THE PRIORY.
A year went by, and Terence was still away from home, an inmate of the
Priory; settled down, much against his will, as a sober councillor,
principal assistant to Mr. Curran, the continually rising advocate.
Sober is scarcely the fitting epithet, for conviviality was the
besetting sin of all classes of Irish in the eighteenth century, and
it was notorious that legal gentlemen, from Judge Clonmel to the
meanest attorney, were constantly in the habit of going drunk to
roost. Where lawyers led, Dublin was fain to follow, for the Bar
took the lead in the society of the metropolis, occupying a strong
middle position of its own between 'gentlemen to the backbone' and
'half-mounted' ditto, from, which it dictated to both. As the policy
of ministers grew more and more unpopular, it became more and more
urgent that Government patronage should be expended in purchasing
support for the measures under which the country groaned; and where
could support be more easily found than among the exponents of
forensic wisdom?
Successfully to do battle with Flood and Grattan it was necessary to
scrape together as much intellect as was available, and so every
promising barrister became certain of a seat in parliament if he would
furbish up his brains for the Viceroy's benefit. This gave to the
lawyers a prestige which drew sons of peers within their ranks, and
they assumed superior airs, which no man challenged, in that their
profession was a nursery to the senate--a step-ladder to the highest
honours. Younger sons of noble houses invariably lean towards the
middle class, because a wide difference of income divides them in
feeling and ways of thought from their elder brothers. Such lordlings
as possessed a competence chose to while away their hours elegantly in
gowns and bands. And so the Bar became the fashion, the lawyers being
credited with such attributes as they thought proper to adopt, and
being permitted to wield an arbitrary sway which was beneficial and
mirth-inspiring. They assumed the right of mind over matter, and
people bowed the knee without inquiry, for they were pre-eminently
jolly dogs who made life the merrier, whose scraps of legal lore
sounded mightily sonorous to ignorant ears, and who, if one was rash
enough to presume to dispute their law, were always ready to take
refuge behind the inevitable pistol. But human nature at its best is
frail, and even lawyers are not always pure. When came the tug of
war--when the Four-courts were closed and courts-martial juggled away
men's lives--the councillors prated no more of their incorruptible
virtue, but donned the uniform as others did, and truckled, with a few
bright exceptions, as meanly as the rest.
But we are now in 1796, when King Claret ruled the roast; when all
were besotted with drink, from Clonmel who gave sentence with a drop
in his eye, to the beggar in the dock who starved his stomach to buy a
drain of spirits; when out of the six thousand houses which formed
Dublin, thirteen hundred were occupied as boozing-kens; when guests
were deprived of their shoes by a host who understood hospitality, and
broken glass was sprinkled in the passages to prevent a man from
jibbing at his liquor.
Mr. Curran's fears were being realised in this year of '96, for the
criminal business to which he had turned his attention was increasing
on his hands through the swelling torrent of treasonable charges. My
Lord Clare's policy was bearing its full crop of evils, for he had
succeeded in moulding the too plastic Viceroy into the shape that
suited him, according to the plan laid down by Mr. Pitt. Lord Camden,
whilst meaning to do well, was repeatedly led astray, as many a better
man has been before him. To Clare he was a docile cat. He submitted to
the secret council of Lords--that mysterious wehmgericht--who were
urged by the chancellor to the most violent proceedings, and became
unconsciously a scapegoat for the bearing of the sins of others.
Under skilful manipulation the Society of United Irishmen flourished
prodigiously. Tom Emmett and Neilson were kept in prison, where they
languished without trial. Others were let out and caged again as
occasion required, that they might inflame their fellows with a
catalogue of dread experiences. Midnight meetings resulted, wherein
orators declaimed of the wickedness of the perfidious one, and
summoned all true patriots to take the fatal oath. The decision which
had been come to on the disastrous night in Trinity was carried out to
the letter, and was much assisted in its fulfilmeut by the harsh
treatment of the chiefs. The military system was engrafted on the
civil.
Faithful to his promise, Cassidy rode to Belfast, delivered Emmett's
order to the delegates there, and then with commendable prudence
subsided into the background. The provincial committee spread out its
arms, from which new ones were speedily engendered, and passed
resolutions of grave import, while England stifled her merriment.
Civil officers were to wear military titles. A secretary over twelve
was to become a petty officer with gewgaws on his coat; a delegate
over five of these, a captain, with more gewgaws; a superior over five
captains, a colonel with a plume; mighty fine! The colonels of each
county were to send three names to the central directory, from which
one was to be chosen adjutant-general of his county to deal directly
with the capital. And thus a national army was forming in the dark,
just as the Volunteer army had sprung up in the daylight, with the
important difference that by this time England had cured her wounds
and regained her pristine strength.
