'Is this quite irrevocable? The house will be so dull without you.'
'I would stay if you really wished it,' blurted out the inflammable youth, pinching a cold nose till the dog--its owner--broke away howling. 'You know there is nothing I would not do to please you, Doreen!'
'Is there not?' she returned, with a ring of bitterness, for she was too straightforward to feel aught but impatience for idle protestations. 'To please me, would you give up all for Erin, as Theobald has done? No--you would not. A fine-weather sailor, Terence!Yougive up anything, who have all your life been lapped in luxury--and why should you? Thanks to Mr. Curran, the legal ball is at your foot, and you only need to work to become rich and happy. But I shall be sorry to miss your bright face, for all that.'
A second flash, as of a burn in sunlight, carried the lad beyond his usual prudence. With disconcerting suddenness he seized her hand and brought his flushed cheek close to hers.
'Doreen!' he gasped. 'If you will love me and be my wife, I will do anything and bear anything. You've only to direct. I'm poor I know, but I will work, for I am capable of better things if I have an object.'
But Miss Wolfe, though far from a coquette, was gifted with presence of mind. Her intention had been not to provoke an untoward declaration such as would exasperate her aunt, and, possibly, Lord Glandore; but to use this impulsive swain as a bulwark of protection against the assaults of my lady. Perchance, under the circumstances, it was better that he should depart for a few months to cool his too explosive ardour. It would not do to encourage, nor yet to quarrel with him. She escaped from him therefore, holding up her pretty hands, and said demurely:
'Of course, if Mr. Curran really wishes it, you had better obey. It is a long ride for you every morning from the Abbey to the Four-courts.'
The Priory, on the other side of Dublin, was about the same distance from the Four-courts, Terence thought with anger. The girl was playing with him, as she always did.
'I hope Sara will make you comfortable,' she went on. 'No doubt she will, she is so sweet a girl. Then we shall meet at Castle balls, and you shall lead me out for a rigadoon like a mere stranger. That will be funny, will it not? You don't mean what you say one bit, and it is a relief to me to know that it is all flummery--you silly, hot-pated, blarneying Pat! Come along. We will go and eat our breakfast and be thankful that we have one to eat, instead of talking nonsense. That is all that you or I are fit for, I am afraid! For it is not such as you nor I who are destined to save poor Ireland!'
A year went by, and Terence was still away from home, an inmate of the Priory; settled down, much against his will, as a sober councillor, principal assistant to Mr. Curran, the continually rising advocate. Sober is scarcely the fitting epithet, for conviviality was the besetting sin of all classes of Irish in the eighteenth century, and it was notorious that legal gentlemen, from Judge Clonmel to the meanest attorney, were constantly in the habit of going drunk to roost. Where lawyers led, Dublin was fain to follow, for the Bar took the lead in the society of the metropolis, occupying a strong middle position of its own between 'gentlemen to the backbone' and 'half-mounted' ditto, from, which it dictated to both. As the policy of ministers grew more and more unpopular, it became more and more urgent that Government patronage should be expended in purchasing support for the measures under which the country groaned; and where could support be more easily found than among the exponents of forensic wisdom?
Successfully to do battle with Flood and Grattan it was necessary to scrape together as much intellect as was available, and so every promising barrister became certain of a seat in parliament if he would furbish up his brains for the Viceroy's benefit. This gave to the lawyers a prestige which drew sons of peers within their ranks, and they assumed superior airs, which no man challenged, in that their profession was a nursery to the senate--a step-ladder to the highest honours. Younger sons of noble houses invariably lean towards the middle class, because a wide difference of income divides them in feeling and ways of thought from their elder brothers. Such lordlings as possessed a competence chose to while away their hours elegantly in gowns and bands. And so the Bar became the fashion, the lawyers being credited with such attributes as they thought proper to adopt, and being permitted to wield an arbitrary sway which was beneficial and mirth-inspiring. They assumed the right of mind over matter, and people bowed the knee without inquiry, for they were pre-eminently jolly dogs who made life the merrier, whose scraps of legal lore sounded mightily sonorous to ignorant ears, and who, if one was rash enough to presume to dispute their law, were always ready to take refuge behind the inevitable pistol. But human nature at its best is frail, and even lawyers are not always pure. When came the tug of war--when the Four-courts were closed and courts-martial juggled away men's lives--the councillors prated no more of their incorruptible virtue, but donned the uniform as others did, and truckled, with a few bright exceptions, as meanly as the rest.
But we are now in 1796, when King Claret ruled the roast; when all were besotted with drink, from Clonmel who gave sentence with a drop in his eye, to the beggar in the dock who starved his stomach to buy a drain of spirits; when out of the six thousand houses which formed Dublin, thirteen hundred were occupied as boozing-kens; when guests were deprived of their shoes by a host who understood hospitality, and broken glass was sprinkled in the passages to prevent a man from jibbing at his liquor.
