THE HATE OF HANNIBAL.
Owen Ledwith had a theory concerning the invasion of Ireland, which he
began to expound that winter. Since few know much more about the
military art than the firing of a shotgun, he won the scorn of all
except his daughter and Arthur Dillon. In order to demonstrate his
theory Ledwith was willing to desert journalism, to fit out a small
ship, and to sail into an Irish harbor from New York and back, without
asking leave from any government; if only the money were supplied by the
patriots to buy the ship and pay the sailors. His theory held that a
fleet of many ships might sail unquestioned from the unused harbors of
the American coast, and land one hundred thousand armed men in Ireland,
where a blow might be struck such as never had been yet in the good
cause. Military critics denied the possibility of such an invasion. He
would have liked to perform the feat with a single ship, to convince
them.
"I have a suspicion," he said one night to his daughter, "that this
young Dillon would give me five thousand dollars for the asking. He is a
Fenian now."
"Is it possible?" Honora cried in astonishment.
"Well, I don't see any reason for wonder, Nora. He has been listening to
me for three months, vaporing over the wrongs of Ireland; he's of Celtic
blood; he has been an adventurer in California; he has the money, it
would seem. Why, the wonder would be if he did not do what all the young
fellows are doing."
"I have not quite made up my mind about him yet, father," the young
woman said thoughtfully.
"He's all man," said the father.
"True, but a man who is playing a part."
He laid down his pipe in his surprise, but she smiled assuringly.
"Well, it's fine acting, if you call it so, my love. In a little over a
year he has made himself the pride of Cherry Hill. Your great
friend,"--this with a sniff--"Monsignor O'Donnell, is his sponsor. He
speaks like the orator born and with sincerity, though he knows little
of politics. But he has ideas. Then did you ever meet a merrier lad?
Such a singer and dancer, such a favorite among boys and girls! He seems
to be as lovable as his uncle the Senator, and the proof of it is that
all confide in him. However, I have faith in your instincts, Nora. What
do they say?"
"He looks at us all like a spectator sitting in front of a stage. Of
course I have heard the people talk about him. He is a popular idol,
except to his mother who seems to be afraid of him. He has moods of
sadness, gloom, and Miss Conyngham told me she would wager he left a
wife in California. While all like him, each one has a curious thing to
tell about him. They all say it is the sickness which he had on coming
home, and that the queer things are leaving him. The impression he gives
me is that of one acting a part. I must say it is fading every day, but
it hinders me from feeling quite satisfied about him."
"Well, one thing is in his favor: he listens to me," said Ledwith. "He
is one of the few men to whom I am not a crazy dreamer, crazy with love
of Erin and hate of her shameless foe."
"And I love him for that, father," she said tenderly. "There is no
acting in his regard and esteem for you, nothing insincere in his liking
for us, even if we cannot quite understand it. For we _are_ queer,
Daddy," putting her arms about him. "Much love for our old home and much
thinking how to help it, and more despair and worry, have shut us off
from the normal life, until we have forgotten the qualities which make
people liked. Poor Daddy!"
"Better that than doing nothing," he said sadly. "To struggle and fight
once in a while mean living; to sit still would be to die."
Arthur was ushered in just then by the servant, and took his place
comfortably before the fire. One could see the regard which they felt
for him; on the part of Ledwith it was almost affection. Deeply and
sincerely he returned their kindly feeling.
He had a host of reasons for his regard. Their position seemed as
strange to the humdrum world as his own. They were looked on as queer
people, who lived outside the ruts for the sake of an enslaved nation.
The idea of losing three meals a day and a fixed home for a hopeless
cause tickled the humor of the practical. Their devotion to an idea
hardly surpassed their devotion to each other. He mourned for her
isolation, she mourned over his failures to free his native land.
"I have almost given the cause up," he said once to Arthur, "because I
feel my helplessness. I cannot agree with the leaders nor they with me.
But if I gave up she would worry herself to death over my loss of hope.
I keep on, half on her account, half in the hope of striking the real
thing at the end."
"It seems to be also the breath of her life," said Arthur.