I protest that this linen-draper-medley masquerading in galoon would
be laughable, were it not so sad a spectacle. But who shall dare to
laugh at honest men, whose delusions are nursed and played upon
instead of being tenderly swept away? Curran's sympathies were with
the reformers, but not his judgment; and he became a sort of link
between two parties. His position as a lawyer gave him the _entree_ to
the best houses, whilst his homely habits and untidy dress caused the
lower orders to look on him as one of themselves. Between the rival
parties he shillyshallied with a weakness which his character belied,
grumbling at the patriots for their imprudence, growling at the sins
of Government, very uncomfortable in his mind, and of no use so far to
either of the opposing factions.
As the members of the society committed themselves more deeply, Lord
Clare became more gay. He hinted to the half-mounted gentry that if
they liked it they might volunteer as active agents against the
misguided youths who were preparing to turn Ireland topsy-turvy.
Nothing could please the squireens better than this tacit permission
to give vent to their worst passions. Brutal, cruel, sycophantic (as
ignorant and depraved natures are), they began to band themselves in
regiments, with nobles for superior officers, and to commit outrages
on those below them, pretty certain that they would be indemnified for
any atrocity they might commit. _L'appetit vient en mangeant_. The
peasant, ground down and wretched to the level of the serf of
Elizabeth, howled out that Justice was indeed fled, and hearkened with
ravenous avidity to the voice of the charmer who sang of French ships
in the offing, and a proximate term to misery. Drilling went on under
cover of night, and the practice of the pike, since gunpowder could
not be purchased; and the shibboleth anent the bough which was to be
planted in England's crown might be heard a hundred times in whispers
on every market-day.
But, misery or no misery, folks must eat and drink, and the
Hibernian nature--as quick to resent as to forgive, as vehement as
indiscreet--is given to extremes, from sadness to mirth and back
again.
Mr. Curran, though his heart was sore, was fond of dainty viands, and
beguiled himself, as others did, with the pleasures of the table;
striving to drown, with a clatter of knives and forks, the din of
approaching tempest. His board was ever sumptuously garnished, his
claret of the best, his welcome of the warmest, and few who were
bidden to partake of it ever declined his hospitality.
Timid Arthur Wolfe, who was growing more cautious every day, and doing
his best to serve two masters for his daughter's sake, implored his
friend to take example by himself, demonstrating in the clearest way
that the history of my Lord Clare was becoming the history of all
Ireland, and that a man with a child's future in his hands has no
right to run a-muck. He had found out that the chancellor had
endeavoured to buy Curran, and failing ignominiously in that attempt,
was trying to undermine his business. Why be for ever snarling at Lord
Clare? It would be the old story of the pipkin and the iron pot. To
which arguments Curran answered, laughing:
'Is it I that's the frog, and he the bull? Maybe it'll turn out
t'other way. I'm mad, no doubt, to set my small pebble to stop his
chariot, but many a trivial thing has proved the factor in a great
catastrophe, and I'll even insert my pebble. Fudge, Arthur! I'm too
popular, and my life's too open for even Lord Clare to wreak his
vengeance on me.'
Then Arthur Wolfe persisted, entreating that at least he would avoid
the charge of holding seditious meetings at his house. The weekly
dinners at the Priory were jovial, he admitted, beyond compare. The
cup went round as merrily as if Erin were a buxom wench, dimpled, and
well-to-do--but there could be no denying that those who drank of it
were marked men mostly, who knew the inside of Newgate as well as the
Priory parlour, and these were ticklish times for political
flirtation. What would befall Sara, honest Arthur pleaded, if an
accident were to befall the councillor? So delicate a blossom would
shrivel under the first frostnipping. On her father's head must rest
the consequence if misfortune crushed his child.
At mention of Sara Mr. Curran would become exceedingly perplexed, torn
by two apparently incompatible duties, as he reflected on his pale
primrose. How wonderful are the decrees of Fate! Why are beings,
abnormally sensitive and delicate--whose fibres are liable to injury
by the most careful handling--pitchforked into a world of stones for
the express purpose of being bruised? Sara's nature was one which
needed sun and flowers, hourly solicitude and broidered blanketing,
yet here was she cast upon a rocky coast, battered by cold winds,
which threatened to become each day more easterly! Was she sent to
earth merely to bear pain, to linger for a space in more or less
protracted agony, and then to die? Possibly. It is a cruel creed to
accept, but the experience of the world we live in forces it upon us.
Perchance we shall learn to see a reason for it later on.
The crash was coming, as none perceived more clearly than Mr. Curran.
