"Now what wouldst thou do, good my squire,
That rides beside my rein,
Wert thou Glenallan's earl to-day,
And I were Roland Cheyne?
* * * * *
My horse should ride through their ranks sae rude,
As he would through the moorland fern,
And ne'er let the gentle Norman bluid
Grow cauld for the Highland kerne."
It was in the beginning of December, 184-(said Fred. Carew); we were
sitting down to dinner after a capital day's cock-shooting--besides
myself there were Lord Clontarf, Mohun, and Kate, my wife--when we were
disturbed by a perfect hail of knocks at the hall door. Old Dan Tucker,
or the Spectre Horseman, never clamored more loudly for admittance.
Fritz, Mohun's old Austrian servant, went down to see what was up, and,
on opening the door, was instantly borne down by the tumultuous rush of
Michael Kelly, gentleman, agent to half a dozen estates, and attorney at
law. In the two last capacities be had given, it seems, great umbrage to
the neighboring peasantry, and they had caught him that night as he
returned home, intending to put him to death with that ingenuity of
torture for which the fine, warm-hearted fellows are justly celebrated.
They did not wish to hurry over the entertainment, so confined him in an
upper chamber, while they called their friends and neighbors to rejoice
with them, carousing meantime jovially below. The victim contrived to
let himself down from the window, and ran for his life to the nearest
house, which, unluckily, happened to be the Lodge. Two boys, however,
saw and recognized him as he entered the demesne, and raised a whoop, to
show that they knew where the fox had gone to ground.
This we made out from a string of incoherent interjections; and then he
lay panting and contorting himself in an agony of fear.
Mohun sat on the hall table, swinging his foot and regarding the
spectacle with the indolent curiosity that one might exhibit toward the
gambols of some ugly new importation of the Zoological Society. When the
story was told he pointed coolly to the door.
The shriek that the miserable creature set up on seeing that gesture I
shall never forget.
"Do you think I shall turn my house into a refuge for destitute
attorneys?" Ralph said, answering my look of inquiry. "If there were no
other reason, I would not risk it, with your wife under my roof. A
night-attack in the West is no child's play."
Kate had come out, and was leaning over the gallery. She heard the last
words, and spoke, flushing scarlet with anger.
"If I thought that my presence prevented an act of common humanity, I
would leave your house this instant, Colonel Mohun."
Ralph smiled slightly as he bent his head in courteous acknowledgment of
her interruption.
"Don't be indignant, Mrs. Carew. If you have a fancy for such an
excitement, I shall be too happy to indulge you. It is settled, then? We
back the attorney. Don't lie there, sir, looking so like a whipped
hound. You hear? You are safe for the present." He had hardly finished,
when there came a rustling of feet outside, then hurried whispers, then
a knock, and a summons.
"We'd like to spake wid the curnel, av ye plase."
"I am here; what do ye want?" Mohun growled.
"We want the 'torney. We know he's widin."
"Then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. It's not my fancy to give him
up. I wouldn't turn out a badger to you, let alone a man."
You see, he took the high moral ground now.
"Then we'll have him out in spite of yez," two or three voices cried out
together.
"Try it," Ralph said. "Meantime I am going to dine; good-night."
A voice that had not spoken yet was heard, with a shrill, gibing accent.
"Ah! thin the best of appetites to ye, curnel, and make haste over yer
dinner. It's Pierce Delaney that'll give ye yer supper." Then they went
off.
"The said Delaney is a huge quarryman," Ralph observed. "He represents
the physical element of terror hereabouts, as I believe I do the moral.
We shall have warm work before morning. He does not like me. Fritz, send
Connell up; he is below somewhere."
The keeper came, looking very much surprised. He had been in the
stables, and had only just heard of the disturbance.
"Get the rifles and guns ready, with bullets and buckshot," his master
said. "We are to be attacked, it seems."
The man's bold face fell blankly.
"By the powers, yer honor, I haven't the value of an ounce of poudther
in the house. I meant to get some the morrow morning, afore ye were up."
Mohun shrugged his shoulders, whistling softly.
"Man proposes," he said. "It's almost a pity we found so many cocks in
the lower copse this afternoon. I have fifteen charges or so in my
pistol-case. We must make that do, loading the rifles light." Then he
went to a window, whence he could see down the road; the moon was
shining brightly.