"No, it is not," the father replied. "Have you not heard her talk of
your friend, Louis Everard? How she dwells on his calling, and the
happiness of it! My poor child, her whole heart yearns for the cloister.
She loves all such things. I have urged her to follow her inclinations,
though I know it would be the stroke of death for me, but she will not
leave me until I die."
"You must not take us too seriously," she had once said, "in this matter
of Irish liberties. My father is hopelessly out of the current, for his
health is only fair, and he has quarreled with his leaders. I have given
up hope of achieving anything. But if he gives up he dies. So, I
encourage him and keep marching on, in spite of the bitterest
disappointments. Perhaps something may come of it in the end."
"Not a doubt of it," said Arthur, uttering a great thought. "Every tear,
every thought, every heart-throb, every drop of sweat and blood,
expended for human liberty, must be gathered up by God and laid away in
the treasury of heaven. The despots of time shall pay the interest of
that fund here or there."
A woman whose ideals embraced the freedom of an oppressed people,
devotion to her father, and love for the things of God, would naturally
have a strong title to the respect of Arthur Dillon; and she was,
besides, a beautiful woman, who spoke great things in a voice so
sweetly responsive to her emotions that father and friend listened as to
music. The Ledwiths had a comfortable income, when they set to work,
earned by his clever pen and her exquisite voice. The young man missed
none of her public appearances, though he kept the fact to himself. She
was on those occasions the White Lady in earnest. Her art had warmth
indeed, but the coldness and aloofness of exalted purity put her beyond
the zone of desire; a snowy peak, distinct to the eye, but inaccessible.
When they were done with greetings Arthur brought up a specific subject.
"It has gone about that I have become a Fenian," he said, "and I have
been called on to explain to many what chance the movement has of
succeeding. There was nothing in the initiation which gave me that
information."
"You can say: none," Ledwith answered bitterly. "And if you quote me as
your authority there will be many new members in the brotherhood."
"Then why keep up the movement, if nothing is to come of it?"
"The fighting must go on," Ledwith replied, "from generation to
generation in spite of failure. The Fenian movement will fail like all
its predecessors. The only reason for its continuance is that its
successor may succeed. Step by step! Few nations are as lucky as this to
win in the first fight. Our country is the unluckiest of all. Her battle
has been on seven hundred years."
"But I think there must be more consolation in the fight than your words
imply;" Arthur declared. "There must be a chance, a hope of winning."
"The hope has never died but the chance does not yet exist, and there is
no chance for the Fenians," Ledwith answered with emphasis. "The
consolation lies for most of us in keeping up the fight. It is a joy to
let our enemy, England, know, and to make her feel, that we hate her
still, and that our hate keeps pace with her advancing greatness. It is
pleasant to prove to her, even by an abortive rising, that all her
crimes, rogueries, and diplomacies against us have been vain to quench
our hate. We have been scattered over the world, but our hate has been
intensified. It is joy to see her foam at the mouth like a wild beast,
then whine to the world over the ingratitude of the Irish; to hear the
representatives of her tax-payers howl in Parliament at the expense of
putting down regular rebellions; to see the landlords flying out of the
country they have ravaged, and the Orangemen white with the fear of
slaughter. Then these movements are an education. The children are
trained to a knowledge of the position, to hatred of the English power,
and their generation takes up the fight where the preceding left it."
"Hate is a terrible thing," said the young man. "Is England so hateful
then?"
Honora urged him by looks to change the subject, for her father knew no
bounds in speaking of his country's enemy, but he would not lift his
eyes to her face. He wished to hear Owen Ledwith express his feelings
with full vent on the dearest question to his heart. The man warmed up
as he spoke, fire in his eyes, his cheeks, his words, and gestures.
