It became known among the passengers on the _Moldavian_, an hour or so
before bedtime on Sunday evening, April 23, 1865, that the lights to
be seen in the larboard distance were really on the Irish coast. The
intelligence ran swiftly through all quarters of the vessel. Its truth
could not be doubted; the man on the bridge said that it truly was
Ireland; and if he had not said so, the ship’s barber had.
Excitement over the news reached its highest point in the steerage,
two-thirds of the inmates of which hung now lovingly upon the port rail
of the forward deck, to gaze with eager eyes at the far-off points of
radiance glowing through the soft northern spring night.
Farther down the rail, from the obscurity of the jostling throng, a
stout male voice sent up the opening bars of the dear familiar song,
“The Cove of Cork.” The ballad trembled upon the air as it progressed,
then broke into something like sobs, and ceased.
“Ah, Barney,” a sympathetic voice cried out, “’tis no longer the Cove;
’tis Queenstown they’re after calling it now. Small wandher the song
won’t listen to itself be sung!”
“But they haven’t taken the Cove away--God bless it!” the other
rejoined, bitterly. “’Tis there, beyant the lights, waitin’ for its
honest name to come back to it when--when things are set right once
more.”
“Is it the Cove you think you see yonder?” queried another, captiously.
“Thim’s the Fastnet and Cape Clear lights. We’re fifty miles and more
from Cork.”
“Thin if ’twas daylight,” croaked an old man between coughs, “we’d
be in sight of The O’Mahony’s castles, or what bloody Cromwell left of
them.”
“It’s mad ye are, Martin,” remonstrated a female voice. “The’re laygues
beyant on Dunmanus Bay. Wasn’t I born mesilf at Durrus?”
“The O’Mahony of Murrisk is on board,” whispered some one else,
“returnin’ to his estates. I had it this day from the cook’s helper. The
quantity of mate that same O’Mahony’s been ’atin’! An’ dhrink, is it?
Faith, there’s no English nobleman could touch him!”
On the saloon deck, aft, the interest excited by these distant lights
was less volubly eager, but it had sufficed to break up the card-games
in the smoking-room, and even to tempt some malingering passengers from
the cabins below. Such talk as passed among the group lounging along
the rail, here in the politer quarter, bore, for the most part, upon the
record of the _Moldavian_ on this and past voyages, as contrasted with
the achievements of other steamships. No one confessed to reverential
sensations in looking at the lights, and no one lamented the change
of name which sixteen years before, had befallen the Cove of Cork;
but there was the liveliest speculation upon the probabilities of the
_Bahama_, which had sailed from New York the same day, having beaten
them into the south harbor of Cape Clear, where, in those exciting war
times, before the cable was laid, every ocean steamer halted long enough
to hurl overboard its rubber-encased budget of American news, to be
scuffled for in the swell by the rival oarsmen of the cape, and borne by
the successful boat to the island, where relays of telegraph clerks
then waited day and night to serve Europe with tidings of the republic’s
fight for life.
This concentration of thought upon steamer runs and records, to the
exclusion of interest in mere Europe, has descended like a mantle upon
the first-cabin passengers of our own later generation. But the voyagers
in the _Moldavian_ had a peculiar warrant for their concern. They had
left America on Saturday, April 15, bearing with them the terrible news
of Lincoln’s assassination in Ford’s Theatre, the previous evening, and
it meant life-long distinction--in one’s own eyes at least--to be the
first to deliver these tidings to an astounded Old World. Eight days’
musing on this chance of greatness had brought them to a point where
they were prepared to learn with equanimity that the rival _Bahama_
had struck a rock outside, somewhere. One of their number, a little
Jew diamond merchant, now made himself quite popular by relating his
personal recollections of the calamity which befel her sister ship, the
_Anglia_, eighteen months ago, when she ran upon Blackrock in Galway
harbor.
One of these first-cabin passengers, standing for a time irresolutely
upon the outskirts of this gossiping group, turned abruptly when the
under-sized Hebrew addressed a part of his narrative to him, and walked
off alone into the shadows of the stern. He went to the very end, and
leaned over the taff-rail, looking down upon the boiling, phosphorescent
foam of the vessel’s wake. He did not care a button about being able to
tell Europe of the murder of Lincoln and Seward--for when they left
the secretary was supposed, also, to have been mortally wounded. His
anxieties were of a wholly different sort.
He, The O’Mahony of Muirisc, was plainly but warmly clad, with a new,
shaggy black overcoat buttoned to the chin, and a black slouch hat drawn
over his eyes. His face was clean shaven, and remarkably free from lines
of care and age about the mouth and nostrils, though the eyes were
set in wrinkles. The upper part of the face was darker and more
weather-beaten, too, than the lower, from which a shrewd observer might
have guessed that until very recently he had always worn a beard.