Might anything avert it? Nothing. What would happen to cherished
ones in the throes of the hurricane? But how bootless was such
self-communing! _Fais ce que devra!_ Mr. Curran was determined not to
shrink from duty to the soil which gave him birth. Though the days of
Roman virtue were overpast, he would sacrifice his heart's treasure on
the altar if need were, trusting to God's mercy for the rest; and it
was the kernel of his project to keep watch over the society--with it
in the spirit, but not of it in the body. He was wont to say with
pride that he had never wittingly snubbed any man who was in earnest.
Self-willed himself, he respected those who strove to make themselves,
and respected men doubly if their aspirations were unselfish. He said
to himself that the motives of this small self-sacrificing band were
pure where all else was foul; that though for their own sakes he dared
not espouse their tenets openly, yet it would be a coward's act to
deprive them of his countenance and advice because they walked in
danger. So he shook his head at time-serving Arthur Wolfe, and went
his independent way, and waited for his chosen guests each Wednesday
afternoon, caring no fig for Lord Clare's menaces, sorry only that he
continued to exist.
He stood straddle-legged at the hour of five on a reception-day, among
the dishevelled laurestinus bushes, which he was pleased to call his
avenue, swinging his portly watch by its ribbon--as his way was when
guests were late. The Priory was a snug abode, if not endowed with
beauty; but then the works of man in Ireland are seldom in beautiful
accordance with the handiwork of God. It was a frightful ungainly
villa erected in the hideous style of Irish suburban architecture,
with attenuated slits of windows and tall consumptive doors set
half-way up in a bald waste of rough whitewashed wall. The usual
alpine stair led to the entrance; arranged, as it appeared, for the
purpose of setting an honoured guest on a glorious pinnacle of
observation, till slipshod Kathy could hitch up her draggled skirts to
let him in.
From the parlour window might be admired a prospect of barn, dunghill,
dovecote, horsepond, piggery, which offered to the nose in summer a
bouquet of varied sweets; while the usual yard or two of road swept
round the usual dark circular grassplot with a mouldy rhododendron in
the centre of it. The orchard behind was christened by its owner his
pistol-gallery, but it was at the same time a forum; for there might
Mr. Curran frequently be seen of a morning, declaiming with
Demosthenic energy, whilst he lodged bullets at intervals in the bark
of special trees.
The odour of savoury viands assailed his nostrils as he stood
statue-like on the pinnacle and whirled his watch, for he hated
unpunctuality above all things. His beetle-brows were knit, his lower
lip protruded, and he wondered whether any of his guests had been
arrested. That was naturally his first fear, and he wagged his head
with gloom at some ducks that quacked in a neighbouring puddle as he
surveyed the lugubrious possibility.
'Idiots!' he moralised. 'Pictures of ourselves, who dream of dinner as
though sorrow could not wake. Alas! Fate is common and the future is
unseen, as the Arab proverb has it. You rejoice in the balmy showers,
do you?--not knowing, in your crass ignorance, that they will make the
peas grow! And here are we, as foolish as you, going in for a
jollification, as though a few months might not bring grief to all of
us! Ahem! It is well that we are a careless nation, or every Irishman
would cut his throat before he grew to manhood.'
Terence, who was drawing corks as if catering for an army, laughed
aloud, for he at least showed no signs of brooding melancholy; being
prepared rather to take life as he found it, and enjoy it too, for his
bright brave nature endeared him to all, and he was himself too frank
to believe in the pervading blackness of the human heart. As Doreen
pictured, he had attended the Castle balls during the winter, and had
led out his cousin for a turn of passepied or rigadoon without much
sighing; had dutifully called on his mother when Shane was safe away,
and had spent the rest of his time yawning over briefs for the behoof
of Mr. Curran.
These briefs caused little disputes sometimes between the two, which
it became Sara's duty to smooth away--for Terence was wofully idle and
abhorred his work, being wont to declare that intellectual labour was
one thing, and unintellectual drudgery another, till his chief waxed
exceeding wroth, and asserted that idleness led to mischief. Sometimes
there appeared a flickering flame of ambition in him, which Curran
tried hard to foster; but before he had time to fan it, Terence would
cry, 'Oh, bother?' and, flinging the brief into the garden, go forth
to fish with Phil. No one could be angry with him long. Idleness seems
to suit some natures, which appear moulded for the enjoyment of other
people's labour.
In the ways of the world Terence was an infant; in the balance of
right and wrong inclined to be unsteady from sheer indolence of brain.