"She is a fiend from hell," he replied, hissing the words quietly. Deep
emotion brought exterior calm to Ledwith. "But that is only a feeling of
mine. Let us deal with the facts. Like the fabled vampire England hangs
upon the throat of Ireland, battening on her blood. Populous England,
vanishing Ireland! What is the meaning of it? One people remains at home
by the millions, the other flies to other lands by the millions. Because
the hell-witch is good to her own. For them the trade of the world, the
opening of mines, the building of factories, the use of every natural
power, the coddling of every artificial power. They go abroad only to
conquer and tax the foreigner for the benefit of those at home. Their
harbors are filled with ships, and their treasury with the gold of the
world. For our people, there is only permission to work the soil, for
the benefit of absentee landlords, or encouragement to depart to
America. No mines, no factories, no commerce, no harbors, no ships, in a
word no future. So the Irish do not stay at home. The laws of England
accomplished this destruction of trade, of art, of education, oh, say it
at once, of life. Damnable laws, fashioned by the horrid greed of a rich
people, that could not bear to see a poor people grow comfortable. They
called over to their departments of trade, of war, of art, to court,
camp, and studio, our geniuses, gave them fame, and dubbed them
Englishmen; the castaways, the Irish in America and elsewhere are known
as 'the mere Irish.'"
"It is very bitter," said Arthur, seeing the unshed tears in Honora's
eyes.
"I wonder how we bear it," Ledwith continued. "We have not the American
spirit, you may be sure. I can fancy the colonists of a hundred years
back meeting an Irish situation; the men who faced the Indian risings,
and, worse, the subduing of the wilderness. For them it would have been
equal rights and privileges and chances, or the bottom of the sea for
one of the countries. But we are poetic and religious, and murderous
only when a Cromwell or a Castlereagh opens hell for us. However, the
past is nothing; it is the present which galls us. The gilding of the
gold and the painting of the lily are symbols of our present sufferings.
After stripping and roasting us at home, this England, this hell-witch
sends abroad into all countries her lies and slanders about us. Her
spies, her professors, her gospellers, her agents, her sympathizers
everywhere, can tell you by the yard of our natural inferiority to the
Chinese. Was it not an American bishop who protested in behalf of the
Chinese of San Francisco that they were more desirable immigrants than
the sodden Irish? God! this clean, patient, laborious race, whose
chastity is notorious, whose Christianity has withstood the desertion of
Christ----"
Honora gave a half scream at the blasphemy, but at once controlled
herself.
"I take that back, child--it was only madness," Ledwith said. "You see,
Dillon, how scarred my soul is with this sorrow. But the bishop and the
Chinese! Not a word against that unfortunate people, whose miseries are
greater even than ours, and spring from the same sources. At least
_they_ are not lied about, and a bishop, forsooth! can compare them,
pagans in thought and act and habit though they be, with the most moral
and religious people in the world, to his own shame. It is the English
lie working. The Irish are inferior, and of a low, groveling, filthy
nature; they are buried both in ignorance and superstition; their
ignorance can be seen in their hatred of British rule, and their refusal
to accept the British religion; wherever they go in the wide world, they
reduce the average of decency and intelligence and virtue; for twenty
years these lies have been sung in the ears of the nations, until only
the enemies of England have a welcome for us. Behold our position in
this country. Just tolerated. No place open to us except that of
cleaning the sewers. Every soul of us compelled to fight, as Birmingham
did the other day, for a career, and to fight against men like
Livingstone, who should be our friends. And in the hearts of the common
people a hatred for us, a disgust, even a horror, not inspired by the
leprous Chinese. We have earned all this hatred and scorn and opposition
from England, because in fighting with her we have observed the laws of
humanity, when we should have wiped her people off the face of the earth
as Saul smote Agag and his corrupt people, as Cromwell treated us. Do
you wonder that I hate this England far more than I hate sin, or the
devil, or any monstrous creature which feeds upon man."
"I do not wonder," said Arthur. "With you there is always an increasing
hatred of England?"
"Until death," cried Ledwith, leaping from his seat, as if the fire of
hate tortured him, and striding about the room. "To fight every minute
against this monster, to fight in every fashion, to irritate her, to
destroy a grain of her influence, in a single mind, in a little
community, to expose her pretense, her sham virtues, her splendid
hypocrisy, these are the breath of my life. That hate will never perish
until----"
He paused as if in painful thought, and passed his hand over his
forehead.
