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The Tithe-Proctor

by William Carleton · English · Gutenberg #16010 · 668,605 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Tithe-Proctor

Author: William Carleton

Illustrator: M. L. Flanery


        
Release date: June 7, 2005 [eBook #16010]
                Most recently updated: December 9, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16010

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TITHE-PROCTOR ***




Produced by David Widger





THE TITHE-PROCTOR.

By William Carleton




PREFACE.


After the reader shall, have perused the annexed startling and
extraordinary narrative, on which I have founded the tale of the
Tithe-Proctor, I am sure he will admit that there is very little left
me to say in the shape of a preface. It is indeed rarely, that ever a
document, at once so authentic and powerful, has been found prefixed
to any work of modern Irish Fiction--proceeding as it does, let me add,
from the pen of a gentleman whose unassuming character and modesty are
only surpassed by the distinction which his name has already gained
in one of the most difficult but useful departments of our native
literature.

I trust that there will be found nothing in the work which follows that
is calculated to give any serious offence. Yet, when we look back upon
the contentions, both political and polemical, by which this unhappy
country in connection with tithe especially, has been so frequently and
so bitterly distracted, we can hardly hope, that any writer, however
anxious, nay studious, to avoid giving offence, can expect to treat such
a subject without incurring animosity in _some_ quarter. Be this as it
may, I have only to say, on behalf of myself, that in composing the
work I was influenced by nothing but a firm and honest determination to
depict the disturbances arising from the tithe impost with a fair and
impartial hand: and if any party shall feel hurt by observations which
the necessity of rendering full justice to a subject so difficult
have imposed upon me in the discharge of a public duty, I beg them
to consider that such observations proceeded from no wish to offend
existing prejudices, but are to be looked upon as arising inferentially
from those stern and uncompromising claims of truth and justice, which
equally disregard the prejudices of any and every party. After all, I am
of opinion that the spirit in which the work is written will be found,
whilst it correctly delineates the state and condition of the country
during the fearful tumults and massacres of the Tithe Rebellion, to have
left little, if anything, to be complained of in this respect.

In constructing narratives of this sort, it is to be understood that
certain allowances are always made for small anachronisms that cannot be
readily got over. The murder of the Bolands, for instance, occurred in
the year 1808, and the massacre of Carrickshock, as it has been called,
in 1832. It was consequently impossible for me to have availed myself of
the annexed “Narrative” and brought in the “Massacre” in the same story,
without bringing down the murder of the Bolands to a more recent date.

It may be objected that I have assumed, as the period of my story, one
which was calculated to bring into light and action the worst feelings
and the darkest criminals of my country. This, however, was not my
fault. If they had not existed, I could not have painted them; and so
long as my country is disgraced by great crimes, and her social state
disorganized by men whoso hardened vices bring shame upon civilization
itself, so long, I add, these crimes and such criminals shall never be
veiled over by me. I endeavor to paint Ireland, sometimes as she was,
but always as she is, in order that she may see many of those debasing
circumstances which prevent her from being what she ought to be. In the
meantime, I trust the reader will have an opportunity of perceiving
that I have not in the _Tithe-Proctor_, any more than in my other work,
forgotten to show him that even in the most startling phases of
Irish crime and tumult, I have by no means neglected to draw the warm,
generous, and natural virtues of my countrymen, and to satisfy him that
a very few guilty wretches are quite sufficient, however unjustly, to
blacken and degrade a large district.

There is, however, a certain class of pseudo-patriots in this country,
who are of opinion that every writer, professing to depict our national
character and manners, should make it a point of conscience to suppress
all that is calculated “to lessen us in the eyes of the world,” as they
are pleased to term it, and only to give to the public the bright and
favorable side. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the moral dishonesty
and meanness of a principle, at once so disgraceful to literature and so
repugnant to truth. These thin-skinned gentlemen are of opinion that the
crime itself is a matter of trivial importance compared to the fact of
its becoming known, and that provided the outside of the platter is kept
clean, it matters not how filthy it may be within.

In the days of my boyhood and early life, the people of Ireland were,
generally speaking, an honest, candid, faithful, and grateful people,
who loved truth, and felt the practical influence of religious feeling
strongly, but so dishonest and degrading has been the long curse of
agitation, to which forms of it their moral and social principles have
been exposed, that there probably could not be found in any country,
an instance in which the virtues of the whole people have been so
completely debauched and contaminated (I do not say voluntarily), as
those of the Irish have been by the leading advocates of repeal. The
degeneracy of character, occasioned by those tampering with our national
virtues, is such as we shall not recover from these thirty years to
come. Many of our best, mellow-toned, old virtues, that pass in an
unbroken link of hereditary beauty from father to son, and from family
to family, like some sacred and inestimable heirloom, at once reverenced
and loved, are all gone--such as our love of truth, our simple devotion
and patriarchal piety, our sincerity in all social intercourse, and
others of the same stamp; whilst little else is left us but a barren
catalogue of broken and dishonest promises, and the consciousness of
having been at once fleeced and laughed at. And it would be well if we
could stop here, but truth forces us onward. The Irishman of the present
day--the creature of agitation--is neither honest, nor candid, nor
manly, nor generous, but a poor, skulking dupe, at once slavish
and insolent, offensive and cowardly--who carries, as a necessary
consequence, the principles of political dishonesty into the practices
of private life, and is consequently disingenuous and fraudulent.

Let me not be misunderstood. I love truth; and have never been either
afraid or ashamed to speak it; and I trust I never shall. I now allude
to the principles of Conciliation Hall, and the system by which they
were led. I feel bound, however, to exempt the party called Young
Irelanders from having had any participation in bringing about results
so disastrous to the best moral interests of the country. It is true,
that, as politicians, they were insane; but then they were at least
sincere and honest; and I am satisfied that there is not a man of them,
who would not have abandoned the object he had in view, sooner than
accomplish it by sacrificing the popular virtues and moral character
of the country for its attainment. I have myself been a, strong
anti-repealer during my whole life, and though some of the Young
Irelanders are my personal friends, yet none know better than they
do, that I was strenuously opposed to their principles, and have often
endeavored--need I say unsuccessfully?--to dissuade them from the
madness of their agitation.

Having made these few necessary observations, I now beg to introduce to
my readers the extraordinary narrative already spoken of--a narrative
whose force and graphic power will serve only to bring shame upon the
feeble superstructure which I have endeavored to erect upon it. It is
termed--


THE MURDER OF THE BOLANDS.

In the year 1808, there lived near Croom, in the county of Limerick, a
farmer named Michael Boland. He was an intelligent and prosperous
man, and the owner of many hundred acres of the best land in that fine
county.

He had two sons and two daughters, all grown up to manhood and
womanhood, in this year, and the parish chapel never saw, in their time,
a finer family for stature, symmetry, and comeliness, attend its mass
than Michael Boland, his wife, and children. With the growth of his
family, his ambition and desire of increased wealthiness grew; and,
by the agency of some hundred pounds, he became the tithe-proctor, or
rector of several patches of tithes throughout the county.

At first he was successful in this speculation, and with his increased
profits, himself and his children assumed a higher and more important
tone and bearing in society. In fact, his sons and daughters passed as
ladies and gentlemen, not only in external appearance, but in elegance
of manners and cultivation of mind; for he spared no expense on their
education, as well in his original as in his subsequent condition of
life; besides that at this period, and for a long time previous, the
County of Limerick was the great school-house, not only of Munster, but
of all Ireland--vide Carleton's “Poor Scholar.”

The sudden departure of the Bolands from the intercourse and intimate
acquaintance of their former companions and neighbors, as well as the
long brooding hatred and opposition of the people to the payment of
tithes, soon gave rise to loud murmurs and sarcastic retrospective
observations against them; and people far and near took every occasion
to offend and insult them--both men and women---wherever and whenever
an opportunity of doing so, in a galling manner, offered. Often were
the Misses Boland asked, when mounted on their side-saddles, did they
remember when their mother used to be driving her cart-load of tankards
of sour milk to the market of Limerick, and sitting there for days
retailing it at a penny a gallon, &c.; and as often were the young
brothers asked when bursting over an old neighbor's fence, in scarlet
and buckskin, if they remembered when their father and mother bore an
active hand and shoulder to the carving out and spreading of the manure
to the fields, &c.

Far from being abashed at all this, the Bolands only sought ampler
opportunities to annoy and exasperate their ill-wishers by more
imperious airs to them, and a closer attendance to the gentlemanly
sports of the country, but still they gave no tangible cause to quarrel
broadly with them. While matters were going on in this way, they
received a nocturnal anonymous letter, ordering them to send a few of
their abundant stock of arms to a certain lonely place, for the benefit,
of the popular legislators of that turbulent county. This summons the
Bolands answered by a letter of defiance, and a challenge to the parties
to come and take them forcibly if they durst. They were agan summoned
for their arms, and cautioned to lower their demand for tithes. To this
they sent an exasperating response of defiance, and a challenge, after
which they seriously went about fortifying their dwelling, and putting
it into the best posture of defence against the assault which they were
very certain would be made on them sooner or later.

They built a line of lofty strong stone walls around their house,
offices, and other property, and, thus secure, they awaited anxiously
the expected visit of their deadly enemies.

In the meantime the messengers of vengeance passed through all the
counties of Munster, with an account of the rebellious designs of the
Bolands, against the majesty of midnight legislation; and to collect
levies of men, ammunition, army, and friends, for the purpose of making
a certain destructive attack upon them.

One evening, about the latter end of November, the roads and paths
leading to the little village of Kilteely, a few miles to the east of
Boland's house, was observed to be more than usually thronged with men,
on foot and on horseback, passing, as it were, to and from Limerick, and
strangers, apparently, to all the inhabitants and to each other. Shortly
after nightfall, the hill of Kilteely was seen covered with men and
horses, and within an old ruined house on the top of the hill a
dim light was seen to occasionally flitter. This ruin was full of
respectably dressed men, and at one end of it, on chairs, and at a
table, provided for the occasion, sat twelve of the most respectable of
them, and a portly important-looking gentleman on an elevated chair at
the end of the table. Two or three candies were burning, and some slips
of paper were on the table.

After a silence of a few seconds, the judge asked, in an audible voice,
if there was any business to be brought before the court on that night?
He was immediately answered in a solemn tone, by more than one voice,
that there was a great deal of business, but that only one case, that
of Captain Right against Boland, should be brought before him at
that present time. The judge then desired that the case be gone into.
Whereupon a middle-sized well-set young man, about six-and-twenty years
of age, whose name we know, and who sat behind the judge, now brought
his chair forward to the table, on the judge's left hand, and unrolling
a roll of paper, read in a low, solemn, but audible tone of voice, a
series of charges preferred by the said Captain Right against the said
Michael Boland and his sons.

The captain was then called up, and he deposed to different charges
against the defendants--such as taking beforehand, or in reversion,
several small farms over the heads of poor but solvent tenants, turning
them adrift on the world, and converting their small agricultural farms
into one or more large farms for grazing; thereby adding to the
number of the destitute, and contracting the supply of agricultural
produce--the payment to his laboring men of only eight-pence a day,
which he compounded for in kind--potatoes, milk, &c, at twice, at least,
what those commodities fetched him in the neighboring markets. These
were only a few of the many charges of petty tyranny preferred against
Boland; but the last and greatest of all was his Tithe Exactions.

Several witnesses were called up to prove these weighty offences, after
which it was asked if the accused party had been served with notices to
desist from those high misdemeanors; and if he had engaged any one to
speak for him, or in his favor. After a short pause, a man above the
middle size, with snaggy hair and beard, and of a sinister aspect, came
up to the table and said, that although he had not been employed or
deputed to appear for Mr. Boland and the young masters and misses, his
fine sons and daughters, yet justice to the accused compelled him to
come forward, and offer a few words in extenuation of the punishment,
if any, which should be inflicted for their alleged misdeeds. “First,
then,” he asked, “was it possible that they, the men then present,
should be angry or offended at seeing one of their own race and religion
spring up from among them, and take his station with the best of the
Cromwellian Shoneens that surrounded and oppressed them? And when he did
so spring up, was it any blame to him to avail himself of every means
which The Law allowed him to maintain his elevation, though it might be
by standing on the shoulders and necks of as good fellows as himself?
What had Mr. Boland done but what others had been doing for ages, and
were doing still? As for the matter of tithes, sure they should be paid
to the minister who they never saw nor cared to see, and if Mr. Boland
had profit on them, so much the better, because the less tithe that went
into the absent minister's pocket the more would they all be pleased. To
be sure the tithe-proctor always exacted to the last farthing, and more
than the minister--and it is believed that Mr. Boland was not behind any
of the trade--and some people say, indeed, that, from his knowledge of
farming and the ins and outs of people's little tillage, he sometimes
exacted to within a trifle of one-fifth of the produce. Indeed, in my
own case--and I am but a poor brogue-maker, with half-a-dozen acres of
the |poorest lands of F------, he took from me, between citations to
the Bishop's Court and other costs, with the original tithes, at least
one-fourth of the entire produce of my little farm; nor do I know any
one in the parish that fares better than myself, especially the poor
people who don't understand the law, and who are not able, or willing,
to get into it. However, I confess, I never regretted my own share of
the loss, where I knew and thought that it all went to the glory and
grandeur of the Masters and Misses Boland. Nor shall I ever forget the
cutting-up which young Mick Boland gave me, with the butt-end of his
loaded whip, the day I went to their house to complain that their driver
had put all my sheep into the pound, for a debt of sixteen shillings,
tithe-money. And now, my Lord Justice, as I have said so much of the
truth in favor of Mr. Boland and his family, I hope your lordship will
pass a merciful and just sentence oh them, and that this just jury won't
find these friends to us, to our religion, and to our country, guilty.”

There was a suppressed murmur of approbation, accompanied by an audible
stamping of feet, at the conclusion of this merciful harangue. But
silence being called, the jurors put their heads together across
the table, and in less than two minutes their foreman handed up the
issue-paper to the secretary, who sat by the side of the judge on
receipt of which that functionary arose and in a solemn, scarcely
audible voice, read from the paper a verdict of “guilty” against Michael
Boland and his two sons. The judge then immediately arose from his
chair, and in a low, solemn, but firm and distinct tone of voice,
pronounced the verdict of the court to be, “Death and Dark Destruction
to Michael Boland and his two sons,” and that the sentence should be
executed that very night. On the announcement of the verdict a low
shriek of exultation arose from the audience, followed by a simultaneous
half-suppressed cry of, “Long life to our Judge! Long life to Buck
English!”

The judge stood up again and said: “Now, boys, I know that there is no
man here present but a man who has been often well tried in exploits of
danger and of death: every man of you is the leader of a party of brave
fellows, who, with yourselves, have sworn to sustain the oppressed;
crush the tyrant, and right the wronged. Your men are brave, bold, and
hearty; keep them to: their duty, and in perfect submission to your
orders. Let the old tyrant and his young cubs be cut off, at all
hazards, but spare the women--nay, make every possible exertion to save
them, but, more especially, and by all means, let the eldest daughter,
Miss Anna, be saved, secured, and brought to me, as you all know how
long I have vainly endeavored to make her mine. And now, boys, every man
to his post, and I, your commander, shall lead you on.”

Buck English is a real character--his real name was Ryan, and he
had been respectably reared, but gave himself up to the intoxicating
excitement of the French Revolution--he also fought in '98, and
subsequently, for his intelligence and daring spirit, became the leader
of all the lawless and disaffected parties in his native County of
Limerick, and, indeed, of all Munster.

The parties within the old ruin now made their appearance on the hill,
and every man of them going to the head of his own body, they marched
first to Hospital, a contiguous village, where they boldly beat a drum,
the sound of which called up, as by enchantment, such a concourse of
armed men as frightened the parties themselves. They marched from that,
westwards, to Knockany, where they dug up several extensive fields
(of grass) belonging to Mr. O'Grady. They marched on then, in the
same direction, towards the residence of the Bolands, their numbers
increasing as they went along, by voluntary and involuntary parties.

The Bolands, ever on the watch, soon learned that they were to be
visited that night by those parties whom they had so long defied, but
they never calculated that they Should be attacked by such a strong
force as they now learned was approaching them--for it is believed
that the actual number could not have been less than five thousand men,
contributed by the Counties of Limerick Clare, Kerry, Cork, Waterford,
Tipperary, and Kilkenny.

However, they were not daunted, but immediately put themselves in order
of battle. They first sent out (off their premises) all their servants,
men and women, lest there should be a spy or a traitor among them. They
then carried up all their arms and ammunition to the top floor of their
(two-story, long, thatched) house. The father and the younger sons
planted themselves at one of the window's facing the front. The elder
son and the family tutor, a young man of the neighborhood, who would
not abandon them in their hour of danger, took their stand at the
window which looked directly at the narrow strong door of the wall which
inclosed the house. The two daughters, with their mother, took up their
places between the two windows, under cover of the wall, and having been
well practiced for som, weeks previous, stood prepared to load and hand
up the arms to their heroes when the occasion should arrive. About the
hour of one o'clock in the morning, the barking of dogs, and an odd
random shot, gave the Bolands certain and unmistakable notice that their
hour of terror was at hand. And soon they could hear a monotonous sound
of moving feet and suppressed voices, under the outer walls of their
fortress. A horn was then sounded, and the besieged were called upon to
open their gates and surrender at discretion. But no answer was received
from within, where all was total darkness and apparent inactivity.
Several attempts were now made to burst the strong yard door, but
without effect. The assailants then began to fire at the thatch of
the dwelling house, as well as on the out-offices, with the intent of
setting them in flames; and after several attempts, they ultimately
succeeded in igniting the thatch of a detached cow-house, which stood
out from the other buildings, and the wind, unfortunately happening to
blow from that quarter to the other offices, carried the fire to them,
by which they were soon in a blaze. In the meantime, they procured two
sledges from a neighboring forge, with which they assaulted the yard
door, which they soon broke in. Now there was a dead pause on the
part of the assailants--for they knew very well, that to pass on the
threshold of this door was certain death. However, the pressure from the
rear was so great, that suddenly several men were involuntarily pushed
in through the doorway. And now the work of death commenced, for no
sooner had the first batch been pressed in, than there was such
a well-directed shower of bullets poured out on them from four
well-charged blunderbusses, as levelled every man of them with the
earth. A moment's pause ensued, and the door was again filled with new
aspirants for “fame in the cannon's mouth,” who, however, fared as badly
as the preceding batch. During this time the assailing party had been
busy with crowbars and other instruments, in making several breaches in
the yard walls. At length they succeeded in opening entrances in three
different places at the same time, and thus in a few minutes several
hundred men were precipitated into the yard. And now commenced the work
of death in earnest. The assailants were shot down in scores, while the
upper windows of the house, from which the deadly firing was so ably
kept up, received fifty discharges to the one that issued from them. The
house was immediately surrounded, and guards of chosen faithful men were
placed at its doors and lower windows, with strict orders to let no one,
especially the “old fox,” escape, with the exception only of the women.

To add to the dreadful condition of the Bolands, the assailants had
now succeeded in igniting the thatch of the dwelling-house, and it was
immediately in a blaze. The Bolands and their tutor, ably served by
their mother and sisters, still continued to deal death and destruction
on the parties outside, without being yet fatigued or disabled. But at
length the upper floor became too hot, and the old man, with his wife
and daughters, retreated to the lower floor. The brothers and the tutor,
however, remained above, but doing less execution, because, when the
assailants saw the house on fire, they retreated outside the yard wall,
excepting the guard who were placed round the house, and these stood so
close to the walls that the party above had not power of injuring them,
without fully exposing their own persons at the windows.

While both parties were thus in a fearful state of suspense, the burning
roof of the house fell in on the three young men above, and immediately
buried them for ever in its destructive flames. The assailing crowds set
up a terrific shout of triumph. The floor above now began to crackle,
and so dense was the smoke below, that the old man and the woman were
in a state little short of suffocation. At last the Proctor became
desperate, and opening one of the ground windows, and taking his poor
wife by the hand, he attempted to throw himself and her out through it.
No sooner, however, had they appeared at the window, than the old man
was riddled with bullets from without, and thrown back into the now
blazing room from which he had been endeavoring to escape.