His bubbling, brawling flow of spirits deceived casual observers, who
set him down as frivolous, impelled by the lightest breeze. Doreen,
whose experience was limited, thought him so with a feeling of
affection, in which contempt was mingled; but Curran knew better. He
knew that many a sensitive man wilfully assumes a disparaging exterior
to mask his holy of holies even from himself. He knew that few among
us ever quite know ourselves; but wake up sometimes in the decline of
life to discover new virtues or new vices, of whose existence we were
quite unconscious; that we come to know our own characters by flashes,
just as we learn those of our nearest and dearest friends.
Terence was a general favourite; a hearty devil-may-care young fellow,
with a good digestion and few individual troubles, and was looked upon
with awe by gentle little Sara, as he helped in her household cares.
Indeed, Mr. Curran was justified in being cross this day, for the
repast was ready, if the guests were not. Veal, turkey, ham--all
piping hot--smoked in their respective dishes. Powldoody oysters
smiled as a centre-piece, flanked by speckled trout, caught but an
hour ago by Terence's servant Phil. Rows of wine-bottles garnished the
parlour wainscoting; the trim little hostess was squeezing lemons into
a jug on the hearthstone, with a view to prospective punch. He spun
his watch faster and faster as moments waned, more and more certain
that something untoward must have happened, and was no little relieved
by the sound of horses' feet, and the sight of his party approaching.
'Hooroo, boys!' he cried cheerily, shaking off his gloom. 'Ye're late,
but no mather; ye're welcome, and shall carry home what ye like with
ye, rather than an appetite.'
Sara had a becoming blush ready for her undergraduate, as he
approached to kiss her hand. She looked shyly in his eyes, and marked
with uneasiness that they were growing very dreamy, while an habitual
contraction fretted his forehead, which she knew came from distress
about his brother. She knew--for sometimes she took entrancing walks
with him--that his temper was becoming soured and his spirit chafed,
in that Tom languished on in prison without trial. Was not such
injustice outrageous? The charges against him were grave, no doubt;
that bit of paper which blundering Cassidy had failed to swallow was
compromising in a high degree; but then others quite as much
compromised were let off long since with a fine, whilst Tom remained
untried. Any trial--before a jury however packed--would be better than
such lingering suspense. If the worst came to the worst, the crown of
martyrdom, which would go with conviction, would be some small
comfort; but to have lain rotting in a gaol for a year, to be immured
without a term till well-nigh forgotten, was like the death of a rat
in a hole; and as ardent young Robert thought of it, his
constitutional dread of bloodshed almost went from him. Seeing what he
was forced to see, he regretted his oath in nowise.
Among many enthusiasts few were so enthusiastic as this boy--few
looked so hopefully for news of Tone and of his doings in France. The
newspaper of his imprisoned brother had somehow revived, though the
guiding hand was shackled, and wonderful articles appeared in its
pages which might well have brought down, for the second time, the
chancellor's vengeful claw on it. But such rash ebullitions of an
imprudent ardour were just what Lord Clare required. Nobody knew who
edited Tom's journal now (possibly many had a finger in it). It
certainly was not Robert, for he was but eighteen and a student still
of Trinity; but that he helped and gambolled on the chasm's verge, his
friends did know, and remonstrated with him more than once.
Curran was constantly lecturing him, but without effect, for the
froward boy only bade him attend to his own affairs; suggested that if
he wanted to save somebody from the vortex he had better look after
his own future son-in-law, and this made Curran angry. Yes; this was
one of the things which had resulted from Terence's leaving home.
Busybodies had winked and nodded, declaring that the little lawyer was
wise in his generation; that, having feathered his nest, he might do
worse for Sara than introduce her into the peerage with a plump dowry.
If a trifle reckless he was shrewd, they said; for whilst dallying
with the United Irishmen he had taken care to drag along with him the
brother of a great lord, who could not well interfere on behalf of a
near kinsman without also throwing the aegis of his rank over another
who ran in couples with him. The busybodies talked nonsense, as they
generally do. Mr. Curran had no views as yet with regard to Sara, and
required the protection of no aristocratic aegis. His reputation had
risen so high during the last twelve months by reason of the splendid
bravery with which he had defended the foes of established government,
that neither Pitt nor Clare dared at this moment to touch the
champion. His place at the Bar was so unique that there was no man,
not merely next, but near him. Other advocates were to him as the
stars to the sunbeam. In court he was at once persuasive, eloquent,
acute, argumentative; striking with cunning hand the chord of pity,
then (for he knew his audience) checking the rising tear with
laughter. As a cross-examiner he was unrivalled. Let truth and
falsehood be ever so intricately dovetailed, he could part them with a
touch. Swiftly he would place his finger on a vital point, untwist a
tangle and involve perjury in the confusion of its contradictions. So
long as he retained his purity, it would never do to assail this
Galahad. All were aware of that, and so he needed no help from a great
lord.
