiving the countess's eye fixed on him, her crony would feel
guilty for his unflattering reflections, and rapidly pursue the game;
for my lady as she aged grew just the least bit garrulous, and as he
loved not the aristocracy as such, it was afflicting to listen to
long-winded dissertations upon the family magnificence, which he
declared she invented as she went along. He was never tired though,
when he could snatch a rare holiday from his professional labours, of
exploring the dungeons and chimney recesses and awful holes and
crannies. He it was who ferreted out the long-lost secret way beneath
the sea from the water-tower to Ireland's Eye; and bitterly he
repented later that he had not kept that discovery to himself; for by
means of it he might have brought about the vanishing of many of the
proscribed, instead of--but we travel on too fast.
My lady sat upright in the tapestried saloon, marvelling that no one
filled the teapot. It was with a distressed amazement, like that of
Louis XIV. when he waited, that she stared at the silver equipage, at
the pathetically hissing urn. Where was Doreen the tea-maker? It was
quite dark, and the incorrigible damsel was still galloping about the
country, who might tell whither? It really was shocking; no wonder if
milady's quills of propriety stood out, after the manner of the
fretful one. It's that drop of Papist blood, she muttered; then turned
to admonish her brother as to his heiress. But Arthur Wolfe listened
without a word, for he was accustomed to his sister's querulous
complaining, and built a bulwark of silence against her jeremiads.
People said all his time was spent in negative apologies for the one
error of his youth; and it did look like it; for he was marvellously
patient in the face of her most tyrannical whims, listening without a
struggle to endless sermons which prated of the woe to come,
reflecting that, poor soul, she had much to put up with. Although she
was reticent and mysterious to an extreme degree, Arthur Wolfe knew
that her lines were not cast in pleasant places; for did not flaunting
Gillen abide at the very gates, whose odious vicinity caused her to
shrink as much as might be from passing beyond her own domains?
Time and this bitter pill had made of her ladyship a 'swaddler.' Like
many of the oldsters of the patrician order, she grew sorely repentant
for youthful peccadilloes, took to psalm-singing, displayed strong
ultra-Protestant proclivities. The prejudices of a less enlightened
age curtained her brain with cobwebs which excluded the daylight from
the vermin they engendered. On this 12th of July she set aside,
according to custom, the pearly grey which becomes her age so well, to
don weird orange vestments which make her look like a macaw--she who
is usually dressed in such perfect taste in a robe of silvered satin,
with snowy hair in rolls unpowdered. Although she is but fifty-two, my
lady is a white-haired queen Bess; and handsome in an imposing way,
which she never was in youth. The thin nose looks higher than it used
to be, and pinched. The cheek is pale and marked with anxious
wrinkles; but the straight line of imperious brow remains the same,
and the eyes--netted with crowsfeet--assume a more vigorous life by
reason of the fading of their surroundings. The Countess of Glandore
has in twelve years become an awful dowager, before whom the cottagers
shake in their shoes; for to a misleading appearance of patriarchal
majesty she adds a quick incisive way of speech, and the bodily
activity of a middle-aged woman who enjoys a perfect constitution.
Those startled eyes tell tales, though, of a diseased mind, and
sleepless nights of tossing. And she does pass sleepless nights,
despite the Consoler's fanning, when the secret chord is struck. Then
as she lies on her laced pillows she sees once more the sheeted body
at the clubhouse, hears the last warning wail, 'For my sake, for your
own--that you may be spared this torment!' and then she lights a lamp
and reads angrily till daylight--loathing herself for what her sound
sense condemns as morbidness--lest peradventure her thoughts should
drive her mad. Then rising with a headache and haggard looks, she sits
in the window-seat and feeds the hounds, and reflects with stern
satisfaction that the odious baggage who lives in the Little House
has never found joints in her armour--has never caught her tripping
with regard to her younger son. Since my lord's death no spiteful
unduly-elected guardian could complain of the boy's treatment. Her
purse had always been open to him; from childhood he was rich in guns
and ponies. But she failed sufficiently to consider that there was one
thing for which the warm-hearted lad had pined and which she had
consistently denied him--love. It is evident that we cannot bestow
that which we have not to give. This reproach therefore sat lightly on
her mind. The deficit in affection was made up with bank-notes, and
she bred unconsciously in her second-born a recklessness in spending
which his after-income would by no means justify. Her influence over
him was small. Not that this mattered much, for he was a bright
good-natured lad, such as give little serious trouble to their elders.