The three young men and the old man being now destroyed, a voice in the
rear of the crowd called out, in a fierce commanding them, to rescue
the women at all hazards, whereupon the sledges were applied to the
front door of the house; but while they were thus engaged, the young
women unbarred the back door, and rushing out with their mother,
uttering the most piercing shrieks, they ran into a stable which
was near, before they could be laid hold of. Here, however, the two
daughters were immediately seized on by order of the commander of the
siege, Buck English, and carried out, but not violently, until they came
to the stable-door, where the eldest daughter laid hold of the iron bolt
staple of the door-post, and so desperately did she hold it, that she
did not let it go till her shoulder was dislocated. They were both
carried off then to the Galtee mountains, the usual resort of the Buck,
who retained the eldest during pleasure. I forget what became of the
younger girl, but the other became deranged, and in that melancholy
state was subsequently taken into the “protection,” as it is called, of
a certain banker of Limerick, who shot himself in that city, to my own
knowledge, in 1815. * * *

The scene at the residence of the Bolands, on the morning after the
attack, was truly horrifying. The remains of the four men, almost
burned to cinders, were dug out of the still burning ruins, nor was the
spectacle in the yard and on the neighboring road less frightful; from
the multitude of dead bodies with which they were strewn; for most of
their stranger assailants who were killed were left on the spot--the
party not choosing to be seen carrying them off by daylight. But such
of the people of the neighboring parishes as fell, were carried off by
friends and acquaintances, and hid during that day, but buried at night
at remote distances from their houses, in the newly-ploughed and in the
wheat-sown fields. The inquest, &c, being over, the government and the
gentry of the county offered a large reward for any information that
would lead to the apprehension or knowledge of the actors, especially
the commander, in this fearful tragedy. A strong military force was
stationed in the neighborhood, and all the bad and suspicious characters
of the district were taken up, and committed to gaol on suspicion.
However, the original concocters of the murder made their escape, either
to England or to the remote parts of Clare, Kerry, and Cork; whilst
terror reigned throughout the whole County of Limerick among the farmers
at seeing the numbers that were arrested, and the largeness of the
reward.

One morning, as a well-known active magistrate of the county was sitting
at his breakfast, a strange woman came to his door, and requested to
see him on business of importance. He immediately called up two of his
servant men, and ordered them to go to the door and see that the woman
was really a woman, and that she had no arms about her. This was
soon done, and the woman, a real one, was ushered into his worship's
presence. She then told him--the room being first cleared of all other
people--that, she was the wife of D---- A------, the brogue-maker of
F----, that her husband was an honest, industrious man, who knew his own
trade and business well, and who knew a great deal about the business of
other people, too, and of what was going on in the country--that he was
a man of upright and Christian principles, who would always feel it a
conscientious duty to aid the laws of his country to preserve social
order and punish crime--that he was not a man to be terrified or bribed
by any amount of punishment or reward; but that if he were properly
managed and kindly treated, he might be found able to give a good deal
of useful information.

His worship had the good-natured poor woman taken good care of for
that day--and at a late hour of the same night he took and put her
comfortably sitting on a horse, behind one of his constables, and,
surrounded by a strong military body, horse and foot, marched her in
safety; she showing the way to her own house. They found honest Darby
sitting by his fire, reading his prayer-book, and in great grief at the
unaccountable absence of his wife. He was dreadfully agitated when he
found himself arrested, and strongly protested that he was an honest,
industrious tradesman, who knew nothing of the wickedness of the world;
and wondered much what this was all about.

His worship advised him to be calm--that all should be well, but that
he should accompany himself to his house. After Darby had spent several
usefully employed days with his new friend, he was transmitted to
Limerick gaol, with orders that he should be well treated, and be
allowed to see his wife as often as she desired it. The wife soon found
that it would be more convenient for her, and perhaps somewhat safer,
to be living near her husband, and therefore went to reside in Limerick.
The news of Darby's arrest caused no little alarm through the county,
and it was soon whispered about that persons were now arrested, of whose
participation in the Boland affair no human being could give any hint
except himself alone. His wife's rooms became crowded every day with
the wives, daughters, and sisters of the men arrested,--and others not
arrested, or suspected by any living being; money in hundreds of pounds
was poured into her lap to purchase the ignorance, the silence, or the
perjury of Darby--and every one went away apparently satisfied with
Darby's promises through his faithful wife.

The assizes came down at last. Darby lost all recollection of any money
but the large public reward, and on that occasion over twenty men were
hanged chiefly on his evidence--though it was very difficult for the
crown counsel to bring the poor reluctant man to the point; but when
he did make a convicting admission, he took care that it should be
a clincher, wrung from him, as he wished it to appear, by a cunning
counsel. The gallows at Limerick continued for years after to be fed by
Darby with victims for this crime; and several hundred were transported,
or went into voluntary banishment on account of this fearful butchery.
The writer of this knew well, and was at school with the secretary of
the Court of Kilteely Hill.




CHAPTER I.--The Chapel Green of Esker Dearg.


The chapel of _Esker Dearg_, or the Red Ridge, was situated in a rich
and well-cultivated country, that for miles about it literally teemed
with abundance. The Red Ridge under which it stood was one of those long
eminences, almost, if not altogether, peculiar to Ireland. It was, as
the name betokens, a prolonged elevation that ran for nearly a mile and
a half in a north-eastern direction without appearing to yield to, or
be influenced by, the natural position or undulations of the country
through which it went. The epithet of red which was attached to it,
originated, according to popular tradition, in a massacre which had
taken place upon it during one of the Elizabethan wars, others imputed
it to a cause much more obvious and natural, viz., its peculiar
appearance during all seasons of the year, owing to the parched and
barren nature of the soil, which, in consequence of its dry and elevated
Position, was covered only with furze and tern, or thin, short grass
that was parched by the sun into a kind of red-brown color.

Under that end of this Esker which pointed nearest to the south-west,
stood the chapel we have just mentioned. It was a rather long building
with double gables and a double roof, perfectly plain, and with no other
ornament, either inside or out, if we except a marble cross that stood
against the wall upon the altar, of which the good priest was not a
little vain, inasmuch as it had been of his own procuring. A public road
of course ran past it, or rather skirted the green unenclosed space, by
which, in common with most country edifices, it was surrounded. Another
road joined that which we have mentioned, within a few perches of it,
so that it stood at what might be nearly considered a cross-road. One
or two large trees grew beside it, which gave to its otherwise simple
appearance something of picturesque effect, especially during the
summer months, when they were thickly covered with leaves, and waved and
rustled in the sun to the refreshing breezes of that delightful season.

It was Sunday in the early part of March--we will not name the
year--when our story commences. The Red Ridge Chapel was as usual
surrounded by the greater portion of the congregation that had assembled
to hear Mass. Within its walls there were only a few classes of
youngsters, male and female, formed into circles, learning their
catechism from the schoolmaster of the neighborhood, the clerk, or some
devotee who possessed education enough to qualify himself for that
kind office. Here and there in different parts of the chapel were
small groups of adult persons, more religiously disposed than the rest,
engaged in saying the rosary, whilst several others were performing
solitary devotions, some stationary in a corner of the chapel, and
others going the circuit around its walls in the performance of the
Fourteen Stations of the Cross. Now, all these religious and devotional
acts take place previous to the arrival of the priest, and are suspended
the moment he commences Mass; into the more sublime majesty of which
they appear, as it were, to lose themselves and be absorbed.

The great body of the congregation, however, until the clergyman makes
his appearance, are to be found outside, on what is called the Chapel
Green. Here they stand in groups, engaged in discussing the topics of
the day, or such local intelligence as may interest them; and it is
to one of those groups that we now beg to call the attention of our
readers.

Under the larger of the two trees we have described stood a circle
of the country people, listening to, and evidently amused by, the
conversation of an individual whose bearing and appearance we must
describe at great length.

He was a person whom at first sight you would feel disposed to class
with young men. In other words, you might be led, from the lively flow
of his spirits and his peculiarly buoyant manner, to infer that he
had not gone beyond thirty or thirty-five. Upon a closer inspection,
however, you could easily perceive that his countenance, despite of
its healthy hue, was a good deal wrecked and weatherbeaten, and gave
indications of those traces, which not only a much longer period of
time, but deep and violent passions, seldom fail to leave behind them.
His features were regular, and at first glance seemed handsome, but upon
a nearer approach you were certain to find that their expression was
heartless and disagreeable. They betokened no symptom of humanity of
feeling, but were lit up with a spirit of harsh and reckless levity,
which, whilst it made him popular with the unthinking multitude, might
have been easily understood as the accompaniment, if not the direct
exponent, of a bad and remorseless heart. The expression of his mouth
was at the same time both hard and wanton, and his eyes, though full
of a lively lustre, resembled in their brightness those of a serpent or
hyena. His forehead was constructive but low, and, we may say, rather
unintellectual than otherwise. He was without whiskers, a circumstance
which caused a wound on the back part of his jaw to be visible, and
one-half of the left-hand little finger had been shot off in defence of
his church and country, according to his own account. This was a subject
however, upon which he always affected a good deal of mystery when
conversing with the people, or we should say, he took care to throw out
such oracular insinuations of what he had suffered in their defence, as,
according to their opinion, almost constituted him a martyr. In size
he was somewhat above the middle height, compact, and exceedingly well
built. His chest was deep and his shoulders powerful, whilst his limbs
were full of muscular strength and great activity.

Having thus given a portrait of his person, it only remains that we
describe his costume as he appeared on the Sunday in question, and we
do so because it may be right to inform our readers, in the outset,
that one of his peculiarities was a habit of seldom appearing, for any
lengthened period, in the same dress, or indeed in the same locality.

On this occasion he had on a pair of tight buckskin breeches, top-boots
and spurs--for he mostly went on horseback--a blue body-coat, with
bright gilt buttons, a buff cassimere waistcoat, and a very fashionable
hat.

The cravat he wore was of green silk, and was tied in a knot, which
might be understood by the initiated as one that entitled him to their
confidence and respect. Our readers may not be surprised at this, for,
unfortunately so high and bitter have party prejudices and feelings in
our disturbed country run, that the very dress has been often forced to
become symbolic of their spirit and existence.

The chapel green, as we have said, was covered by the great bulk of the
peasantry who were waiting the arrival of the priest. Here was a circle
in which stood some rustic politician, who, having had an opportunity
of getting a glimpse at some newspaper of the day, was retailing its
contents to a greedy circle of listeners about him. There again stood
some well-known storyteller, or perhaps a live old senachie, reciting
wild and stirring legends to his particular circle. Some were stretched
indolently on the grass, or lying about the ditches in the adjoining
fields, but by far the greatest and most anxious crowd was assembled
under the tree against which Buck English--for by this name was he
known--leaned. We should say here, however, that he was not called
Buck English, because his name was English, but in consequence of
his attempts at pronouncing the English tongue in such a manner as
he himself considered peculiarly elegant and fashionable. The man's
education was very limited, indeed he had scarcely received any, but he
was gifted at the same time with a low vulgar fluency of language which
he looked upon as a great intellectual gift, and which, in his opinion,
wanted nothing but “tip-top prononsensation,” as he termed it, to make
it high-flown and gentlemanly.

Our friend “the Buck,” as he was universally called, was no sooner
perceived in his usual station under the tree than there was a rapid
gathering of the assembled crowd to hear him.

“Hallo, Paddy! what's the matther? where are you goin' to in sich a hell
of a hurry?”

“Blood alive! man, sure Buck English is at his post to-day.”

“How at his post?”

“Why under the three where he always is when he comes here af a Sunday.”

“Hut! sure I know that; come, begad, let us hear him.”

“Faith, it's he that's up to the outs and ins of everything. Sure the
Counsellor himself made mintion of him in a great speech some time
ago. It seems the Buck sent him up five pounds in a letther, and the
Counsellor read the letther, and said it came from a most respectable
gentleman, a friend of his, one Barney--no, not Barney--it wasn't Barney
he called him, but--but--let me see--ay, begad--Bir--Birnard--ay, one
Birnard English, Esquire, from the Barony of Treena Heela; bekaise, as
the Buck doesn't keep himself very closely to any particular place of
livin', he dated his letther, I suppose, from the Barony at large.”

“At any rate one thing's clear, that he's high up wid the Counsellor,
an' if he wasn't one man in ten thousand he wouldn't be that.”

They had now reached the tree, and found that, short as the time was, a
considerable crowd had already assembled about him, so that they were
obliged to stand pretty far out in the circle. One or two young men,
sons of most respectable farmers--for it somehow happened that the Buck
was no great favorite with the seniors--stood, or rather had the
honor of standing, within the circle, for the purpose of “houldin'
conversation wid him;” for it could not reasonably be supposed that the
Buck could throw away such valuable political information and high-flown
English upon mere boors, who were incapable of understanding either the
one or the other.

“And so, Mr. English,” said one of those whom, he had brought within
the circle, “you think the established church, the great heresy of
Luther,--will go down at last?”

“Think it, Tom--why, if you get me a book I'll swear it, and that's
better than thinking any dee. Didn't Emencipation pess? answer me that.”

“Begad it did so, sir,”--from the crowd. “Well,” proceeded the Buck,
“what doubt or hesiteetion can there be that the seem power and
authority that riz our own church won't be keepable of puttin' down the
great protesting heresy?”

“See that now,” from the crowd; “begad it stands to raison sure enough.”

“Certainly,” he proceeded, “none what-somever; but then the question is,
how can it be effectualized?”

The crowd--“Begad, and so it is.”

“Well, my friends, it isn't at oll difficult to determine that
particularity: you oll know that a men lives by food--very well; pleece
that men in a persition where he can't procur food and the nethrel
kensiquence is that he must die. Eh--ha! ha! ha!--do you kimprehind?”

“Not a doubt of it,” replied Mr. Crowd, “but sure, at any rate, we will
kimprehend it by-an'-by.”

“Very well; take the protesting? church or the parsons, for it is oll
the seem--deprive them of the mains of support, that is to see, deny
them their tithes--don't pay a shilling--hold out to the death, as my
friend the Counsellor--great O'Connell says--and as we oil say, practice
passive resistance,then you know the establishment must stirve and die
of femine and distitootion, as a contributive jidgment for its sins.”

Crowd--“Blood alive, isn't that great!”

“What is it?” from the other circle.

“Why, that the parsons, an' all belonging to them, is to die of family
prostitution for their sins!”

“Devil's cure to them, then, for they desarve it--at least many of them
does, anyhow,” says one segment.

“Faith, an' I don't know that either,” says another segment. “The
parsons, bad as they're spoken of, was, for the most part, willin' to
live among us; and, begad, you all know that they're kind friends and
good neighbors, an' that the money they get out of the parish comes back
into the parish agin--not all as one as absentee landlords. They give
employment as far as they're able, an' thar's no doubt but their wives
and daughters does a great dale of good among the poor, and so, begad,
does the parsons themselves often.”

“Who is that wiseecre that spoke last?” asked the Buck; “if I don't
misteek he leebors with Dennis Purcel, the procter.”

“Ay, an' a very good masther he is,” replied the spokesman of the
segment; “gives plenty of employment anyhow--although the pay's no great
shakes--an' that's more than some that abuses him does.”

“There's no one aboosin' him here, my good friend, so don't imegine
it--at leest I should be extremely sorry to do so. I respect himself and
his family in a very elevated manner, I assoore you. An' what's more, my
friend, I'll thank you to report to him that I said so.”

Here he looked significantly among the mob, especially as he perceived
that the man's eyes were not fixed upon him whilst he spoke, and having
thrust his tongue into his cheek, half in derision, and half as it were
by a natural action, he succeeded at all events in creating a general
laugh; but so easily is a laugh, among such an audience, created, that
it is not altogether within our power or penetration to determine the
point which occasioned their mirth, unless it were the grimace with
which his words were accompanied--or stay--perhaps it was the strong
evil odor in which Purcel, the subject of their conversation, must have
been held.

“Talk of the devil, Mr. English,” replied a stern voice from the
listeners, “and he will appear; look down the road there and you'll see
Purcel himself an' his family drivin' to mass on the sweat and groans of
the people!”

“Not all of them,” replied another voice, in a different tone; “there's
only himself, his wife, and their two spankin' daughters, upon the
jauntin' car; but, blood alive, look at the sons! Devil so purty a lot
of sweat and groans I seen this twelvemonth as the two is riding on,
in the shape of a pair of blood-horses, so that you may put the
blood, Barney, along wid the sweat and the groans, agra. Well done,
tithes!--ha! ha! ha!”

The individual laugh that accompanied these last observation was cruel,
revolting, and hideous. The Buck sought out the speaker among the crowd,
and gave him first a nod of approval--and almost instantly afterward
added, with a quick change of countenance, but not until he perceived
that this double expression was pretty generally understood--

“Don't, my friend--if they get wealthy and proud upon our groans and
tears an' blood, as you say, it is not their invalidity that makes them
do so, but ours. Instead, of being cruel to them it is to ourselves we
are cruel; for by peeing the aforeseed tithes we are peeing away our
heart's blood, an' you know that if we are the fools to pee that way,
small bleeme to them if they take it in the shape of good passable cash.
They--meening sich men as Purcel--are only the instruments with which
the parsons work.”

“Ay,” replied the stern voice, “but, in case we had the country to
ourselves, do you think now, Buck darlin', that when we'd settle off
the jidges, an' lawyers, an' sheriffs, an' bailiffs, that we'd allow the
jails or the gibbets to stan', or the hangmen to live. No, by japers,
we'd make a clane sweep of it; and when sich a man as Purcel becomes
a tool in the parsons' hands to grind the people, I don't see that we
ought to make fish of one an' flesh of the other.”

“Ah, Darby Hourigan, is that you?” exclaimed the Buck; “well, although
I don't exaggerate with your severity, yet I will shake hands with you.
How do you do Darby? Darby, I think you're a true petriot--but, so
far as Mr. Purcel is concirned, I wish you to understand that he is a
particular friend of mine, and so is every mimber of his family.”

“Faith, an' Mr. Buck, it's more than you are with them, I can tell you.”

“But perhaps you are a little misteeken there, Mr. Hourigan,” replied
the Buck, with a swagger, whilst he raised his head and pulled up the
collar of his shirt at both sides, with a great deal of significant
self-consequence;--“perhaps you are--I see so, that's oll. Perhaps, I
repeat, there is some mimber of that family not presupposed against me,
Mr. Hourigan?”

“Well, may be so,” replied the other; “but if it be so, it's of late it
must have happened, that's what I say.”

Hourigan, who was by trade a shoemaker, was also a small farmer; but,
sooth to say, a more treacherous or ferocious-looking ruffian you could
not possibly meet with in a province. He was spare and big-boned slouchy
and stealthy in his gait, pale in face with dark, heavy brows that
seemed to have been kept from falling into his deep and down-looking
eyes only by an effort. His cheekbones stood out very prominently,
whilst his thin, pallid cheeks fell away so rapidly as to give him
something the appearance of the resuscitated skeleton of a murderer, for
never in the same face were the kindred spirits of murder and cowardice
so hideously blended.

Much more dialogue of the description just detailed took place, in which
the proctor was not without defenders; but at the same time, as we are
bound to record nothing but truth, we are compelled to say, that the
majority of the voices were fearfully against him. If, however, he, the
proctor and the instrument, had but few to support him, what must we not
suppose the defence of the system in all its bearings to have been?

At length, as Purcel and his family approached, the conversation was
transferred from the political to the personal, and he, his wife, and
his children, received at the hands of the people that satirical abuse,
equally unjust and ungenerous, which an industrious family, who have
raised themselves from poverty to independence, are in general certain
to receive from all those who are deficient in the virtues by which the
others rose.

“Ay, there he comes now, ridin' on his jauntin' car, an' does he think
that we all forget the time when he went wid his basket undher his arm,
wid his half-a-crown's worth of beggarly hardware in it. He begun it as
a brat of a boy, an' was called nothin' then but _Mahon na gair_ (that
is 'Mat of the-grin'); but, by-and-by, when he came to have a pack over
the shoulder, and to carry a yard wan' he began to turn Bodagh on our
hands. Felix, it's himself that soon thought to set up for the style an'
state.”

“At any rate,” said the friendly voice aforesaid, “no one can deny but
he's a good employer--if he'd give better wages.”

“A good employer!” said Hourigan; “we all know he must get his work
done--small thanks to him for that, an' a small price he-pays for it.”

“We all know the ould proverb,” said another individual; “set a beggar
on horseback, an' he'll ride to the devil. Whist! here they come.”

As the last person concluded, Purcel and the female portion of his
family drew up under the shadow of the tree already alluded to, which
here overhung the road, so that he came right in contact with the crowd.

“Ah, boys,” said he, with his characteristic good-humor, “how are you
all? Darby Hourigan, how are your family? Isn't this glorious weather,
boys?”

“Blessed weather, sir,” replied Hourigan, who became in some degree
spokesman. “I hope your honor an' the mistress, sir, an' the young
ladies is all well.”

“My honor, as you are pleased to call me, was never better in my life;
as for the mistress and the young ladies there they are, so judge for
yourself, Darby: but Darby my good friend, you have a d--d sneaking,
slavish way with you. Why do you call me 'your honor' when you know--for
I've often told you--that wouldn't bear it? Am I not one of yourselves?
and don't most of you know that I began the world upon half-a-crown, and
once carried a hardware basket on my arm?--d--n it, then, speak like a
man to a man, and not like a slave, as I'm half inclined to think you
are.”