Yet many wondered whether he might be secretly afraid of being
ensnared; whether, foreseeing the struggle that was imminent, he might
not deem it prudent to prepare a sure method of escape. The children
of darkness have more ways of circumventing the children of light than
it is at all pleasant for you and me (who of course belong to the
latter category) to reflect upon. He was ill-judged, possibly, in
throwing a young man like Terence into too close contact with the
would-be reformers. But then was not that youth already a friend of
the Emmetts and of Tone? Was not his innate laziness a bulwark of
defence? Was he not in the habit of defending Lord Clare, and of
pointing out that party-spirit embitters people to the point of
shameful slander? As yet he declined to admit that the chancellor had
horns and hoofs.
Although he scorned the worldly-wise advice of Arthur Wolfe, Mr.
Curran was careful, when he could, to check open expressions of
sedition at his table. On this very day he found it necessary several
times to change the current of talk before the cloth was removed, when
Sara, nodding pleasantly to Terence and to her undergraduate, rose and
withdrew to her chamber.
But there was a special reason on this particular day for an extra
amount of wrath on the part of the young men, his guests, which did
not fail to produce its answering growl from their host. That fresh
arbitrary arrests should have taken place surprised him not at
all--such proceedings were of daily occurrence. That Sirr, the
town-major, should be enlarging his paid army of false-witnesses, who
were becoming notorious as 'the band of testimony,' was also, alas, no
new thing. That a man's life could be sworn away by one witness who
had never seen him before was an awful fact; but then he, Mr. Curran,
was at hand to protest, and the recognised forms of law still
permitted an accused sometimes to baffle the paid malice of the
informer.
It was an open question, all admitted, how far a government might go
in espionage. In moments of peril to the public weal it is certain
that ministers must draw their information from any quarter, however
foul; but to offer a premium to rascality is surely criminal. To
gain information of facts from detectives is quite a different matter
from the employment of secret agents to tempt people into sin and
then hound them down. Robert Emmett brought news with him this day
that seemed to foreshadow a change of tactics on the part of the
executive--ominous news the discussion of which had made the party
late upon the road, and which caused the young men, so soon as their
hostess had retired, to abandon social gossip for more grave
communion.
'Friends,' Robert said, 'they intend to exasperate us. There can be no
more doubt about it, though I am in the dark as to their motives.
Please God, Theobald's mission will be accomplished ere 'tis too late;
the French will come to our succour before we are goaded to despair.'
Cassidy, who had such a blundering tendency to do the wrong thing in
the wrong place, here broke out into a new ditty which was beginning
to be popular, trolling forth in his mellow voice:
'The French are on the say, says the Shan van Vocht;
And will be here without delay, says the Shan van Vocht;'
but he was sternly bidden to fill his glass and pass the
round-bottomed bottle without making himself noisily objectionable;
and, whatever other peccadillo he might think proper to commit, above
all things to drink fair.
'Major Sirr's banditti,' the undergraduate went on, so soon as the
bottle, being empty, could be laid down, 'have taken on them a new
function. They arrogate to themselves now a right of paying
domiciliary visits without search-warrants, of forcing open a person's
door whensoever the outrage may suit their whim. A year ago they
wormed their way into Trinity, and by an accident we were unable to
rouse the college.'
'Arrah, thin,' grumbled Cassidy, 'will ye always be pitching my big
shoulder sand empty head in my teeth? I was sorry for my awkwardness,
and that's enough.'
'But at that time they were right to take us, if they could; for in
truth we were conspiring--a red-letter day in my memory, the day I
took the oath! Hearken to this, all of you! You know Tim Flanagan, of
Ormond's Quay, whose lady--God rest her soul!--was brought to bed a
week ago? She died, so did the child, last night; and Tim, gone wild
with sorrow, threw himself on the floor beside the corpse, refusing to
be comforted. There came a knocking at his warehouse entry; it was
barred, and the men away. His sister, from a window, desired to
know what was wanted. Sirr answered that he was come to search the
house--for what, in the Lord's name? Gunpowder cannot be bought. The
sister offered money if they would respect their grief, but not
enough. In the warehouses nothing compromising was found, of course.
The room where the corpse lay was to be searched also. They battered
in the door of the guarded chamber, but recoiled in a fright, for Tim
stood with a threatening glare of madness beside his young wife, a
knife clutched in his right hand. They fled, these myrmidons who
disregarded an agony of soul which a savage would respect; and Tim
knelt down there and then, with his appalled sister, swearing, on the
blue lips of her who was gone before, an eternal enmity against the
Castle tyrants.'
There was a long silence, during which Curran hung his head, while the
brow of his junior darkened, and honest Phil, his goggle-eyed
henchman, poured claret in his master's lap instead of into his glass.
