MR. CURRAN LEAVES PARLIAMENT.
Major Sirr's ill-timed mirth rankled in Robert's bosom. He was not
worth taking, then! Yet Lord Clare had deemed him dangerous enough to
justify expulsion from Alma Mater. Lord Clare. What did he intend
doing with this last haul of the net? That document which Sirr had
picked up so carefully would provide him with such a list of country
members as would satisfy for awhile even his rapacious gullet.
Would he hang them all, or be content, for the present, to cage them
as he did before? No. Times were changed since then. He was
deliberately scourging the land with scorpions. No mercy might be
expected at his hands. Was Tom Emmett to be hanged? Was he to suffer
an ignominious death before he had had time to strike a blow for
motherland? That would be too hard. It must be prevented somehow. It
was providential that the younger brother should not have been
kidnapped too. It was a miraculous intervention, for duty shone clear
before him. He must obtain the release of the patriots, even if to do
so he should have to kneel at King George's feet. Intercession must be
made. At the thought the lad's courage rose. He would go and consult
Curran on the subject.
As he hurried on down Dame Street, he strove to comb his tangled
thoughts into some symmetry. Who could the Judas be who wore his mask
so deftly? Sirr's Battalion of Testimony was spreading to huge
proportions; the Staghouse by Kilmainham, where the wolves dwelt,
could scarcely hold them now. Doubtless there was a secret service as
well as this public one so insolently flaunted.
'Of whom does it consist?' Robert kept asking himself. 'Of whom? The
friends of our hearts--the wives of our bosoms. It is awful to think
how, when a country is well stirred up, the mud will rise to the
surface!' Then, ruminating as he went, he thought of Terence, and
murmured mournfully, 'Could it be he? I pray not, for I love him as a
brother!'
A shadow lay stretched before him. With a shudder he turned aside to
avoid the effigy of a good man, who by a singular caprice of history
has been elected high-priest of a mean purblindness, which he above
all others would himself have most abhorred. William III.'s effigy, in
its incongruous classical costume, is no whit more contemptible than
some of his admirers have tried to make his character. But such is the
way of the world. We set up a pole, and drape it with our own
sentiments, then kneel down to worship, crying, 'How perfect is our
idol!' Of course it is; for the drapery is woven, as a spider's web
is, from out of our own bowels; what can be so perfect as that we have
ourselves created, however loosely it may hang on the support we have
selected to bear it?
Turning away from the Juggernaut of Orangeism, Robert beheld the
subject of his thoughts, and the man of whom he was in search. Mr.
Curran and his ex-junior were standing in earnest talk under the
colonnade of the senate-house. The rush of events had changed both
men even in their externals. The older one seemed shrunken and
grey-skinned. His unkempt elf-locks were more wild, his uncleanly
linen more disordered, his eye more bright and restless, than of yore.
Those who knew him well perceived that he was torn in sunder by two
antagonistic selves. He yearned in secret for the success of the
popular movement; he peered out anxiously for the first glimmering
white sail in the offing; his soul bled for his country's misery; he
longed to know precisely the patriot leaders' plan, that his keen
brain might advise upon it--yet he railed at and derided those very
leaders to their faces, spoke scoffingly of France, declared that all
was hopeless; snapped up any incautious delegate who spoke to him too
openly of the society.
The reason for his odd conduct is obvious. His judicial mind--expert
in weighing evidence--had seen long ago that the combatants were
ill-matched--that it was Honesty fighting against Guile. It was
possible--just possible--that Heaven for once would change its usual
tactics, and permit Honesty to come off the conqueror. It was
possible--but oh, how improbable! Curran saw that so soon as Honesty
had tumbled into the Slough of Despond, the firm grasp of a friend who
was a paradox would be needed to pull him out; of one who should be
protected by the glamour of his own virtue against the dagger of the
murderer, even as medieval saints are mythically supposed to have been
protected against the torments of the caldron and the wheel. Such a
peculiar and delicate position Curran actually occupied.
