When I had dressed, I found that I had above an hour to spare before
dinner; so taking my hat I strolled out into the town. The streets were
even more crowded now than before. The groups of country-people were
larger, and as they conversed together in their native tongue, with
all the violent gesticulation and energetic passion of their nature, an
inexperienced spectator might well have supposed them engaged in active
strife. Now and then a kind of movement, a species of suppressed murmur
from the court-house, would turn every eye in that direction; and then
every voice was hushed, not a man moved. It was evident that some trial
of the deepest interest was going forward, and on inquiry I learned that
it was a murder case, in which six men were concerned. I heard also that
the only evidence against them was from one of their own party, who
had turned, as the lawyers term it, 'approver.' I knew well that no
circumstance was more calculated than this to call forth all that
is best and worst in Irish character, and thought, as I walked along
through the dense crowd, I could trace in the features around me the
several emotions by which they were moved.
Here was an old grey-headed man leaning on a staff, his lack-lustre eyes
gazing in wonder at some speaker who narrated a portion of the trial,
his face all eagerness, and his hands tremulous with anxiety; but I felt
I could read the deep sorrow of his heart as he listened to the deed of
blood, and wondered how men would risk their tenure of a life which in
a few days more, perhaps, he himself was to leave for ever. Here beside
him was a tall and powerfully-built countryman, his hat drawn upon his
eyes, that peered forth from their shadow dark, lustrous, and almost
wild in their expression; his face, tanned by season and exposure, was
haggard and care-worn, and in his firmly-clenched lips and fast-locked
jaw you could read the resolute purpose of one who could listen
to nothing save the promptings of the spirit of vengeance, and his
determination that blood should have blood. Some there were whose
passionate tones and violent gestures showed that all their sympathy for
the prisoners was merged in the absorbing feeling of detestation for
the informer; and you could mark in such groups as these that more women
were mingled, whose bloodshot eyes and convulsed features made them
appear the very demons of strife itself. But the most painful sight of
all was the children who were assembled around every knot of speakers,
their eyes staring and their ears eagerly drinking in each word that
dropped; no trace of childhood's happy carelessness was there, no sign
of that light-hearted youth that knows no lasting sorrow. No: theirs
were the rigid features of intense passion, in which fear, suspicion,
craft, but above all, the thirst for revenge, were writ. There were some
whose clenched hand and darkened brow betokened the gloomy purpose of
their hearts; there were others whose outpoured wrath heaped curses on
him who had betrayed his fellows. There was grief, violent, wild, and
frantic; there was mute and speechless suffering; but not a tear did I
see, not even on the cheek of childhood or of woman. No! their seared
and withered sorrow no dew of tears had ever watered; like a blighting
simoon the spirit of revenge had passed over them, and scorched and
scathed all the verdant charities of life. The law which in other lands
is looked to for protection and security, was regarded by them as an
instrument of tyranny; they neither understood its spirit nor trusted
its decisions; and when its blow fell upon them, they bent their heads
in mournful submission, to raise them when opportunity offered in wild
and stern defiance. Its denunciations came to them sudden and severe;
they deemed the course of justice wayward and capricious, the only
feature of certainty in its operation being that its victim was ever
the poor man. The passionate elements of their wild natures seemed but
ill-adapted to the slow-sustained current of legal investigation; they
looked upon all the details of evidence as the signs of vindictive
malice, and thought that trickery and deceit were brought in arms
against them. Hence each face among the thousands there bore the traces
of that hardened, dogged suffering that tells us that the heart is
rather steeled with the desire to avenge than bowed to weep over the
doomed.
Before the court-house a detachment of soldiers was drawn up under arms,
their unmoved features and fixed attitudes presenting a strange contrast
to the excited expressions and changeful gestures of those about them.
The crowd at this part was thickest, and I could perceive in their eager
looks and mute expressions that something more than common had attracted
their attention. My own interest was, however, directed in another
quarter; for through the open window of the court-house I could hear
the words of a speaker, whom I soon recognised as the counsel for the
prisoners addressing the jury. My foraging-cap passed me at once
through the ranks, and after some little crushing I succeeded in gaining
admission to the body of the court.
Such was the crowd within, I could see nothing but the heads of a
closely-wedged mass of people, save at the distant part of the court
the judges, and to their right the figure of the pleader, whose back was
turned towards me.