There were half a dozen shrewd observers on board the _Moldavian_ among
its cabin passengers--men of obvious Irish nationality, whose manner
with one another had a certain effect of furtiveness, and who were
described on the ship’s list by distinctively English names, like
Potter, Cooper and Smith; and they had watched the O’Mahony of Muirisc
very closely during the whole voyage, but none of them had had doubts
about the beard, much less about the man’s identity. In truth, they
looked from day to day for him to give some sign, be it never so
slight, that his errand to Ireland was a political one. They were all
Fenians--among the advance guard of that host of Irishmen who returned
from exile at the close of the American War--and they took it for
granted that the solitary and silent O’Mahony was a member of the
Brotherhood. The more taciturn he grew, the more he held aloof, the
firmer became their conviction that his rank in the society was exalted
and his mission important. The very fact that he would not be drawn into
conversation and avoided their company was proof conclusive. They left
him alone, but watched him with lynx-like scrutiny.
The O’Mahony had been conscious of this ceaseless observation, and he
mused upon it now as he watched the white whirl of churned waters below.
The time was close at hand when he should know whether it had meant
anything or not; there was comfort in that, at all events. He was less
a coward than any other man he knew, but, all the same, this unending
espionage had worn upon his nerve. Doubtless, that was in part because
sea-voyaging was a novelty to him. He had not been ill for a moment.
In fact, he could not remember to have ever eaten and drunk more in
any eight days of his life. If it had not been for the confounded
watchfulness of the Irishmen, he would have enjoyed the whole experience
immensely. But it was evident that they were all in collusion--“in
cahoots,” he phrased it in his mind--and had a common interest in noting
all his movements. What could it mean? Strange as it may seem, The
O’Mahony had never so much as heard of the Fenian Brotherhood.
He rose from his lounging meditation presently, and sauntered forward
again along the port deck. The lights from the coast were growing more
distinct in the distance, and, as he paused to look, he fancied he could
discern a dark line of shore below them.
“I suppose your ancistral estates are lyin’ further west, sir,” spoke
a voice at his side. The O’Mahony cast a swift half-glance around, and
recognized one of the suspected spies.
“Yes, a good deal west,” he growled, curtly.
The other took no offense.
“Sure,” he went on, pleasantly, “the O’Mahonys and the O’Driscolls, not
to mintion the McCarthys, chased each other around that counthry yonder
at such a divil of a pace it’s hard tellin’ now which belonged to who.”
“Yes, we did hustle round considerable,” assented The O’Mahony, with
frigidity.
“You’re manny years away from Ireland, sir?” pursued the man.
“Why?”
“I notice you say ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ It takes a long absence to tache an
Irishman that.”
“I’ve been away nearly all my life,” said The O’Mahony, sharply--“ever
since I was a little boy and turning on his heel, he walked to the
companionway and disappeared down the stairs.
“Faith, I’m bettin’ it’s the gineral himself!” said the other, looking
after him.
*****
To have one’s waking vision greeted, on a soft, warm April morning, by
the sight of the Head of Kinsale in the sunlight--with the dark rocks
capped in tenderest verdure and washed below by milkwhite breakers;
with the smooth water mirroring the blue of the sky upon its bosom, yet
revealing as well the marbled greens of its own crystalline depths;
with the balmy scents of fresh blossoms meeting and mingling in the
languorous air of the Gulf Stream’s bringing--can there be a fairer
finish to any voyage over the waters of the whole terrestrial ball!
The O’Mahony had been up on deck before any of his fellow-passengers,
scanning the novel details of the scene before him. The vessel barely
kept itself in motion through the calm waters. The soft land breeze just
availed to turn the black column of smoke rising from the funnel into
a sort of carboniferous leaning tower. The pilot had been taken on
the previous evening. They waited now for the tug, which could be seen
passing Roche’s Point with a prodigious spluttering and splashing of
side-paddles. Before its arrival, the _Moldavian_ lay at rest within
full view of the wonderful harbor--her deck thronged with passengers
dressed now in fine shore apparel and bearing bags and rugs, who bade
each other good-bye with an enthusiasm which nobody believed in, and
edged along as near as possible where the gang-plank would be.
The O’Mahony walked alone down the plank, rebuffing the porters who
sought to relieve him of his heavy bags. He stood alone at the prow
of the tug, as it waddled and puffed on its rolling way back again,
watching the superb amphitheatre of terraced stone houses, walls, groves
and gardens toward which he had voyaged these nine long days, with an
anxious, almost gloomy face. The Fenians, still closely observing him,
grew nervous with fear that this depression forboded a discovery of
contra-brand arms in his baggage.