As we have seen, he remained in close friendship with Emmett and the
rest, and also with such important people in the opposite camp as the
Glandores, without the faintest suspicion of treachery falling on him.
He fearlessly rose and poured forth such denunciations against the
executive in parliament, as would have brought any other man to
Kilmainham and its minuet. But for all that, the informer dared not
point his finger at him; even Lord Clare was convinced that he must be
endured or bought--not browbeaten.
Once or twice he had been hustled in the street, but had curbed his
peppery nature by a sublime effort. His life was of more value to his
country than that of many drunken rufflers. He quietly refused to
fight now with any such paltry ruffians.
Councillor Crosbie was more altered than his chief; the expression of
his face was changed. As Robert surveyed it he endured the compunction
of remorse, in that for an instant he had doubted him. If Doreen had
not been perversely haughty, she could not have accepted her aunt's
garbled tale so readily. But then her spirit was wrung awry by
long-continued crooning over wrongs; and being unhealthily sensitive,
was predisposed to look out for evil. She had seen so much trouble
that she had come to believe there could be nothing else in store.
Terence's face had lost the open laugh of careless _bonhomie_ which
had vexed her--which was so well suited to its Irish cast of
features--by which I do not mean the confined forehead and coarsely
gaping mouth, which make many of our countrymen so uncomely--but the
highly-coloured, cheery face, with ruddy lips, which when they are
parted display a row of dazzling teeth. His eye, whose unruly dancing
defied fate, was strangely at variance now with the moody brow, till
lately so unwrinkled; while a reckless swagger, which was a new
characteristic, spoke of a bitterness and chafing defiance which a
green tabinet necktie, with bows ostentatively displayed, served but
further to accentuate. He stood in earnest converse with Mr. Curran,
who sourly shook his head. Just out of earshot faithful Phil leaned
against the wall, firing-iron in hand, watching his master in his
dog-like fashion--sporting also, in humble imitation, a rag of green
about his neck.
Rapidly Robert unfolded his budget. The visitation at Trinity was mere
child's play; not so this wholesale arrest. Even Curran forgot his
customary caution, and put quick sharp questions as his face grew
greyer. Emmett, Russell, Bond, were in prison, then. They would be
tried--how? The law courts were closed and silent. By court-martial?
Hardly. Lord Clare was too clever for that. Given the heads of a
conspiracy who had grievously compromised themselves, he would of
course get up a pompous series of mock state trials, with 'juries of
the right sort' to bring the pageant to a predetermined end, and so
justify and whitewash his arbitrary acts in the world's eyes. This was
what he would do.
'The patriots should be defended!' Curran swore. He would defend them
himself, no matter at what personal risk; in spite of any amount of
threatening. The bursts of eloquence which before now had startled his
audience to conviction, should be nothing to the burning words by
which he would wring these unselfish lives from the jaws of death.
It was for this that he had rested on his oars so long. He had
defended many of the proscribed with varying success. But these were
the chiefs, the head and front of the offending. He felt that the
power was there, a precious gift direct from God. He would blast the
witness, whoever he might be, as he sat upon the table, till even a
jury of the right sort would not dare to convict upon his evidence; he
would paint in vivid colours what he and his fellows were--wretches
who, buried as men, had slept in the tomb till their hearts festered
and dissolved--to be dug up thereafter as informers.
He bade Robert be of good cheer, and listened, with a kindly arm about
the lad's neck, to his project of going to England. He would go to the
fountain-head, vowed Robert, for no mercy could be expected here; he
would waylay Mr. Pitt himself--would force himself into the Royal
presence--would compel England to listen to a recital of her sister's
tribulations. The English could not know what was going forward--the
King, whom people dubbed good King George, could not know of it. If he
did, he was a hypocrite who ought to be unmasked--but of course he did
not. The ardent lad quivered with excitement and noble fervour, while
the little lawyer felt himself invaded by pity. The poor boy persisted
in believing that Right was sure to triumph. He believed that his
story would rouse the English to interference--Mr. Pitt to contrition
for excessive sinfulness--that it would melt like snow the prejudices
of the most ignorant and pigheaded monarch who ever occupied a throne.
