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My Lords of Strogue, Vol. 2 (of 3)

by Lewis Wingfield · English · Gutenberg #38862 · 427,200 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: My Lords of Strogue, Vol. 2 (of 3)

Author: Lewis Wingfield


        
Release date: February 13, 2012 [eBook #38862]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38862

Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY LORDS OF STROGUE, VOL. 2 (OF 3) ***




Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books










Transcriber's Notes:

   1. Page scan source:
      http://books.google.com/books?id=qecBAAAAQAAJ


   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].






                         MY LORDS OF STROGUE.






                         MY LORDS OF STROGUE.


             _A CHRONICLE OF IRELAND, FROM THE CONVENTION
                            TO THE UNION_.





                                  BY

                        HON. LEWIS WINGFIELD,

                    AUTHOR OF 'LADY GRIZEL,' ETC.





                          IN THREE VOLUMES.

                               VOL. II.





                               LONDON:

                       RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,

           Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.

                                1879.

                       [_All Rights Reserved_.]






           'God of Battles! aid us;
              Let no despot's might
            Trample or degrade us,
              Seeking this our right!
            Arm us for the danger;
              Keep our craven fear
            To our breasts a stranger--
              God of Battles! Hear!'






                         CONTENTS OF VOL. II.


   CHAPTER

         I. A NIGHT AT CROW STREET.

        II. DOREEN'S PLANS.

       III. THE CLOVEN FOOT.

        IV. WE PIPED UNTO YOU.

         V. AWAY TO DONEGAL.

        VI. GLAS-AITCH-E.

       VII. SMITTEN WITH SERPENTS.

      VIII. MR. CURRAN LEAVES PARLIAMENT.

        IX. THE DUEL.

         X. THE BIRD AND THE FOWLER.

        XI. THE RISING OF THE TEMPEST.

       XII. DANGER.

      XIII. THE HURRY.

       XIV. VAE VICTIS!






                         MY LORDS OF STROGUE




                              CHAPTER I.

                       A NIGHT AT CROW STREET.


The dowager's words produced their effect upon Doreen, despite her
virtuous indignation. She no longer committed herself by indiscreet
communings with the 'scatter-brained young men.' She seemed to be
growing lukewarm to the cause as the decisive moment approached,
shirking responsibility in a way her character belied, to the surprise
of the patriots, amongst whom we must count Cassidy. The giant
remarked with pained astonishment that she gave him no grateful look
when he whispered about the pikes, when he hinted with dark nods that
Phil and Biddy had been busy in the night; and he reflected with
self-upbraiding that this change must be due to his ill-timed wooing.
No doubt it was presumptuous in a 'half-mounted' to aspire to an
heiress, but sure she should accept as a compliment a piece of
bungling for which her own charms were entirely responsible. He
resolved to be more careful in the future, striving to bridge the
breach by a nimble deference tempered by judicious sadness; and let no
opportunity pass of making himself useful to the young earl. His hands
were pretty full, thanks to my Lords Clare and Camden, who pursued the
stormy tenor of their way with an edifying steadiness of purpose. He
gladly rode errands for Lord Glandore, did shopping for the countess,
drank bumpers in the Castle-yard in company with Major Sirr, waited
about in my Lord Clare's anteroom; became a ubiquitous, faithful, and
generally useful personage. He brought news sometimes of the gravest
moment to the mysterious resorts where Dublin 'prentices were
pretending to play ball; which hints resulted more frequently than not
in a message smuggled in a loaf to the prisoners at Kilmainham and a
courier sent galloping far away into the country.