"I thought so; they have got scouts posted already. The barbarians know
something of skirmishing, after all. Maddox, come here." (The groom was
a strong English boy, very much afraid of his master, but of nothing
else on earth.) "Saddle Sunbeam, and go out by the back gates, keeping
well under the shadow of the trees. When you clear them, ride straight
at the rails at the end of the paddock. You'll get over with a scramble,
I think. Keep fast hold of his head--you _mustn't_ fall. Then make the
best of your way to A----, and tell Colonel Harding, with my
compliments, that I shall be glad if he will send over a troop as
quickly as possible. They ought to be here in two hours. And, mind,
don't spare the horse going, but bring him back easy. You will be of no
use here, and I won't have him lamed if I can help it. You'll have to
risk a bullet or two as you get into the road; but they can't shoot.
It's odds against their hitting you. Now go."
The groom pulled his forelock as if the most ordinary commission had
been given him, and vanished.
"Connell," Ralph went on, "go and saw the ladders that are in the yard
half through. They will hardly try the barred windows; but it looks more
workmanlike to take all precautions. Then come back, and help Fritz to
pile chairs and furniture all up the staircase, and about the hall near
it. Line the gallery with mattresses, two deep, leaving spaces to fire
through. Light all the lamps, and get more candles to fix about; we
shall not see very clearly after the smoke of the first dozen shots.
When you have finished, come to me. Now, shall we go back to dinner?"
I am not ashamed to own I had little appetite; nevertheless, I sat down.
Kate had gone to her room. If her courage was failing, she did not wish
to show it.
Suddenly our host got up and went to the window. His practiced ear had
caught the tread of the horse which Maddox was taking out as quietly as
possible. We watched him stealing along under the trees till their
shelter failed him. Then he put Sunbeam to speed, and rode boldly at the
rails. A yell went up from the road, and we saw dark figures running;
then came a shot, just as the horse was rising at the fence, he hit it
hard, and the splinters flew up white in the moonlight, but he was over.
We held our breath, while several flashes told of dropping shots after
the fugitive. They did not stop him, though; and, to our great relief,
we heard the wild rush of the frightened horse subside into a long
stretching gallop, and the wind brought back a cheery hollo--"Forr'ard,
forr'ard away!"
"So far so good," said Ralph Mohun, as he sat down again, and went in
steadily at a woodcock. "Don't hurry yourselves, gentlemen. We have
three quarters of an hour yet; they will take that time to muster.
Clontarf, some Hock?"
The boy to whom he spoke held out his glass with a pleasant smile. The
coming peril had not altered a tint on his fresh, beardless cheeks--rosy
and clear as a page's in one of Boucher's pictures.
A good contrast he made with the miserable attorney, who had followed us
uninvited (it seemed he only felt safe in our presence), and who was
crouching in a corner, his lank hair plastered round his livid convulsed
face with the sweat of mortal fear.
It struck Mohun, I think. He laid his hand on Clontarf's shoulder, and
spoke with a kindliness of voice and manner most unusual with him--
"We'll quell the savage mountaineer,
As their Tinchell cows the game:
They come as fleet as forest deer;
We'll drive them back as tame."
Even at that anxious moment I could not help laughing at the idea of
Ralph quoting poetry--of that grim Saul among the prophets.
I went in to keep up Kate's spirits. She bore up gallantly, poor child,
and I left her tolerably calm. She believed in me as a "plunger" to an
enormous extent, and in Mohun still more. When I returned my companions
were in the gallery. This ran round two sides of the hall, which went up
to the roof. The only access to the upper part of the house was by a
stone staircase of a single flight. The kitchen and offices were on the
ground floor, otherwise it was uninhabited.
Ralph had his pistols by him, and his cavalry sword, long and heavy, but
admirably poised, lay within his reach.
"I have settled it," he said. "You and Connell are to take the guns.
Smooth-bores are quickest loaded, and will do for this short distance.
Clontarf, who is not quite so sure with the trigger, is to have the post
of honor, and guard the staircase with his sabre. Throw another bucket
of water over it, Connell--is it thoroughly drenched? And draw the
windows up" (these did not reach to within ten feet of the floor); "we
shall be stifled else. But there will be a thorough draft when the
door's down, that's our comfort. One word with you, Carew."
He drew me aside, and spoke almost in a whisper, while his face was very
grave and stern.
"You will do me this justice, whatever happens. Unless it had been
forced upon me, I would not have risked a hair of your wife's head to
save all the attorneys that are patronized by the father of lies. But,
mark, me! if it comes to the worst, keep a bullet for _her_. Don't leave
her to the mercy of those savage devils. I know them. She had better die
ten times over than full into their brutal hands. You must use your own
discretion, though. I shall not be able to advise you then. Not a man of
them will be in this gallery till I am past praying for. Nevertheless, I
hope and believe all will be right. Don't trouble yourself to reload;
Fritz will do that for you. I have given him his orders. Aim very
coolly, too; we must not waste a bullet. You can choose your own sword;
there are several behind you. Ah! I hear them coming up. Now, men, to
your posts."