Poor lad! In spite of all he saw, his illusions had not yet been taken
from him. Some people require an operation with pincers. The dreadful
moment had yet to come when he would wake up and know with certainty
that his doll's inside was bran.
'My boy,' the lawyer said, 'the impulse is excellent. Go, and prosper,
if the Fates will it so. To tell the truth, I believe more in my
powers of oratory here than yours over yonder. I ought to have special
interest in you,' he pursued, with a sad smile, 'though it's to the
lowering of my own conceit. I made the discovery this morning--what
owls we old fogies are!--that it is not for the sake of my brilliant
conversation that you young butterflies choose to flutter about the
Priory. Upon my word, I used to think it was, and that your taste was
vastly fine.'
Robert's face assumed a guilty hue, and he lowered his eyes.
'Nay--don't blush, man!' returned the elder, whilst Terence looked
from one to the other curiously. 'When the spring comes, birds will
mate even on battle-fields! The perseverance of nature, despite
obstacles, is incorrigible! Would ye believe it, Terence? A girl to
whom I'm a bit partial flung herself into my arms this very morning
with shrieks, declaring that if all a foolish servant told her was
true, and Ireland doomed to be a slaughter-house, one crathur at least
must be saved--who was not her papa! She expects me, I suppose, to
build an ark for this new deluge, and take in of every animal two
after his kind.'
'Oh, sir!' Robert murmured timidly. 'If things go well----'
'No, sir,' returned Curran, with sudden roughness. 'Things aren't like
to go well. Do not deceive yourself or her. You, for one, are nearer
to the gallows than the bridal bed! When Ireland is free, when my lord
chancellor is higher even than he is--as high as Haman--then maybe
we'll talk of such follies, but not till then. Meanwhile, mark you,
the gates of the Priory open to you no more. There shall be no more
dangling after my Primrose till the crisis is over, for better or for
worse. Get ye gone, now, and good luck betide ye! There must be a
power of it somewhere, for here we've got ne'er a scrap.'
Young Robert did as he determined; and so for awhile we shall not look
on him. In London he was kept dallying by a judicious diet of delusive
hopes in accordance with a suggestion from the Irish chancellor, who
wished him kept well in tow, lest haply he might turn out useful
later. Amuse this baby brand, he wrote; manage him cleverly, and lull
him for a few months to sleep.
Sara saw him no more. He came no more to the Priory, and she was glad
of it. The child was dazed and bewildered by the reports which reached
her through the servants. She made no pretence of comprehending
politics. She only knew that so long as Robert remained away, he would
be kept safe out of the perilous vortex. She had faith in her father's
genius, and in his power, if need were, to protect both himself and
her; yet woke she up sometimes in the night with a cry, having dreamed
that misfortune had befallen Robert. She could not shake off a
foreboding that, young and excitable as he was, he would entangle
himself in the toils; and so it was with a whimsical thankfulness that
she heard that he whom she worshipped was gone, and joyfully counted
the months of his absence.
When Robert broke in upon the converse under the colonnade, Master
Phil did not at first take heed of him, for that worthy, who was
always ready to touch his hunting-cap with good-humour to any of his
master's friends, was in rueful contemplation of a fact which had
lately come to his knowledge--namely, that red-haired Biddy was not
true to him--that the colleen who had enthralled his affections was
sadly misbehaving herself among the soldiery. Honest Phil was not
specially quick-witted, yet he could put two and two together after a
clumsy fashion, and he saw darkly with sorrow that the carroty-polled
virgin could scarcely have been ever true if she could thus brazenly
go over to the enemy. He revolved the facts in his mind that she it
was who had been Miss Wolfe's post-office--that it was she who with
him had carried out the pike-packing in the armoury, which had so
oddly been discovered; that she it was who had wormed secrets out of
him--the honest but incautious youth--which she might or might not
hold _in terrorem_ now over the heads of those whom he loved best.