The electric cloud loomed near on the horizon. Lord Clare watched the
threatening vapour as it rolled, increasing hourly in volume, and,
laughing, showed his gums. The ranks of the yeomanry were swelling day
by day, thanks to the exertions of large proprietors whose interest it
was to be well with the court; thanks to the complaisant alacrity of
the squireens who acted at the beck of the great landowners. Small
riots took place both in the capital and in the provinces, tussles
between browbeaten peasants and a soldiery who grew hourly more
insolent, which originated for the most part in taunts at the old
faith. Rumours floating vaguely, none knew whence, became current
gossip, hints of a French invasion, of a landing somewhere in the
north, which should set free the enslaved Catholics--of a Republican
crusade in favour of liberty of conscience. The Orange societies of
the north took the alarm. 'Liberty of conscience indeed!' they cried.
'We remember what happened in King James's time, when the national
religion was for a brief space triumphant; how Protestants were
massacred and their property destroyed. We will repel such an invasion
with all our might, and will just prick these presuming slaves a
little as a warning of what may follow.' There were excesses in Armagh
and the cities of the north; wherein cottages were burnt, cattle
confiscated, their owners hewn in pieces. News of military outrages
arrived in Dublin; and the public, growing uneasy, looked to the
Castle to mark its attitude. Ever since Lord Camden's advent, people
remarked, things had been going wrong. Traitors by dozens had been
imprisoned or executed. Coercion was the order of the day. But popular
opinion had been divided; one party declaring that traitors must be
hanged for the security of the body politic, the opposite party
cogently pointing out that if Government acted with more prudence, men
would not be driven into treason. But now the matter was taking a new
form. One class, which had always been antagonistic to the other, was
showing overt symptoms of the harshest tyranny. The Protestant
ascendency party had banded itself together in armed force at the call
of Government for the protection of the land. It was obvious that this
armed force must not be permitted to exert its strength against its
own brethren of another faith--to convert a deplorable harshness, of
which in memory of man the instances were isolated, into a regularly
organised system like that of Elizabeth. Government must interfere
promptly, men said. These savage squireens, who swaggered in the
King's colours, must be taught at once to curb their brutal
proclivities, or a reign of terror would result such as shocked Europe
in '89.

But Government did nothing of the kind. My Lord Clare held up his
delicate hands in the lobby of the House of Lords, and, under shadow
of William's statue, harangued passing senators upon the iniquity of
the lower orders.

'It is awful,' he declared in his rasping voice. 'What will Mr. Pitt
say? He will withdraw your pensions, my poor gentlemen, unless you act
with decision. Arm your vassals, my lords. The French will come and
murder us in our beds. I vow the country is in danger. The Catholics
must be shown their place.'

That the country was in danger there could be little doubt; but it was
not precisely from the side to which the crafty chancellor thought fit
to point.

Parliament met in solemn conclave, and did as it was told. Curran and
a few others rose up in their places, solemnly protesting against a
policy which sprang from a hidden fear of the lower orders. An Act of
Indemnity was passed with regard to the proceedings in the north.
Magistrates and petty officers were held to have behaved wisely in
permitting cottages to be burnt in the name of religion, in allowing
fathers of families to be kidnapped in the night, and spirited away no
one might tell whither. A profound feeling of wrath was stirred over
all the land by the passing of this, and the Insurrection Bill which
allowed it; whereby, amongst other things, a power of arbitrary
transportation was given to magistrates, and outrages made legal which
till now had been accomplished in defiance of the law. People saw
clearly that the majority of both Lords and Commons were merely the
representatives of their own greed and their own venality; that
nothing could free motherland from a vicious thraldom of unpatriotic
selfishness but a reform of Parliament and a complete change in the
system of Government. How was this to be accomplished? There was the
knotty point. Was the threatened rising of the masses really
inevitable? Could they accomplish their objects at all if France
should refuse substantial help? Was Government deliberately acting for
a wicked purpose, or was the crime merely the negative one of
incapacity? Agitation-meetings blaming the executive were held about
the country, at which, when he heard of them, my Lord Clare expressed
his amazement, ingeniously stating in public that he was astonished at
the mildness of the Viceroy in not severely punishing the agitators.
Such a hint was not lost upon his amateur colonels and military
magistrates. They began to exhibit renewed examples of vigorous zeal,
destroying property at pleasure, searching houses for arms, treating
the inhabitants with such brutality that women fell into convulsions
and brought forth children before their time. A singular effect of
these proceedings, which in itself spoke volumes, was a sudden moral
reform among the peasantry. Men who had been drunken became reclaimed;
fairs and markets were undisturbed by quarrelling; factions which had
been at feud for centuries smoked the pipe of peace together. Hatred,
kept down by fear, festered in the hearts of the children of the soil.
It was felt that a moment was imminent when man might endure no more,
when a down-trodden race must conquer its persecutors or seek relief
from misery in death.