“Throth, sir,” replied Hourigan, with an indescribable laugh, “an' for
all that you say, there's many that gets the title of 'your honor,' that
doesn't desarve it _as well_.”

“Ah well, man! Why, there's many a man gets it that doesn't desarve it
_at all_, which is saying more than you said--ha! ha! ha!”

Whilst this little dialogue took place, our worthy Buck had abandoned
his place under the ikee, and flown to the car to assist the ladies
off--a piece of attention not unobserved by Purcel, who obliquely kept
his eye upon that worthy's gallantry, and the reception it was getting
from the parties to whom it was offered.

“Leedies,” said the Buck, in his politest manner and language, “will you
allow me the gallantry to help you off? Mrs. Purcel, I hope you're well.
Here, ma'am, aveel yourself of me.”

“Thank you, Mr. English; I'm much obliged,” she returned, rather coolly.

“Leedies,” he proceeded, flying to the other side, “allow me the
gallantry.”

The two young women, who were full of spirits and good humor, were
laughing most heartily, _sub silentio_, at the attention thus so
ceremoniously paid to their mother by a man whom, beyond all human
beings, she detested. Now, however, that he came to proffer his
“gallantry” to themselves, they were certainly rather hard pressed to
maintain or rather regain their gravity.

“Leedies,” the Buck continued, “may I have the gallantry to help you
off?”

“Oh, thank you, it's too much trouble, Mr. English.”

“None on airth, Miss Purcel--do let me have the high-flown
satisfaction.”

“Oh, well,” she replied, “since you will be so polite,” and giving him
her hand she was about to go down, when suddenly withdrawing it, as if
recollecting herself, she said, nodding with comic significance toward
her sister Julia--“My sister, Mr. English, have you no gallantry for
her?”

“Ah,” he whispered, at the same time gratefully squeezing her hand,
“you're a first-rate divinity--a tip-top goddess--divil a thing else.
Miss Joolia, may I presoome for to have the plisure and polite gallantry
to help you off the car; 'pon honor it'll be quite grateful and
prejudicial to my feelings--it will, I assoore you!”

“Bless me, whose is that wedding party, Mr. English?” asked Miss Julia,
pointing to the opposite direction of the road.

English instantly turned round to observe, when, by a simultaneous act,
both sisters stepped nimbly from the car. Miss Julia, as if offended,
but at the same time with a comic gravity of expression, exclaimed--

“Oh, fie! Mr. English, is that your boasted gallantry? I'm afraid your
eight years' residence in England, however it may have improved
the elegance of your language and accent, hasn't much improved your
politeness!”

So saying, she and her sister tripped off to the chapel, which they
immediately entered. Much about the same time their brothers arrived,
mounted, certainly, upon a pair of magnificent hunters, and having
handed them over to two lads to be walked about until the conclusion of
Mass, they also entered the chapel, for the priest was not now more than
three or four hundred yards; distant.

The jest practised so successfully upon our friend the Buck occasioned
a general laugh at his expense, a circumstance which filled, him
with serious mortification, if not with actual resentment, for it so
happened, that one of his great foibles was such a morbid sensibility to
ridicule as was absolutely ludicrous.

“Bedad, Mr. English, you wor fairly done there; in spite o' the tall
English, you're no match for the ladies. Miss Julia fairly gev' you the
bag to hould.”

The Buck's eye glittered with bitterness.

“Miss Julia, do you say?” he replied; “why, my good friend, the girl was
christened Judy--plain Judy; but now that they've got into high-flown
life, you persave, nothing will sarve them but to ape their betthers.
However, never mind, I'll see the day yet, and that before long, when
saucy Judy won't refuse my assistance. Time about's fair play, you
know.”

It may be observed here, that Buck English happened to forget himself,
which he almost always did whenever he became in earnest: he also forgot
his polite language and peculiar elegance of pronunciation. To a vain
and weak mind there is nothing more cutting than the consciousness of
looking mortified in the eyes of others, and under these circumstances
to feel that the laugh is against you, adds one not important item to
“the miseries of human life.”

The Buck, now that the priest was at the chapel door, walked, with a
stride that very much resembled the mock-heroic, towards the place of
worship; but, in the opinion of the shrewd spectators, his dignity was
sadly tarnished by the humorous contempt implied in the practical jest
that had been so adroitly played off at his expense.




CHAPTER II.--The Proctor's Principles and His Family.

For a considerable time previous to the scene described in our last
chapter, a principle of general resistance to tithes had been deepening
in and spreading over the country. Indeed the opposition to them had,
for at least half a century before, risen up in periodical ebullitions
that were characterized by much outrage and cruelty. On this account,
then, it was generally necessary that the residence of that unpopular
functionary, the tithe-proctor, should be always one of considerable
strength, in order the more successfully to resist such midnight attacks
as hostile combination might make upon it. Purcel, as well as other
proctors of his day, had from time to time received threatening notices,
not only of a personal nature, but also of premeditated attacks upon
his house. The man was, however, not only intrepid and resolute,
but cautious and prudent; and whilst he did not suffer himself to be
intimidated by threats that for the most part ended in nothing, he took
care to keep himself and his family well provided against any attack
that might be made upon them.

The history of Matthew Purcel is soon told. It is that of enterprise,
perseverance, and industry, tinged a good deal by a sharp insight into
business, a worldly spirit, and although associated with a good deal of
pride and display, an uncontrollable love of putting money together, not
always under circumstances that were calculated to render him popular,
nor which could, in point of feeling or humanity, be at all defended. He
had commenced the world, as has been already intimated, in character
of a hardware pedlar. From stage to stage of that circulating life he
advanced until he was able to become a stationary shopkeeper in the
town of C------m. The great predilection of his heart, however, was for
farming, and in pursuance with his wishes on this subject, he took a
large farm, and entered upon its management with considerable spirit and
a good deal of skill. His success was beyond his expectations; and, as
the spirit of agriculture continued to gain upon him, he gradually lost
his relish for every other description of business. He consequently gave
up his large shop in C------m, and went to reside upon his farm, with a
capital of some thousands, which he owed to the industry of his previous
life. Here he added farm to farm, until he found himself proprietor of
nearly six hundred acres, with every prospect of adding largely to his
independence and wealth.

It was now that his capacity as a man peculiarly well acquainted with
the value of land, and of agricultural produce in general, induced him
to accept of offers in connection with the collection of tithe, which
were a good deal in accordance with his ability and habits. In short, he
became a tithe-proctor, and in the course of a few years rented tithes
himself to a very large amount.

Such is the brief history of Matthew Purcel, at the period when he makes
his appearance upon our humble stage; and it only remains that we add a
few particulars with regard to his family. Out of eleven children only
four survived--two sons and two daughters--all of whom were exceedingly
well educated, the latter accomplished. Purcel's great object in life
was more to establish a family than to secure the individual happiness
of his children. This was his ambition--the spirit which prompted him,
in his dealings with the people, to forget too frequently that the garb
of justice may be often thrown over the form of rapacity, and that the
authority of law is also, in too many instances, only another name for
oppression.

It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to find in their native
province four such children as called him father. His two sons were,
in symmetry of figure, strength, courage, manly beauty, and gentlemanly
bearing, almost unrivalled. They possessed the manners of gentlemen,
without any of that offensive coxcombry on the one side, or awkward
affectation of ease on the other, which generally mark the upstart.
In fact, although they understood their own worth, and measured their
intellectual powers and acquirments successfully with those of rank and
birth, they had sense enough to feel that it would have been ridiculous
in them to affect by their conduct the prestige of either; and they
consequently knew that both discrimination and delicacy were necessary
in enabling them to assume and maintain that difficult bearing in
society, which prevented them from encroaching on the one side or giving
up their proper position on the other. So far so good. Their characters,
however, were not without some deep shadows. Whilst we acknowledge that
they were generous, resolute, liberal, and of courage, we must also
admit that they were warm, thoughtless, and a good deal overbearing to
many, but by no means to all, of the peasantry with whom they came in
contact. From the ample scale on which their farming was conducted, and
in consequence of the vast number of men they necessarily had occasion
to employ, they could not but detect among them many instances both of
falsehood, dishonesty, and ingratitude. These vices at their hands never
received any favor. So far from that, those whom they detected in the
commission of them, were instantly turned adrift, Very often after
having received a sound horse-whipping. Much abuse also occurred between
them and the country people with reference to land, and especially
tithes, in which they gave back word for word, and too frequently met
concealed or implied threats either by instant chastisement or open
defiance; the result of all was, as the reader may perceive, that they
had the worst and least scrupulous, and consequently, most dangerous
class of persons in the country for their enemies. The name of the elder
was John, and the younger Alick; and, soothe to say, two finer-looking,
more spirited, or determined young fellows could not be found probably
in the kingdom. The relative position, then, in which they and the
people, or rather the worst class of them, stood to each other, and the
bitter disparaging taunts and observations with which the proctor and
his sons were treated, not only on the chapel green, but almost wherever
they appeared, are now, we trust, intelligible to the reader.

Of the daughters, Mary and Julia, we have not so much to observe.
They were both very beautiful; and, as we have already said, highly
accomplished. Both, too, were above the middle height and sizes, and
remarkable for the singular elegance and symmetry of their figures.
Mary, the eldest, was a dark beauty, with a neck and bosom like snow,
and hair black as the raven's wing; whilst Julia, on the contrary, was
fair, and if possible, more exquisitely rounded than her sister. Her
eyes, of a blue gray, were remarkable for an expression of peculiar
depth and softness, whilst Mary's dark brown were full at once of a
mellow and penetrating light. In other respects they resembled each
other very much, both being about the same height and size, and
altogether of a similar bearing and figure. Mary's complexion was
evidently inherited from her mother, who was, at the opening of
our narrative, a black-haired, handsome woman, with a good deal of
determination about her mouth and brow, but with a singularly benevolent
expression when she smiled. She, too, had received a good, plain
education, and was one of those naturally well-mannered women who,
whilst they are borne forward into greater respectability by the current
of prosperity, can assume, without effort, the improved tone of better
society to which they are raised.

There were few women in her sphere of life, or indeed in any sphere
of life, who dispensed more good to the poor and distressed than Mrs.
Purcel; and in all her kindness and charities she was most cordially
aided and supported by her admirable daughters. Within a wide circle
around her dwelling, sickness and destitution, or unexpected calamity,
were ever certain to be cheered by the benevolent hand of herself or
her daughters. The latter, indeed, had latterly relieved her, in a great
degree, if not altogether, of all her distant and outdoor charities, so
that little now was left to her management but the claims of such poor
as flocked for assistance to the house.

Mass having been concluded, and the benediction given in the chapel of
Red Ridge, Mr. Purcel and his family soon appeared among the crowd on
the green, preparing to return home. The car was driven up opposite the
chapel door, to the place where they were in the habit of waiting for
it. The two brothers came out along with their sisters, and signed to
the lads who had been holding their horses to bring them up. In the
meantime, Buck English, unabashed by the rebuff he had received,
once more approached, and just as the car had come up, tendered his
gallantry--as he called it--with his usual politeness.

“I trust, leedies, that as you were not kin-descending enough to let me
have the gallantry of helping you off, you will let me have the pleasure
of helping you on?”

“That lady behind you appears to have prior claims upon you, Mr.
English.”

“Behind me!” he exclaimed, turning about. “Why, Miss Joolia, there's no
leddy behind me.”

In the meantime she beckoned to her brother who, while the, proctor
was assisting his wife to take her seat, helped up both the girls, who
nodding to the Buck, said--

“Thank you, Mr. English: we feel much obliged for your gallant
intentions; quite as much, indeed, as if you had carried them into
effect.”

This joke, so soon played off after that which had preceded it, and
upon the same person, too, occasioned another very general laugh at the
Buck's expense; and, beyond a doubt, filled him with a double measure of
mortification and resentment.

“There you go,” he muttered, “and it was well said before Mass, that if
you set a beggar on horseback he'll ride to the divil.”

“To whom do you apply that language?” asked Alick Purcel.

“To one Michael Purcel, a tithe-proctor, an oppressor and a grinder of
the poor,” returned Buck, fiercely.

“And, you insolent scoundrel, how dare you use such language to my
father?” said the other. “I tell you, that if it were not from a
reluctance to create an unbecoming quarrel so near the house of God, and
so soon after his worship, I would horsewhip you, you illiterate, vulgar
rascal, where you stand.”

“I would be glad to catch you making the attempt,” replied the Buck,
with a look of fury; “because I would give you such a lesson as you
would never forget. I would let you know that it isn't your father's
unfortunate tenants and day-laborers you have before you--and that you
scourge like hounds in a kennel.”

Purcel was actually in the act of springing at him, whip in hand, when,
fortunately, the priest interfered, and prevented a conflict which, from
the strength and spirit by which the parties were animated, must have
been a fearful one.

[Illustration: PAGE 374-- The priest interfered, and prevented a
conflict]

“What is this?” said the worthy man; “in God's name, what does this
scandalous conduct, in such a place, and on such an occasion, mean? Come
between these madmen,” he proceeded, addressing the crowd, which had now
collected about them. “Keep them asunder!”

The two men were separated; but as each felt himself under the influence
of strong resentment, they glared at one another with looks of fiery
indignation.

“You had better keep out of my way, you impudent scoundrel,” said
Purcel, shaking his whip at him; “and hark ye, make no more attempts to
pay attention to any of my sisters, or, by the heavens above me, I will
trace you through all your haunts, and flog you as I would a dog.”

“I'll take care to give you the opportunity before long, Squire Purcel,
or rather Squireen Purcel,” replied the Buck; “and what is more, I'll
see you and yours in my power yet.”

“You're too ready wid your whip, Mr. Purcel,” said several voices from
among the crowd; “and you do think it's dogs you have to dale wid, as
Mr. English says.”

“No,” said Purcel, with scom; “I deny it; my whip is never raised unless
to the shoulders of some slavish, lying, and dishonest scoundrel, whom I
prefer to punish rather than to prosecute.”

“Take. care it doesn't come aginst you, then, some o' these days,” said
a voice.

“Ay,” added another, “or some o' these nights!”

“Ah, you ungrateful and cowardly crew,” he replied, “who have not one
drop of manly blood in your veins, I despise you. Like all thorough
cowards, you are equally slavish and treacherous. Kindness is thrown
away upon you, generosity you cannot understand, for open fight or open
resentment you have neither heart nor courage--but give you the hour of
midnight, and your unsuspecting victim asleep--or place you behind the
shelter of a hedge, where your cowardly person is safe and invisible,
with a musket or blunderbuss in your hands, and a man before whom you
have crawled in the morning like reptiles, you will not scruple to
assassinate that night. Curse upon you! you are a disgrace to any
Christian country, and I despise, I say, and defy you. As for you,
Buck English, avoid my path, and cross neither me nor any member of my
family.”

“Alick Purcel,” said English, “mark my words--I'll put my thumb upon
you and yours yet. I say, mark them; for the day will come when you will
remember them to your cost.”

Purcel gave him a stern look, and merely said--“I'm prepared for you;”
 after which he and his brother John mounted their horses and dashed off
at a rapid pace towards their father's house, followed by the groans
and hootings of the people--far above all whose voices was heard that of
Buck English, in loud and contemptuous tones.

On relating the occurrence at home, the father, as was his custom, only
laughed at it.

“Pooh, Alick,” said he, “what does it signify? Have we not been annoyed
for years by these senseless broils and empty threats? Don't think of
them.”

“I, father!” replied his son; “do you imagine that I ever bestow a
second thought upon them? Not I, I assure you. However, there is one
thing would most unquestionably gratify me, and that is, an opportunity
of cudgelling Buck English; because, upon second consideration,
horse-whipping would be much too gentlemanly a style of chastisement for
such a vulgar and affected ruffian.”

“I regret very much, however,” said his sister Julia, “that I have been
the cause of all this; but really, as Mary here knows, the absurdity of
his language was perfectly irresistible.”

“Yes,” replied her sister; “but, in fact, he is constantly annoying and
persecuting her, and very few would bear such nonsense and absurdity
from him with so much good-humor as Julia does. I grant that it is very
difficult to be angry with so ridiculous a fool; but I do agree with
Julia, that it is better to laugh at him, for two seasons: the first is,
because he is a fit object for ridicule; and the second, because it is
utterly impossible to resist it.”

“I don't think he will annoy Julia again, however,” said Alick.

“Not until the next opportunity,” observed his brother, “when, you may
take my word for it, he will be as ridiculously polite and impudent as
ever.”

“Not a doubt of it,” said the father; “the rascal's incurable, and
little did I imagine when I asked him once or twice to dine here that I
was preparing such an infliction for poor Julia. Julia didn't he write
to you?”

“I certainly had the honor of receiving a very elaborate love-letter
from him,” replied Julia, laughing, “which I will show you some of these
days; but, for my part, I think the fool is beneath resentment, and it
is merely on that principle that I have treated him with good-humored
contempt.”

“He is certainly as good as a farce,” said the father; “and if the
rascal had kept from making love, I should have still been glad to have
him here from time to time to amuse us.”

“How does he live at all?” asked Mrs. Purcel; “for, by all accounts, he
has no fixed place of residence, nor any known means of support.”

“Faith, Nancy, that's a subject upon which we are all aiqually
ignorant,” replied her husband; “but that the fellow lives, and can live
comfortably--ay, and has plenty of money, there can be no earthly doubt.
At the same time, that there is much talk about him, and a great deal of
mystery too, is a sure case on the other hand. Well, never mind, Jack;
I asked your old tutor, M'Carthy, to dine here to-day; he has come home
to the country after having gained a scholarship, I believe they call
it, in Trinity College.”

“I'm glad you did, father,” replied John, “and I'm much obliged to you.
Yes, he has gained first place, and I knew he would.”

“He intends going to the bar, he tells me.”

“He will be heard from yet, or I renounce all claims to common sense,”
 replied the other. “There is, unquestionably, a brilliant career before
him.”

“I would rather, in the meantime,” observed Mrs. Purcell, “that he had
continued steadfast to his religion. They tell me that he has become a
Protestant.”

“Why, I believe he couldn't gain a scholarship, as you call it, Jack,
without becoming a member of the Established Church.”

“No, sir, he could not.”

“Well, then,” proceeded the proctor, “what great harm? Why, I believe in
my soul, that if it weren't for the bigotry of priests and parsons, who
contrive to set the two churches together by the ears, there would be
found very little difference between them. For my part, I believe a
good, honest Protestant will go to heaven when a scoundrel Papist won't,
and vice versa. The truth is, begad, that it's six of one and half a
dozen of the other; and sorry would I be to let so slight a change as
passing from one religion to the other ever be a bar to the advancement
or good fortune of any one of my children!”

“I would much rather not hear you say so, Mat,” replied his wife; “nor
do I ever wish my children to gain either wealth or station in the world
by the sacrifice of the highest principle that can bind the heart--that
of religion.”

“Pooh, Nancy, you speak like a woman who never looked beyond the range
of the kitchen and larder, or thought beyond the humdrum prayers of your
Manual. I wish to see my children established; I wish to see them gain
station in the world; I wish to make them the first of their family; and
I do assure you, Nancy, that it is not such a trifle as the difference
between popery on the one hand, and Protestantism on the other, that I'd
suffer--that is, if they will be guided by me--to stand between them and
the solid advantages of good connection, and a proper standing in the
world. I say, then, boys and girls, don't be fools; for, as for my part,
I scarcely think, to tell God's truth, that there's to the value of
sixpence between the two creeds.”

“Father,” said Mary, laughing, “you're a man of a truly liberal
disposition in these matters.”

“But, papa,” said Julia, with an arch look, “if there be not the value
of sixpence between the two creeds, perhaps there is more than that
between the two clergy?”

The proctor shook his head and laughed.

“Ah, Judy, my girl, you have me there,” he replied; “that goes home
to the proctor, you baggage. Devil a thing, however, like an endowed
church, and may God keep me and all my friends from the voluntary
system!--ha! ha! ha! Come, now, for that same hit at the old proctor,
you must walk over here and play me my old favorite, the 'Cannie
Soogah,' just to pull down your pride. The 'Cannie Soogah,' you know, is
the Irish for Jolly Pedlar, and a right jolly pedlar your worthy father
was once in his days.”

“By the way, papa,” said Mary, “talking of that--what has become of
the pleasant man that goes under that name or nickname--the pedlar that
calls here occasionally?”

“I saw him in the market yesterday,” replied her father, “and a fine,
hale fellow he is of his years. For a man of fifty he's a miracle of
activity and energy.”

“They say he is wealthy,” observed John, “and I shouldn't wonder. You
ought to give a good guess at that, father--ha! ha! ha!”