Little as I heard of the speech, I was overwhelmed with surprise at what
I did hear. Touching on the evidence of the 'approver' but slightly, the
advocate dwelt with a terrific force upon the degraded character of a
man who could trade upon the blood of his former friends and associates.
Scarce stopping to canvass how the testimony bore home upon the
prisoners, he burst forth into an impassioned appeal to the hearts of
the jury on faith betrayed and vows forsworn, and pictured forth the man
who could thus surrender his fellows to the scaffold as a monster whose
evidence no man could trust, no jury confide in; and when he had
thus heightened the colouring of his description by every power of an
eloquence that made the very building ring, he turned suddenly towards
the informer himself, as, pale, wan, and conscience-stricken,
he cowered beneath the lightning glance from an eye that seemed to
pierce his secret soul within him, and apostrophising his virtues, he
directed every glance upon the miserable wretch that writhed beneath
his sarcasm. This seemed, indeed, the speakers forte. Never did I hear
anything so tremendous as the irony with which he described the credit
due to one who had so often been sworn and forsworn--'who took an oath
of allegiance to his king, and an oath of fealty to his fellows, and
now is here this day with a third oath, by which, in the blood of his
victim, he is to ratify his perjury to both, and secure himself an
honourable independence.' The caustic satire verged once--only once--on
something that produced a laugh, when the orator suddenly stopped:--
'I find, my lord, I have raised a smile. God knows, never did I feel
less merriment. Let me not be condemned. Let not the laugh be mistaken.
Few are those events that are produced by folly and vice that fire the
hearts with indignation, but something in them will shake the sides
with laughter. So, when the two famous moralists of old beheld the sad
spectacle of Life, the one burst into laughter, the other melted into
tears. They were each of them right, and equally right. But these laughs
are the bitter, rueful laughs of honest indignation, or they are the
laughs of hectic melancholy and despair. But look there, and tell me
where is your laughter now!'
With these words he turned fully round and pointed his finger to
the dock, where the six prisoners side by side leaned their haggard,
deathlike faces upon the rail, and gazed with stupid wonder at the scene
before them. Four of the number did not even know the language, but
seemed by the instinct of their position to feel the nature of the
appeal their advocate was making, and turned their eyes around the court
as if in search of some one look of pity or encouragement that should
bring comfort to their hearts.
The whole thing was too dreadful to bear longer, so I forced my way
through the crowd, and at last reached the steps in front of the
building. But here a new object of horror presented itself, and one
which to this hour I cannot chase from before me. In the open space
between the line formed by the soldiers and the court knelt a woman,
whose tattered garments scarce covered a figure emaciated nearly to
starvation; her cheeks, almost blue with famine, were pinched inwards,
and her hands, which she held clasped with outstretched arms before her,
were like the skinny claws of some wild animal. As she neither spoke nor
stirred, there was no effort made to remove her; and there she knelt,
her eyes, bloodshot and staring, bent upon the door of the building. A
vague fear took possession of me. Somewhere I had seen that face before.
I drew near, and as a cold thrill ran through my blood, I remembered
where. She was the wife of the man by whose bedside I had watched in the
mountains. A half dread of being recognised by her kept me back for a
moment; then came the better feeling that perhaps I might be able to
serve her, and I walked towards her. But though she turned her eyes
towards me as I approached, her look had no intelligence in it, and I
could plainly see that reason had fled, and left nothing save the poor
suffering form behind it. I endeavoured to attract her attention, but
all in vain. At last I tried by gentle force to induce her to leave the
place; but a piercing shriek, like one whose tones had long dwelt in my
heart, broke from her, with a look of such unutterable anguish, that
I was obliged to desist and leave her. The crowd made way for me as I
passed out, and I could see in their looks and demeanour the expression
of grateful acknowledgment for even this show of feeling on my part;
while some muttered as I went by, 'God reward ye,' 'the Lord be good
to ye,' as though at that moment they had nothing in their hearts save
thoughts of kindness and words of blessing.
I reached my room, and sat down a sadder, perhaps a wiser man; and yet
I know not this. It would need a clearer head than mine to trace all the
varying and discordant elements of character I had witnessed to their
true source; to sift the evil from the good; to know what to cherish,
what to repress, whereon to build hope or what to fear. Such was this
country once! Has it changed since?