Doreen, from her retreat among the roses, watched the current of
events which now rushed with rapid impetuosity towards an horizon of
blood; and as month followed month, each laden with its progressive
freight of trouble, wondered with beating heart that no news should be
received from Tone. Had his projects failed? She knew that the
difficulties with which he was called to cope were immense. The last
letter she had had from him, long ago now, spoke of an expedition
getting ready, which should start before the end of summer. It was now
August, and as she sat waiting week after week, both hope and
expectation waning, a feeling of heart-sickness crept over her, which
seemed to chill her life-blood and dry up her bones. One day,
listlessly gazing as usual across the sea, she looked up and beheld
red-polled Biddy making uncouth signals from the shrubbery--signals
she had looked for so frequently in vain. A letter! Yes. It was--at
last! But it brought no comfort. An expedition was nearly ready; but
the leading spirit vacillated. General Hoche doubted whether the
forces given to him were strong enough to do efficient service;
whether the Irish were ready to receive them; whether the resources of
Ireland had been truthfully laid before him.

To Tone's chagrin Hoche informed the Directory that it was fitting,
before their ships and treasure were committed to the waters,
that somebody of weight should come to France from Ireland, to
corroborate Tone's statements and bring the latest news. It was
vexatious--despairing! What was to be done? In this new strait the
young patriot urgently applied to his friend Miss Wolfe, to consult
with the United Irishmen as to some one being sent without delay. One
of the Emmetts, Russell, Neilson, anybody who knew anything. She must
see to this, or all was lost; for if no satisfactory tidings were
speedily received the expedition would be diverted to some other
purpose, and Ireland left to fight her battles single-handed. In his
trouble he had made statements which were rash, no doubt--had promised
large sums to France, in the name of the future Directory of Ireland,
and had said that many men of property desired the Revolution. Whoever
was sent over must, to prevent further parleying, corroborate these
statements. She must show extra caution however in dealing with this
business, for a Judas was abroad, more than one, perhaps--there could
be no doubt of that. Mr. Pitt seemed informed of everything that
passed in Ireland--and in Paris too, for that matter. Caution and
despatch were needful above all things.

Doreen laid down this letter to consider it, with a presentiment of
evil. The fevered workings of our distempered minds are not so
terrible as the sledge-hammer blows which sometimes fall on us. Even
the harassed conjectures born of fear prove less dreadful than
realities. This was a blow which numbed her faculties. For her
father's sake, who loved the fleshpots, she had resolved to be a calm
spectator of the coming struggle--to mark the arrival of the French
convoy and its certain triumph; to crown the successful heroes in
private with metaphorical laurels; to forego for her living father's
sake the joy of publicly helping in the emancipation of her dead
mother's people. But here was something which put all her resolutions
to flight.

The entire scaffolding threatened to tumble about the ears of those
who held her sympathies; and it seemed that it might be in her power
to prevent that catastrophe. So long as neutrality was likely to do
the Catholic party no harm, she was prepared to sacrifice the vanities
which hang about picturesque heroism--to view the glorious results as
a mere spectator instead of walking in the procession under the
triumphal arches. But this letter woefully changed the face of the
prospect. It was quite possible apparently (and she felt cold as she
realised it) that the gorgeous fabric in which her soul revelled was
to vanish into air, and that she might afterwards be accused of having
by apathy brought about its crumbling! What was she to do? What in the
scale was this twaddle of the dowager's--this buckram rubbish of an
old school--this bit of red-tape, which might come to be the halter of
liberty! But then her father--could she possibly have a right to bring
suffering on him--to be in her own person the Nemesis who should deal
punishment on him for his time-serving weakness?