“Right, John, I ought, and I think he is. You don't know how money
gathers with a successful pedlar, who is up to his business. I am
inclined to think that the Cannie Soogah is the only man who can throw
any light on the history of Buck English.”

“Who the devil is that impudent scoundrel, father? for it appears that,
as regards his birth, family, and origin, nobody knows anything certain
about him.”

“And that is just the position in which I stand,” replied his father.
“It is a subject on which he himself gives no satisfaction to any one.
When asked about it, he laughs in jour face, and replies that he
doesn't exactly know, but is of the opinion that he is the son of his
father--whoever that was; but that, he says, he is not wise enough to
know either, and then, after another laugh at you, he leaves you.”

“How does he live?” asked John, “for he has no visible means of
support--he neither works nor is engaged in any profession, and yet he
dresses well.”

“Well! John;” exclaimed Julia.

“Perhaps I ought not to say--_well_, Julia; but at all events, he is
very fond of being considered a buck, and he certainly dresses up to
that character.”

“He admits that he was eight years in England,” said his father;
“although, for my part, it's just as likely that he spent seven years
of that time in Botany Bay; if not, I should have no objection that
something should occur to make him spend the remainder of his life
there.”

“Why should you wish the man so ill, papa'?” asked Mary.

“Why, Mary--faith for a very good reason, my dear child; because I don't
wish to see your sister annoyed and persecuted by the scoundrel. The
fellow is so impudent that he will take no rebuff.”

“By the way, father, where does M'Carthy stop, now that he is in
the country?” asked Alick, with some hesitation, and a brow a little
heightened in color.

“For the present,” replied the other, “he stops with our friend,
O'Driscol, the new magistrate. Faith, it's a shove-up for O'Driscol to
get on the Bench. Halloo! there's M'Carthy's knock--I'm sure I know it.”

The proctor was right; but notwithstanding his quickness and sagacity,
there was another individual in the room at that moment who recognized
it sooner than he did. Julia arose, and withdrew under some pretence
which we cannot now remember, but I really because she felt that had she
remained until M'Carthy's entrance, her blushes would have betrayed her.

“M'Carthy is a very handsome young-fellow,” observed John--“would he
think of entering any pretensions to Katherine O'Driscol?”

“What d--d stuff you often talk, John--begging your pardon,” replied his
brother; “he has hard reading, and his profession to think of--both of
which he will find enough for him, setting Katherine O'Driscol and love
out of the question.”

“Very good, Alick,” said John. “Ha! ha ha! I thought I would touch you
there. The bait took, my boy; jealousy, jealousy, father.”

Alick, on finding that he was detected, forced himself into a confused
laugh, and, in the meantime, M'Carthy entered.

Nothing could surpass the cordiality of his reception. A holiday spirit
was obvious among the family--at least among all who were then visible.
Secretly, however, did his eye glance about in search of one, on whose
reception of him more depended than a thousand welcomes from all the
rest. In about twenty minutes Julia made her appearance, but to any
person in the secret, it was obvious that she was combating with much
inward, if not with some appearance of external confusion and restraint.
After the first greetings were over, however, she gradually recovered
her self-possession, and was able to join in the conversation without
embarrassment or difficulty.




CHAPTER III.--Mountain Legislation, and its Executive of Blood.


After dinner that day, and while the gentlemen were yet at table, Mary
and Julia, who, as we have said, had relieved their mother of those
benevolent attentions which she had been in the habit of paying to the
neighboring sick and poor, proceeded on their way to the cottage of
a destitute woman in the next village, who was then lying in what was
considered to be a hopeless state. The proctor himself, while he exacted
with a heartless and rapacious hand the last penny due to him, was yet
too good a tactician to discountenance these spontaneous effusions of
benevolence on the part of his wife and daughters. With a good deal
of ostentation, and that peculiar swagger for which many shrewd and
hard-hearted men of the world are remarkable, he actually got the
medicine himself for the helpless invalid in question, not forgetting at
the same time to make the bystanders in the apothecary's shop acquainted
with the extent of his own private charity and that of his family
besides. The girls had proceeded a part of the way on their charitable
errand, when it occurred to them that the medicine, which their father
had procured on the preceding day, had been forgotten, and as the sick
woman was to commence taking it at a certain hour that evening, it was
necessary that either one or both should return for it.

“You needn't come back, Julia,” said Mary; “I will myself run home and
fetch it. And accordingly her sister went back at a quick step towards
her father's house. The spot where Julia stood to await the return, of
her sister was within a few yards of a large white-thorn double ditch,
on each side of which grew a close hedge of thorns, that could easily
afford room for two or three men to walk abreast between them. Here
she had not remained more than a minute or two, when, issuing from
the cover of the thorns, and approaching her with something of a stage
strut, our friend, Buck English, made his appearance.

“Miss Joolia,” he exclaimed, with what was intended for a polite bow,
“I hope you will pardon me for this third liberty I teek in offering to
spake to you. I see,” he proceeded, observing her rising indignation,
“that you are not inclined to hear me, but I kim here to give you a bit
of advice as a friend--listen to my proposals, if you're wise--and don't
make me the enemy of yourself or your family, for so sure as you reject
me, so certainly will you bring ruin upon both yourself and them. I
say this as a friend, and merk me, the day may come when you will oll
remember my words too late.”

There was a vehemence in his language, which could admit of no mistake
as to the fixed determination of his purpose; his lips were compressed,
his eyebrows severely knit, and his unfeeling, hyena eye scintillated
with a fire that proceeded as much from an inclination to revenge as
affection. Julia Purcel, however, though a women, possessed no whit of
her sex's cowardice; on the contrary, her bosom heaved with indignant
scorn, and her eye gave him back glance for glance, in a spirit that
disdained to quail before his violence.

“Do you dare to threaten me or my family, sir?” she replied; “I think
you should know us better than to imagine that the threats of a ruffian,
for such I now perceive you to be, could for a moment intimidate either
them or me. Begone, sir, I despise and detest you--until this moment,
I looked upon and treated you as a fool, but I now find you are a
villain--begone, I say; I scorn and defy you.”

“You defy me, do you?”

“Yes, I have said it, I defy you.”

“Well, then, so be it,” he replied, “you must take the consequences,
that's all, and let your favorite, M'Carthy, look to himself too.”

Having uttered these significant words, ha reentered the double ditch,
along which a common pathway went, and in a minute or two was out of
sight.

Mary, on her return, at once perceived, by the flushed cheek and kindled
eye of her sister, that something had discomposed her. “Why, goodness
me, dear Julia, you look disturbed or frightened; what is the matter?”

“Disturbed I am,” she replied, “but not at all frightened. This worthy
lover of mine, whom nothing can abash, has honored me with another
interview.”

“Is it after the scene between him and my brother to-day?”

“Certainly,” she replied, with a smile, for she now began once more to
look upon the matter in a ludicrous point of view, “and has threatened
not only myself, but the whole family with destruction, unless I favor
his addresses--ha! ha! ha! He has one good quality in a lover, at all
events--perseverance.”

“Say rather effrontery and impudence,” replied Mary.

“Yes, I admit that,” said her sister; “but at any rate, they very often
go together, I believe.”

She then related the dialogue that took place, at which her sister, who
was equally remarkable for courage, only laughed.

“The fellow after all is only a fool,” she observed. “If he were
anything else, or if he had any serious intention of carrying such
threats into effect, he most assuredly would not give expression to
them, or put you on your guard against them. No, he is only a fool and
not worth thinking about: let him go.”

They then proceeded to the cabin of poor Widow Cleary, to whom they
administered the medicine with their own hands, and to whose children
they brought their mother's orders to attend the house, that they
might be relieved with that comfortable food which their destitute
circumstances so much required.

On their return home, the relation of the incident which we have just
narrated very much amused the family, with the exception of M'Carthy,
who expressed himself not quite at ease after having heard English's
threats. “There is an extraordinary mystery about that man,” he
observed; “no one knows or can tell who he is; you can call him a fool,
too, but take my word that there never hung mystery about a fool yet; I
fear he will be found to be something much worse than a fool.”

“Nonsense,” replied the proctor. “The fellow is only ridiculous and
contemptible; he and his clipped English are not worth thinking of--let
him go to the deuce.”

M'Carthy still shook his head, as if of opinion that they underrated the
Buck's power of injuring them, but the truth was that neither Purcel
nor his sons were at all capable of apprehending either fear or danger;
they, therefore, very naturally looked upon the denunciations of English
with a recklessness that was little less than foolhardy.

During the last few years they had been accustomed to receive threats
and written notices of vengeance, which had all ended in nothing, and,
in consequence of this impunity, they had become so completely inured to
them as to treat them only with laughter and scorn.

It has been already intimated to the reader that M'Carthy was residing,
during a short visit to the country, at the house of O'Driscol, the
newly-made magistrate. It was pretty late that evening when he took
leave of the Purcels, but as the distance was not far he felt no anxiety
at all upon the subject of his journey. The night, however, was so
pitchy dark, that even although well acquainted as he was with the
road, he found some difficulty in avoiding the drains and ditches that
enclosed it. At length he had arrived within a couple of hundred yards
of O'Driscol's house, when as he was proceeding along suddenly found
himself come unexpectedly against some individual, who was coming from
an opposite direction.

“Hillo! who is here?” said the voice, in a kind of whisper.

“A friend,” replied M'Carthy; “who are you?”

“What's your name?” inquired the strange voice, “and be quick.”

“My name is M'Carthy,” replied our friend; “why do you ask?”

“Come this way,” said the stranger; “you are Francis M'Carthy, I think?”

“Yes, that is my name--what is yours?”

“That doesn't matther,” replied the voice, “stand aside here, and be
quiet as you value your life.”

M'Carthy thought at the moment that he heard the noise of many feet, as
it were in the distance.

“You will not be safe,” said the voice, “if you refuse to take my
advice;” and as he spoke he partly forced M'Carthy over to the side of
the road where they both stood invisible from the darkness of the night,
as well as from the shelter of a large whitethorn branch, which would,
even in daylight, almost have concealed them from view. In a few
minutes, a large body of people passed them with that tread which always
characterizes the motions of undisciplined men. There was scarcely a
word among them, but M'Carthy felt that, knowing them as he did to
be peasants, there was something dreadful in the silence which they
maintained so strictly. He could not avoid associating their movements
and designs with some act of violence and bloodshed, that was about to
add horror to the impenetrable gloom of night, whose darkness, perhaps,
they were about to light up with the roof-tree of some unsuspecting
household, ignorant of the fiery fate that was then so near them.

Several hundreds must have passed, and when the last sounds of their
tread had died away, M'Carthy and his companion left their hiding-place,
when the latter addressed him as follows:--

“Now, Mr. M'Carthy, I wish you to understand that you are wid a
friend--mark my words--avoid the man they call Buck English, for of all
men livin' he hates you the most; and listen, whenever you come to this
country don't stop in procthor Purcel's, otherwise you may draw down
ruin and destruction upon him and his; and, if I'm not mistaken, you're
the last man livin' who would wish to do that.”

“By the way,” asked M'Carthy, “who is Buck English?”

“I don't know,” replied the stranger, “nor do I know any one that does.”

“And may I not ask who you are yourself?”

“No--for I've good raisons for not telling you. Good-night, and mark my
words--avoid that man, for I know he would give a good deal to sit over
your coffin--and you in it.”

We shall now allow M'Carthy to proceed to his friend's house, which he
reached without any further adventure, and ask the reader to accompany
the stranger, who in a few minutes overtook the body we have described,
to which he belonged. They proceeded in the same way, still maintaining
a silence that was fearful and ominous, for about a mile and a half.
Whilst proceeding, they met several persons on the road, every one of
whom they stopped and interrogated as to his name and residence, after
which they allowed them to pass on.

“Why do they! stop and examine the people they meet?” whispered one of
them a young lad about nineteen--to him who had just warned McCarthy.

“Why,” said the other, “is it possible you don't know that? It's aisy
seen you're but young in the business yet.”

“This is my first night to be out,” replied the youth.

“Well, then,” rejoined our friend, “it's in the expectation of meetin'
an enemy, especially some one that's _marked_.”

“An' what would they do if they did?”

“_Do_? said the other; “_do for him!_. If they met sich a one, they'd
take care his supper wouldn't cost him much.”

“Blood alive!” exclaimed the young fellow. “I'm afeard this is a bad
business.”

“Faith, an' if it is, it's only beginnin',” said the other, “but whether
good or bad the counthry requires it, an' the Millstone must be got rid
of.”

“What's the Millstone?”

“The Protestant church. The man that won't join us to put it down, must
be looked upon and treated as an enemy to his country--that is, if he is
a Catholic.”

“I have no objection to that,” replied the youth, “but I don't like to
see lives taken or blood shed; murdher's awful.”

“You must set it down, then,” replied the other, “that both will happen,
ay, an' that you must yourself shed blood and take life when it
come your turn. Howanever, that will soon come aisy to you; a little
practice, and two or three opportunities of seeing the thing done, an'
you'll begin to take delight in it.”

“And do you now?” asked the unsophisticated boy, with a quivering of the
voice which proceeded from a shudder.

“Why, no,” replied the other, still in a whisper, for in this tone the
dialogue was necessarily continued; “not yet, at any rate; but if it
came my turn to take a life I should either do it, or lose my own some
fine night.”

“Upon my conscience,” whispered the lad, “I can't help thinkin' that
it's a bad business, and won't end well.”

“Ay, but the general opinion is, that if we get the Millstone from about
our necks, a few lives taken on their side, and a few boys hanged on
ours, won't make much difference one way or other, and then everything
will end well. That's the way of it.”

This muffled dialogue, if we may use the expression, was now interrupted
by a change in their route. At a Rath, which here capped an eminence of
the road, a narrow bridle-way diverged to the right, and after a gradual
ascent for about a mile and a half, was lost upon a rough upland, that
might be almost termed a moor. Here they halted for a few minutes, in
deliberation as to whether they should then proceed across the moor, or
wait until the moon should rise and enable them to see their way.

It was shortly resolved upon to advance, in order that they might lose
as little time as possible, in consequence of having, as it appeared,
two or three little affairs to execute in the course of the night. They
immediately struck across the rough ground which lay before them, and
as they did so, the conversation began to be indulged in more freely, in
consequence of their remoteness from any human dwelling or the chances
of being overheard. The whole body now fell into groups, each headed by
a certain individual who acted as leader, but so varied were the topics
of discourse, some using Irish, others the English language, that it was
rather difficult to catch the general purport of what they said.

At length when a distance of about two miles had been traversed, they
came out upon one of those small green campaigns, or sloping meadows,
that are occasionally to be found embosomed in the mountains, and upon
which the eye rests with an agreeable sense of relief, on turning to
them from the dark and monotonous hue of the gloomy wastes around them.

They had not been many minutes here when the moon rose, and after
a little time her light would have enabled a casual or accidental
spectator to witness a fearful and startling scene. About six hundred
men were there assembled; every man having his face blackened, and all
with shirts over their outward and usual garments. As soon as the moon,
after having gained a greater elevation in the sky, began to diffuse
a clearer lustre on the earth, we may justly say that it would be
difficult to witness so strange and appalling a spectacle. The white
appearance of their persons, caused by the shirts which they wore in the
manner we have stated, for this peculiar occasion, when contrasted with
their blackened visages, gave them more the character of demons than of
men, with whom indeed their strange costume and disfigured faces seemed
to imitate the possession of very little in common, with the exception
of shape alone. The light was not sufficiently strong to give them
distinctness, and as a natural consequence, there was upon them a dim
gleamy look--a spectral character that was frightful, and filled
the mind with an impression that the meeting must have been one of
supernatural beings, if not an assemblage of actual devils, in visible
shape, coming to perpetrate on earth some deed of darkness and of
horror.

Among the whole six hundred there might have been about one hundred
muskets. Pistols, blunderbusses, and other arms there were in
considerable numbers, but these were not available for a portion, at
least, of the purposes which had brought them together.

After some preliminary preparation a light was struck, a candle lit,
around which a certain number stood, so as to expose it to as little
chance of observation as possible. A man then above the middle size,
compact and big-boned, took the candle in one hand, and brought it
towards a long roll which he held in the other. He wore a white hat with
a low crown, had large black whiskers which came to his chin, and ran
besides round his neck underneath. The appearance of this man, and of
those who surrounded the dim light which he held was, when taking their
black unnatural faces into consideration, certainly calculated to excite
no other sensations than those of terror mingled with disgust.

“Now,” said he, in a strong rich brogue, “let every man fall into rank
according as his name is called out; and along with his name he must
also repate his number whatever it may be, up until we come to a
hundred, for I believe we have no more muskets. Where is Sargin Lynch?”

“Here I am,” replied that individual, who enjoyed a sergeant's pension,
having fought through the peninsular campaign.

“Take the lists then and proceed,” said the leader; “we have little time
to lose.”

Lynch then called over a list until he had reached a hundred; every man,
as he answered to his name, also repeated his number; as for instance,

“Tom Halloran.”

“Here--one!”

“Peter Rafferty!”

“Here--two!” and so on, until the requisite number was completed, and
every man as he responded fell also into rank.

Having thus got them into line, he gave them a rather hasty drill; and
this being over, hundred after hundred went through the same process
of roll-call and manoeuvre, until the task of the night was completed,
so-far, at least, as that particular duty was concerned. Other duties,
however, in more complete keeping with their wild and demon-like
appearance, were still to be performed. Short rolls were called, by
which selections for the assemblage of such as had been previously
marked down for the robbery of arms, were made with considerable
promptitude. And, indeed, most of those to whom, such outrageous and
criminal attacks wera assigned, seemed to feel flattered by being
appointed to the performance of them.

At length, when these matters were, arranged, and completed, the whole
body was ordered to fall into rank, and the large-man, who acted as
leader, walked for a times up and down in front of them, after which,
as nearly opposite their centre as possible, he deliberately knelt
down, and held his two open palms across each other for some seconds, or
perhaps for half a minute.

A low fearful murmur, which no language could describe, and no
imagination conceive--without having heard it, ran along the whole line.
Whether it proceeded from compassion or exultation, or a blending of
both mingled with horror and aversion, or a diabolical, satisfaction, it
is difficult or rather absolutely impossible to say. The probability
is, however, that it was made up of all these feelings, and that it
was their unnatural union, expressed under such wild and peculiar
circumstances, that gave it the impressive and dreadful effect wo have
described.

“What does he mane?” said some of the youthful and inexperienced portion
of them, in the accustomed whisper.

“There's a death to take place to-night,” replied an older member;
“there's either a man or family doomed, God knows which!” He then
arose, and going along the front: rank, selected by name twenty-four
individuals, who were made to stand in order; to one of these he
whispered the name and residence of the victim; this one immediately
whispered the secret to the person next him, who communicated it in his
turn, and thus it went round until the last had received it. This being
accomplished, he stood apart from the appointed murderers, and made them
all, one after another, whisper to him the name and residence as before.

“Now,” said the leader, “it's my duty to tell you that there's a man to
be done for tonight; and you must all know his crime. He was warned by
us no less than four times not to pay tithe, and not only that, but he
refused to be sworn out to do so, and wounded one of the boys that wor
sent by me one night to swear him. He has set us at defiance by publicly
payin' his tithes to a man that we'll take care of some o' these nights.
He's now doomed, an' was tried on the last night of our meetin'. This
night he dies. Them that has his life in their hands knows who he is an'
where they'll find him. Once and for all then this night he dies. Now,
boys, such of you as have nothing to do go home, and such of you as have
your work before you do it like men, and don't draw down destruction on
yourselves by neglectin' it. You know your fate if you flinch.--I have
done.”

Those who were not on duty, to use a military phrase, returned across
the moors by the way they came, and consequently reached the bridle road
we have spoken of, together. Such, however, as were set apart for the
outrages and crimes of the night, remained behind, in order that the
peculiar destination of their atrocities might be known only to the
individuals who were appointed to perpetrate them.

On their return, our unknown friend, who had rendered such an essential
service to M'Carthy, thus addressed his companion--that is to say, the
man who happened to be next him,--

“Well, neighbor, what do you think of this night's work?”

“Why, that everything's right, of coorse,” replied the other; “any man
that strives to keep the Millstone about our necks desarves his fate; at
the same time,” he added, dropping his voice still lower, “I'd as soon
not be the man to do the deed, neighbor.”

“Well, I can't say,” returned our friend, “but I'm a trifle of your way
of thinkin'.”

“There's one thing troubles me,” added his companion, an' it's
this--there was a young lad wid us to-night from my neighborhood, he
was near the last of us as we went along the road on our way to the
mountains; I seen him whisperin' to some one a good deal as we
came out--now, I know there's not on airth a kinder-hearted or more
affectionate boy than he is; he hasn't a heart to hurt a fly, and is
loved and respected by every one in the neighborhood. Very well! God
of glory! isn't it too bad, that this one, handsome, lovin', and
affectionate boy, the only child of his father and mother,--_fareer
gair_ (* Bitter misfortune.)--my friend, whoever you are, isn't it too
bad, that that boy, innocent and harmless as a child, will go home to
his lovin' parents a murdherer this night?”