'It is horrible!' sighed Cassidy, and swore a string of oaths. 'Tim
Flanagan had fought shy of the society,' he shouted, 'but now would
surely join it. His was but one case out of many. The wickedness of
those in power would surely drive all Ireland to take the oath, and
then the sons of the soil would rise as one man and hunt the tyrants
into the Channel.'
Mr. Curran shook his rough head.
'They are working for a purpose, as Robert says,' he remarked; 'a
wicked purpose, which aims at our eternal slavery. Instead of
sowing seeds of wholesome trees, beneath which our children may seek
shelter, they cherish poisonous roots, with the intent to squat like
witches in a plantation of nightshade. You will never hunt them into
the Channel. Do you know that they are flooding the island with
troops--_disciplined troops_, who will part your ill-trained myriads
like water? I see their aim, though they would fain hide it till the
fruit is ripe. They will goad us by insidious outrage to despair, then
stamp on us with an overwhelming force, and, when we are faint and
bleeding, will tie us, gagged and chained, to the car of England for
evermore.'
'What do you mean?' Terence inquired sternly.
'I mean,' responded his chief, 'that when we are ground into the dust,
they will sweep us from the list of nations. Cobwebs will gather round
the locks of our senate-house; our exchange will be silent as the
tomb, our docks empty, our quays deserted. England will swallow us
body and soul; will devour our liberty, and with it our existence.'
'Never!' bawled impetuous Cassidy. 'We will die first, if it's thrue
what he says, and he's more wise than I. We are men, aren't we, who
can die but once? Shall we lie down to be whipped, like dancing-dogs?
There's no going back, except for cowards, boys! All must fall in, or
be disgraced. What say you, Master Crosbie, will you sit by and see
Ould Erin sold?'
The excitement of this bellowing athlete was contagious.
'If I believed that there was one tittle of truth in the suspicions of
my old friend, I'd take the oath to-morrow,' cried Terence, with a
slap upon the table. 'But he exaggerates.'
'Do I?' growled Curran. 'I say that they mean to unite Ireland to
England, and that their present operations are tending to that end;
and I also affirm that, whether you take the oath or whether you do
not, that important ceremony will have no effect whatever on the
end--you coxcomb!'
'Be their intentions what they may, there is no going back now,'
echoed young Robert, sipping his claret dreamily. 'All who have a real
stake in the country must see that. Is not our first stake our
national honour? and how may we bow our necks beneath the Saxon's heel
without eternal shame? The truculent, bloody Saxon! who has left his
track like a livid welt across our land, in altars polluted and laid
low, pledges made and broken, a long trail of lust and rapine and
crime.'
A faint smile flitted over Cassidy's features, for this was the turgid
eloquence of the mysterious newspaper whose editor was in Newgate.
'Boy, you chatter balderdash,' Curran snapped shortly; 'such
balderdash as the ignorant drink too eagerly for truth. Oh for a
little ballast to keep us steady! An Irishman, when not stranded on
the Scylla of indolence, is certain to flounder headforemost on the
Charybdis of enthusiasm; and, of the two dangers, the latter is
generally the worst.'
'Deed, it's thrue what ye say, councillor dear,' Cassidy murmured, in
a coaxing tone. 'But sure, though you rail at us, you would not stand
by neither, any more nor this young gintleman? We know well enough
your heart is with us.'
'You are no better than baaing sheep following one another into the
shambles,' answered the host testily, for he was taken aback by this
open assault upon himself and Terence. 'Your ill-digested plans must
fail.'
'Fail!' echoed Robert and Cassidy together. 'Why,' continued the
former, forgetting his horror of bloodshed, 'when the time comes we
shall count upon a hundred thousand men. I know it by the returns sent
in to the Directory.'
'On paper.'
'And the French will be here in force--the veterans of the Republic.'
'The French, the French!' growled Curran. 'Say that they land and beat
the armies of King George, which I much doubt; will they not soon
weary of a precarious possession, and, carrying you to market in some
treaty of peace, barter you away to be well scourged? I vow I have no
patience with you, grieved though I be for the humble order of the
people, who from lack of education are easily deluded. Depend upon it,
your acts are all known in London. By the time you are ready, the
towns will seethe with British troops. I tremble to think of the
result.'
'Would ye have us turn the cheek like good Christians, then?' jeered
the giant, who, under influence of wine, was becoming warm. 'Are the
sons of the ancient kings meekly to become galley-slaves?'
'What would I have ye do?' retorted the host, who perceived with wrath
that he was being driven into a corner. 'I'd have ye keep a civil
tongue, and talk no treason till ye're outside my privet-hedge. If ye
do not, I'll report what's been said to Clare; I will, upon my honour,
to save ye from worse folly.'