There was but too much proof of the frail fair one's delinquency. When
the Irish Slave was sacked, she had rushed yelping to the Little
House, giving tongue with such vociferous howls that two soldiers
speedily pursued and brought her back, and finally carried her off
kicking--a special prize. For a long while her disconsolate adorer
(when not on duty in surveillance over his master) searched high and
low for her. Had anybody beheld a beautiful creature with ruddy locks
of gold?--to see which would be to adore for ever--and so forth.
But as time went on, his master's self-appointed duties became so
engrossing and erratic that the servant was fain to sacrifice his
private interests altogether for the nonce, trusting that some day the
fair creature would turn up entrancingly spotless--constant to her
swain. It was with no slight pang, then, that on that very morning he
had recognised a well-known back and followed it--a broad square back
covered now with purple velvet, surmounted by the well-known locks,
which were shaded by a wondrous hat and feathers. The apparition led
him to the riding-school!--the dreadful hall of torment which people
shuddered at as they went by. Too much amazed to realise what he did,
he followed still. She entered--so did he. Noisily she was embraced at
once by a dozen half-drunken men in uniform, and returned their
salutes with strict impartiality. He was thunderstruck! Then with
terror, from his sheltered nook, he surveyed the scene.
Screams for mercy made his blood run cold. Two men lay panting on a
heap of straw; one quite old and feeble, released but recently from
the lash. The elder would evidently soon be quit of his destroyers,
for his lips were blue and his eyes glazed. The other, roused by a
shout of laughter, stirred his head to curse his tormentors. This was
enough for them. What a fine opportunity for a newly-developed joke!
Quick--some gunpowder! Biddy poured some into two outstretched, palms.
Rub it well into his hair--with a will now, Biddy--for it's shock, and
will hold a prime dose. Now, stand well aside while we fire it with a
long match. Horror-stricken, Phil escaped--his slow brains chaotic in
unaccustomed whirl. What should he do? His charmer had developed into
a fiend. Was she who had enthralled his affections the one who was at
the bottom of all the mischief--the arch-betrayer of secrets? She had
been in everybody's confidence--Miss Wolfe's (God bless her!), Mr.
Cassidy's, Master Terence's--all! The snake in the grass, whose
existence puzzled the gentry so. Could it be she? Had he not better
speak out and tell them? No. They were conversing so earnestly. It was
not his place to interrupt his betters. The intelligence would keep.
He would make a clean breast of all he suspected to his master in
private.
And his betters had good cause for the earnestness of their talk. When
Mr. Grattan threw up his parliamentary seat, Curran had twitted him
for loss of temper. But now his turn was come. He had spoken out
rashly in the debate, which was still droning on--had distributed
rhetorical slaps in the face, which caused the friends of Government
to wince. Then one, bolder than the rest, interrupted the flow of his
eloquence by saying:
'We're growing warm. Will any gintleman tell us an anecdote to bring
us into a better temper?' And then Curran, flying in a rage, declared
that he was wasting the energies which would serve him better in
another place, and proceeded to abdicate with scorn his seat as
member.
Terence, when he heard of it, doubted the wisdom of the move, and
begged leave to know, as nearly as he might, what the orator had said.
'I charged them openly,' was the simple reply, 'with their corrupt
practices. I charged them with a systematic endeavour to undermine the
constitution in violation of the law of the land. I charged them with
being public malefactors, public criminals. Then I was called to
order, and I repeated the charge even yet more strongly, bawling out:
"Why not expel me now? Why not send me to the bar of the Lords? Going
out, I will repeat the accusation, and the winds shall carry it--that
the ministers are traitors, who should be publicly impeached--and,
advancing to the bar of the Lords, I will repeat it there. If I am to
suffer in the public cause, I will go further than my prosecutors in
virtue as in danger."'
'That wasn't wise, for nothing could come of it but noise,' Terence
said, shaking his head at his old mentor. 'This is the time not for
talk, but action.'