But no scandal arose. The custom officers searched fruitlessly through
the long platforms covered with luggage, with a half perfunctory and
wholly whimsical air, as if they knew perfectly well that the revolvers
they pretended to be looking for were really in the pockets of the
passengers. Then other good-byes, distinctly less enthusiastic,
were exchanged, and the last bonds of comradeship which life on the
_Moldavian_ had enforced snapped lightly as the gates were opened.
Everybody else seemed to know where to go. The O’Mahony stood for so
long a time just outside the gates, with his two big valises at his feet
and helpless hesitation written all over his face, that even some of
the swarm of beggars surrounding him could not wait any longer, and went
away giving him up. To the importunities of the others, who buzzed about
him like blue-bottles on a sunny window-pane, he paid no heed; but he
finally beckoned to the driver of the solitary remaining outside car,
who had been flicking his broker, whip invitingly at him, and who now
turned his vehicle abruptly round and drove it, with wild shouts
of factitious warning, straight through the group of mendicants,
overbearing their loud cries of remonstrance with his superior voice,
and cracking his whip like mad. He drew up in front of the bags with
the air of a lord mayor’s coachman, and took off his shapeless hat in
salutation.
“I want to go to the law office of White & Carmody,” The O’Mahony said,
brusquely.
[Illustration: 0055]
“Right, your honor,” the carman answered, dismounting and lifting the
luggage to the well of the car, and then officiously helping his patron
to mount to his sidelong seat. He sprang up on the other side, screamed
“Now thin, Maggie!” to his poor old horse, flipped his whip derisively
at the beggars, and started off at a little dog-trot, clucking loudly as
he went.
He drove through all the long ascending streets of Queenstown at this
shambling pace, traversing each time the whole length of the town, until
finally they gained the terraced pleasure-road at the top. Here the
driver drew rein, and waved his whip to indicate the splendid scope
of the view below--the gray roof of the houses embowered in trees, the
river’s crowded shipping, the castellated shore opposite, the broad,
island-dotted harbor beyond.
“L’uk there, now!” he said, proudly. “Have yez annything like that in
Ameriky?”
The O’Mahony cast only an indifferent glance upon the prospect,
“Yes--but where’s White & Carmody’s office?” he asked. “That’s what I
want.”
“Right, your honor,” was the reply; and with renewed clucking and
cracking of the dismantled whip, the journey was resumed. That is to
say, they wound their way back again down the hill, through all the
streets, until at last the car stopped in front of the Queen’s Hotel.
“Is it thrue what they tell me, sir, that the Prisidint is murdhered?”
the jarvey asked, as they came to a halt.
“Yes--but where the devil is that law-office?”
“Sure, your honor, there’s no such names here at all,” the carman
replied, pleasantly. “Here’s the hotel where gintleman stop, an’ I’ve
shown ye the view from the top, an’ it’s plased I am ye had such a clear
day for it--and wud ye like to see Smith-Barry’s place, after lunch?”
The stranger turned round on his seat to the better comment upon this
amazing impudence, beginning a question harsh of purpose and profane in
form.
Then the spectacle of the ragged driver’s placidly amiable face and
roguish eye; of the funny old horse, like nothing so much in all the
world as an ancient hair-trunk with legs at the corners, yet which
was driven with the noise and ostentation of a six-horse team; of the
harness tied up with ropes; the tumble-down car; the broken whip; the
beggars--all this, by a happy chance, suddenly struck The O’Mahony in a
humorous light. Even as his angered words were on the air he smiled in
spite of himself. It was a gaunt, reluctant smile, the merest curling
of the lips at their corners; but it sufficed in a twinkling to surround
him with beaming faces. He laughed aloud at this, and on the instant
driver and beggars were convulsed with merriment.
The O’Mahony jumped off the car.
“I’ll run into the hotel and find out where I want to go,” he said.
“Wait here.”
Two minutes passed.
“These lawyers live in Cork,” he explained on his return. “It seems this
is only Queenstown. I want you to go to Cork with me.”
“Right, your honor,” said the driver, snapping his whip in preparation.
“But I don’t want to drive; it’s too much like a funeral. We ain’t
a-buryin’ anybody.”
“Is it Maggie your honor manes? Sure, there’s no finer quality of a mare
in County Cork, if she only gets dacent encouragement.”
“Yes; but we ain’t got time to encourage her. Go and put her out, and
hustle back here as quick as you can. I’ll pay you a good day’s wages.
Hurry, now; we’ll go by train.”
The O’Mahony distributed small silver among the beggars the while he
waited in front of the hotel.
“That laugh was worth a hundred dollars to me,” he said, more to himself
than to the beggars. “I hain’t laughed before since Linsky spilt the
molasses over his head.”