Mr. Curran's fears were being realised in this year of '96, for the criminal business to which he had turned his attention was increasing on his hands through the swelling torrent of treasonable charges. My Lord Clare's policy was bearing its full crop of evils, for he had succeeded in moulding the too plastic Viceroy into the shape that suited him, according to the plan laid down by Mr. Pitt. Lord Camden, whilst meaning to do well, was repeatedly led astray, as many a better man has been before him. To Clare he was a docile cat. He submitted to the secret council of Lords--that mysterious wehmgericht--who were urged by the chancellor to the most violent proceedings, and became unconsciously a scapegoat for the bearing of the sins of others.
Under skilful manipulation the Society of United Irishmen flourished prodigiously. Tom Emmett and Neilson were kept in prison, where they languished without trial. Others were let out and caged again as occasion required, that they might inflame their fellows with a catalogue of dread experiences. Midnight meetings resulted, wherein orators declaimed of the wickedness of the perfidious one, and summoned all true patriots to take the fatal oath. The decision which had been come to on the disastrous night in Trinity was carried out to the letter, and was much assisted in its fulfilmeut by the harsh treatment of the chiefs. The military system was engrafted on the civil.
Faithful to his promise, Cassidy rode to Belfast, delivered Emmett's order to the delegates there, and then with commendable prudence subsided into the background. The provincial committee spread out its arms, from which new ones were speedily engendered, and passed resolutions of grave import, while England stifled her merriment. Civil officers were to wear military titles. A secretary over twelve was to become a petty officer with gewgaws on his coat; a delegate over five of these, a captain, with more gewgaws; a superior over five captains, a colonel with a plume; mighty fine! The colonels of each county were to send three names to the central directory, from which one was to be chosen adjutant-general of his county to deal directly with the capital. And thus a national army was forming in the dark, just as the Volunteer army had sprung up in the daylight, with the important difference that by this time England had cured her wounds and regained her pristine strength.
I protest that this linen-draper-medley masquerading in galoon would be laughable, were it not so sad a spectacle. But who shall dare to laugh at honest men, whose delusions are nursed and played upon instead of being tenderly swept away? Curran's sympathies were with the reformers, but not his judgment; and he became a sort of link between two parties. His position as a lawyer gave him theentréeto the best houses, whilst his homely habits and untidy dress caused the lower orders to look on him as one of themselves. Between the rival parties he shillyshallied with a weakness which his character belied, grumbling at the patriots for their imprudence, growling at the sins of Government, very uncomfortable in his mind, and of no use so far to either of the opposing factions.
As the members of the society committed themselves more deeply, Lord Clare became more gay. He hinted to the half-mounted gentry that if they liked it they might volunteer as active agents against the misguided youths who were preparing to turn Ireland topsy-turvy. Nothing could please the squireens better than this tacit permission to give vent to their worst passions. Brutal, cruel, sycophantic (as ignorant and depraved natures are), they began to band themselves in regiments, with nobles for superior officers, and to commit outrages on those below them, pretty certain that they would be indemnified for any atrocity they might commit.L'appétit vient en mangeant. The peasant, ground down and wretched to the level of the serf of Elizabeth, howled out that Justice was indeed fled, and hearkened with ravenous avidity to the voice of the charmer who sang of French ships in the offing, and a proximate term to misery. Drilling went on under cover of night, and the practice of the pike, since gunpowder could not be purchased; and the shibboleth anent the bough which was to be planted in England's crown might be heard a hundred times in whispers on every market-day.
But, misery or no misery, folks must eat and drink, and the Hibernian nature--as quick to resent as to forgive, as vehement as indiscreet--is given to extremes, from sadness to mirth and back again.
Mr. Curran, though his heart was sore, was fond of dainty viands, and beguiled himself, as others did, with the pleasures of the table; striving to drown, with a clatter of knives and forks, the din of approaching tempest. His board was ever sumptuously garnished, his claret of the best, his welcome of the warmest, and few who were bidden to partake of it ever declined his hospitality.
Timid Arthur Wolfe, who was growing more cautious every day, and doing his best to serve two masters for his daughter's sake, implored his friend to take example by himself, demonstrating in the clearest way that the history of my Lord Clare was becoming the history of all Ireland, and that a man with a child's future in his hands has no right to run a-muck. He had found out that the chancellor had endeavoured to buy Curran, and failing ignominiously in that attempt, was trying to undermine his business. Why be for ever snarling at Lord Clare? It would be the old story of the pipkin and the iron pot. To which arguments Curran answered, laughing:
'Is it I that's the frog, and he the bull? Maybe it'll turn out t'other way. I'm mad, no doubt, to set my small pebble to stop his chariot, but many a trivial thing has proved the factor in a great catastrophe, and I'll even insert my pebble. Fudge, Arthur! I'm too popular, and my life's too open for even Lord Clare to wreak his vengeance on me.'