"Until the wrongs of centuries have been avenged," said Arthur. Ledwith
sat down with a scornful laugh.
"That's a sentence from the orations of our patriotic orators," he
sneered. "What have we to do with the past? It is dead. The oppressed
and injured are dead. God has settled their cause long ago. It would be
a pretty and consoling sight to look at the present difference between
the English Dives and the Irish Lazarus! The vengeance of God is a
terrible thing. No! my hate is of the present. It will not die until we
have shaken the hold of this vampire, until we have humiliated and
disgraced it, and finally destroyed it. I don't speak of retaliation.
The sufferings of the innocent and oppressed are not atoned for by the
sufferings of other innocents and other oppressed. The people are
blameless. The leaders, the accursed aristocracy of blood, of place, of
money, these make the corporate vampire, which battens upon the weak and
ignorant poor; only in England they give them a trifle more, flatter
them with skill, while the Irish are kicked out like beggars."
He looked at Dillon with haggard eyes. Honora sat like a statue, as if
waiting for the storm to pass.
"I have not sworn an oath like Hannibal," he said, "because God cannot
be called as a witness to hate. But the great foe of Rome never observed
his oath more faithfully than I shall that compact which I have made
with myself and the powers of my nature: to turn all my strength and
time and capacity into the channel of hate against England. Oh, how poor
are words and looks and acts to express that fire which rages in the
weakest and saddest of men."
He sank back with a gesture of weariness, and found Honora's hand
resting on his tenderly.
"The other fire you have not mentioned, Daddy," she said wistfully, "the
fire of a love which has done more for Erin than the fire of hate. For
love is more than hate, Daddy."
"Ay, indeed," he admitted. "Much as I hate England, what is it to my
love for her victim? Love is more than hate. One destroys, the other
builds."
Ledwith, quite exhausted by emotion, became silent. The maid entered
with a letter, which Honora opened, read silently, and handed to her
father without comment. His face flushed with pleasure.
"Doyle Grahame writes me," he explained to Arthur, "that a friend, who
wishes to remain unknown, has contributed five thousand dollars to
testing my theory of an invasion of Ireland. That makes the expedition a
certainty--for May."
"Then let me volunteer the first for this enterprise," said Arthur
blithely.
"And me the second," cried Honora with enthusiasm.
"Accepted both," said Ledwith, with a proud smile, new life stealing
into his veins.
Not for a moment did he suspect the identity of his benefactor, until
Monsignor, worried over the risk for Arthur came to protest some days
later. The priest had no faith in the military enterprise of the
Fenians, and, if he smiled at Arthur's interest in conspiracy, saw no
good reasons why he should waste his money and expose his life and
liberty in a feeble and useless undertaking. His protest both to Arthur
and others was vigorous.
"If you have had anything to do with making young Dillon a Fenian," he
said, "and bringing him into this scheme of invasion, Owen, I would like
you to undo the business, and persuade him to stay at home."
"Which I shall not do, you may be sure, Monsignor," replied the patriot
politely. "I want such men. The enemy we fight sacrifices the flower of
English youth to maintain its despotism; why should we shrink from
sacrifice?"
"I do not speak of sacrifice," said Monsignor. "One man is the same as
another. But there are grave reasons which demand the presence of this
young man in America, and graver reasons why he should not spend his
money incautiously."
"Well, he has not spent any money yet, so far as I know," Ledwith said.
The priest hesitated a moment, while the other looked at him curiously.
"You are not aware, then, that he has provided the money for your
enterprise?" Honora uttered a cry, and Ledwith sprang from his chair in
delighted surprise.
"Do you tell me that?" he shouted. "Honora, Honora, we have found the
right man at last! Oh, I felt a hundred times that this young fellow was
destined to work immense good for me and mine. God bless him forever and
ever."
"Amen," said Honora, rejoicing in her father's joy.
"You know my opinion on these matters, Owen," said Monsignor.
"Ay, indeed, and of all the priests for that matter. Had we no religion
the question of Irish freedom would have been settled long ago. Better
for us had we been pagans or savages. Religion teaches us only how to
suffer and be slaves."