The tumult within her was such that her ears throbbed and her throat
seemed closing--yet her unaided judgment must settle this question
with calm pros and cons. There is nothing so clearing to a healthy
intellect, temporarily clouded, as strong muscular exertion. Miss
Wolfe stepped into the cockleshell which was her own, and went for a
row upon the bay.

She watched the shadows of the herring-boats, listened absently to the
rhythmed cry of the fisherfolk as they landed the produce of their
night's labour on the little quay, nodded in acknowledgment of their
salutes, rowed herself with firm nervous strokes into mid-water, and
then drifted. The freshness of a light breeze and the exertion seemed
to string her nerves and clear her mind. She lay back in the light
shallop, and trailing her brown fingers in the water, meditated. No!
Her allegiance was due equally to both parents. Her father had cast
his lot with the mammon of unrighteousness and gleaned the pleasant
result of the proceeding. That was no reason for her to betray her
mother's people. Much as she loved her father she differed widely from
his views. She would keep in the background as much as might be, for
his sake; but it certainly behoved her to act with promptitude and
energy now. Send somebody over! Whom was she to send? Who was
important enough for the mission? In whom might complete faith be
placed? Cassidy was too bungling and stupid. Moreover he knew no word
of French, and would be sure to make mistakes. Robert Emmett? Too
young, too romantic; a student in Trinity besides, whose lengthened
absence would be remarked. Thomas Emmett, alas! was in durance vile.
Whom might she send? Whom? If Terence would only take things
seriously, he was the very man for the undertaking. What a pity she
had not used her influence with him to good purpose, Miss Wolfe
thought with compunction. The Judith and Holofernes idea was idiotic,
of course; but Terence was a fish that might have been played with a
satisfactory result. Yet, after all, could the sacredness of the cause
justify her in enacting Delilah to his Samson? Surely not. With
humiliation she admitted that the trick would be unworthy of one who
lived under the roof of Strogue.

Terence had grown dreadfully cross of late. Once or twice her heart
had bounded, for she had seemed to see that he was moody and disturbed
on account of the way events were marching. Certainly he came home
sometimes from the Four-courts with fierce denunciations on his lips
anent the culpable folly of Lord Camden--but then he always calmed
down again, when he was no longer hungry, hoping for better days, if
Lord Clare would really take the helm. His belief in Lord Clare was
the blindness which might be expected from a too simple mind.

As the damsel drifted she built castles for herself. If Terence, who
was manly enough and true enough, would only take things a little more
_au serieux!_ If men would only be true to their first impulse for
good, what a much better world it would be! for, taken unawares, it is
nearly always our good angel who speaks first. He is always awake, if
timid; but his dusky, coarse-natured fellow snores so loudly, that it
is no easy matter to make out clearly what he counsels. Terence grew
indignant often; was very hot over the Indemnity Bill and Insurrection
ditto, but neither ever disturbed his sleep one jot, or interfered in
the smallest degree with his capacity for grouse and claret. What a
pity it was! A dependable man, a man of rank, whose heart was in the
right place if it would but speak--a man who, from his position, would
with a breath remove Hoche's scruples. But there was no use in
thinking of him. Somebody must be sent, and speedily, or the interests
of the United Irishmen would be compromised. Somebody must be
sent--but who?