“What makes you say so?” asked our unknown friend.

“Why,” replied the man, “he stood beside me in the ranks, and has been
sent to murdher the man that was doomed.”

To this our friend judiciously avoided making any reply, the fact
being that several individuals in high trust among these Whiteboys were
occasionally employed to sound suspected persons, in order to test their
sincerity. For about half a minute he spoke not; but at length he said,
with something like sternness--

“There's no use in sich talk as this, my friend; every man that joins us
must make up his mind to do his duty to God and his country.”

“It's a quare way of sarvin' God to commit midnight murdher on his
creatures,” responded the man with energy.

“I don't know who you are,” replied our friend, “but if you take my
advice, you'll not hould such conversation wid every man you spake to in
this body. Wid me you're safe, but at the same time, I say, don't draw
suspicion on yourself, and it'll be betther for you.”

“Who is this man?” asked the other, who appeared to have been borne away
a good deal by his feelings, “that commands us?”

“Don't you know Captain Midnight?” replied the other, somewhat
evasively.

“Why, of coorse I know the man by that name; but, at the same time, I
know nothin' else about him.”

“Did you never hear?” asked his companion.

“Why, to tell you the truth,” said the other, “I heerd it said that he's
the _Cannie Soogah_, or the Jolly Pedlar that goes about the country.”

“Well,” said the other, lowering his voice a good deal in reply, “if I
could trust you, I'd tell you what I think.”

“I'll give you my name, then,” replied the other, “if you doubt me;” he
accordingly whispered it to him, and the conversation proceeded.

“I know your family well,” returned our friend; “but, as I said before,
be more on your guard, unless you know well the man you spake to. As for
myself, I sometimes think it is the _Cannie Soogah_ and sometimes that
it is not. Others say it's Buck English; but the Buck, for raisons that
some people suspect, could never be got to join us. He wishes us well,
he says, but won't do anything till there comes an open 'ruction, and
then he'll join us, but not before. It's hard to say, at any rate, who
commands us when we meet this way.”

“Why so?”

“Why the dickens need you ax? Sure it's not the same man two nights
runnin'.”

“But I have been only three or four times out yet,” replied his
companion; “and, sure enough, you're very--right--they hadn't the same
man twiste.”

They had now reached the road under the Fort or Rath we have alluded
to, and as there was no further necessity for any combined motion
among them, and as every man now was anxious to reach home as soon
as possible, their numbers diminished rapidly, until they ultimately
dispersed themselves in all directions throughout the country.




CHAPTER IV.--Mirth and Murder--A Tithe-Proctor's Office.


The next morning, when our proctor and his family assembled at
breakfast, their usual buoyancy of spirits was considerably checked by
a report which had already spread over a great portion of the country,
that a very industrious and honest farmer, who lived within about four
miles of them, had been murdered in his own house the night before, by
a party of fellows disguised with blackened faces, and who wore shirts
over their clothes. The barbarous and brutal deed, in consequence of the
amiable and excellent character of the man--who had been also remarkable
for resolution and courage--had already excited an extraordinary
commotion throughout the country.

“Boys,” said Purcel, “I have been in C------m this morning, and, I'm
sorry to say, there's bad news abroad.”

“How is that, sir?” asked Alick,--“no violence, I hope; although I
wouldn't feel surprised if there were; the country is getting into a bad
state: I think myself the people are mad, absolutely mad.”

“You both knew Matthew Murray,” he proceeded, “that lived down at
Rathkeerin?”

“Certainly, father,” said John; “what about him?--no harm, I hope?”

“He was murdered in his own house last night,” replied his father; “but
it's some consolation that one of the murdering villains is in custody.”

“That is bad business, certainly,” replied John; “in fact, it's
dreadful.”

“It is dreadful,” said the father; “but the truth is, we must have
the country, at least this part of it, proclaimed, and martial law
established;--damn the murdering scoundrels, nothing else is fit for
them. We must carry arms, boys, in future; and by d--n, the first man
I see looking at me suspiciously, especially from behind a hedge, I'll
shoot him. As a tithe-proctor I could do so without much risk.”

“Not, father,” said Alick, “until he should first offer, or make an
attempt at violence.”

“I would not, in the present state of the country, wait for it,” replied
the determined and now indignant proctor; “if I saw him watch me with
arms in his hands, or any dangerous weapon about his person, by d--n I'd
put a bullet through him, with no more remorse than I would through a
dog, and, if the animal were a good one, I think he would be the greater
public loss of the two.”

Just at this moment, the females of the family, who had been giving
breakfast to a number of poor destitute creatures, made their
appearance.

“Where have you all been?” asked Mrs. Purcel, addressing her husband
and sons; “here have we been waiting breakfast for you during the last
half-hour, and finding you were none of you within, we went and gave
these poor creatures without something to eat.”

“Ay,” responded the angry proctor, “and it's not unlikely that the son,
or husband, or brother of some of them may take a slap at me or at one
of our sons, from behind a hedge, before these long nights pass off.
D--n me, but it's throwing pearls before swine, to show them either
kindness or charity.”

“Something has angered you, papa,” said Mary; “I hope you have heard
nothing unpleasant; I am not very timid, but when a whole country is
in such a state of disturbance, one may entertain a reasonable
apprehension, certainly.”

“Why, I am angry, Mary,” replied her father; “there's as decent and
quiet, but, at the same time, as spirited a man as there ever was in the
barony, murdered this morning--Mat Murray of Rathkeerin; however, as I
said, it's a great consolation that one of the murderers is in custody.”

“And who is the wretch, papa?” asked Julia.

“One that nobody ever could have suspected for such an act,” replied
Purcel--“a son of one of our own tenants--honest Michael Devlin's
son--James.”

“Utterly impossible, father,” exclaimed Julia, “there must be a mistake;
that quiet and dutiful boy--their only son--never could have been
concerned in the crime of murder.”

“Well, perhaps not, Judy; but, you silly girl, you talk as if you were
in love with him. Why, child, there is such a system abroad, now that a
man can scarcely trust his own brother--no, nor does a father know, when
he sits down to his breakfast in the morning with his own son, whether,
as Scripture says, he is not dipping his hand in the dish with a
murderer.”

“Mat,” said his wife, “you ought not to be out late at night, nor the
boys either. You know there is a strong feeling against you; and indeed
I think you ought not, any of you, ever to go out without, arms about
you--at all events, until the country gets quiet.”

“So I was just saying, Nancy,” replied her husband;--“hallo! who's this
coming up to the hall-door?--begad, our old pleasant friend, the _Cannie
Soogah_. Upon my troth, I'm glad to see him. Hallo! _Cannie!--Cannie
Soogah_, my hearty,--Jolly Pedlar, I say--this way! How are you,
man?--have you breakfasted? Of course not. Well, go to the kitchen and,
if you don't show good eating, it won't be for want of materials.”

“God save you, Misther Purcel,” replied the pedlar, in a rich, round
brogue; “God save you, young gintlemen. Oh, thin, Misther Purcel, by
my sowl it's your four quarthers that has a right to be proud of your;
family! And the ladies--not forgettin' the misthress herself--devil the
likes of the same two young ladies I see on my whole bait, an' that's
the country at large, barrin' the barony of Bedhehusth, where these
cruel murdhers is committed; an' devil a foot I'll ever set into it till
it's changed for the betther.”

“Well, be off,” said the proctor, “to the kitchen; get your breakfast
first, and then we'll chat to you.”

“I will; but oh, Misther Purcel darlin', did you hear what happened last
night?”

“Is it Murray's business?”

“What do you call Murray's business, Misther Purcel? 'Tis Murray's
murdher, you mane?”

“Certainly, I have heard it all this morning in C------m.”

The pedlar only shook his head, looked upwards, and raising his two
hands so as to express amazement, exclaimed--“Well, well, what is the
world goin' to! troth, I'll not ate half my breakwist in regard of it!”
 So saying he slung his huge pack upon his shoulder as if it had been a
mere bag of feathers, and took his way round to the kitchen as he had
been desired.

The _Connie Soogah_, for so the people universally termed him, was in
person and figure a fine burly specimen of manhood. His hair was black,
as were a pair of large whiskers, that covered the greater portion of
his face, and nearly met at his chin. His arms and limbs were powerfully
made, and what is not always the case in muscular men, they betokened
great activity as well as unusual strength. Nobody, for instance, would
look without astonishment at the ease with which he swung a pack, that
was weighty enough to load an ass, over his shoulder, or the lightness
and agility with which he trotted on under it from morning till night,
and this during the very severest heat of summer.

M'Carthy, on reaching O'Driscol's the night before, had come to the
conclusion of not making any allusion whatsoever to the incident which
had just occurred to him. O'Driscol, who was only a newly-fledged
magistrate, would, he knew, have made it the ground-work of a fresh
communication to government, or to his friend the Castle, as he called
it, especially as he had many other circumstances of less importance
since his elevation to the magistracy. One indeed would imagine that
the peace and welfare of that portion of the country had been altogether
left to his sole and individual management, and that nothing at all of
any consequence could get on properly in it without his co-operation
or interference in some way. For this reason, as well as for others,
M'Carthy prudently hesitated either to arouse his loyalty or disturb the
tranquility of his family, and after joining him in a tumbler of
punch, or what O'Driscol termed his nightcap, he retired to bed, where,
however, he could not for a considerable time prevent himself from
ruminating, with a good deal of seriousness, upon the extraordinary
interview he had had with the friendly stranger.

After breakfast the next morning he resolved, however, to communicate to
his friends, the Purcels, who were at all events no alarmists, and would
not be apt to make him, whether he would or not, the instrument of a
selfish communication with the government, a kind of honor for which
the quiet and unassuming student had no relish whatsoever. He sauntered
towards the proctor's, at whose house he arrived a few minutes before
the return from the kitchen of our friend the Connie Soogah, who had
been treated there with an excellent and abundant breakfast, to which,
in spite of the murder of Murray, he did ample justice.

“Now, Mr. Purcel,” he exclaimed, tossing down his pack as if it had been
a schoolboy's satchel, “by the lomenty-tarry you have made a new man of
me! Whoo!” he proceeded, cutting a caper more than a yard high, “show
me the man now, that would dar to say bow to your--beg pardon, ladies,
I must be jinteel for your sakes--that would dar, I say, to look crucked
at you or one a' your family, and maybe the Cannie Soogah wouldn't rise
the lap of his liver. Come, young ladies, shall I make my display? I
know you'll buy lot o' things and plenty besides; I can praise my goods,
thank God, for you see, Miss Mary, when the world comes to an end it'll
be found that the man who couldn't say three words for himself, and
one for his friend, must be sent down stairs to keep the fire in. Miss
Julia, I have a shawl here that 'ud make you look worse than you do.”

“Worse, Cannie!” replied Julia, “do you call that a recommendation?”

“Certainly, Miss Julia, you look so well that nothing on airth could
make you look batther, and by way of variety, I've gone to the Well
o' the world's end to get something to make you look worse. God knows
whether I've succeeded or not, but at all events, we'll thry.”

So saying, he produced a very handsome shawl, together with a rather
large assortment of jewelry and other matters connected with the female
toilet, of considerable taste and expense.

“Here,” he added, “are some cotton and silk stockins'--but upon my
profits, it's not to every foot an' leg I'd produce them. I'm a great
coortier, ladies, you must know, and am in love wid every purty girl I
meet--but sure that's only natural; however, as I was sayin', it's not
to a clype or a pair of smooth-in' irons I'll produce such stockins' as
these! No, no, but a purty foot an' leg is always sure to get the worth
o' their money from the Cannie Soogah!”

“Well done, Cannie!” said the proctor, “dix me, but you're a pleasant
fellow--come girls, you must buy something--handsel him. You got no
handsel to-day, Cannie?” he added, winking at the pedlar to say no.

“Barrin' the first foundation in the kitchen within,” he replied; “for
you must know that's what I call my breakfast, handsel of any kind
didn't cross my palm this day.”

“In that case, the girls must certainly buy something,” added Purcel.

“But we've no money, papa.”

“But,” replied the pedlar, “you have what's betther--good credit with
the Cannie Soogah--och, upon my profits I'd rather have one sweet
coaxin' smile from that purty little mouth of yours, Miss Julia, than
money in hand any day! Ah! Misther Purcel, darlin', isn't it a poor
thing not to have an estate of ten thousand a year?” and here he looked
wistfully at the smiling Julia, and shrugged his shoulders like a man
who knew he was never likely to gain his wishes.

“I would buy something,” said Mary, “but, like Julia, I am penniless.”

“Never say so, Miss Mary, to me; only name what you'd like--lave the
price to my honesty, and the payment to my patience, and upon my profits
you won't complain, I'll go bail.”

“Yes,” observed Julia, “or what if papa would treat us to something?
Come, papa, for the sake of old times; let us see whether you have
forgotten any of your former, craft.”

“Good, Judy! ha! ha! ha!--well done! but Cannie, have you nothing for
the gentlemen?”

Now, we must pause for a little to state, that the moment M'Carthy, who
was now present, heard the jolly pedlar's voice, he started, and felt
considerably surprise. The tones of it were neither familiar to him nor
yet were they strange. That he had heard them somewhere, and on some
occasion, he could almost have sworn. Occasionally a turn of the man's
voice would strike him as not being new to him, but again, for the next
minute or two, it was such as he could not remember to have ever heard.
This we say by way of parenthesis.

“For the gentlemen! Lord help you, Mr. Purcel, I never think of them
when the ladies is before me--who would! However, I'm well prepared even
for them. Here is a case o' razors that 'ud cut half an inch before the
edge; now, if you find me another pair that'll do the seem--hem!
the same--I'll buy the Bank of Ireland and give it to you for a
new-year's-gift.”

“Don't you know this gentleman?” asked the proctor, pointing to
M'Carthy.

“Let me see,” said he--“we'll now--eh, no--I think not, he is neither
so well made, nor by any manes so well lookin' as the other;” and the
pedlar, as he spoke, fixed his eyes, but without seeming to gaze, upon
Julia, who, on hearing a comparison evidently so disadvantageous to
M'Carthy, blushed deeply, and passed to another part of the room, in
order to conceal what she felt must have been visible, and might have
excited observation.

“No,” proceeded the pedlar; “I thought at first he was one of the
left-legge'd M'Squiggins's, as they call them, from Fumblestown--but
he is not, I know, for the raisons I said. They're a very good plain
family, the M'Squiggins's, only that nobody's likely to fall in love
wid them--upon my profits, I'm half inclined to think he's one of them
still--eh, let me see again--would you turn round a little, if you
plaise, sir, till I thry if the cast's in your eye. Upon my faith, there
it is sure enough! How are you, Misther M'Squiggins? I'm happy to see
you well, sir. How is your sisther, Miss Pugshey, an' all the family,
sir?--all well, I hope, sir?”

“All well,” replied M'Carthy, laughing as loud as any of the rest, every
one of whom actually in convulsions--for they knew, with the exception
of Julia, who was deceived at first by the pedlar's apparent gravity,
that he was only bantering her lover.

The proctor, who, although a man that loved money as his God--with his
whole heart, soul, and strength--was yet exceedingly anxious to stand
well with the world, and on this account never suffered a mere trifle
to stand between him and the means of acquiring a good name, and
having himself been considered a man of even of a benevolent spirit.
He consequently made some purchase from the pedlar, with whom he held
a very amusing and comic discussion, as touching the prices of many
articles in that worthy's; pack. Nay, he went so far as to give them a
good-humored exhibition of the secrets and peculiarities known only to
the initiated, and bought some small matters in the slang terms with
which none but the trade are acquainted.

“Come, boys,” said he, “I have set you a good example; won't you buy
something from the jolly pedlar?”

John and Alick bought some trifling things, and M'Carthy purchased
a pair of bracelets for the girls, which closed the sales for that
morning.

“Well, now,” said the pedlar, whilst folding up again the goods which he
had displayed for sale, “upon my profits, Misther Purcel, it's a perfect
delight to me to call here, an' that whether I dale or not--although I'm
sure to do so always when I come. Well, you have all dealt wid me now
for payment, and here goes to give you something for nothing--an, in
truth, it's a commodity that, although always chape, is seldom taken.
'Tis called good advice. The ladies--God bless them, don't stand in need
of it, for sure the darlins' never did anything from Eve downwards, that
'ud require it. Here it is then, Misther Purcel, let you and your sons
do what the ould song says--'be good boys and _take care of yourselves.
Thighin thu?_ (*Do you understand.) An' this gintleman, if I knew his
name, maybe I'd say something to him too.”

“This is Mr. M'Carthy, Cannie.”

“Ay, M'Carthy--troth 'tis a good ould name. Well, Mr. M'Carthy, all I
have to say to you! is, that _if you happen to meet a man that gives you
good advice, TAKE IT_. An' now God be Wid you all, an' spare you to one
another!”

So saying, he slung his huge pack over his shoulders almost without an
effort, and commencing a merry old Irish song he proceeded lightly and
cheerfully on his journey.

“Well, boys,” said the proctor, “now that we've had a good hearty laugh
with the _Cannie Soogah_, let us proceed to business. I see by your red
coats and top-boots, that you're for the hounds to-day, but as I'm in a
hurry, I wish before you go, that you'd see those sneaking devils
that are hanging about the place. Hourigan is there again with fresh
falsehoods--don't be misled by him--the ill-looking scoundrel is right
well able to pay--and dix me if I'll spare him. Tell him he needn't
expect any further forbearance--a rascal that's putting money in the
saving's bank to be pleadin' poverty! It's too bad. But the truth is,
boys, there's no one behind in their tithes now entitled to forbearance,
and for the same reason they must pay or take the consequences; we'll
see whether they or the law will prove the strongest, and that very
soon. Good-bye, boys; good-bye, M'Carthy--and I say, Jack and Alick, be
on your sharps and don't let them lads do you--d'ye mind now?--keen's
the word.”

He then got on his comfortable jaunting-car, and drove off to wait,
according to appointment, upon the Rev. Jeremiah Turbot, D.D.

“Mogue Moylan,” said John, “will you go out and tell them fellows that I
and Alick will be in the office presently--and do you hear? tell them
to look like men, and not so much like murderers that came to take our
lives. Say we'll be in the office presently, and that we hope it's not
excuses they're fetching us.”

“I will, Misther John; but, troth, it's the worst word in their cheek
they'd give me, if I deliver the last part of your message. 'Tis my head
in my fist I'd get, maybe; however, Misther John, between you an' me,
they're an ill-looking set, one an' all o' them, an' could pay their
tides, every tail o' them, if they wished.”

“I know that very well,” replied the young fellow, “but my father's not
the man to be trifled with. We'll soon see whether they or the law's the
strongest; that's all.”

Moylan went over to where the defaulters were standing, and putting up
his hand, he stroked down his cheek with great gravity. “Are yez in a
hurry, good people?” said he.

“Some of us is,” replied a voice.

“Ay, all of us,” replied others; “and we're here now for an hour and a
half, and no sign of seein' us.”

“Yez are in a hurry, then?”

“To be sure we are.”

“Well, to them that's in a hurry I've a word to say.”

“What is it, Mogue?”

“Why, it is this, take your time--ever an' always, when you happen to be
in a hurry--take your time.”

“Maybe, Mogue,” they replied, “if you were widout your breakfast, as we
are, you wouldn't say so.”

“Why, did'nt yez get your breakfasts yet?”

“Devil a morsel.”

“Well, to them that didn't get their breakfasts I have another word to
say.”

“What is it, Mogue?”

“Why, have patience--ever and always when you're hungry, have patience,
and you'll find it a great relief; it'll fill you and keep you in good
condition--that I mayn't sin but it will! But, sure, I've got news for
yez, boys,” he added; “Masther John bid me tell you that, after about
a month or so it'll be contrary to law to get hungry: there's an act
o' parliament goin' to be made against it, you see; so that any villain
disloyal enough to get hungry, if it's proved against him, will be
liable to transportation. That I mayn't sin but it'll be a great
comfort for the country--I mane, to have hunger made contrary to act o'
parliament.”