He had a way of quarrelling with Shane though, which opened dread
visions of possible complications in the future. Sometimes the
brothers were so near the point of open rupture, that milady had to
interfere, and then with undutiful fierceness my lord would remind her
of the oath she had herself extorted, and she would be stricken dumb,
cursing herself for the idle folly of the act. If my lady nourished
old-fashioned feudal views about the conduct of one brother to
another, she was clumsy in her method of realising them. Terence
ignored the whole proceeding, and to prove his freedom kept the
household in a constant state of simmering breeziness, which was more
lively than comfortable. Shane, on the other hand, was disposed to be
benignant if Terence would abstain from being rude. There was little
in common between the two, and it would have been odd if Shane had
kept his temper when Terence flogged his horse-boy, though he had a
private young henchman of his own. My lady looked with uneasiness at
the constant trivial squabblings, and was not altogether sorry, as the
twain grew up, to see that their tastes divided them, that they met
less and less; for Shane became engrossed with the pleasures of the
capital, while Curran, taking a fancy for the second son, turned his
attention to the Bar.
The young lord emancipated himself from leading-strings, and became a
pattern Dublin buck. He wore gorgeous raiment, carried wonderful
walking-sticks with jewelled tops and incrusted mottoes; was elected
President of the Blaster and Cherokee clubs, which honourable post
made it his duty to fight at least one duel a week, and to force
quarrels upon people whom he had never seen before. There were several
established ways (as all the world knows) of bringing this about.
Sometimes he sat in a window and spat on the hats of passers-by, or
stood over a crossing pushing folks into the mire, or kissed a pretty
girl in the presence of her male protector, or flung chicken bones
from a balcony at a passing horseman in full fig. His mother took no
heed of these vagaries; the ways of the Glandores had been imperious
for generations. But in course of time an event happened which sent
the blood rushing in a tumult to her heart. At a masquerade one night
my lord met a maid who smote his fancy. She was cheerful, and not too
modest (his one terror was a lady of quality), with eyes like a mouse
and a good set of teeth. Her mamma, a homely, buxom dame of forty,
invited him home to supper, and he was as surprised as charmed to
discover that the sprightly pair were his neighbours, who on account
of some crotchet or other his mother declined to visit. He was
received with open arms; nothing could be more jolly than his welcome.
''Deed the space is limited,' mamma observed, with a guffaw. 'If ye
put your arm down the chimbly ye could raise the door-latch; but,
sure, a snug mouthful's better than a feast any day.'
He remained toasting his hostesses till daylight; called in a week;
stopped to dinner; was treated as an honoured guest. Madam was a
Papist, he found out, which would account for my lady's prejudice, but
my lord had no such prejudices. If a young lady touch your fancy, do
you ask her to say her Catechism?
When the terrible fact broke upon my lady, she groaned in spirit and
was stunned. The spiteful baggage, baffled by her rival's exemplary
conduct as a mother, had hit on a new way to torture her. The damsel
in question was Madam Gillin's daughter, who had been brought up a
Protestant, at the late lord's special wish. The reason for this
singular proceeding was only too clear. That low hateful wretch, who
had remained quiescent till the countess was almost at ease, was still
pursuing her. Of course she could not be so truly wicked as to mean
anything serious--for her own child's sake. It was a sword tied over
her head to force her to grovel down upon her knees. But boys
(specially heads of houses) always begin by falling in love with the
wrong people. This was a transitory flirtation. Shane would grow tired
of the vulgar chit. Vainly my lady hoped. Then with beatings of the
breast it occurred to her, that as Gillin was a Catholic she must of
course be capable of any crime. Before things attained a hopeless
pitch, would it be needful for my lady to bow her haughty neck under
Gillin's caudine forks? Oh! the agony of a stubborn pride which must
publicly do penance! Would the ruthless tormentor exact such abasement
as an exposure to her own children of the insulting behaviour of their
father? Would it be requisite to crave a boon of the too jolly tyrant?