Then Arthur Wolfe persisted, entreating that at least he would avoid the charge of holding seditious meetings at his house. The weekly dinners at the Priory were jovial, he admitted, beyond compare. The cup went round as merrily as if Erin were a buxom wench, dimpled, and well-to-do--but there could be no denying that those who drank of it were marked men mostly, who knew the inside of Newgate as well as the Priory parlour, and these were ticklish times for political flirtation. What would befall Sara, honest Arthur pleaded, if an accident were to befall the councillor? So delicate a blossom would shrivel under the first frostnipping. On her father's head must rest the consequence if misfortune crushed his child.
At mention of Sara Mr. Curran would become exceedingly perplexed, torn by two apparently incompatible duties, as he reflected on his pale primrose. How wonderful are the decrees of Fate! Why are beings, abnormally sensitive and delicate--whose fibres are liable to injury by the most careful handling--pitchforked into a world of stones for the express purpose of being bruised? Sara's nature was one which needed sun and flowers, hourly solicitude and broidered blanketing, yet here was she cast upon a rocky coast, battered by cold winds, which threatened to become each day more easterly! Was she sent to earth merely to bear pain, to linger for a space in more or less protracted agony, and then to die? Possibly. It is a cruel creed to accept, but the experience of the world we live in forces it upon us. Perchance we shall learn to see a reason for it later on.
The crash was coming, as none perceived more clearly than Mr. Curran. Might anything avert it? Nothing. What would happen to cherished ones in the throes of the hurricane? But how bootless was such self-communing!Fais ce que devra!Mr. Curran was determined not to shrink from duty to the soil which gave him birth. Though the days of Roman virtue were overpast, he would sacrifice his heart's treasure on the altar if need were, trusting to God's mercy for the rest; and it was the kernel of his project to keep watch over the society--with it in the spirit, but not of it in the body. He was wont to say with pride that he had never wittingly snubbed any man who was in earnest. Self-willed himself, he respected those who strove to make themselves, and respected men doubly if their aspirations were unselfish. He said to himself that the motives of this small self-sacrificing band were pure where all else was foul; that though for their own sakes he dared not espouse their tenets openly, yet it would be a coward's act to deprive them of his countenance and advice because they walked in danger. So he shook his head at time-serving Arthur Wolfe, and went his independent way, and waited for his chosen guests each Wednesday afternoon, caring no fig for Lord Clare's menaces, sorry only that he continued to exist.
He stood straddle-legged at the hour of five on a reception-day, among the dishevelled laurestinus bushes, which he was pleased to call his avenue, swinging his portly watch by its ribbon--as his way was when guests were late. The Priory was a snug abode, if not endowed with beauty; but then the works of man in Ireland are seldom in beautiful accordance with the handiwork of God. It was a frightful ungainly villa erected in the hideous style of Irish suburban architecture, with attenuated slits of windows and tall consumptive doors set half-way up in a bald waste of rough whitewashed wall. The usual alpine stair led to the entrance; arranged, as it appeared, for the purpose of setting an honoured guest on a glorious pinnacle of observation, till slipshod Kathy could hitch up her draggled skirts to let him in.
From the parlour window might be admired a prospect of barn, dunghill, dovecote, horsepond, piggery, which offered to the nose in summer a bouquet of varied sweets; while the usual yard or two of road swept round the usual dark circular grassplot with a mouldy rhododendron in the centre of it. The orchard behind was christened by its owner his pistol-gallery, but it was at the same time a forum; for there might Mr. Curran frequently be seen of a morning, declaiming with Demosthenic energy, whilst he lodged bullets at intervals in the bark of special trees.
The odour of savoury viands assailed his nostrils as he stood statue-like on the pinnacle and whirled his watch, for he hated unpunctuality above all things. His beetle-brows were knit, his lower lip protruded, and he wondered whether any of his guests had been arrested. That was naturally his first fear, and he wagged his head with gloom at some ducks that quacked in a neighbouring puddle as he surveyed the lugubrious possibility.
'Idiots!' he moralised. 'Pictures of ourselves, who dream of dinner as though sorrow could not wake. Alas! Fate is common and the future is unseen, as the Arab proverb has it. You rejoice in the balmy showers, do you?--not knowing, in your crass ignorance, that they will make the peas grow! And here are we, as foolish as you, going in for a jollification, as though a few months might not bring grief to all of us! Ahem! It is well that we are a careless nation, or every Irishman would cut his throat before he grew to manhood.'