Mogue Moylan was, indeed, a fellow of a very original and peculiar
character. Grave, sly, and hypocritical, yet apparently quiet and not
susceptible of strong or vehement emotions, he was, nevertheless, more
suggestive of evil designs and their fulfilment than any man, perhaps,
in his position of life that ever existed. Though utterly without
spirit, or the slightest conception of what personal courage meant, the
reader not be surprised that he was also vindictive, and consequently
treacherous and implacable. He could project crime and outrage with a
felecity of diabolical invention that was almost incredible. He was,
besides, close and cautious, unless when he thought that he could risk a
falsehood with safety; and, in the opinion of some few who knew him,
not merely dishonest, but an actual thief. His manner, too, was full
of plausible assumption of great conscientiousness and simplicity. He
seemed always calm and cool, was considered rather of a religious turn,
and always expressed a strong horror against cursing or swearing in any
shape. Indeed he had a pat anecdote, which he occasionally told, of
a swoon or faint into which he usually fell, when a youth of about
nineteen, in consequence of having been forced to take a book oath,
for the first time, another act against which he entertained a peculiar
antipathy. Now, all this was indeed very singular and peculiar; but he
accounted for it by the scrupulous love of truth with which not only
he himself, but his whole family, many of whom he said had given their
lives for their country, were affected. The only foible that could be
brought to the charge of honest Mogue, was a singular admiration for his
own visage, which he never omitted to survey with remarkable complacency
several times a day in a broken piece of looking, glass, which he kept
for that especial purpose. This, and its not unnatural consequences
a belief that almost ever female who spoke to him with civility was
smitten by his face and figure, constituted the only two weaknesses in
a character otherwise so spotless and perfect as that of Mogue Moylan.
Mogue was also a good deal subject to the influence of the pathetic,
especially when he alluded to the misfortune, glory be to God, which
had befallen the family, in the person of a lone line of ancestors, and
especially in that of big poor, simple father, whose word, as every
one knew, was as good as his oath; and, indeed, very few doubted that
remarkable fact, but who, notwithstanding had been transported during
the space of seven years for suspicion of perjury; “for didn't the judge
tell him, when he passed sentence upon him, that if he had been found
guilty all out, or of anything beyant suspicion of it, he would be
transported for life; 'an' instead of that,' said the judge, 'bekaise
I persave,' says he, 'that you're an honest man, an' has been sworn
against wrongfully in this business, and bekaise I see clearly that you
love the truth, the sentence of the coort is,' says he, sheddin' tears,
'that you're to be transported only for seven years, an' you lave
the coort an' the counthry,' says he, 'widout at stain upon your
character--it's only the law that's against you--so, God be wid you,'
the judge went on, wipin' his eyes, 'and grant you a safe and pleasant
voyage acrass,' says he, an' he cried for some minutes like a child.
That an' the unjust hangin' of my poor, simple ould grandfather for
horse-stearin'--that is, for suspicion of horse-stealin'--is the only
two misfortunes, thank God, that has been in our family of late days.”

So much for the character of worthy Mogue, whom we must now permit to
resume the delivery of his message.

The last words were uttered with so peculiar and significant a gravity,
not without a good deal of dry sarcastic humor, that the men could not
avoid laughing heartily.

“But,” he proceeded, “I have better news still for yez. Sure Masther
John desired me to let you all know that his father won't ax a penny o'
tithe from one o' yez: all you have to do is to call at the office there
in a few minutes, and you'll get aich o' you a receipt in full; (*
By this he means a horse-whipping.) that is, if you don't keep civil
tongues in your heads.”

One of Mogue's qualities was the power of gravely narrating a fact with
such peculiar significance, that the very reverse of it was conveyed to
the hearer; for the fellow was a perfect master of irony.

“Ah! well done Mogue; many a day o' reckoning _he_ has had wid _us_, but
maybe _our_ day o' reckonin' wid _him_ will come sooner than he expects,
or wishes.”

“Don't be thinkin' ill,” said Mogue, “but keep yourselves always free
from evil. What does Scripthur say? 'One good turn desarves another,'
says Scripthur. Boys, always keep Scripthur before you, and you'll do
right. 'One good turn deserves another,' says Scripthur! and you know
yourselves, I hope, that many a good turn you received at his hands.
That I may be happy, but it's good advice I'm givin' you!”

“Divil a betther, Mogue,” replied Hourigan, with a significant scowl,
and “it's we ourselves that'll be sure to take it some fine night.”

“Night or day,” replied Mogue, “it's always right to be doin' good,
whether we sarve our country or religion. God prosper yez, at all
events, and grant you success in your endeavors, an' that's the worst I
wish you! There now, Masther John's in the office, ready an' willin' to
give sich o' yez a resate in full as will--desarve it.”

The situation in which the parties stood, during this dialogue, was at
the rear of the premises into which the proctor's office opened, and
where the country people were always desired to wait. They stood at the
end of the stable, adjoining a wall almost eight feet high, on the
other side of which was the pig-sty. Here, whilst the conversation just
detailed went forward, stood a pretty, plump-looking, country-girl,
one of the female servants of the proctor's establishment, named Letty
Lenehan. She had come to feed the pigs, just in time to catch the
greater portion of their conversation; and, as she possessed a tolerably
clear insight into Mogue's character, she was by no means ignorant
of certain illusions made in it, although she unquestionably did not
comprehend its full drift. We have said that this girl understood his
character very well, and scarcely any one had a better right or greater
opportunities of doing so. Mogue, in fact, was in love with her, or
at least, pretended to be so; but, whether he was or not, one thing we
write as certain, that he most implicitly believed her to be so
with himself. Letty was a well-tempered, faithful girl, honest and
conscientious, but not without a considerable relish for humor, and with
more than ordinary talents for carrying on either a practical joke or
any other piece of harmless humbug, a faculty in which she was ably
supported by a fellow-servant of a very different description from
Mogue, named Jerry Joyce. Joyce, in fact, was not merely a strong
contrast to Mogue, but his very reverse in almost every point of his
character. He was open and artless in the opinion of many, almost to
folly; but, under this apparent thoughtlessness, there existed a fund of
good sense, excellent feeling, and quickness of penetration, for which
the world gave him no credit, or at least but very little.

Jerry and Letty, therefore, between whom a real affection subsisted,
were in the habit of amusing themselves, whenever they could do so
without discovery, at Mogue's expense. Such, then, was the relative
position of these parties at the present stage of our narrative.

When John Purcel was seen in the office, the tithe defaulters, for such
they were, went to the outside of the window, where they all stood until
it became the turn of each to go in. Although they went there to plead
their inability to pay, yet, in fact, there were a great proportion of
them who exhibited, neither by their manner nor appearance, any symptom
whatever of poverty. On the countenances of most of them might be
read, not only a stern, gloomy, and resolute expression, but one of
dissatisfaction and bitter resentment. As they turned their eyes upon
young Purcel, and looked around at the unequivocal marks of great
wealth, if not luxury itself, that were conspicuous in every direction,
there was a significance in the smiles and glances which passed between
them, that gave very appropriate foretaste of the convulsions which ere
long took place in the country. John Purcel himself had remarked these
appearances on almost every recent occasion, and it was the striking, or
rather startling, aspect of these men, that caused him to allude to it
just before sending Moylan to them.

It is not our intention to detail, at full length, the angry
altercations which took place between them, as each went in, from time
to time, to apologize for not paying up his tithes. Every possible
excuse was offered; but so well and thoroughly were Purcel and his sons
acquainted with the circumstances, of, we may say, almost every family,
not merely in the parish, but in the barony itself, that it proved a
matter of the greatest difficulty to mislead or impose on any of them.
Nay, so anxious did the shrewd tithe-proctor feel upon this subject,
that he actually got himself proposed and elected a governor of
the Savings' Bank, which had been for some time past established in
C------m. By this means, he was enabled to know that many of those who
came to him with poverty on their lips, were actually lodging money in
these economical institutions.

“Well, Carey,” said he, to a comfortable-looking man that entered, “I
hope you have no further apology to offer for your dishonesty?”

“Sorra thing, Mr. John, but that I'm not able to pay. I expect the
landlord to come down upon me some o' these days--and what to do, or on
what hand to turn, I'm sure I don't know on airth.”

“You don't say so now, Carey?”

“Troth I do, Misther John; and I hope you'll spare me for a little--I
mane till the hard times that's in it mends somehow.”

“Well, Carey, all I can say is, that, if you don't know on what hand to
turn, I can tell you.”

“Thank you, Misther John; troth an' I do want to know that.”

“Listen, then; before you come here to me with a barefaced and dishonest
lie in your mouth, you ought to have gone to the C------m Savings' Bank,
and drawn from the sum of two hundred and seventy-three pounds,
which you have lying there, the slight sum of seven pounds twelve and
nine-pence which you owe us. Now, Carey, I tell you that you are nothing
but an impudent, scheming, dishonest scoundrel; and I say, once for all,
that we will see whether you, and every knavish rascal like you, or the
law of the land, is the stronger. Mark me now, you impudent knave, we
shall never ask you again. The next time you see us will be at the head
of a body of police, or a party of the king's troops; for I swear that,
as sure as, the sun shines, so certainly will we take the tithe due out
of your marrow, if we can get it nowhere else.”

“Maybe, then,” said Carey, “you will find that we'll laugh at the law,
the polis, the king's troops, and Misther John Purcel into the bargain;
and I now tell you to your teeth, that if one sixpence of tithe would
save the sowls of every one belongin' to you, I won't pay it--so do your
worst, and I defy you.”

“Begone, you scoundrel. You are, I perceive, as rank a rebel as ever
missed the rope; but you won't miss it. Go home now; for, as I said this
moment, we will take the tithe out of your marrow, if you had thousands
of your cut-throat and cowardly White-boys at your back. Don't think
this villainy will pass with us; we know how to handle you, and will too;
begone, you dishonest ruffian, I have no more time to lose with you.”

In this manner almost every interview terminated. Purcel was a warm and
impetuous young fellow, who certainly detested everything in the shape
of dishonesty or deceit and here he had too many instances of both to be
able to keep his temper, especially when he felt that he and his family
were the sufferers. Other cases, however, were certainly very dissimilar
to this; we allude especially to those of real distress, where the means
of meeting the demand were not to be had. With such individuals the
proctor's sons were disposed to be lenient, which is certainly more than
could be said if he himself had to deal with them.

“Jemmy Mulligan,” he said, to a poor-looking man, “go home to your
family. We don't intend to take harsh measures with you, Jemmy; and you
needn't come here again till we send for you.”

“God bless you, sir; troth I don't know why the people say that you're
all hard and unfeelin'--I can say for myself that I never found you so.
Good morning, sir, and thank you, Misther John; and God forgive them
that blackens you as they do!”

“Yes, Jemmy, I know they hate us, because we compel them to act
honestly; but they will soon find that honesty, after all, is the
cheapest course,--for we shall take d--d good care to make them
pay through the nose for their knavery. We know they have a gang of
firebrand agitators and hungry lawyers at their back; but we shall make
them feel that the law is stronger than any treasonable combination that
can be got up against it.”

A third man came in. “Well, Tom, you're not coming to plead poverty, I
hope?”

The man looked around him with peculiar intelligence. “Are we safe?” he
asked; “and may I spake widout danger?”

“You may, Duggan.”

“Well, then, I came to say that I'll call over to-morrow evenin' and pay
it, but I daren't now.”

“Why so, Tom?”

“Bekaise the most of us all have the tithe in our pockets, but as a
proof that we did not pay it, we will, every man of us, be obliged to
show it before we go home. I might pay it now, Mr. Purcel; but then, if
I did, it' very likely I'd be a corpse before this day week. Sich is the
state that things ha' come to; and how it'll end, God only knows. At any
rate, I'll slip over afther dusk to-morrow evenin' and pay; but as
you hope for mercy, and don't wish to see me taken from my wife and
childre', don't breathe a syllable of it to man or mortual.”

“I shall not, indeed, Tom,” replied Purcel, “but I really did not think
that matters were altogether so bad as you describe them. The people
are infatuated, and will only draw the vengeance of the law upon their
heads. They will suffer, as they always do by their own misconduct and
madness.”

Duggan had scarcely withdrawn, when our old friend, Darby Hourigan,
thrust in his hateful and murderous-looking countenance. “God save you,
Misther John.”

“God save you kindly, Misther Hourigan.”

“Isn't it glorious weather for the saison, sir?”

“I have seen better and I have seen worse, Mr. Hourigan; but Darby,
passing the weather by, which neither you nor I can mend, allow me to
say that I hope you are not coming here for the twentieth time to palm
us off about the tithe.”

“Troth, then, and, Mr. John; I can't afford to pay tide--I'm a poor man,
sir; and, as it happens that I never trouble the parson in religious
matthers, I don't see what right the parson has to trouble me for my
money.”

“Ah! you have got the cant, I see. You have been tutored.”

“I have got the truth, sir.”

“Ay, but have you got the tithe, sir? for I do assure you, Mr. Hourigan,
that it is not your logic, but your money I want.”

“Begad, sir, and I'm afeard you'll be forced to put up wid my logic this
time, too. You can't take more from the cat than her skin, you know.”

There was an atrocious and sneering spirit, not only in this ruffian's
manner, but in the tones of his voice, that was calculated to overcome
human patience.

“Darby, we have let you run a long time, but I now tell you, there's an
end of our forbearance so far as you are concerned. If you were not able
to pay I could feel for you, put we know, and all the world knows, that
you are one of the most comfortable and independent men in the parish.
Darby, you in short are a d--d rogue, and what is worse, a treacherous
and mischief-makin scoundrel. I am aware of the language you use against
our whole family, whom you blacken whenever you have an opportunity of
doing so. You are not only dishonest but ungrateful, sirrah.”

“No man has a betther right to be a judge, and a good judge of
dishonesty, than your father's son,” replied Hourigan. “Why didn't you
call me an oppressor of the poor, and a blood-sucker?--why didn't you
say I was a hard-hearted beggarly upstart, that rose from maneness and
cheatery, and am now tyrannizin' over hundreds that's a thousand times
betther than myself? Why don't you say that I'd sell my church and my
religion to their worst enemies, and that for the sake of filthy lucre
and blackguard upstart pride? I now come to tell you what we all think
of you in this country, and what I believe some of us has tould you
already--that you may go to hell for your tithe, and make the divil your
paymaster, what he'll be yet. We will pay you none, and we set you and
your upstart ould rogue of a father, with the law, the polis, and the
army, all at defiance. I don't choose to say more, but I could if I
liked.”

Purcell's hunting-whip accidentally lay on the table at which he sat,
but he did not take it up immediately after Hourigan had concluded. He
quickly rose, however, and having closed the door and locked it, he let
down the windows, and deliberately drew the blinds.

“Now, you scoundrel,” he replied, taking up the whip, and commencing to
flog Hourigan with all his strength, which was very great, “I will give
you, by way of foretaste, a specimen of what a ruffian like you deserves
when he is insolent.”

With such singular energy, good will, and admirable effect did he lace
Mr. Hourigan, that the latter worthy, after cutting some very antic
capers, and exhibiting in a good many other respects several proofs of
his agility that could scarcely be expected from his heavy and ungainly
figure, was at last fairly obliged to sing out,--“Oh, Misther John,
Misther John! you will--Misther John, darlin', what do you mane, you
murdh--oh, oh, d--n your soul--dear, what do you mane, Mr. John, dear?
I say, what are you at? What do you baste me this way for--oh, may the
divil--the Lord bless you, an' don't--here I am--here, Misther John,
I ax your pardon--hell pursue--Misther John, darlin', I go down on my
knees to you, an' axes your pardon--here now you see, I'm down.--Och
murdher, am I to have the very sowl welted out o' me this way?”

Mr. John, having now satisfied himself, and left very visible marks of
his attachment and good will to Hourigan, upon that individual's face
and person, desired him to get up.

“Now, my good fellow,” he exclaimed, “I trust I have taught you a lesson
that you won't forget.”

“No, Misther John,” he replied, rising and rubbing himself in different
parts of the body, as if to mitigate the pain which he felt; “no, I
won't forget it--I won't by it's a lesson I'll remember, and so will
you.”

“What do you mean, you cowardly villain?” asked Purcel, once more
raising his whip. “You are threatening, are you.”

“No, Misther John, not a bit o' that--divil a threat--me! I wouldn't
threaten you if there wasn't niver another man in Europe. Let me out, if
you plaise--let me out, and may the div--the Lord lov you!”

“Now,” said the other, raising the blinds and afterwards opening the
door, “you may go about your business, and mark me, Mr Hourigan--”

“I do, sir,” replied the other, bolting out “oh, God knows I do--you
have marked me, Misther Purcel, and I will mark you, sir--for--” he
added muttering in a low voice to those who stood about him--“one good
turn desarves another, anyhow.”

We shall not now dwell upon the comments which young Purcel's violence
drew from the defaulters on their way home. Our reader, however, may
easily imagine them, and form for themselves a presentiment of the
length to which “the tithe insurrection,” as they termed it, was likely
to proceed throughout the country at large, with the exception only of
the northern provinces.




CHAPTER V.--A Hang-Choice Shot--The “Garrison” on Short Commons.


When our merry friend the pedlar left the proctor's parlor, he proceeded
at a brisk pace in the direction of the highway, which, however, was not
less than three-quarters of a mile from Longshot Lodge, which was the
name Purcel had given to his residence. He had only got clear of the
offices, however, and was passing the garden wall, which ran between him
and the proctor's whole premises, when he was arrested by Mogue Moylan.

“Ah! merry Mogue,” exclaimed the pedlar, ironically, “I was missin' you.
Where were you, my cherub?”

“I was in the barn 'ithin,” replied Mogue, “just offerin' up a little
pathernavy for the protection o' this house and place, and of the
daicent, kind-hearted peeople that's in it.”

“An', as a joint prayer, they say, is worth ten single ones, I suppose,”
 returned the pedlar,--laying his fingers on his lips and winking--“you
had--ahem--you understand?”

“No, thin,” replied Mogue, brightening up with excessive vanity, “may I
be happy if I do!”

“Why, our fair friend, Letty Lenehan--begad, Mogue, she's a purty girl
that--says she to herself,” proceeded the pedlar; “for I don't think she
knew or thought I heard her--'If I thought he would like these rib-bons,
I'd buy them for myself.' 'Who do you mane, acushla?' says I, whisperin'
to her. 'Who,' says she, 'but--but Mogue himself--only honor bright, Mr.
Magrath' says she, 'sure you wouldn't betray me?' 'Honor bright again,'
says I, 'I'm not the stuff a traitor's made of;' and so you see we both
laughed heartily, bekaise we understood one another. Mogue,” proceeded
the other, “will you answer me the truth in one thing?”

“If I can I will, Misther Magrath.

“I know ye will, bekaise you can,” replied, the pedlar; “how do you come
round the girls at all? how do you make them fond o' you? I want you to
tell me that, if it's not a family saicret.”

Mogue gravely drew his fingers and thumb down his thin yellow jaws,
until they met under his chin, and replied--

“It can't be tould, Misther Magrath; some men the women's naturally
fond of, and some men they can't bear--throth it's like a freemason's
saicret, if you wor a man that the women wor naturally fond of you'd
know it yoarself, but not bein' that, Mr. Magrath, you could not
understand it. It's born wid one, an' troth, a troublesome gift it
is--for it is a gift--at least, I find it so. There's no keep in' the
crathurs oft o' you.”

“Begad, you must be a happy man, Mogue. I wish I was like you--but
whisper, man alive, why don't you look higher.

“How is that?” asked the other, now apparently awakened to a new
interest.

“Mogue,” said the pedlar, with something like solemnity of manner, “you
and I are both embarked in the same ship, you know--we know how things
are to go. I'm now provin' to you that I'm your friend. Listen, you
passed through the back-yard to-day while I was in the parlor wid the
family sellin' my goods as well as I could. Well, Miss Julia had a
beautiful shawl about her purty shoulders, and as she seen you passin,
she started, kept her eyes fixed upon you till you disappeared, and
then, afther thinkin 'or some time, she sighed deeply. Whisper, the
thing flashed upon me--that's that, thought I, at any rate--and devil
a doubt of it, you're safe there, or my name's not Andy Magrath, better
known as the Cannie Soogah-Hurra, Mogue, more power!”

A richer comic study than Mogue's face ould not possibly be depicted.
His thin craggy jaws--for cheeks he had none--were winkled and puckered
into such a multiplicity of villanous folds and crevices, as could
scarcely be paralleled on a human countenance; and what added to the
ludicrous impression made, was the fact that he endeavored to look--and,
in fact, did so successfully--more like a man who felt that a secret
long known to himself had been discovered, than a person to whom the
intelligence had come for the first time.

“An' Misther Magrath,” he replied, once more repeating the survey of his
puckered laws; “is it by way of information that you tould me that? That
I mayn't sin, but you should be ever and always employed in carryin'
coals to, Newcastle. Troth, since you have broached\the thing, I've
known it this good while, and no one could tell you more about it, if
I liked. Honor bright, however, as poor Letty said, troth, I pity that
girl--but what can I do? no--no--honor bright, for ever!”

“Well, anyhow, now that we've thrown light upon what I noticed a while
ago, let us talk about other matters. The house is still well armed and
guarded, you say?”