Never! my lady decided that such humiliation might never be--death
would be preferable. She would bide awhile and take refuge in
religion, and pray that the cup might in mercy be removed.
The petty annoyances which made up the sum of my lady's bitterness
were endless. She was in the habit of bestowing broken meats upon the
cottagers with stately condescension, accompanied sometimes with
drugs. Mrs. Gillin followed suit. There were two ladies bountiful in
the field, and the dowager sometimes came off second best; for, as
amateur doctors will, she made mistakes, and killed people with fresh
patent medicines, whilst her rival escaped active harm, because her
boluses were innocent through lengthened sleep in the village
apothecary's phials. So the cottagers only trembled and curtsied when
the chatelaine called to see them, and emptied her bottles on the sly,
whilst they eagerly consulted Madam Gillin as to their ailments, a
preference of which madam made the most, when the ladies met over an
invalid. Faithful to her _role_, she never spoke to the scowling
dowager, but addressed scathing remarks to a third person who was
always the companion of her wanderings--one Jug Coyle, her ancient
nurse, who passed with many for a witch, whilst all admitted that she
was a 'wise-woman.' This old harridan, who was learned in the use of
simples, was established by her mistress in a one-eyed alehouse on the
verge of her little property--on the outside edge of it which looked
towards the Abbey. The noise of roysterous shouting there penetrated
sometimes as far as my lady's chamber, yet she did not complain. It
was one of her rival's thorns--one of the petty persecutions which the
chatelaine was doomed to bear.
Sure the late lord would have spared his widow had he realised the
worries which would come on her by reason of the proximity of Gillin.
The mistress of the Little House gave excellent rowdy suppers, and
entertained the _elite_ of Dublin. The judges bibbed her claret, and
shook the night air with choruses, whereas they only paid state visits
to the abbey once or twice a year. Her nurse's shebeen--a tumble-down
festering hostelry thatched with decaying straw--was no better than a
dog-boy's boozing ken, a disgraceful trysting-place for drunken
soldiers, who were enticed thither by its excellent poteen. Jug
Coyle's shock-pated daughter Biddy was a scandal to the neighbourhood,
so recklessly did she profess to adore sodgers; while as for mischief,
there was none perpetrated within ten miles round but that red-poled
slattern was at the bottom of it. By-and-by Old Jug hung out a sign, a
rude picture of a chained man, with 'The Irish Slave' as cognizance;
and after that mysterious persons were seen to arrive at unseasonable
hours who might or might not be United Irishmen. My lady knew all
these doings, and hoped fervently that the new clients would turn out
conspirators, for in that case there seemed a chance that she might
sweep away the nuisance which vexed her day by day. I say _she_
advisedly, because Shane was too busily engaged as King of Cherokees,
to look after his property, and was only too thankful to his mother
for undertaking the management of the estates.
In intervals of complaining about the still absent tea-maker, the
countess exposed her views for the hundredth time, as to the enormity
of the obnoxious Gillin, to her ally Lord Clare, who smiled and
nodded. The chancellor was a constant visitor at the Abbey, riding
over frequently to dinner for a gossip or a game of cards with his old
friend. He told her the last scandal, discussed the political
situation, dropped hints about the movements of the patriots, lamented
the mad folly of her brother Arthur's _protege_; and unconsciously she
came to see things through his spectacles, living herself a retired
life. Not but what she heard something of the other side from Mr.