Terence, who was drawing corks as if catering for an army, laughed aloud, for he at least showed no signs of brooding melancholy; being prepared rather to take life as he found it, and enjoy it too, for his bright brave nature endeared him to all, and he was himself too frank to believe in the pervading blackness of the human heart. As Doreen pictured, he had attended the Castle balls during the winter, and had led out his cousin for a turn of passepied or rigadoon without much sighing; had dutifully called on his mother when Shane was safe away, and had spent the rest of his time yawning over briefs for the behoof of Mr. Curran.
These briefs caused little disputes sometimes between the two, which it became Sara's duty to smooth away--for Terence was wofully idle and abhorred his work, being wont to declare that intellectual labour was one thing, and unintellectual drudgery another, till his chief waxed exceeding wroth, and asserted that idleness led to mischief. Sometimes there appeared a flickering flame of ambition in him, which Curran tried hard to foster; but before he had time to fan it, Terence would cry, 'Oh, bother?' and, flinging the brief into the garden, go forth to fish with Phil. No one could be angry with him long. Idleness seems to suit some natures, which appear moulded for the enjoyment of other people's labour.
In the ways of the world Terence was an infant; in the balance of right and wrong inclined to be unsteady from sheer indolence of brain. His bubbling, brawling flow of spirits deceived casual observers, who set him down as frivolous, impelled by the lightest breeze. Doreen, whose experience was limited, thought him so with a feeling of affection, in which contempt was mingled; but Curran knew better. He knew that many a sensitive man wilfully assumes a disparaging exterior to mask his holy of holies even from himself. He knew that few among us ever quite know ourselves; but wake up sometimes in the decline of life to discover new virtues or new vices, of whose existence we were quite unconscious; that we come to know our own characters by flashes, just as we learn those of our nearest and dearest friends.
Terence was a general favourite; a hearty devil-may-care young fellow, with a good digestion and few individual troubles, and was looked upon with awe by gentle little Sara, as he helped in her household cares. Indeed, Mr. Curran was justified in being cross this day, for the repast was ready, if the guests were not. Veal, turkey, ham--all piping hot--smoked in their respective dishes. Powldoody oysters smiled as a centre-piece, flanked by speckled trout, caught but an hour ago by Terence's servant Phil. Rows of wine-bottles garnished the parlour wainscoting; the trim little hostess was squeezing lemons into a jug on the hearthstone, with a view to prospective punch. He spun his watch faster and faster as moments waned, more and more certain that something untoward must have happened, and was no little relieved by the sound of horses' feet, and the sight of his party approaching.
'Hooroo, boys!' he cried cheerily, shaking off his gloom. 'Ye're late, but no mather; ye're welcome, and shall carry home what ye like with ye, rather than an appetite.'
Sara had a becoming blush ready for her undergraduate, as he approached to kiss her hand. She looked shyly in his eyes, and marked with uneasiness that they were growing very dreamy, while an habitual contraction fretted his forehead, which she knew came from distress about his brother. She knew--for sometimes she took entrancing walks with him--that his temper was becoming soured and his spirit chafed, in that Tom languished on in prison without trial. Was not such injustice outrageous? The charges against him were grave, no doubt; that bit of paper which blundering Cassidy had failed to swallow was compromising in a high degree; but then others quite as much compromised were let off long since with a fine, whilst Tom remained untried. Any trial--before a jury however packed--would be better than such lingering suspense. If the worst came to the worst, the crown of martyrdom, which would go with conviction, would be some small comfort; but to have lain rotting in a gaol for a year, to be immured without a term till well-nigh forgotten, was like the death of a rat in a hole; and as ardent young Robert thought of it, his constitutional dread of bloodshed almost went from him. Seeing what he was forced to see, he regretted his oath in nowise.
Among many enthusiasts few were so enthusiastic as this boy--few looked so hopefully for news of Tone and of his doings in France. The newspaper of his imprisoned brother had somehow revived, though the guiding hand was shackled, and wonderful articles appeared in its pages which might well have brought down, for the second time, the chancellor's vengeful claw on it. But such rash ebullitions of an imprudent ardour were just what Lord Clare required. Nobody knew who edited Tom's journal now (possibly many had a finger in it). It certainly was not Robert, for he was but eighteen and a student still of Trinity; but that he helped and gambolled on the chasm's verge, his friends did know, and remonstrated with him more than once.