"And what has patriotism done for you?" Monsignor replied without
irritation.
"Little enough, to be sure."
"Now, since I have told you how necessary it is that Dillon should
remain in America, and that his money should not be expended----"
"Monsignor," Ledwith broke in impatiently, "let me say at once you are
asking what you shall not get. I swear to you that if the faith which
you preach depended on getting this young fellow to take back his money
and to desert this enterprise, that faith would die. I want men, and I
shall take the widow's only son, the father of the family, the last hope
of a broken heart. I want money, and I shall take the crust from the
mouth of the starving, the pennies from the poor-box, the last cent of
the poor, the vessels of the altar, anything and everything, for my
cause. How many times has our struggle gone down in blood and shame
because we let our foolish hearts, with their humanity, their faith,
their sense of honor, their ridiculous pride, rule us. I want this man
and his money. I did not seek them, and I shall not play tricks to keep
them. But now that they are mine, no man shall take them from me."
Honora made peace between them, for these were stubborn men, unwilling
to make compromises. Monsignor could give only general reasons. Ledwith
thought God had answered his prayers at last. They parted with equal
determination.
What a welcome Arthur Dillon received from the Ledwiths on his next
visit! The two innocents had been explaining their ideas for years, and
traveling the earth to put them into action; and in all that time had
not met a single soul with confidence enough to invest a dollar in them.
They had spent their spare ducats in attempting what required a bank to
maintain. They had endured the ridicule of the hard-hearted and the
silent pity of the friends who believed them foolish dreamers. And
behold a man of money appears to endow their enterprise, and to show his
faith in it by shipping as a common member of the expedition. Was there
ever such luck? They thanked him brokenly, and looked at him with eyes
so full of tenderness and admiration and confidence, that Arthur swore
to himself he would hereafter go about the earth, hunting up just such
tender creatures, and providing the money to make their beautiful,
heroic, and foolish dreams come true. He began to feel the truth of a
philosopher's saying: the dreams of the innocent are the last reasoning
of sages.
"And to this joy is added another," said Ledwith, when he could speak
steadily. "General Sheridan has promised to lead a Fenian army the
moment the Irish government can show it in the field."
"What does that mean?" said Arthur.
"What does it mean that an Irish army on Irish soil should have for its
leader a brilliant general like Sheridan?" cried Ledwith. A new emotion
overpowered him. His eyes filled with tears. "It means victory for a
forlorn cause. Napoleon himself never led more devoted troops than will
follow that hero to battle. Washington never received such love and
veneration as he will from the poor Irish, sick with longing for a true
leader. Oh, God grant the day may come, and that we may see it, when
that man will lead us to victory."
His eyes flashed fire. He saw that far-off future, the war with its
glories, the final triumph, the crowning of Sheridan with everlasting
fame. And then without warning he suddenly fell over into a chair.
Arthur lifted up his head in a fright, and saw a pallid face and
lusterless eyes. Honora bathed his temples, with the coolness and
patience of habit.
"It is nothing, nothing," he said feebly after a moment. "Only the
foolishness of it all ... I can forget like a boy ... the thing will
never come to pass ... never, never, never! There stands the hero,
splendid with success, rich in experience, eager, willing, a demigod
whom the Irish could worship ... his word would destroy faction, wipe
out treason, weed out fools, hold the clans in solid union ... if we
could give him an army, back him with a government, provide him with
money! We shall never have the army ... nothing. Treason breeding
faction, faction inviting treason ... there's our story. O, God, ruling
in heaven, but not on earth, why do you torture us so? To give us such a
man, and leave us without the opportunity or the means of using him!"
He burst into violent, silent weeping. Dillon felt the stab of that
hopeless grief, which for the moment revived his own, although he could
not quite understand it. Ledwith dashed away the tears after a little
and spoke calmly.
"You see how I can yield to dreams like a foolish child. I felt for a
little as if the thing had come to pass, and gave in to the fascination.
This is the awaking. All the joy and sorrow of my life have come mostly
from dreams."