Curran; but then he seemed to avoid these subjects, while Lord Clare
delighted in gloating on them. The two mortal foes met frequently at
the Abbey as on neutral ground, and snarled and showed their teeth,
and thereby exemplified in their own persons one of the most singular
features of a society now happily died away. During the last
tempestuous years which preceded the Union, members of all parties
were accustomed to meet in social intercourse, dining to-day with men
they would hang tomorrow, even in some cases advancing funds out of
their own pockets to secure the escape of those whom it was their duty
to convict. The cause of the anomaly is not far to seek. Dublin
society, though magnificent, was limited to a tiny circle. Absenteeism
being voted low, the great families became interwoven by a series of
intermarriages, while they were torn at the same time by religious or
political dissensions. If your wife's brother holds precisely opposite
views to your own, and is in danger of losing his head, still he is
your near relative, and as such you will save him from the gallows if
you may. It was not surprising then that Mr. Curran, when at length he
arrived with the rest, should have courteously taken Lord Clare's
jewelled fingers in his own with a hope that his health was good,
though he loved him as dogs love cats. Was he not obliged to meet him
several times a day in the four courts, or at Daly's? The city would
have been too small to hold them if they had come to open strife.
My lady dropped her jeremiad when the young people entered, for
the Little House and its belongings formed a mystery which they might
not fathom. If Shane chose to distress his mother by flirting with
Norah Gillin, it behoved the rest to ignore his sin. Even independent
Doreen, who would have liked to scrape acquaintance with a
co-religionist, abstained from so doing lest she should offend her
aunt. Once, when in a passion, she threatened to call at the Little
House, but my lady appeared so pained that she repented the idle
threat.
My lady looked at Lord Clare as if to bid him start a subject, then
shook her head at Curran for keeping the girls out so late.
Lord Clare was in excellent spirits as he crossed one natty stocking
over the other, and, fingertip to fingertip, began to purr over the
virtues of the new Viceroy. 'Lord Camden,' he averred, 'was an angel.
He was open to advice. Things would have to take place sooner or later
which would make it essential that those who governed should be of one
mind. The silly geese who dubbed themselves patriots had received a
check by the discomfiture of young Tone, but the snake was scotched,
not killed. They would doubtless find leaders, and again leaders, who
would have to be crushed in turn, and Government had hit on a bright
idea for the simplifying of the process of suppression. By virtue of
an English law there was a foolish rule which forbade conviction for
treason save on the testimony of two witnesses. How ponderous a piece
of mechanism! The wheels of the Irish car of justice wanted greasing.
Why not one witness? One dear, delightful, useful creature, who would
come forward and say his say and finish off the matter in a trice.
What did Mr. Curran think of it, that clever advocate?'
Mr. Curran sipped his tea in silence, while his dusky cheek turned
dun. They would not dare pass so outrageous an enactment, he
reflected. They would dare much, but, with the eyes of Europe on them,
not so much as that. The chancellor was drawing him out. So he smiled
sweetly, and, handing his cup to be refilled, observed that as Justice
did not live in Ireland, it would be folly to provide a car for her.
The spectacle of an English Viceroy making believe to dally with the
stranger would be as astounding to Irishmen as the spectacle of a
horse-racing Venetian.
'Lord Clare likes his joke,' chorused the giant Cassidy, 'but Curran
won't be hoodwinked.'
'I assure you I am in earnest,' declared the chancellor, eyeing his
foe from under alligator lids. 'I protest the idea is splendid. If
they are bent on hanging themselves, why not give them rope? One
witness, my dear Curran, would surely be enough.'
'Your joke is a bad one, my lord,' returned the other, sulkily. 'There
are hundreds of idle wretches, hanging round Castle-yard, who for a
pittance would swear anything. Is it so much trouble to suborn two?
Major Sirr, your lordship's jackal, would see to it, I'm sure.'
'An admirable person!' murmured the chancellor.
'If he's not a villain,' retorted his enemy, 'give me as offal to the
curs of Ormond Quay. Cassidy here was reproved only an hour ago by one
whom we all respect for being too intimate with the rascal.'