Curran was constantly lecturing him, but without effect, for the froward boy only bade him attend to his own affairs; suggested that if he wanted to save somebody from the vortex he had better look after his own future son-in-law, and this made Curran angry. Yes; this was one of the things which had resulted from Terence's leaving home. Busybodies had winked and nodded, declaring that the little lawyer was wise in his generation; that, having feathered his nest, he might do worse for Sara than introduce her into the peerage with a plump dowry. If a trifle reckless he was shrewd, they said; for whilst dallying with the United Irishmen he had taken care to drag along with him the brother of a great lord, who could not well interfere on behalf of a near kinsman without also throwing the ægis of his rank over another who ran in couples with him. The busybodies talked nonsense, as they generally do. Mr. Curran had no views as yet with regard to Sara, and required the protection of no aristocratic ægis. His reputation had risen so high during the last twelve months by reason of the splendid bravery with which he had defended the foes of established government, that neither Pitt nor Clare dared at this moment to touch the champion. His place at the Bar was so unique that there was no man, not merely next, but near him. Other advocates were to him as the stars to the sunbeam. In court he was at once persuasive, eloquent, acute, argumentative; striking with cunning hand the chord of pity, then (for he knew his audience) checking the rising tear with laughter. As a cross-examiner he was unrivalled. Let truth and falsehood be ever so intricately dovetailed, he could part them with a touch. Swiftly he would place his finger on a vital point, untwist a tangle and involve perjury in the confusion of its contradictions. So long as he retained his purity, it would never do to assail this Galahad. All were aware of that, and so he needed no help from a great lord.
Yet many wondered whether he might be secretly afraid of being ensnared; whether, foreseeing the struggle that was imminent, he might not deem it prudent to prepare a sure method of escape. The children of darkness have more ways of circumventing the children of light than it is at all pleasant for you and me (who of course belong to the latter category) to reflect upon. He was ill-judged, possibly, in throwing a young man like Terence into too close contact with the would-be reformers. But then was not that youth already a friend of the Emmetts and of Tone? Was not his innate laziness a bulwark of defence? Was he not in the habit of defending Lord Clare, and of pointing out that party-spirit embitters people to the point of shameful slander? As yet he declined to admit that the chancellor had horns and hoofs.
Although he scorned the worldly-wise advice of Arthur Wolfe, Mr. Curran was careful, when he could, to check open expressions of sedition at his table. On this very day he found it necessary several times to change the current of talk before the cloth was removed, when Sara, nodding pleasantly to Terence and to her undergraduate, rose and withdrew to her chamber.
But there was a special reason on this particular day for an extra amount of wrath on the part of the young men, his guests, which did not fail to produce its answering growl from their host. That fresh arbitrary arrests should have taken place surprised him not at all--such proceedings were of daily occurrence. That Sirr, the town-major, should be enlarging his paid army of false-witnesses, who were becoming notorious as 'the band of testimony,' was also, alas, no new thing. That a man's life could be sworn away by one witness who had never seen him before was an awful fact; but then he, Mr. Curran, was at hand to protest, and the recognised forms of law still permitted an accused sometimes to baffle the paid malice of the informer.
It was an open question, all admitted, how far a government might go in espionage. In moments of peril to the public weal it is certain that ministers must draw their information from any quarter, however foul; but to offer a premium to rascality is surely criminal. To gain information of facts from detectives is quite a different matter from the employment of secret agents to tempt people into sin and then hound them down. Robert Emmett brought news with him this day that seemed to foreshadow a change of tactics on the part of the executive--ominous news the discussion of which had made the party late upon the road, and which caused the young men, so soon as their hostess had retired, to abandon social gossip for more grave communion.
'Friends,' Robert said, 'they intend to exasperate us. There can be no more doubt about it, though I am in the dark as to their motives. Please God, Theobald's mission will be accomplished ere 'tis too late; the French will come to our succour before we are goaded to despair.'
Cassidy, who had such a blundering tendency to do the wrong thing in the wrong place, here broke out into a new ditty which was beginning to be popular, trolling forth in his mellow voice:
'The French are on the say, says the Shan van Vocht;And will be here without delay, says the Shan van Vocht;'
'The French are on the say, says the Shan van Vocht;And will be here without delay, says the Shan van Vocht;'
but he was sternly bidden to fill his glass and pass the round-bottomed bottle without making himself noisily objectionable; and, whatever other peccadillo he might think proper to commit, above all things to drink fair.
'Major Sirr's banditti,' the undergraduate went on, so soon as the bottle, being empty, could be laid down, 'have taken on them a new function. They arrogate to themselves now a right of paying domiciliary visits without search-warrants, of forcing open a person's door whensoever the outrage may suit their whim. A year ago they wormed their way into Trinity, and by an accident we were unable to rouse the college.'
'Arrah, thin,' grumbled Cassidy, 'will ye always be pitching my big shoulder sand empty head in my teeth? I was sorry for my awkwardness, and that's enough.'