The young lady became aware that she was drifting out to sea--that it
would require all her nautical science and muscular power to bring her
frail boat to port by sunset; and she was bound to be home again by
sunset on this especial evening, because it was a 'lady's night' at
Crow Street Theatre, and my lady had warned her that loyal ladies must
'show' there, because the Viceroy would be present, supported by a
galaxy of beauty. So she handled her sculls like a true connexion of
the pirate-earls; and as the warm blood tingled in her veins with the
exertion, sent her little bark dancing over the water, her brain
working busily the while.

She decided that it was not possible to stand aloof at this juncture.
Tone--the hero, at whose shrine she worshipped--conjured her to act.
She would meet at Crow Street, probably, several of the prominent
United Irishmen, and must choose her opportunity to confer secretly
with them. Who could be sent to Paris with safety? None but Cassidy.
What a pity he was so stupid! He meant well--of that she felt assured;
but he would plead poverty--that was little matter, for she had jewels
which might be pledged. But might he claim something more? Love-making
and conspiracy do not go well together. A certain scene at the kennels
recurred to her mind; and it was with a flush, more due to displeasure
than healthful exercise, that at length she shot her boat beside the
landing-stage. An unaccustomed shadow caused her to start and look
upwards. A man was looking at her, with his thin legs apart and his
arms folded across his chest--a little man, with elf-locks hanging
about his face, and a strange melancholy smile upon his lips.

'Faix! and ye're a grand boatwoman, Miss Doreen,' Mr. Curran said;
'and ye look mighty well fingering those planks. I've bin watching you
this half-hour, and wondering too--wondering whether, if I had been
out alone where you were, I could ever be coaxed to return.'

Doreen looked up quickly at him. Had something dreadful come to pass?
Something dreadful was happening hourly with exasperating monotony.
'We didn't expect you over to-day. Is Sara with you?'

'No. I trotted over on my nag to see if Terence had returned; and must
go back at once, as Sara wants to go to Crow Street.'

'Is there anything new?' the young lady inquired, with averted face,
as she fastened up her boat. She was constantly fretting morbidly
about the slowness of Tim's tread, as people will who are devoured
with impatience, and yet half-dread the fulfilment of their wishes.

'New! No,' grunted the small lawyer. 'Would to heaven there were! No
change could be for the worse. I have been engrossed these two days
past in the Orr trial. Didn't Terence tell you? Well, well, he
wouldn't shock ye. It's nothing new, faith! And there's no good
talking of such things at home. They gave the verdict against us,
despite all that I could urge; and the injustice was so glaring
that Terence flew in a passion. Upon my word, he looked as fierce
as his brother, the Prince of Cherokees! He vowed there was some
mistake--that he would in person explain matters to the Viceroy
(foolish lad--not to have learnt better by this time!); and so I
trotted over to hear if he had succeeded in his suit.'

'What was the case?'

'Nothing particularly novel--another of the many evil results of the
chancellor's Insurrection Bill,' grumbled Curran. 'One of its clauses
breathes dire vengeance against such as administer illegal oaths.
Rubbish! considering what you and I, young lady, know about a green
bough in Britain's crown. Such oaths will be administered so long as
this corrupt _regime_ continues--just as they have been for five years
and more. A fine would meet the case--and it should be a light one;
for indeed the provocation is not slight. But now such administering
has become penal. A soldier--a drunken fellow in the Fencibles--comes
forward, swears that one Orr--a harmless, obscure farmer, against whom
he probably has a grudge--has induced him to take the oath, "Are you
straight? as straight as a rush," and the rest. Maybe he has, maybe he
hasn't--that's not the point; the jury retire, and remain closed up
for hours--all through last night--far into this morning, and
by-and-by give in a verdict of guilty. That farmer, who, on my
conscience, I believe was innocent, is swinging by this time unless
Terence's mission has been successful.'