'I can only repeat,' said Cassidy, with the crumpling of skin which
made his flat face so droll, 'that I care nought for him, though I
should be sorry if he came to be put away as his paid informers often
are--_consigned to Moiley_, as the common people say. It is important
for a poor man like me to have a friend at court. I might be taken any
day on false information, and lie perdu in Newgate till my bones
rotted. My Lord Clare is a kind patron, but too much engaged to heed
the fate of such humble squireens as I. I have no genius like Mr.
Curran. My disappearance would cause no hue-and-cry. We must look
after our own bodies, and Sirr is my sheet-anchor.'
The chancellor glanced at Cassidy with a whimsical expression on his
face, half curiosity, half contempt, while Curran said:
'That town-major is too much considered. Beware, my lord, of
Jacks-in-office, who, in the intoxication of gratified vanity, mistake
the dictates of passion for the suggestions of duty, and consider that
power unemployed is so much wasted. But I'm a fool. Your lordship is
laughing at me.'
Doreen, having presided over the tea-table, retired to the open
window, for her heart was full of Theobald, and this chatter grated on
her nerves. My lady seized the opportunity to discourse of the
proceedings of the day, of how Lord Camden had marched round William's
statue with all his peers, and of how the scum had looked stupidly at
the pageant with angry scowls. 'I was glad to see it,' she went on
complacently, 'for tribulation is good for their sins, and bears
fruit. There have been a blessed number of conversions of late.'
'Some are too weak to endure oppression,' remarked Arthur, gently,
'and turn Protestant to escape from misery.'
'Then it is good that the oppression, as you call it, should
continue,' returned his sister, with decision. 'The scarlet woman and
her progeny of vices shall be extinguished. When people are so
ignorant and brutish, they must be snatched from the fire by any
means.'
'My lady, my lady!' laughed Curran. 'Your speech and your deeds are
ever at variance. Your words breathe fire and sword, yet none are more
kindly to the poor. Extremes meet, you know. I believe that you will
die a Catholic.'
My lady glanced at Doreen, pursed up her lips, and said nothing.
'Did we not agree t'other day about true religion? It lies not in
abusing our neighbours, but in cultivating a heart void of offence to
God and man. Remember that definition, Terence, and act on it, my boy.
It was a saying of the great Lord Chatham.'
'If only Luther had never been born!' groaned Arthur Wolfe.
'Christianity was good enough for Christendom in old days.'
This was an awkward subject. Lord Clare changed it with accustomed
tact.
'Do you know, Curran,' he said, 'that Tone has left a sting behind him
which till yesterday we did not suspect? We have reason to believe
that the University, of which we are all so justly proud, has been
tampered with. That's bad, you know. I am informed that there are no
less than four branches of the secret society within its walls.
Severest measures may be necessary. As chancellor of Trinity I will
see to it.'
Doreen turned round and listened. So did Terence, for he had many
friends in Trinity.
'Have you any basis to work upon?' asked my lady.
'Certainly! A man whom I can trust in every way is hand and glove with
them. The unhappy wretches have a traitor in their midst. Young
McLaughlin is bitten with the mania, a sad scatterbrain and Bond, and
Ford, who's half an idiot. The only one I'm sorry for is young Emmett,
who should know better, being son of a State-physician. But then his
brother, who dabbles in journalism, is a bad example. I should not be
surprised if he were hanged some day.'
Poor Sara, who had gone to where Doreen was sitting, glanced from one
at another, her pupils expanded by terror. She knew that the dear
undergraduate had not taken the oath. But to be suspected at such
times as were looming was a matter of grave jeopardy. Her father
looked serious, and so did Terence. Both liked the Emmetts, and were
sorry to hear about this traitor. My Lord Clare's flippant discourse
was distasteful to all. Was he making himself disagreeable on purpose?
Curran was shaking his hair ominously. Terence burst out in defence of
the young men who were, he swore, as good as gold, and his personal
friends--more worthy than others who should be nameless. My lady, in
her orange robe, looked like a thunder-cloud. Cassidy, to pour oil on
the troubled waters, proposed that Miss Wolfe should sing, and Arthur,
relieved at the diversion, drew out his girl's harp into the room.