“That I may die in grace, but it 'ud take me half an hour to reckon all
the guns, pistols, and blunderbushes they have freshly loaded in the
house every night.”

“Well, couldn't you assist us, you in the house?”

“No--for I'm not in the house; they wouldn't allow any servant to sleep
in the house for fear o' traichery, and they say so. If they'd let me
sleep in the house, it 'ud be another thing; I might wet the powdher,
and make their fire-arms useless; but sure they have lots of swords and
bagnets, and daggers, and other instruments o' that kind that 'ud skiver
one like a rabbit.”

“Well, but you know all the outs and ins of the house, the rooms and
passages, and everything that way so thoroughly, that one could depend
upon your account of them.”

“Depend upon them--ay, as well as you might upon the Gospel itself;--she
was fond of M'Carthy, they say, and they think she is still; but, _be
dhu husth_, (* Hold your tongue.) there's one that knows betther. You
don't like M'Carthy?”

“To be sure I do, as the devil does holy wather.”

“Well,” proceeded Mogue, “I've a thing in my head about him--but sure
he's in the black list as it is.”

“Well, what is it you have in your head about him?”

Mogue shook it, but added, “Never mind, I'll think it over again, and
when I'm made up on it, maybe I'll tell you. Don't we meet on this day
week?”

“Sartainly, will you come?”

“I intend it, for the truth is, Misther Magrath, that the Millstone must
be broke; that I may die in pace, but it must, an' any one that stands
in the way of it must suffer. May I be happy, but they must.”

The pedlar looked cautiously about him, and seeing that the coast was
clear and no person visible, he thrust a letter into his hand, adding,
“you may lave it in some place where the ould chap, or either of the
sons, will be sure to find it. Maybe it'll tache them a little more
civility to their neighbors.”

Mogue looked at the document, and placing it securely in his pocket,
asked, “Is it a notice?”

The other nodded in the affirmative, and added, with a knowing wink,
“There's a coffin and a cross-bones in it, and the name is signed
wid real blood, Mogue; and that's the way to go about breakin' the
Millstone, my man.”

“That I may never do an ill turn, but it is. Well, God bless you,
Misther Magrath, an' whisper now, don't forget an odd patther-anavy
goin' to bed, in hopes that God will prosper our honest endayvours. That
was a hard thing upon young Devlin in Murray's murdher. I'm not sure
whether you do, but I know that that act was put upon him through
ill-will; and now he'll hang for it. But sure it's one comfort that
he'll die a martyr, glory be to God!”

The pedlar, having assented to this, got on his pack, and leaving Mogue
to meditate on the new discovery which he had made respecting Julia
Purcel, he proceeded on towards the highway to which we have alluded.

Purcel himself, in the course of a few miles' drive, reached the
parsonage, in which the Rev. Jeremiah Turbot ought to have lived, but in
which, for several years past, he had not resided; if we except about a
fortnight twice a year, when he came to sweep off as weighty a load of
tithes as he could contrive to squeeze out of the people through worthy
Mat Purcel, his proctor.

For a year or two previous to this visit, there is no doubt but the
aspect of ecclesiastical affairs was gradually getting worse. Turbot
began to feel that there was something wrong, although he could not
exactly say what it was. Purcel, however, was by no means reluctant to
disclose to him the exceedingly desperate state to which not only had
matters been driving, but at which they had actually arrived. This, in
truth, was our worthy proctor's version of ecclesiastical affairs, for
at least two years before the present period of our narrative. But, like
every man who tampers with, simple truth, he began to perceive,
almost when it was too late, that his policy in antedating the tithe
difficulties was likely very soon to embarrass himself; and to deprive
the outrages resulting from the frightful opposition that was organized
against tithes of all claim to novelty. He had, in fact, so strongly
exaggerated the state of the country, and surcharged his pictures of
anti-tithe violence so much beyond all truth and reality, that when the
very worst and most daring organization did occur, he could do nothing
more than go over the same ground again. The consequence was, that
worthy Turbot, so long habituated to these overdrawn narratives, began
to look upon them as the friends of the boy who shouted out “wolf!” did
upon the veracity of his alarms. He set down his intrepid and courageous
proctor as nothing else than a cowardly poltroon, whose terrors
exaggerated everything, and whose exaggerated accounts of fraud,
threats, and violence had existed principally in his own imagination.
Such were the circumstances under which Purcel and Dr. Turbot now met.

The worthy rector of Ballysoho was a middle-sized man, with coal-black
hair, brilliant, twinkling eyes of the same color, and as pretty a
double chin as ever graced the successor of an apostle. Turbot was by
no means an offensive person; on the contrary, he must of necessity have
been very free from evil or iniquity of any kind, inasmuch as he never
had time to commit sin. He was most enthusiastically addicted to hunting
and shooting, and felt such a keen and indomitable relish for the good
things of this world, especially for the luxuries of the table, that
what between looking after his cuisine, attending his dogs, and enjoying
his field sports, he scarcely ever might be said to have a single day
that he could call his own. And yet, unreasonable people expected that a
man, whose daily occupations were of such importance to--himself, should
very coolly forego his own beloved enjoyments in order to attend to the
comforts of the poor, with whom he had scarcely anything in common. Many
other matters of a similar stamp were expected from him, but only
by those who had no opportunity of knowing the multiplicity of his
engagements. Such persons were unreasonable enough to think that he
ought to have occasionally appropriated some portion of his income to
the relief of poverty and destitution, but as he said himself, he could
not afford it. How could any man afford it who in general lived up to,
and sometimes beyond, his income, and who was driven to such pinches
as not unfrequently to incur the imputation of severity and oppression
itself, by the steps he was forced to take or sanction for the recovery
of his tithes.

In person he was, as we have said, about or somewhat under the middle
size. In his gait he was very ungainly. When walking, he drove forward
as if his head was butting or boring its way through a palpable
atmosphere, keeping his person, from the waist up, so far in advance
that the _a posteriori_ portion seemed as if it had been detached from
the other, and was engaged in a ceaseless but ineffectual struggle to
regain its position; or, in shorter and more intelligible words, the
latter end of him seemed to be perpetually in pursuit of his head and
shoulders, without ever being able to overtake them. Whilst engaged in
maintaining this compound motion, his elbows and arms swung from right
to left, and vice versa, very like the movements of a weaver throwing
the shuttle from side to side. Turbot had one acknowledged virtue in a
pre-eminent degree, we mean hospitality. It is true he gave admirable
dinners, but it would be a fact worth boasting of, to find any man at
his table who was not able to give, and who did give, better dinners
than himself. The doctor's face, however, in spite of his slinging and
ungainly person, was upon the whole rather good. His double chin, and
the full, rosy expression of his lips and mouth, betokened, at the very
least, the force of luxurious habits, and, as a hedge school-master
of our acquaintance used to say, the smallest taste in life of
voluptuousity; whilst from his black, twinkling eyes, that seemed always
as if they were about to herald a jest, broke forth, especially when he
conversed with the softer sex, something which might be considered
as holding a position between a laugh and a leer. Such was the Rev.
Jeremiah Turbot, to whom we shall presently take the liberty of
introducing the reader.

The parsonage, to which our friend Purcel is now making his approach,
was an excellent and comfortable building. It stood on a very pretty
eminence, and consequently commanded a beautiful prospect both in front
and rear; for the fact was, that in consequence of the beauty of the
scenery for miles about it, some incumbent of good taste had given it a
second hall door, thus enabling the inhabitants to partake of a double
enjoyment, by an equal facility of contemplating the exquisite scenery
of the country both in front and rear. A beautiful garden lay facing the
south, and a little below, in the same direction, stood a venerable old
rookery, whilst through the rich, undulating fields flowed, in graceful
windings, a beautiful river, on whose green and fertile banks sheep and
black cattle were always to be seen, sometimes feeding or chewing the
cud in that indolent repose which gives to the landscape, in the golden
light of a summer's evening, such a poetical and pastoral effect.

Purcel, on coming in sight of the parsonage, instead of keeping his
horse to the rapid pace at which he had driven him along until then, now
drew him up, and advanced at a rate which seemed to indicate anything
but that of a man whose spirits were cheerful or free from care. On
reaching the front entrance he discounted very slowly, and with a solemn
and melancholy air, walked deliberately, step by step, till he stood
at the hall door, where he gave a knock so spiritless, depressed and
disconsolate, that it immediately communicated itself, as was intended,
to the usually joyful and rosy countenance of the rector, who surveyed,
his agent as if he expected to hear that he either had lost, or was
about to lose, half his family or the whole of his wealth.

“How do you do, Purcel?--eh, what's this? Is there anything wrong? You
look very much dejected--what's the matter? Sit down.”

“Thank you, sir; but I really do not think I am well--at least my
spirits are a great deal depressed; but indeed, Dr. Turbot, a man must
be more or less than a man to be able to keep up his spirits in such
times.”

“Oh! ho, my worthy proctor, is that all? Thank you for nothing, Purcel.
I understand you; but you ought to know I am not to be caught now by
your 'calamities'.”

“My calamities! I declare to goodness, Dr. Turbot, I could rest
contented if they were nobody's calamities but my own; unfortunately,
however, you are as deep in them as I am, and in a short time, God
knows, we will be a miserable pair, I fear.”

“Not at all, Purcel--this is only the old story. Raw-heads and
bloody-bones coming to destroy the tithes, and eat up the parsons. Let
me see--it is now three years since you commenced these 'lamentations.'”

“Three years ago; why we had peace and quietness then compared to what
we have at present,” replied Purcel.

“And what have we now, pray?”

“Why, sir, the combinations against tithes is quite general over the
whole country.”

“Well; so was it then upon your own showing. Go on.”

“As I said, sir, it was nothing at that time. There is little now but
threatening notices that breathe of blood and murder.”

“Very good; so was it then upon your own showing. Go on.”

“But of late, sir, lives have been taken. Clergymen have been threatened
and fired at.”

“Very good; so was it then upon you! own showing. Go on, I say.”

“Fired at I say, and shot, sir. The whole White boy system has turned
itself into a great tithe conspiracy. The farmers, the landholders
of all descriptions, the cottiers, the daily laborers, and the very
domestic servants, have all joined this conspiracy, and sworn neither to
pay tithes themselves nor to allow others to pay them. They compare the
established church to a garrison; and although the law prevents them
from openly destroying it by force, they swear that they'll starve it
out.”

“Eh!” said Turbot, starting, “what's that you say? Starve us out! What
an infamous and unconstitutional project! What a diabolical procedure!
But I forgot--bravo, Purcel! This was all the case before upon your own
showing.”

“Well, sir,” returned Purcel, “there was at least this difference, that
I was able to get something out of them then, but devil a copper can
I get out o' them now. I think you'll admit, sir, that this fact gives
some weight to my argument.”

“You don't mean to say, Purcel,” replied the other, from whose chin the
rosy tint gradually paled away until it assumed that peculiar hue which
is found inside of a marine shell, that is to say, white with a dream
of red barely and questionably visible; “you don't mean to say, my good
friend Purcel, that you have no money for me on this occasion?”

“By no means, sir,” replied the proctor. “Money I have got for you, no
doubt--money I have got certainly.”

The double chin once more assumed its natural hue of celestial rosy
red.”

“Upon my honor, Purcel,” he replied, “I have not temper for this; it
seems to me that you take particular delight in wantonly tampering with
my feelings. I am really quite tired of it. Why harass and annoy me with
your alarms? Conspiracy, blood, and massacre are the feeblest terms in
your vocabulary. It is absolutely ridiculous, sir, and I beg you will
put an end to it.”

“I would be very glad to do so, sir,” replied Purcel; “and still more
satisfied if I had never had anything to do with the temporalities of
your church.”

“I don't see why, above all men living, you should say so, Purcel; you
have feathered your nest tolerably well by the temporalities of our
church.”

“If I have, sir,” replied the proctor, “it has been at the expense of my
popularity and good name. I and my family are looked upon as a part and
parcel of your system, and, I may add, as the worst and most odious
part of it. I and they are looked upon as the bitterest enemies of the
people; and because we endeavor to get out of them the means of enabling
you to maintain your rank in the world, we are obliged to hear
ourselves branded every day in the week as villains, oppressors, and
blood-suckers. This, however, we could bear; but to know that we are
marked down for violence, brutality, and, if possible, assassination, is
a penalty for which nothing in your establishment could compensate us.
I and my sons have received several notices of violence in every shape,
and we are obliged to sleep with our house half filled with arms and
ammunition, in dread of an attack every night in the year.”

“Well, well,” replied Turbot, “this, after all, is but the old story;
the matter is only an ebullition, and will pass away. I know you are
constitutionally timid. I know you are; and have in fact a great deal of
the natural coward in your disposition; and I say natural, because a
man is no more to be blamed for being born a coward than he is for being
born with a bad complexion or an objectionable set of features. You
magnify the dangers about you, and, in fact, become a self-tormentor. As
for my part, I am glad you have got money, for I do assure you, I never
stood so much in need of it in my life.”

“The very papers, sir,” continued Purcel, who could not prevent himself
from proceeding, “might enable you to see the state of the country.”

“Oh, d--n the papers,” said the parson, “I am sick of them. Our side is
perpetually exaggerating matters--just as you are; and as for the other
side, your papist rags I never, of course, see or wish to see. I want
six hundred now, or indeed eight if you can, and I had some notion of
taking a day or two's shooting. How is the game on the glebe? Has it
been well preserved, do you know?”

“I am not aware,” said the proctor, “that any one has shot over the
glebe lands this season; but if you take my advice, sir, you will expose
yourself as little as you can in the neighborhood. There are not two
individuals in the parish so unpopular as Dr. Turbot and your humble
servant.”

“In that case, then,” replied the other, “the less delay I make here the
better--you can let me have six hundred, I hope?”

“I certainly told you, sir,” replied Purcel, with something of a
determined and desperate coolness about him, “that I had money for you,
and so I have.”

“Thank you, Purcel; I must say you certainly have, on all occasions,
exerted yourself faithfully and honestly in support of my interests.”

“Money, sir,” pursued the other, without appearing to look to the right
or to the left, “I have for you. Would you venture to guess to what
amount?”

“Well, under the circumstances you speak of, less, I dare say, than I
expect.”

“I have been able to get, within the last six months, exactly fifty-nine
pounds thirteen and sevenpence!”

If the ebb which we have described before of the blood from the doctor's
double chin was a gradual one, we can assure the reader that, in this
case, it was rapid in proportion to the terror and dismay conveyed by
this authentic, but astounding piece of intelligence. The whole face
became pale, his eyes at once lost their lustre, and were, as he fixed
them in astonishment upon the proctor, completely without speculation;
his voice became tremulous, and, as he pulled out his handkerchief to
wipe away the unexpected perspiration which the proctor's words had
brought out upon his forehead, his hands trembled as if he had been
suddenly seized with palsy. In truth, Purcel, who had a kind of
good-natured regard for the little man, felt a sensation of compassion
for him, on witnessing the extraordinary distress under which he
labored.

“I am sorry for this,” said he, “for I really know not what is to be
done, and, what is equally distressing, our prospects are not at all
likely to improve.”

“You don't mean to say, Purcel, that circumstances are as bad as you
report them--as bad--as desperate, I should say--and as ruinous?”

“I fear,” said Purcel, “they go beyond the gloomiest and most desponding
views you could take of them. The conspiracy, for such we must term it,
is, in point of fact, deepening down to the very foundations, if I may
use the expression, of society. Every day it is becoming more dangerous
and alarming; but how it is to be checked or mitigated, or how we are to
stand out of its way and avoid its consequences, heaven only knows, for
I don't.”

“But, Purcel, my dear friend, what am I and my domestic establishment
to do? Good God! there is nothing but ruin before us! You know I always
lived up to my income--indeed, at best, it was too limited for the
demands of my family, and our habits of life. And now, to have the very
prop--the only one on which I leant--suddenly snapt from under me--it is
frightful. But you are to blame, Purcel; you are much to blame. Why did
you not apprise me of this ruinous state of things before it came
thus on me unawares? It was unfeeling and heartless in you not to have
prepared me for it.”

The proctor actually imagined, and not without reason, that the worthy
doctor was beginning to get beside himself, as it is termed, on hearing
such a charge as this brought against him; and he was about to express
his astonishment at it, when Mr. Temple, his curate, who resided in the
parsonage, made his appearance, and joined them at Dr. Turbot's request.
“Temple,” said he, as the latter portion of his body began to pursue
the other through the room, “are you aware of the frightful condition to
which the country has come?”

“Who can be ignorant of it?” replied Temple; “how can any man live in
the country, and not know it?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Turbot, tartly, “I have lived in the country, and,
until a few minutes ago, I was ignorant of the extent to which it has
come.”

“Well, sir,” said Temple, “that is odd enough; for, to my own knowledge,
your information has been both regular and authentic upon this subject
at all events. Our friend Purcel, here, has not left you in ignorance of
it.”

“Yes,” said Turbot, “but he had the country as bad three years ago as
it is now. Was this fair? Why, I took it for granted that all his alarms
and terrors were the mere play and subterfuge of the proctor upon the
parson, and, consequently, thought little of it; but here I am stranded
at once, wrecked, and left on my bottom. How will I meet my tradesmen?
how will I continue my establishment? and, what is worse, how can I
break it up? You know, Temple, I cannot, unfortunately, live without
luxuries. They are essential to my health, and if suddenly deprived
of them, as I am likely to be, I cannot answer to society for the
consequences.”

“Sir,” said Temple, “it is quite obvious that a period of severe trial
and chastening is at hand, or I should rather say, has already arrived.
Many of our calling, I am grieved I to know, are even now severely
suffering, and suffering, I must add, with unexampled patience and
fortitude under great and trying privations. Yet I trust that the health
of the general body will be improved by it, and purged of the grossness
and worldly feeling which have hitherto, I fear, too much characterized
it. Many, I know, may think we are merely in the hands of man, but
for my part, I think, and earnestly hope, that we are in those of God
himself, and that He chasteneth no only because He loveth.”

“This is most distressing to hear, my dear Temple,” replied his rector;
“but I trust I am as willing and as well prepared, from religious
feeling, to suffer as another--that is, provided always I am not
deprived of those comforts and little luxuries to which I have all my
life been accustomed.”

“I am very much afraid,” observed Purcel, “that the clergy of the
established church will have a very fine opportunity to show the world
how well and patiently they can suffer.”

“I have already said, Purcel,” said the doctor, “that I am as willing
to suffer as another. I know I am naturally of a patient and rather an
humble disposition; let these trials come then, and I am prepared for
them, provided only that I am not deprived of my little luxuries, for
these are essential to my health itself, otherwise I could bear even
this loss. I intended, Temple, to have had a day or two's shooting on
the glebe lands, but Purcel, here, tells me that I am very unpopular,
and would not, he says, recommend me to expose myself much, or if
possible at all, in the neighborhood.

“And upon my word and credit I spoke nothing,” replied the other, “but
what I know to be truth. There is not a feather of game on the glebe
lands that would be shot down with half the pleasure that the parson
himself would. I beg, then, Dr. Turbot, that you won't think of it. I'll
get my sons to go over the property, and if there's any game on it we
shall have it sent to you.”

“How does it stand for game, Temple, do you know?”

“I really cannot say,” replied the good man. “The killing of game is a
pursuit I have never relished, and with which I am utterly unacquainted.
I fear, however, that the principal game in the country will soon be the
parson and the proctor.”

“It's a delightful pursuit,” replied the Rev. Doctor, who did not at
all relish the last piece of information, and only replied to the first,
“and equally conducive to health and morals. What, for instance, can be
more delicious than a plump partridge or grouse, stewed in cinnamon and
claret? and yet, to think that a man must be deprived of--well,” said
he, interrupting himself, “it is a heavy, and awful dispensation--and
one that I ought to have been made acquainted with--that is, to its
full and fearful extent--before it came on me thus unawares. Purcel here
scarcely did his duty by me in this.”

“I fear, sir,” replied Temple, “that it was not Purcel who neglected his
duty, but you who have been incredulous. I think he has certainly not
omitted to sound the alarm sufficiently loud during the approach of this
great ordeal to which we are exposed.”

“And in addition to everything else, I am in arrears to you, Temple,” he
added; “and now I have no means of paying you.”

Temple was silent, for at that moment the necessities of his family
pressed with peculiar severity upon himself--and he was not exactly
prepared for such an intimation. The portion of salary then coming to
him was, in truth, his sole dependence at that peculiar crisis, and this
failing him, he knew not on what hand or in what direction to turn.

After musing for some time, he at length replied, “If you have it not,
Dr. Turbot, or cannot procure it, of course it is idle for me to expect
it--although I will not deny, that in the present circumstances of
my family, it would have come to us with very peculiar and seasonable
relief.”