There was the tramp of many feet, and the surging of a crowd about and
against the hall door. Then a harsh, loud voice spoke:
"Onst for all, will ye give him up, or shall we take him, and serve the
rest of yez as bad? Ye've got women there, too--"
I will not add the rest of the threat for very shame. I know it made me
more wolfish than ever I thought it possible to feel, for I am a
good-natured man in the main. Mohun, who is _not_, bit his mustache
furiously, and his voice shook a little as he answered,
"Do you ever say a prayer, Pierce Delaney? You need one now. If you live
to see to-morrow's sunset, I wish my right hand may wither at the
wrist."
A shrill howl pealed out from the assailants, and then the stout oak
door cracked and quivered under the strokes of a heavy battering-beam;
in a hundred seconds the hinges yielded, and it came clattering in; over
it leaped three wild figures, bearing torches and pikes, but their
chief, Delaney, was not one of them.
"The left-hand man is yours, Carew; Connell, take the middle one," said
Ralph, as coolly as if we had sprung a pack of grouse. While he spoke
his pistol cracked, and the right-hand intruder dropped across the
threshold without a cry or a stagger, shot right through the brain. The
keeper and I were nearly as fortunate. Then there was a pause; then a
rush from without, an irregular discharge of musketry, and the clear
part of the hall was crowded with enemies.
I can't tell exactly what ensued. I know they retreated several times,
for the barricade was impassable; and while their shots fell harmlessly
on the mattresses, every one of ours told--nothing makes a man shoot
straight like being short of powder--but they came on again, each time
with added ferocity.
I heard Mohun mutter more than once, in a dissatisfied tone, "Why does
not that scoundrel show himself? I can't make out Delaney." All at once
I heard a stifled cry on my right, and, to my horror, I saw Clontarf
dragged over the balustrade in the gripe of a giant, whom I guessed at
once to be the man we had looked for so long. Under cover of the smoke,
he had swung himself up by the balustrade of the staircase, and,
grasping the poor boy's collar as he looked out incautiously from his
shelter, dropped back into the hall, carrying his victim with him.
With a roar of exultation the wild beasts closed round their prey.
Before I had time to think what could be done, I heard, close to my ear,
a blasphemy so awful that it made me start even at that critical moment:
it was Ralph's voice, but I hardly knew it--hoarse and guttural, and
indistinct with passion. Without hesitating an instant, he swung himself
over the balustrade, and lighted on his feet in the midst of the crowd.
They were half drunk with whisky, and maddened by the smell of blood;
but--so great was the terror of Mohun's name--all recoiled when they saw
him thus face to face, his sword bare and his eyes blazing. That
momentary panic saved Clontarf. In a second Ralph had thrown him under
the arch of a deep doorway, and placed himself between the senseless
body and its assailants. Two or three shots were fired at him without
effect; it was difficult to take aim in such a tossing chaos; then one
man, Delaney, sprung out at him with a clubbed musket. "At last!" we
heard Mohun say, laughing low and savagely in his beard as he stepped
one pace forward to meet his enemy. A blow that looked as if it might
have felled Behemoth was warded dexterously by the sabre, and, by a
quick turn of the wrist, its edge laid the Rapparee's face open in a
bright scarlet gash, extending from eyebrow to chin.
His comrades rushed over his body, furious, though somewhat disheartened
at seeing their champion come to grief; but they had to deal with a
blade that had kept half a dozen Hungarian swordsmen at bay, and, with
point or edge, it met them every where, magically. They were drawing
back, when Delaney, recovering from the first effects of his fearful
wound, crawled forward, gasping out curses that seemed floating on the
torrent of his rushing blood, and tried to grasp Mohun by the knees and
drag him down.
Pah! it was a sight to haunt one's dreams. (You might have filled my
glass, some of you, when you saw it was empty.)
Ralph looked down on him, and laughed again; his sabre whirled round
once, and cleared a wide circle; then, trampling down the wounded man by
main force, he drove the point through his throat, and pinned him to the
floor. I tell you I heard the steel plainly as it grated on the stone.
There was an awful convulsion of all the limbs, and then the huge mass
lay quite still.
Then came a lull for several moments. The Irish cowered back to the door
like penned sheep; their ammunition was exhausted, and none dared to
cross the hideous barrier that now was between them and the terrible
Cuirassier.
All this took about half the time to act that it does to tell. I was
hesitating whether to descend or to stay where my duty called me--near
my wife. Fritz knelt behind me, silent and motionless; he had got his
orders to stay by me to the last; but the sturdy keeper rose to his
feet.