Doreen would have refused if she had dared, for these covert
bickerings constantly renewed upon topics which moved her so strongly,
were wearing to the nerves. But everybody suddenly desired music.
'Something Irish, set to one of your own melodies,' suggested Cassidy.
'Sure, Curran will play a second on his violoncello; and I'll give you
a new song afterwards.'
Well, anything was better than the grating of Lord Clare's harsh
voice. Listlessly sitting down to the harp, Doreen permitted her
shapely arms to wander over its strings. Then, fired by a kind of
desperation, she lifted her proud head and began in a rich contralto,
while Mr. Curran, on a low stool beside her, scraped out an impromptu
bass:
'"Brothers, arise! The hour has come to strike a blow for Truth
and God.
Why sit ye folded up and dumb? why, bending, kiss a tyrant's
rod?
For what is death to him who dies, the martyr's crown upon his
head?
A charter--not a sacrifice--a life immortal for the dead.
And life itself is only great when man devotes himself to be
By virtue, thought, and deed the mate of God's true children and
the free!"'
Her voice trembled and gave way, and bowing her neck over the
instrument, the girl wept. Sara stole up and kissed away the tears.
Her own heart was exceeding heavy, she knew not why, except that she
saw visions of Robert in peril, such as she was thankful to think were
only visions. If aught befell him, she would lie down and die--of that
she was quite sure--foolish virgin! She had bestowed her pure heart
unasked. Would he who held it value the priceless gift?
My lady and Lord Clare looked at Arthur Wolfe in consternation. Where
did the naughty damsel learn such a song? Of what dangerous stuff was
she made to presume to chant it before the chancellor himself? 'It is
the cloven foot,' her aunt thought with fury. That terrible blot!
Anxieties were thickening. Something must be done, or the girl would
go to perdition even faster than she galloped across country.
Arthur looked wistfully at his sister, then at his child, who, the
paroxysm past, was a cold statue again--haughty, unabashed. To look at
her, you would feel assured that she had done right, while all the
rest were wrong. Some people are incorrigible, and Miss Wolfe was
evidently one of them. Her father suspected shrewdly that she had
learnt the song at Curran's. He knew that she worshipped Tone, and
that she had been in the habit of meeting him at the Priory. But he
never had the courage to stand between the Catholic and the Protestant
champion of her faith. As usual, he temporised, striving to serve two
masters, and, as usual, suffered for his weakness.
Lord Clare read him like a book, and was disgusted with his friend.
Wolfe's sensitive conscience was constantly racked by doubts which a
natural diffidence magnified into bugbears. Clare's inflexibly
ambitious mind despised the hysterics of the country which he
governed; brazen and hard, he was a fit tool for Mr. Pitt. As he
looked at Arthur, who hung his head over his daughter's escapade,
he decided that this was a square peg in a round hole. As
attorney-general, acts might be demanded of him by-and-by, from which
he would shrink with lamentable want of character. What if he were to
shillyshally when prompt action was urgent! He might upset the deftest
schemes, overturn the most skilful combinations, by his bungling. Only
a few minutes ago, his tell-tale face had shown how he disapproved of
the one witness project. What a pity it was that the inoffensive
fellow had ever been promoted, for as a simple lawyer he would have
been pushed by events into the background. Well, well! He must be
tried, and trotted forth to test his mettle. If he were proved
wanting, there would be nothing for it but to pass him on again--to
shelve him somewhere in the Lords, where he might drone harmlessly.
But this outrageous bit of scorn--his daughter! My lady must have a
hard time with her. She was going awry, as hysterical girls will; yet
surely the dowager was more than capable of coping with this febrile
phase of a strong nature half developed? Then the astute idea passed
through the schemer's brain of how convenient it would be if the
budding Joan of Arc could be used as an unconscious spy upon her
party. An ingenious notion, but one difficult to carry out--a delicate
game, which would have to be worked through the countess, who was a
crotchety soured woman, with a nice sense of honour, who would slave
night and day for a cause which she esteemed a rightful one, but who
would rather cut off her hand than stoop to what she knew was a
meanness--provided that it did not affect her interests.