'It may happen,' returned the other gently, 'that the boys of action
may come to need the help of a silver tongue--after all! I know not
for certain how far ye're in it, Terence; and it's best I shouldn't
know. Any way, I'm glad ye're not like your brother, who's a
half-caste in character, more than half Englishman. You, at any rate,
are not ashamed,' he continued slily, 'of going to _tay_ with your
mammy, or of perambulating by the _say_ with a colleen asthore! I wish
ye'd keep clear of this, though.'
'Would you have had me stand by--a _man_--a cold spectator of events?
Would you have me show the white feather now, when so many have been
kidnapped? No--I know you would not,' Terence said, looking in the
little lawyer's eyes (into which the tears started) with a hand placed
on either shoulder.
Curran said nothing for a few moments, then, blowing his nose,
whispered rapidly:
'If there's naught to be gained by noise, my boy, still less will
foolhardiness avail us. Why will you wear that gorgeous scarf of
green? If you are to do man's work, do not act like a baby. There's
only you and Cassidy left now to give directions to the country
delegates. I don't know much, and it's not my business; but I can see
now the tail of the Erin-go-bragh order sparkling within your vest.
Two hands fraternally gripped. How lamentably childish, when so much
may depend on you! Erin's cause will be none the less well served, I
warrant, for fewer gewgaws on the persons of her sons. Too much green
ribbon, Terence! Every man among you sports a green ribbon, and has
some compromising paper in his pocket! Why, here's a roll in yours.
For shame!'
'That's the military plan,' Terence returned, 'which I was to have
shown to-day to our friends. It was a mercy, certainly, that you
detained me here, or else----'
'You would have fallen a sacrifice to overweening prudence! Therein
lies Erin's curse. Her sons are faithful enough, and earnest enough;
but they're all impractical and scatter-brained.'
'Faithful, are they?' echoed Terence, mournfully. 'So many traitors
walk among us, that no one can swear any day whether he's like to
sleep or hang at night!'
'Traitors!' repeated Curran between his teeth, as he turned his head.
'Yes. Traitors galore! There walks the arch-traitor. Lucifer among his
cohorts.'
Lord Clare was coming up the steps towards the lobby of the House of
Commons, surrounded by a bevy of obsequious gentlemen who had rushed
round to the 'Lords' entrance,' in Westmoreland Street, to warn the
chancellor that dreadful things were happening. His hatchet face wore
an evil expression which, melting away, gave place to beaming looks
when he perceived before him his hated enemy.
'Ah! Mr. Curran. Taking the air? You're looking well, Terence,' he
cried in his rasping voice, holding out a hand to each. 'Anything
doing in the Commons? Not much to do, eh? Dull times. Sad--sad times,
my friends! Dangerous, too; very dangerous.'
'You are right there, my lord,' returned the lawyer, curtly. 'Tyrants
should remember that secret murder is the special weapon of the weak
against the strong.'
The chancellor bit his lip, then showed his teeth again. He would not
lose his temper. But it was singularly ill-mannered of this demagogue
to try and make a scene in the public colonnade!
'I have warned you solemnly before, my lord, of what you are doing!'
went on the sturdy little man. 'You play with awkward weapons. Take
care they don't slip and cut you. The Staghouse overflows with guests,
I know. Yet more than one has lately disappeared.'
'Consigned to Moiley?' laughed Lord Clare. 'Well, they weigh, I
suppose, like wise men, the risks of their position against its
advantages. We are quits. For I have warned you too. You'll get
nothing by your present attitude, I do assure you. It is lamentable to
see a clever man so waste his opportunity. I am sure if Terence's
mother was here she would say the same. You believe in her, I think,
though you've always done me the injury to mistrust me.'
Here he gave a friendly nod to Terence, who took no heed of it.
'Would you have me tie my countrymen in bundles?' inquired Curran, 'to
raise myself to wealth and to remorse? The envy of fools--the contempt
of the wise. No! Come what may, I will mourn over and console them;
aye, and rebuke them too when they act against themselves.'
'Which is pretty frequently the case!' returned Lord Clare. 'I assure
you I weep quite as much as you can over my country's misfortunes!'