"Faix," he said, "I'm but a poor hand at the swoording, but I must help
my master, anyhow;" and he began to climb over the breastwork. The
colonel's quick glance caught the movement, and his brief imperious
tones rang over the hubbub of voices loud and clear,
"Don't stir, Connell; stay where you are. I can finish with these hounds
alone."
As he spoke, he dashed in upon them with lowered head and uplifted
sword.
I don't wonder that they all recoiled; his whole face and form were
fearfully transfigured; every hair in his bushy beard was bristling with
rage, and the incarnate devil of murder was gleaming redly in his eyes.
Just then there was a wild cry from without, answered by a shriek from
my wife, who had been quiet till now. At first I thought that some
fellows had scaled the window; but I soon distinguished the accents of a
great joy. My poor Kate! She had roughed it in barracks too long not to
know the rattle of the steel scabbards.
When the dragoons came up at a hard gallop, there was nothing left in
the court-yard but the dead and dying. Mohun had followed the flyers to
get a last stroke at the hindmost. We clambered down into the hall, and,
just as we reached the door, we saw a miserable crippled being clinging
round his knees, crying for quarter. Poor wretch! he might as well have
asked it from a famished jungle-tiger. The arm that had fallen so often
that night, and never in vain, came down once more; the piteous appeal
ended in a death-yell, and, as we reached him, Mohun was wiping coolly
his dripping sabre: it had no more work to do.
I could not help shuddering as I took his offered hand, and I saw
Connell tremble for the first time as he made the sign of the cross.
The Dragoons were returning from the pursuit; they had only made two
prisoners; the darkness and broken ground prevented their doing more.
Ralph went up to the officer in command.
"How very good of you to come yourself, Harding, when I only asked you
for a troop. Come in; you shall have some supper in half an hour, and
Fritz will take care of your men. Throw all that carrion out," he went
on, as we entered the hall, strewn with corpses. "We'll give them a
truce to take up their dead."
Clontarf came to meet us; he had only been stunned and bruised by the
fall. His pale face flushed up as he said, "I shall never forget that I
have to thank you for my life."
"It's not worth mentioning," Mohun replied, carelessly. "I hope you are
not much the worse for the tumble. Gad! it was a near thing, though. The
quarryman's arms were a rough necklace."
At that moment they were carrying by the disfigured remains of the dead
Colossus. His slayer stopped them, and bent over the hideous face with a
grim satisfaction.
"My good friend Delaney," he muttered, "you will own that I have kept my
word. If ever we meet again, I think I shall know you. _Au revoir_," and
he passed on.
I need not go through the congratulatory scene, nor describe how Kate
blushed as they complimented her on her nerve. Fortunately for her, she
had seen nothing, though she had heard all. Just as we were sitting down
to supper, which Fritz prepared with his usual stolid coolness, and when
Kate was about to leave us, for she needed rest, we remarked the
attorney hovering about us with an exultation on his face yet more
servile and repulsive than its late abject terror.
"Mrs. Carew," said Mohun, "if you have quite done with your _protégé_, I
think we'll send him down stairs. Give him something to eat, Fritz; not
with the soldiers, though; and let some one take him home as soon as
it's light. If you say one word, sir, I'll have you turned out _now_."
Mr. Kelly crept out of the room, almost as frightened as he had been two
hours before.
The supper was more cheerful than the dinner, though there was a certain
constraint on the party, who were not all so seasoned as their host.
_He_ was in unusual spirits; so much so that Clontarf confided to a
cornet, his particular friend, that "it was a pity the colonel could
not have such a bear-fight once a fortnight, it put him into such a
charming humor."
We had nearly finished when, from the road outside, there came a
prolonged ear-piercing wail, that made the window-panes tremble. I have
never heard any earthly sound at once so expressive of utter despair,
and appealing to heaven or hell for vengeance.
We all started, and set down our glasses; but Mohun finished his slowly,
savoring like a connoisseur the rich Burgundy.
"It is the wild Irish women keening over their dead," he remarked, with
perfect unconcern. "They'll have more to howl for before I have done
with them. I shall go round with the police to-morrow and pick up the
stragglers. Your men are too good for such work, Harding. There are
several too hard hit to go far, and my hand-writing is pretty legible."
The stout soldier to whom he spoke bent his head in assent, but with
rather a queer expression on his honest face.
"Gad!" he said, "you do your work cleanly, Mohun."
"It is the best way, and the shortest in the end," was the reply; and so
the matter dropped.
The Dragoons left us before daybreak; their protection was not needed;
we were as safe as in the Tower of London. The next morning, while I was
sleeping heavily, Ralph was in the saddle scouring the country, with
what success the next Assizes could tell.
I go there again this winter for the cock-shooting, but I don't much
think Kate will accompany me.
Now who says "a rubber?" Don't all speak at once.