My Lord Clare could not forbear smiling when, glancing round the
party, he noted the effect of the song. My lady dumbly furious; Arthur
apologetic; Doreen herself indifferent; Terence uneasy and taken
aback. One savage breast alone had music soothed; and Terence, who
revered his chief, thanked Cassidy with a nod for having withdrawn him
from further contest. Once with his huge machine between his feet, he
was invulnerable even to Erin's wrongs, scraping himself into a
condition of ecstatic beatitude, from which there was no fretting him.
any more. There he sat, crouching like a black-beetle on a kitchen
boiler, his underlip protruded, his face lighted with satisfaction,
his head nodding to the time, and his frenzied eye fixed on the
coat-of-arms upon the ceiling, as though to invoke its supporting
monsters to turn and cock their ears. My Lord Clare's smile faded
presently; he hated music nearly as much as he hated Curran.
'Turn out the lights!' he cried. 'I wonder your ladyship has patience
with the fellow's grimaces. And you, my lad,' he continued seriously,
addressing Terence, 'accept the lesson of the times and avoid
enthusiasm. In this country it leads to the halter. Steer your course
wisely. Take a safer pilot to guide your inexperience than yonder
hurdy-gurdyman, so that you may find yourself on the winning side at
last. There is no doubt which that will be.'
'I will use my own judgment,' replied Terence, simply, with a dignity
which would have won approval from his cousin, had she not just
descended into the pleasaunce to recover, amid the influences of
night, her natural calmness of demeanour.
'That beast's din addles my brains,' went on the chancellor, rising to
depart. 'Drive back with me, Arthur. I have a special subject to talk
to you about. You must take a bolder course in politics. The ball is
at your feet. We must teach you to find pluck enough to strike it.'
Wolfe smiled gently as he answered:
'I'll take a drive with pleasure, but you'll find me terribly
deceitful; for I must grub up money for my daughter's sake; and yet,
in certain ways, I'm an impracticable person--a mule with his feet
together. Vacillating you think me. In some things you'll find I'm
adamant.'
All were glad when at last the chancellor departed. Even my lady
admitted that he could be crabbed at times. He was gone, but, like the
gentleman in black, he left an evil savour in his wake.
Startled from reverie by the clang of the hall-door, Curran threw
aside his bow and scratched his elf-locks pensively.
'No!' he said. 'These laws which they are continually framing are too
dreadful. If the testimony of one witness is to be sufficient to
convict us, then, are we foredoomed; for any one may be summoned to
join in the Kilmainham minuet by the malice of a discharged groom, or
the greed of the meanest cowboy. Trial and evidence are not children's
baubles; they were not even established for the sole purpose of
punishing the guilty; their most precious use is for the security of
innocence.'
The little lawyer looked so horror-stricken, that both my lady and the
giant burst out a-laughing.
'Come,' said the former, wresting the violoncello from his grasp,
'your music carries you too far. Lord Clare was out of sorts, and
played upon your fears. Thank heaven he is no Blunderbore, or he would
not be my welcome guest. Now to bed. Sara looks worn out.'
'He has no sense of right and wrong,' grumbled Curran.
'For shame! You are both good men. What a pity you can only agree in
looking at each other through distorted glasses!'
'Faix, her ladyship's right,' acquiesced Cassidy, with a grin. 'You
magnify the number of the informers. I should be sorry to believe
there are half as many as you think.'
'Did not Tone say you were simple?' asked Curran, sadly. 'So there's
some one watching the Emmetts? Can you guess? No! Nor I; but they must
be warned. Clare is brewing some new devil's haricot, and will dip
Arthur's ladle in it, if he may. What a net it is that they are
winding about Erin! Pray God that we and ours may escape
entanglement!'