'But at that time they were right to take us, if they could; for in truth we were conspiring--a red-letter day in my memory, the day I took the oath! Hearken to this, all of you! You know Tim Flanagan, of Ormond's Quay, whose lady--God rest her soul!--was brought to bed a week ago? She died, so did the child, last night; and Tim, gone wild with sorrow, threw himself on the floor beside the corpse, refusing to be comforted. There came a knocking at his warehouse entry; it was barred, and the men away. His sister, from a window, desired to know what was wanted. Sirr answered that he was come to search the house--for what, in the Lord's name? Gunpowder cannot be bought. The sister offered money if they would respect their grief, but not enough. In the warehouses nothing compromising was found, of course. The room where the corpse lay was to be searched also. They battered in the door of the guarded chamber, but recoiled in a fright, for Tim stood with a threatening glare of madness beside his young wife, a knife clutched in his right hand. They fled, these myrmidons who disregarded an agony of soul which a savage would respect; and Tim knelt down there and then, with his appalled sister, swearing, on the blue lips of her who was gone before, an eternal enmity against the Castle tyrants.'
There was a long silence, during which Curran hung his head, while the brow of his junior darkened, and honest Phil, his goggle-eyed henchman, poured claret in his master's lap instead of into his glass.
'It is horrible!' sighed Cassidy, and swore a string of oaths. 'Tim Flanagan had fought shy of the society,' he shouted, 'but now would surely join it. His was but one case out of many. The wickedness of those in power would surely drive all Ireland to take the oath, and then the sons of the soil would rise as one man and hunt the tyrants into the Channel.'
Mr. Curran shook his rough head.
'They are working for a purpose, as Robert says,' he remarked; 'a wicked purpose, which aims at our eternal slavery. Instead of sowing seeds of wholesome trees, beneath which our children may seek shelter, they cherish poisonous roots, with the intent to squat like witches in a plantation of nightshade. You will never hunt them into the Channel. Do you know that they are flooding the island with troops--disciplined troops, who will part your ill-trained myriads like water? I see their aim, though they would fain hide it till the fruit is ripe. They will goad us by insidious outrage to despair, then stamp on us with an overwhelming force, and, when we are faint and bleeding, will tie us, gagged and chained, to the car of England for evermore.'
'What do you mean?' Terence inquired sternly.
'I mean,' responded his chief, 'that when we are ground into the dust, they will sweep us from the list of nations. Cobwebs will gather round the locks of our senate-house; our exchange will be silent as the tomb, our docks empty, our quays deserted. England will swallow us body and soul; will devour our liberty, and with it our existence.'
'Never!' bawled impetuous Cassidy. 'We will die first, if it's thrue what he says, and he's more wise than I. We are men, aren't we, who can die but once? Shall we lie down to be whipped, like dancing-dogs? There's no going back, except for cowards, boys! All must fall in, or be disgraced. What say you, Master Crosbie, will you sit by and see Ould Erin sold?'
The excitement of this bellowing athlete was contagious.
'If I believed that there was one tittle of truth in the suspicions of my old friend, I'd take the oath to-morrow,' cried Terence, with a slap upon the table. 'But he exaggerates.'
'Do I?' growled Curran. 'I say that they mean to unite Ireland to England, and that their present operations are tending to that end; and I also affirm that, whether you take the oath or whether you do not, that important ceremony will have no effect whatever on the end--you coxcomb!'
'Be their intentions what they may, there is no going back now,' echoed young Robert, sipping his claret dreamily. 'All who have a real stake in the country must see that. Is not our first stake our national honour? and how may we bow our necks beneath the Saxon's heel without eternal shame? The truculent, bloody Saxon! who has left his track like a livid welt across our land, in altars polluted and laid low, pledges made and broken, a long trail of lust and rapine and crime.'
A faint smile flitted over Cassidy's features, for this was the turgid eloquence of the mysterious newspaper whose editor was in Newgate.
'Boy, you chatter balderdash,' Curran snapped shortly; 'such balderdash as the ignorant drink too eagerly for truth. Oh for a little ballast to keep us steady! An Irishman, when not stranded on the Scylla of indolence, is certain to flounder headforemost on the Charybdis of enthusiasm; and, of the two dangers, the latter is generally the worst.'
'Deed, it's thrue what ye say, councillor dear,' Cassidy murmured, in a coaxing tone. 'But sure, though you rail at us, you would not stand by neither, any more nor this young gintleman? We know well enough your heart is with us.'
'You are no better than baaing sheep following one another into the shambles,' answered the host testily, for he was taken aback by this open assault upon himself and Terence. 'Your ill-digested plans must fail.'
'Fail!' echoed Robert and Cassidy together. 'Why,' continued the former, forgetting his horror of bloodshed, 'when the time comes we shall count upon a hundred thousand men. I know it by the returns sent in to the Directory.'
'On paper.'
'And the French will be here in force--the veterans of the Republic.'
'The French, the French!' growled Curran. 'Say that they land and beat the armies of King George, which I much doubt; will they not soon weary of a precarious possession, and, carrying you to market in some treaty of peace, barter you away to be well scourged? I vow I have no patience with you, grieved though I be for the humble order of the people, who from lack of education are easily deluded. Depend upon it, your acts are all known in London. By the time you are ready, the towns will seethe with British troops. I tremble to think of the result.'