“But I have not a pound,” replied the doctor; “so far from that, I am
pretty deeply in debt--for I need hardly say, that for years I have been
balancing my affairs--paying off debts to-day, and contracting other
to-morrow--always dipped, but and rather deeply, too, as I said.”

He again got to his legs, when the pursuit of the latter part of his
person after the rest once more took place, and in this odd way he
traversed the room in a state of extreme tribulation.

“What is to be done?” he asked--“surely the government cannot abandon
us?--cannot allow us to perish utterly, which we must do, if left to
the mercy of our enemies? No, certainly it cannot desert us in such a
strait as this, unless it wishes to surrender the established church to
the dark plots and designing ambition of popery. No, no--it cannot--it
must not--it dares not. Some vigorous measure for our relief must be
taken, and that speedily;--let us not be too much dejected, then--our
sufferings will be short--and as for myself, I am willing to make
any reasonable sacrifice, provided I am not called upon--at these
years--fifty-eight--to give up my usual little luxuries. Purcel, I want
you to take a turn in the garden. Temple, excuse me--will you?--and say
to Mrs. Temple to make no preparations, as I don't intend to stop--I
shall return to Dublin in an hour at farthest; and don't be cast down,
Temple; matters will soon brighten.”

“It is not at all necessary, sir,” replied Temple, “that you should
adjorn to the garden to speak with Mr. Purcel. I was on my way to the
library when I met you, and I am going there now.”

“It is not so much,” he replied, “that I have anything very particular
to say to Purcel, as that I feel a walk in the fresh air will relieve
me. Good-bye, then, for a little; I shall see you before I go.”

“Now, Purcel,” said he, when they had reached the garden, “this, after
all, is only a false alarm, or even if it be not, we know that the
government could by no means afford to abandon the established church
in Ireland, because that would be, in other words, to reject the aid
of, and sever themselves from all connection with, the whole Protestant
party; and you, as a man of sense, Purcel, need not be told that it is
only by the existence of a Protestant party in this country that they
are enabled to hold it in union with England at all.”

“But what has that to do with our present distresses?” said the proctor,
who, as he probably began to anticipate the doctor's ultimate object
in this conversation, very shrewdly associated himself rather in an
official spirit with the embarrassments of his friend, and the church in
general.

“It has considerably,” replied Dr. Turbot; “for instance, there will be
no risk whatsoever, in lending to many of the embarrassed clergy sums
of money upon their! personal security, until this pressure passes away,
and their prosperity once more returns.”

“Oh, ho, doctor,” thought his sharp and wily companion, “I believe I
have you now, Well, Dr. Turbot,” he replied, “I think, the case, even as
you put it, will be attended with difficulties. What, for instance, is
personal security from a poor or a ruined man? very little, or rather
nothing. Still it is possible that many, relying upon the proverbial
honor and integrity of the Irish Protestant clergy, may actually lend
money upon this security. But then,” he added, with a smile, “those who
will, must belong to a peculiar and privileged class.”

“Why,” asked Turbot, “to what class do you allude?”

“To one with which,” said the proctor, “I unfortunately have no
connection--I mean the class that can afford to lend it.”

“Purcel,” said Dr. Turbot, “I am sorry to hear this ungenerous
observation from you; I did not expect it.”

“Why do you call it ungenerous, sir?” asked Purcel.

“Because,” replied Turbot, “it is obvious that it was made in
anticipation of a favor which I was about to ask of you.”

“If I can grant you any favor,” replied the proctor, “I shall be most
happy to do so;--if you will only let me know what it is.”

“You must be particularly dull not to perceive it,” replied the parson,
“aware, as you are, of the unexpected state of my circumstances. In
short, I want you to assist me with a few hundreds.”

The proctor, after a pause, replied, “You place me in circumstances of
great difficulty, sir; I am indeed anxious to oblige you, but I know
not whether I can do so with honor, without violating my good faith to
another party.”

“I don't understand you,” said Turbot.

“Then I shall explain it,” replied Purcel; “the sum I can command is one
of four hundred, which is at this moment virtually lent upon excellent
security, at an interest of eight per cent. The loan is certainly not
legally completed, but morally and in point of honor it is. Now, if I
lend this money to you, sir, I must break my word and verbal agreement
to the party in question.”

“Very well, sir,” replied the rector, who, notwithstanding the love
he bore his “little luxuries,” was scrupulously honorable in all money
transactions, “don't attempt to break word, or to violate good faith
with any man; and least of all, on my account. I presume I shall be able
to raise the money somewhere else.”

Purcel, who had uniformly found the doctor a sharp, but correct man
in matters,of business, and who knew besides the severe pressure under
which he labored at the moment, was not exactly prepared to hear from
him the expression of a principle so high-minded. He paused again
for some time, during which he reasoned with himself somewhat to the
following effect:--“I did not expect this from the worthy doctor, but
I did, that he would at once have advised me to break the agreement I
mentioned and lend himself the money. I cannot think there will be
much risk in lending such a man a few hundreds, especially as no such
agreement as I allude to exists.” He then replied as follows:--

“Doctor,” he proceeded, “I have been thinking over this matter; I know
you want the money, and I am sorry for it. That I have myself been a
gainer by my connection with you, I will not attempt to deny, and I do
not think that I should be grateful or a sincere friend to you, if I saw
you now in such grievous and unexpected embarrassments without making an
effort to assist you. You shall have the four hundred, if you consent to
the same rate of interest I was about to receive for it from the other
party.”

“Then you will break faith with him,” replied the doctor. “I thank you,
Purcel, but I will not have it.”

“I break no faith with him,” replied the proctor; “he was bound to have
let me know, on yesterday, whether he would require the money or not,
for the matter was conditional; but as I have not yet heard from him, I
hold myself at liberty to act as I wish. The fault is his own.”

“And on these conditions, so you are; I well, thank you again, Purcel, I
accept this money on your terms, eight per cent. Nay, you oblige me very
much; indeed you do.”

“Well, then, that matter is settled,” said the proctor, “do not speak of
it,” he proceeded, in reply to the doctor's last observation; “I should
indeed be unworthy either of your good opinion or my own, if I held
aloof from you just now. I will have a bond prepared in a day or two,
but in the meantime, if you will call at my house, you may have the
money home with you.”

The doctor once more thanked Mm, and they were in the act of returning
to the house, when the noise of a pistol was heard, and at the same
moment a bullet whistled light between them, and so close to each that
it was utterly impossible to say at which of the two individuals the
murderous aim had been taken. The garden, a large one and highly walled
in, was entered by two gates, one of which led into the back yard, the
other into a corner of the lawn that was concealed from the house by a
clump of trees. The latter gate, which was not so large as the other,
had in it a small iron grating a little above the centre, through which
any one could command a view of the greater portion of the garden. It
was through this gate they had entered, and as no apprehension of any
attempt of assassination had existed in the mind of either, they left
the key in the outside, not having deemed it at all necessary to secure
the door, by locking it within.

The proctor, to whose cowardice the worthy clergyman had not long before
paid so sincere, but by no means so flattering a tribute, did not wait
to make even a single observation, but ran with all his speed towards
the gate, which, to his surprise and mortification, he found locked on
the outside. Apprehensive, however, of a second attack, he beckoned to
his companion to hasten towards the other gate, which was not visible
from that through which the shot had been fired, and in the meantime,
he himself ran also towards it, in order to try whether it might not
be possible to get some view or trace of the assassin. He had a case of
pistols in his hand, for we ought to have told the reader that neither
he nor his sons ever traveled unarmed, and on reaching the back-yard,
he was obliged to make a considerable circuit ere he arrived at the spot
from which the shot had been fired. Here, however, he found no mark
or vestige of a human being, but saw at a glance that the assassin, in
order, to secure time for escape, had locked the door, and either taken
the key with him or thrown it where it could not be found. It was in
vain that he ran in all directions, searched every place likely to
conceal the villain; not a clump of trees or ornamental shrubs remained
unexamined. The search, however, was fruitless. No individual was seen,
nor any clue gained on which even a conjecture could be founded. The
only individual visible was our friend the _Cannie Soogah_, whose loud
and mellow song was the first thing that drew their attention to him, as
he came up a back avenue that led by a private and winding walk round
to the kitchen-door. Purcel, on seeing him, signed hastily with his
hand that he should approach, which the other, observing the
unusual agitation betrayed by his gesture, immediately did at a pace
considerably quickened.

“Here, Cannie,” he shouted out to him, ere he had time to approach,
“here has been an attempt at murder by some cold-blooded and cowardly
assassin, who has, I fear, escaped us!”

“Murdher!” exclaimed the pedlar, “the Lord save and guard us!--for
there's nothin' but murdher in my ears! go where I will of late, it's
nothin' but bloodshed;--sure I cannot sing my harmless bit of a song
along the road, but I'm stopped wid an account of some piece o' murdher
or batthery, or God knows what. An' who was near gettin' it now, Misther
Purcel? Not yourself, I pray Jasus this day!”

“I really cannot say, Cannie; Dr. Turbot and I were walking in the
garden, when some damnable villain discharged a pistol from the gate
here, and the bullet of it whistled right between us both.”

“Whistled, did it!--hell resave it for one bullet, it was fond of mirth
it was; and you can't say which o' you it was whistling for?”

“No, how could I?--it was equally near us both.”

“Bad cess for ever saize him for a murdherin' villain, whoever he was.
You have no notion, Masther Purcel, darlin', where he went to?”

“Not the slightest, Cannie; the villain wouldn't have got off so easily,
only that he had the diabolical cunning to lock the gate outside and
conceal the key: so that whilst I was coming round to the place, he
escaped. Did you meet or see nobody yourself?”

The peddler shut his right hand, slapped it quickly into the palm of his
left. “By the Lomenty tarry,” he exclaimed, “I seen the villain! By the
high horicks, I seen the very man, if I have an eye in my head! A big,
able-bodied villain, wid a pair of thumpin' black whiskers that you
might steal my own out of--and I don't think I can complain myself. He
was comin' up the road from the Carr, and he was turnin' over towards
the bridge there below, so that I only got a short glimpse of him; and
faix, sure enough, as he passed the bridge, I seen him throw something
over the wall of it into the river, which I'd lay my head against the
three kingdoms was the kay o' the gate.”

The proctor paused a little, and then observed, “Ay, faith! I'm sure
you're right, Cannie; I've heard of that villain, and know him from your
description. He is the cowardly ruffian who's said to be at the head or
bottom of these secret combinations that are disgracing and destroying
the country. Yes, I've heard of him.”

“And what did you hear, Misther Purcel?” asked the pedlar, with
undisguised curiosity--.

“No matter now, Cannie; I haven't time to bestow upon the murdering
ruffian: I have my eye on him, however, and so have others. Indeed, I'm
rather inclined to think the hemp has already grown that will hang him.
What dress had he on?”

“Why, sir, he had on a whitish frieze coat, wid big brown buttons; but
there could be no mistakin' the size of his murderin' red whiskers.”

“Red whiskers!--why, you said a moment ago that they were black.”

“Black! hut tut, no, Misther Purcel, I couldn't say that; devil such a
pair of red thumpers ever I seen, barin' upon Rousin' Redhead that was
sent across--for--for--buildin' churches--ha! ha! ha!”

“Why, I'd take my oath you said black,” rejoined the proctor--“that is,
if I have ears to my head.”

“Troth, an' you have Misther Purcel, as brave a pair as a man could
boast of; but the truth is, you wor so much feflustered wid alarm, and
got altogether so much through other, that you didn't know what I said.”

“I did perfectly: you said distinctly that he had black whiskers.”

“Red, by the hokey, over the world; however, to avoid an argument, even
if I did, in mistake, say black, the whiskers were red in the mane time;
an', as I sed, barrin' Rousin' Redhead's, that was thransported, a never
laid my eyes on so red, nor so big I pair.”

“He can't be the fellow I suspect, then--for his, by all accounts, are
unusually large and black.”

“As to that, I can't say, sir: but you wouldn't have me give a wrong
description of any villain that 'ud make an attempt upon your life. Are
you sure, though, it wasn't his reverend honor that the pistol was aimed
at?”

“I am not; as I told you, it is impossible to settle that point. There
is neither of us very popular, certainly.”

“Bekaise, afther all, there is a difference; and it doesn't folly that,
although I'd purshue the villain for life and death, that 'ud attempt to
murdher you, that I'd distress myself to secure an honest man that might
free us an' the country from the like o' him;” and he pointed over his
left shoulder with his inverted thumb.

“Cannie,” said the proctor, somewhat sternly, “I've never heard you give
expression to such sentiments before, and I hope I shall never again. No
honest man would excuse or tamper with murder or murderers. No more of
this, Cannie, or you will lose my good opinion, although perhaps you
would think that no great loss.”

“Throth, I know I was wrong to spake as I did, sir, bad cess to me, but
I was, an' as for your good opinion, Misther Purcel, and the good of all
your family too, devil a man livin' 'ud go further to gain it, and to
keep it when he had it than I would; now, bad cess to the one.”

Whilst this dialogue was proceeding between the pedlar and the proctor.
Dr. Turbot, in a state of indescribable alarm, was relating the
attempted assassination to his curate inside. The amazement of the
latter gentleman, who was perfectly aware of the turbulent state of
the country, by no means kept pace with the alarm of his rector. He
requested of the latter, that should he see Mrs. Temple, he would make
no allusions to the circumstance, especially as she was at the period in
question not far from her confinement, and it was impossible to say
what unpleasant or dangerous effects an abrupt mention of so dreadful a
circumstance might have upon her.

In a few minutes Purcel and his patron were on their way to Longshot
Lodge, the residence of the proctor. At the solicitation of the parson,
however, they avoided the direct line of road, and reached home by one
that was much more circuitous, and as the latter thought also more safe.
Here, after Waiting for the arrival of the mail coach, which he resolved
to meet on its way to the metropolis, he partook of a lunch, which,
even to his voluptuous palate, was one that he could not but admit to be
excellent. He received four hundred pounds from the proctor, for which
he merely gave him a note of hand, and in a short time was on his way to
the metropolis.




CHAPTER VI.--Unexpected Generosity--A False Alarm.


At this period, notwithstanding the circumstances which we have just
related--and they were severe enough--the distress of the Protestant
clergy of Ireland was just only beginning to set in. It had not, as
yet, however, assumed anything like that formidable shape in which
it subsequently appeared. To any scourge so dreadful, no class in the
educated and higher ranks of society had been, within the records of
historical recollection, ever before subjected. Still, like a malignant
malady, even its first symptoms were severe, and indicative of the
sufferings by which, with such dreadful certainty, they were followed.

On that day, and at the very moment when the mysterious attempt at
assassination,which we have recorded, was made, Dr. Turbot's worthy
curate, on returning home from the neighboring village of Lisnagola,
was, notwithstanding great reluctance on his part, forced into the
following conversation with his lovely but dejected wife:

“Charles,” said she, fixing her large, tearful eyes upon him, with a
look in which love, anxiety, and sorrow were all blended, “I fear you
have not been successful in the village. Has Moloney refused us?”

“Only conditionally, my dear Maria--that is, until our account is paid
up--but for the present, and perhaps for a little longer, we must deny
ourselves these 'little luxuries,'” and he accompanied the words with
a melancholy smile. “Tea and sugar and white bread are now beyond our
reach, and we must be content with a simpler fare.”

Mrs. Temple, on looking at their children, could scarcely refrain from
tears; but she knew her husband's patience and resignation, and felt
that it was her duty to submit with humility to the dispensation of God.

“You and I, my dear Charles, could bear up under anything--but these
poor things, how will they do?”

“That reflection is only natural, my dear Maria; but it is spoken,
dearest, only like a parent, who probably loves too much and with
an excess of tenderness. Just reflect, darling, upon the hundreds of
thousands of children in our native land, who live healthily and happily
without ever having tasted either tea or loaf-bread at all; and think,
besides, dearest, that there are, in the higher circles, a great number
of persons whose children are absolutely denied these comforts, by
advice of their physicians. Our natural wants, my dear Maria, are but
simple, and easily satisfied; it is wealth and luxury only that corrupt
and vitiate them. In this case, then, dearest, the Christian must speak,
and act, and feel as well as the parent. You understand me now, love,
and that is sufficient. I have not succeeded in procuring anything for
you or them, but you may rest assured that God will not desert us.”

“Yes, dear Charles,” replied his wife, whose black mellow eyes beamed
with joy; “all that is true, but you forgot that Dr. Turbot has arrived
to receive his tithes, and you will now receive your stipend. That will
carry us out of our present difficulty at least.”

“My dear Maria, it is enough to say that Dr. Turbot is in a position
immeasurably more distressed and dreadful than ours. Purcel, his
proctor, has been able to receive only about fifty pounds out of his
usual half-yearly income of eight hundred. From him we are to expect
nothing at present. I know not, in fact, how he and his family will bear
this dreadful privation; for dreadful it must be to those who have lived
in the enjoyment of such luxuries.”

“That is indeed dreadful to such a family, and I pity them from
my heart,” replied his wife; “but, dearest,Charles, what are we to
do?--except a small crust of bread, there is no food in the house for
either them or you.” As she uttered the words their eyes met, and
his gentle and soothing Maria, who had been sitting beside him, threw
herself upon his bosom--he clasped his arms around her--pressed her
with melancholy affection to his heart, and they both wept together.

At length he added, “But you think not of yourself, my Maria.”

“I!” she replied; “ah! what am I? Anything, you know, will suffice
for me--but you and they, my dearest Charles--and then poor Lilly, the
servant; but, dearest,” she exclaimed, with a fresh, and if possible,
a more tender embrace, “I am not at all repining--I am happy with
you--happy, happy--and never, never, did I regret the loss of my great
and powerful friends less than I do at this moment, which enables me
to see and appreciate the virtues and affection to which my heart is
wedded, and which I long since appreciated.”

Her husband forced a smile, and kissed her with an air of cheerfulness.

“Pardon me,” he said, “dearest Maria, for two or three minutes I wish to
go to the library to make a memorandum. I will soon return.”

He then left her, after a tender embrace, and retired, as he said,
to the library, where, smote to the heart by his admiration of her
affection and greatness of mind, he sat down, and whilst he reflected on
the destitution to which he had brought the granddaughter of an earl,
he wept bitterly for several minutes. It was from this peculiar state
of feeling that he was called upon to hear an account of the attempted
assassination, with which the reader is already acquainted.

Our friend, the Cannie Soogah, having taken the town of Lisnagola on
his way, in order to effect some sales with one of those general country
merchants on a somewhat small scale, that are to be found in almost
every country town, happened to be sitting in a small back-parlor, when
a certain conversation took place between Mr. Temple and Molony, the
proprietor of the establishment to which we have just alluded. He heard
the dialogue, we say, and saw that the mild and care-worn curate had
been, not rudely certainly, but respectfully, yet firmly, refused
further credit. By whatever spirit prompted it is not for us to say;
at all events he directed his footsteps to the glebe, and--but it is
unnecessary to continue the description, or rather to repeat it. The
reader is already aware of what occurred until the departure of Dr.
Turbot and the proctor.

Temple, having seen them depart, walked out for a little, in order to
compose his mind, and frame, if possible, some project for the relief of
his wife and children. In the meantime, our jolly pedlar, having caught
a glimpse of Mrs. Temple at the parlor window, presented himself, and
begged to know if she were inclined to make any purchases. She nodded
him a gentle and ladylike refusal, upon which he changed his ground,
and said, “Maybe, ma'am, if you're not disposed to buy, that you'd have
something you'd like to part wid. If you have, ma'am, bad cess to the
purtier purchaser you'd meet wid--shawls or trinkets, or anything that
way--I mane, ma'am,” he added, “things that arn't of any use to you--an'
I'm the boy that will shell out the ready money, and over the value.”

Mrs Temple had known little--indeed nothing--of the habits of such a
class as that to which our gay friend belonged; but be this as it may,
his last words struck her quickly and forcibly.

“Do you make purchases, then?” she said.

“I do, ma'am, plaise your honor,” replied the pedlar.

“Stop a moment, then,” she replied. “I have some superfluous articles of
dress that I may dispose of.”

The whole mother rushed into her heart at the thought; the tender and
loving wife forgot everything but the means of obtaining food for
her husband and children. She went to her dressing-room, and in a few
minutes returned, accompanied by Lilly Stewart, her own servant-maid
previous to ker marriage, to whom their recent distresses had been
no secret, and who was deeply and deservedly in the confidence of the
family.

Whilst she was, absent in her dressing-room the pedlar resumed his song,
as was his custom when alone--a circumstance which caused Mrs. Temple
to remark, as she and Lilly went down to, the parlor--“Alas! dear Lilly,
what a mistaken estimate does one portion of mankind form of another.
This poor pedlar now envies us the happiness of rank and wealth which
we do not feel, 

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