The sturdy little man looked as if he were quite capable of carrying
out his threat. If he were to disclose all he knew of them, it would
be terrible indeed.
Cassidy, the claret mounting to his muddled brain, seized a decanter
with the laudable intention of belabouring his host with it.
'A traitor!' he muttered fiercely. 'That's the lowest beast that
crawls. If ye spake ere a word of us, I'll pistol ye in the street!'
The lawyer looked calmly up at the menacing giant and laughed. 'Put it
down, big baby,' he said. 'You dare to think me half-hearted because I
won't take a pike and try to knock down St. Patrick's. Does any man in
Ireland love Erin more than I? Learn, fool, that men have different
functions assigned to them. Do your best, if God wills it so. When the
battle's lost ye'll want me to bind your gashes. I've listened to much
rubbish this afternoon. Now you, in your turn, listen to the truth,
which is bad enough--ochone! I _know_ that all your martial goings-out
and comings-in are reported one by one; I _know_ that they are
broidured and embellished before they cross the sea. I have reason to
suspect--I admit I cannot prove it yet--that such cooked accounts are
given of your doings as actually to alarm the British cabinet. You are
playing into Pitt's hands. I have heard that they even talk of
"martial-law" as possible. If they come to that, the Lord be merciful
to our poor Erin!'
Mr. Curran's head sank on his breast, and tears ran down his rugged
cheeks; while the conspirators glanced one at the other with pallid
faces. Martial law! rough and ready tribunals presided over by the
tools of England! Sure their host's terrors must carry him away. And
yet he might be right, judging from the past. It was quite possible
that they were being deliberately driven to the shambles in cold
blood--like victims marked out for slaughter by some savage despot.
Cassidy laid down the decanter, and began to stammer apologies for his
petulance.
The noise of voices at high words brought Sara into the room, who,
frightened at the sudden dread which seemed to have invaded the party,
clung to her father, while she turned an inquiring glance to the
undergraduate.
'What is it, father?' she murmured with dim fear, for the adored face
of Robert was distorted with passion, while his hands shook like
leaves.
'A Union is it that they want?' the boy muttered 'twixt chattering
teeth. 'I will resist it to the last gasp of my existence--to the last
drop of my blood--and when death comes, I will call down the eternal
curse of Heaven upon the destroyers of our freedom!'
Sara felt dizzy, and would have fallen but for her father's encircling
arm. Dark shadows of foreboding were flitting across her mind. Was he
whom she elected to worship to be drawn into the whirlpool after all?
Was Robert to share Theobald's fate--to be banished from friends and
motherland? In her gentle loving heart she registered a vow that if
that fate should come on him, the sorrow of his exile should be
soothed by no hand but hers.
Mr. Curran set himself to calm his darling. 'Silly child!' he said,
patting her yellow curls. 'There, there, why not in bed? Fie! young
ladies mustn't rush in where gintlemen are toping. Well, as ye are
here, pick up the matarials from the hearth, my love, and squeeze in
another lemon. This won't do. I shall lose my reputation as a _bon
viveur_. A sentiment? Bravo! Here 'tis. Come, bumpers! "If a man fills
the bottom of his glass, more shame to him if he doesn't fill the top;
and if he empties the top, sure he'd not be so base as to deny the
bottom the same compliment!" Now we'll lock the doors, and my big
friend shall expend his exuberance in song. A toast first. You too
shall sip of it, my blossom, for there's ne'er a bit of treason in
it.' Then, clasping Sara's slender waist, he raised his haggard eyes,
and said solemnly: 'As God in these latter days is unfolding in His
creatures strange new powers, so may they all tend to Freedom, Peace,
and Harmony. May those who are free never be enslaved--may those who
are slaves be speedily set free. Amen!'
Cassidy, quite good-humoured and repentant now--for his bark was
always more awful than his bite--tuned up and sang his choicest
ditties; yet somehow there was a pall over the party which music could
not dissipate. Truths had slipped out in the desultory talk which
weighed down the souls of all. Mr. Curran, usually a pearl among
hosts, was worried and absent, for, look at the situation as he would,
there was nothing to be seen but impending disaster, and he thought
that perhaps he had spoken out too openly. Terence, too, seemed much
disturbed in mind; more moved at Robert's story and his own hints than
he liked to see. Perchance it would be safest to pack him home without
delay. Yet no--his was not the soul-harrowing indignation which
exercised the patriots. He was shocked, but there was no real danger
of his being trapped. It would lie heavy on his conscience, though, if
this artless joyous creature should be dragged into the vortex. Much
better that he should shoot, and hunt, and fish, and make the most of
the happy accident of his social standing. Certainly he would show
little affection for his _protege_ if he permitted him to be trapped,
and Cassidy showed wondrous anxiety to trap him. An odd person,
Cassidy; a whimsical combination of opposing essences; one of those
dangerous hot natures whose ill-balanced zeal is more fatal to a cause
than enmity. No one could on occasion be more oafishly stupid than he,
or more rashly brave; and yet the way he kept up a show of intercourse
with Major Sirr and my Lord Clare, after the fashion of a safety-rope
to which to cling in peril, was worthy of quite a subtle plotter. That
the giant meant well there could be no doubt. But if he, Curran, had
had aught to do with the society, he would have stipulated that this
firebrand should be kept as much as might be in the background.