'Would ye have us turn the cheek like good Christians, then?' jeered the giant, who, under influence of wine, was becoming warm. 'Are the sons of the ancient kings meekly to become galley-slaves?'
'What would I have ye do?' retorted the host, who perceived with wrath that he was being driven into a corner. 'I'd have ye keep a civil tongue, and talk no treason till ye're outside my privet-hedge. If ye do not, I'll report what's been said to Clare; I will, upon my honour, to save ye from worse folly.'
The sturdy little man looked as if he were quite capable of carrying out his threat. If he were to disclose all he knew of them, it would be terrible indeed.
Cassidy, the claret mounting to his muddled brain, seized a decanter with the laudable intention of belabouring his host with it.
'A traitor!' he muttered fiercely. 'That's the lowest beast that crawls. If ye spake ere a word of us, I'll pistol ye in the street!'
The lawyer looked calmly up at the menacing giant and laughed. 'Put it down, big baby,' he said. 'You dare to think me half-hearted because I won't take a pike and try to knock down St. Patrick's. Does any man in Ireland love Erin more than I? Learn, fool, that men have different functions assigned to them. Do your best, if God wills it so. When the battle's lost ye'll want me to bind your gashes. I've listened to much rubbish this afternoon. Now you, in your turn, listen to the truth, which is bad enough--ochone! Iknowthat all your martial goings-out and comings-in are reported one by one; Iknowthat they are broidured and embellished before they cross the sea. I have reason to suspect--I admit I cannot prove it yet--that such cooked accounts are given of your doings as actually to alarm the British cabinet. You are playing into Pitt's hands. I have heard that they even talk of "martial-law" as possible. If they come to that, the Lord be merciful to our poor Erin!'
Mr. Curran's head sank on his breast, and tears ran down his rugged cheeks; while the conspirators glanced one at the other with pallid faces. Martial law! rough and ready tribunals presided over by the tools of England! Sure their host's terrors must carry him away. And yet he might be right, judging from the past. It was quite possible that they were being deliberately driven to the shambles in cold blood--like victims marked out for slaughter by some savage despot. Cassidy laid down the decanter, and began to stammer apologies for his petulance.
The noise of voices at high words brought Sara into the room, who, frightened at the sudden dread which seemed to have invaded the party, clung to her father, while she turned an inquiring glance to the undergraduate.
'What is it, father?' she murmured with dim fear, for the adored face of Robert was distorted with passion, while his hands shook like leaves.
'A Union is it that they want?' the boy muttered 'twixt chattering teeth. 'I will resist it to the last gasp of my existence--to the last drop of my blood--and when death comes, I will call down the eternal curse of Heaven upon the destroyers of our freedom!'
Sara felt dizzy, and would have fallen but for her father's encircling arm. Dark shadows of foreboding were flitting across her mind. Was he whom she elected to worship to be drawn into the whirlpool after all? Was Robert to share Theobald's fate--to be banished from friends and motherland? In her gentle loving heart she registered a vow that if that fate should come on him, the sorrow of his exile should be soothed by no hand but hers.
Mr. Curran set himself to calm his darling. 'Silly child!' he said, patting her yellow curls. 'There, there, why not in bed? Fie! young ladies mustn't rush in where gintlemen are toping. Well, as ye are here, pick up the matarials from the hearth, my love, and squeeze in another lemon. This won't do. I shall lose my reputation as abon viveur. A sentiment? Bravo! Here 'tis. Come, bumpers! "If a man fills the bottom of his glass, more shame to him if he doesn't fill the top; and if he empties the top, sure he'd not be so base as to deny the bottom the same compliment!" Now we'll lock the doors, and my big friend shall expend his exuberance in song. A toast first. You too shall sip of it, my blossom, for there's ne'er a bit of treason in it.' Then, clasping Sara's slender waist, he raised his haggard eyes, and said solemnly: 'As God in these latter days is unfolding in His creatures strange new powers, so may they all tend to Freedom, Peace, and Harmony. May those who are free never be enslaved--may those who are slaves be speedily set free. Amen!'