Mr. Curran waxed peppery, for he hated humbug.
'And yet, my lord,' he sneered, 'your glittering optic is so dry that
the finest gunpowder might be dried on it!'
This was uphill work; but the chancellor still smiled, though a hectic
spot showed upon his cheekbone; for the squireens around were
beginning to hee-haw, and he felt he was playing _le role ridicule_.
'It is a sad thing, when the interests of millions are placed at the
mercy of one man's selfish ambition--or error, if you prefer it--for
what is individual ambition but error?'
'Selfish ambition!' echoed Lord Clare, grandly. 'I have the honour to
be a chosen servant of the King, and as such I humbly strive to do my
duty--nothing more.'
'You owe no allegiance to the land that gave you birth? I tell you, my
lord, here before these gentlemen, that as chancellor you are
betraying those rights which you have sworn to maintain; that you are
involving Government in disgrace--a kingdom in consternation; that
you are sacrificing to your own avarice and vanity every sacred duty,
every solemn engagement which binds you to yourself, your country, and
your God!'
'Mr. Curran!' cried the chancellor, drawing back.
But the little man was not to be stopped now; his blood was up, and
his eyes flashed fire.
'You are too arrogant to learn a lesson from history. Think why the
royal ship of France went down. That of England labours now. "Throw
the people overboard," say you, and such as you, "and ballast with
abuses." Blind pilot! Throw your abuses overboard, say I, and ballast
with your people!'
Lord Clare was getting very much the worst of it. He could not
prematurely broach the question of a Union before all these people. He
scarce knew how to act.
'You are bent on tieing Ireland to England--I can see through you.
What is the price to be?'
'You are forcing a quarrel on me!' stammered the chancellor, who was
scarlet. 'I call these gentlemen to witness that it is so; why, I know
not, for I never injured you!'
'You are stabbing your mother and mine to death! Is that no injury?'
returned the other, sternly crossing his arms. 'If it were possible to
collect the innocent blood which you have shed and are shedding into
one great reservoir, your lordship might have a good long swim in it.
As wicked a game as it is short-sighted. When you guillotine a man you
get rid of an individual, it's true, but you make all his friends and
relations your enemies for ever.'
Things had gone too far to remain as they were. The wily chancellor,
much as he deprecated appearing in open antagonism to the popular
demagogue, was obliged for his own sake--for that of the Government
which he represented--to take up the gauntlet which was tossed to him.
If Lord Glandore, King of Cherokees, had only been present, he would
have had the satisfaction of at last superintending the duel, the
compromise of which, on a previous occasion, had so mortified him.
All agreed that the trifling matter had better be settled off-hand
with as little delay as possible, for the shades of evening were
closing in, and it is a pity that pretty bullet-practice should be
spoiled by darkness. Terence of course offered himself as second to
his ex-chief, while my lord beckoned to our old friend Cassidy, who
happened to come upon the scene, and was only too delighted at the
honour which was thus conferred by a chancellor of Ireland upon one
who, however useful and fascinating, was no better socially than a
'half-mounted.'
Lord Clare proposed an immediate adjournment to Leinster Lawn, where
the affair might be quietly concluded without witnesses; but his
second would not hear of it. No, indeed! It was not often that he
would have the opportunity of showing himself off as best man to so
high a dignitary, and was by no means inclined to hide his light under
a bushel. Stephen's Green was the place, quite close and handy. Among
the trees there was a splendid spot for sport. In his delight he
clapped his brother second on the back, vowing that it would be only
right for them to have a tilt upon their own account!
To this Terence demurred, however, marvelling why the friendly giant
should show such an itching to have a shot at him. That worthy seemed
singularly aggrieved at his offer being refused, but consoled himself
by grumbling:
'I thought you were more game! No mather--when the principals have
done, we might have a turn. I remember when Lord Mountgarret was
winged at the first fire, that his son tuk his place, not to
disappoint the audience. And we all thought it mighty polite and
proper in the gintleman.'