While he meditated thus the punch-bowl was emptied, and, as he made a
move to refill it, the party broke into knots and resumed the topic
which engrossed them.
Terence listened to young Robert's views, which, under the auspices of
liquor, grew more rosy and more loud.
'I don't mind telling you about it,' the boy was saying, 'for I know
that your honour is too fine to allow the smallest hint to be dropped
of what I say. The French will come with 15,000 men, and gunpowder,
and muskets. Pikeheads are being hammered out of hours on hundreds of
village anvils.'
'They will never send 15,000 men,' Terence objected, with a doggedness
induced by drink. 'Their coffers are empty. Holland, Switzerland, the
Rhine, claim the attention of their arms.'
'If they send but 5,000 the work can be done. You don't believe it?
With three hundred as officers to head our own people, we could make
an effort.'
'What can a rabble hope to do against a disciplined force?' exclaimed
Terence, with animation. 'The French could not spare three hundred
officers to this outlying island. Who have you amongst you who could
teach a single military man[oe]uvre? Who could save an army from rout
if attacked in rear, or judiciously decide upon a line of
entrenchment? What a reckless waste of life--a march into the grave!'
'There are cultivated gintlemen who will come forward when they see
that we are in earnest,' put in Cassidy slyly; 'lots of them. There is
no telling what mines of military genius may be found amongst the
high-born. I confess I'd like to know what we really may expect from
France. Theobald has been ten months in Paris, is hand and glove they
say with General Hoche, and Carnot, the "Organiser of Victory."
Strange he should never write.'
'My cousin Doreen has letters from him,' Terence said, in thick
accents. 'Maybe she'd tell us if we coaxed her.' Then, rising, he
flung wide the shutters and opened the window, through which streamed
such a flood of morning light and perfumed air as caused his wits to
reel. Cassidy grinned, as he marked the 'us,' and, encouraged by so
good a sign, made bold to clap the young patrician upon the shoulder.
'Sure she'd tell you, councillor darlint,' he whispered; 'for she
likes you, and I can get nothing serious out of her. Faix! it's the
dainty colleen she is!'
'I dare say she would,' returned Terence, while lines of latent humour
puckered up the giant's face. Councillor Crosbie's lofty patronage
amused him, for, of the two, Mr. Cassidy had seen most of the Abbey
during the past year. 'The day is come,' he urged; 'the very hour for
a ride. Will ye go and find out something to make our minds aisy, or
do ye think Misthress Doreen would be cross wid ye?'
Cassidy was taking liberties. Of that Terence felt hazily assured.
'Yes,' he replied, 'I will canter over to Strogue to see what I can
gather; a gallop by the beach will steady my nerves for the business
of the infernal Four-courts. Tell Phil, Cassidy, to saddle the horses
at once.'
Cassidy humbly obeyed orders, while Curran, who was watching, laughed,
despite his dreary thoughts. How translucent is the strategy of youth!
The squireen's familiar manner of mentioning Doreen had stung her
cousin, and filled him with a desire to warn her of the oaf's
presumption. It was a fine excuse for stealing a delicious hour with a
girl who loved not flirtation; who crumpled up her admirers with
scorn; who might, without some such excuse, resent even a cousin's
interference with the stern duties of matutinal chicken-feeding.
'Go!' Mr. Curran laughed, his conscience relieved, as he placed his
hand on the broad straight back of his favourite. 'Go, lad, and learn
what you can from that lovely conspiring siren. I think my Sally must
go too, to protect you. Stop a minute while I write a line to my lady.
I'm sorry we've not had so gay a time as usual--but sure gaiety is
being squeezed quite out of us. One Doughan Dourish before we
separate. Here's to Innisfail, and may God have mercy on her! And now
good-night, or rather good-morning. I've a heavy day before me, and
must e'en steal forty winks.'
The party mounted their horses and rode away, and Mr. Curran went to
bed and slept, quite persuaded now that Terence must go home and stop
there.