Cassidy, quite good-humoured and repentant now--for his bark was always more awful than his bite--tuned up and sang his choicest ditties; yet somehow there was a pall over the party which music could not dissipate. Truths had slipped out in the desultory talk which weighed down the souls of all. Mr. Curran, usually a pearl among hosts, was worried and absent, for, look at the situation as he would, there was nothing to be seen but impending disaster, and he thought that perhaps he had spoken out too openly. Terence, too, seemed much disturbed in mind; more moved at Robert's story and his own hints than he liked to see. Perchance it would be safest to pack him home without delay. Yet no--his was not the soul-harrowing indignation which exercised the patriots. He was shocked, but there was no real danger of his being trapped. It would lie heavy on his conscience, though, if this artless joyous creature should be dragged into the vortex. Much better that he should shoot, and hunt, and fish, and make the most of the happy accident of his social standing. Certainly he would show little affection for hisprotégéif he permitted him to be trapped, and Cassidy showed wondrous anxiety to trap him. An odd person, Cassidy; a whimsical combination of opposing essences; one of those dangerous hot natures whose ill-balanced zeal is more fatal to a cause than enmity. No one could on occasion be more oafishly stupid than he, or more rashly brave; and yet the way he kept up a show of intercourse with Major Sirr and my Lord Clare, after the fashion of a safety-rope to which to cling in peril, was worthy of quite a subtle plotter. That the giant meant well there could be no doubt. But if he, Curran, had had aught to do with the society, he would have stipulated that this firebrand should be kept as much as might be in the background.
While he meditated thus the punch-bowl was emptied, and, as he made a move to refill it, the party broke into knots and resumed the topic which engrossed them.
Terence listened to young Robert's views, which, under the auspices of liquor, grew more rosy and more loud.
'I don't mind telling you about it,' the boy was saying, 'for I know that your honour is too fine to allow the smallest hint to be dropped of what I say. The French will come with 15,000 men, and gunpowder, and muskets. Pikeheads are being hammered out of hours on hundreds of village anvils.'
'They will never send 15,000 men,' Terence objected, with a doggedness induced by drink. 'Their coffers are empty. Holland, Switzerland, the Rhine, claim the attention of their arms.'
'If they send but 5,000 the work can be done. You don't believe it? With three hundred as officers to head our own people, we could make an effort.'
'What can a rabble hope to do against a disciplined force?' exclaimed Terence, with animation. 'The French could not spare three hundred officers to this outlying island. Who have you amongst you who could teach a single military manœuvre? Who could save an army from rout if attacked in rear, or judiciously decide upon a line of entrenchment? What a reckless waste of life--a march into the grave!'
'There are cultivated gintlemen who will come forward when they see that we are in earnest,' put in Cassidy slyly; 'lots of them. There is no telling what mines of military genius may be found amongst the high-born. I confess I'd like to know what we really may expect from France. Theobald has been ten months in Paris, is hand and glove they say with General Hoche, and Carnot, the "Organiser of Victory." Strange he should never write.'
'My cousin Doreen has letters from him,' Terence said, in thick accents. 'Maybe she'd tell us if we coaxed her.' Then, rising, he flung wide the shutters and opened the window, through which streamed such a flood of morning light and perfumed air as caused his wits to reel. Cassidy grinned, as he marked the 'us,' and, encouraged by so good a sign, made bold to clap the young patrician upon the shoulder.
'Sure she'd tell you, councillor darlint,' he whispered; 'for she likes you, and I can get nothing serious out of her. Faix! it's the dainty colleen she is!'
'I dare say she would,' returned Terence, while lines of latent humour puckered up the giant's face. Councillor Crosbie's lofty patronage amused him, for, of the two, Mr. Cassidy had seen most of the Abbey during the past year. 'The day is come,' he urged; 'the very hour for a ride. Will ye go and find out something to make our minds aisy, or do ye think Misthress Doreen would be cross wid ye?'
Cassidy was taking liberties. Of that Terence felt hazily assured.
'Yes,' he replied, 'I will canter over to Strogue to see what I can gather; a gallop by the beach will steady my nerves for the business of the infernal Four-courts. Tell Phil, Cassidy, to saddle the horses at once.'
Cassidy humbly obeyed orders, while Curran, who was watching, laughed, despite his dreary thoughts. How translucent is the strategy of youth! The squireen's familiar manner of mentioning Doreen had stung her cousin, and filled him with a desire to warn her of the oaf's presumption. It was a fine excuse for stealing a delicious hour with a girl who loved not flirtation; who crumpled up her admirers with scorn; who might, without some such excuse, resent even a cousin's interference with the stern duties of matutinal chicken-feeding.
'Go!' Mr. Curran laughed, his conscience relieved, as he placed his hand on the broad straight back of his favourite. 'Go, lad, and learn what you can from that lovely conspiring siren. I think my Sally must go too, to protect you. Stop a minute while I write a line to my lady. I'm sorry we've not had so gay a time as usual--but sure gaiety is being squeezed quite out of us. One Doughan Dourish before we separate. Here's to Innisfail, and may God have mercy on her! And now good-night, or rather good-morning. I've a heavy day before me, and must e'en steal forty winks.'
The party mounted their horses and rode away, and Mr. Curran went to bed and slept, quite persuaded now that Terence must go home and stop there.