The two walked up the steep path, which led to the Abbey terrace, in
silence. Doreen was thinking that her resolve was right. It should be
no fault of hers if the French fleet failed to come with healing on
its wings. Curran was plunged in sadness, for he was beginning to
be convinced that the triumphal car of Government would bear him
down--chosen champion, as he believed himself--with its overpowering
weight, as it did others. Of what use was his eloquence as an advocate
in presence of packed juries and bribed witnesses? It was talking to
the wall--or worse, for at least the wall serves its purpose without
shame, and is washed white, and receives no bribes; Major Sirr's
juries and witnesses were accustomed, on the other hand, to arrange
their affairs in a jovial fashion in the major's sanctum before coming
into court. There was little of the whitewash about them!

When Doreen conducted the lawyer into the tapestry-saloon, my lady was
concerned at her eccentric little friend's dejection; and easily
prevailed on him to dine before returning to the Priory. Terence did
not appear, which was of evil augury; so his chief took the
opportunity of the ladies retiring to their toilet, to mount his nag
and gallop homewards, with a leaden weight within his breast.

Neither the dowager nor her niece were theatre-going people. The
former held dim uncomplimentary opinions about the private lives of
actresses, and her pride of caste revolted at the familiar behaviour
of the gallery, who were given to homely conversation with their
betters in the boxes, and to making rude comments upon the proceedings
on the stage. Miss Wolfe disliked the play, because mimic woes and
mimic laughter were alike an insult to the soreness of her heart, and
the too real sorrows of the world in which she lived. Yet both were
compelled by fashion to show themselves in Crow Street whenever a
specially prominent goddess of _ton_ thought fit to command a night.
On such occasions the auditorium was illuminated with wax candles; the
rank of the metropolis in diamonds and feathers filled the boxes;
pit-tickets were freely distributed among the tradespeople with whom
the lady dealt, whilst she took up her own position at the extreme end
of the refection-room (a fine gallery erected by Mr. Fred. Jones, the
manager), bowing a welcome to all who rallied round her.

On this particular evening the Lady-Lieutenant herself had commanded
the performance, so all the adherents of the Castle were there in
state--members of the peerage in brand-new uniforms; the cabinet,
consisting of the chancellor, the chief secretary, the speaker, and
the attorney--and such a show of female beauty as Dublin can always
boast. Lady Camden held quite a court in the refection-room, supported
by Lord Clare, whose arrogant countenance beamed with the
consciousness of strength. My Lord Camden had shuffled away to the
curtained viceregal box, pretending to be engrossed with the
wretchedness of Lucy Lockit; the fact being that his conscience began
to worry him, and that he withdrew from public gaze as much as
ceremony would permit.

My lord chancellor was not a man ever to lurk in corners, or to shun a
few paltry hisses. He stood forward beside the Viceroy's wife, nodding
to the crowds who bowed before him with a loathsome smirk, too coldly
overbearing to reck what men thought of him, provided they bent the
knee. He had reached at this time the acme of his power. His word was
law. He browbeat his comrades in the cabinet till honest Arthur Wolfe
quite winced. He had undertaken to mould into shape a corrupt upper
class, and his first move had been to give a rein to their bad
passions. His second was to cultivate an unusual urbanity; for it
would be needful by-and-by to win the members of the Bar, and to lay
in a good stock of promising raw material in the shape of young M.P.'s
just rough from grass. He made a point, too, of being particularly
civil to girls, for he said that if the confidence of the females in a
house is won, the men may be counted on as gained. Satan found no
footing in Paradise till he made sure of Eve.

So my Lord Clare tripped hither and thither in his natty attire,
complimenting one, grinning at another; suggesting an ice to a young
lady; confounding a sheepish youth by offering his jewelled snuff-box;
laughing a hyena-laugh at some feeble joke; making himself so pleasant
that folks stared in wonder. Ladies of highest rank rustled up and
curtseyed, then formed into a parterre of shot silks and waving plumes
behind my Lady Camden. It was a magnificent spectacle of brilliancy
and wealth.

What mattered the cries of those who sat in darkness? what signified
the cloud that was rolling quickly nearer? The Countess of Glandore, a
grand sight, in the family jewels, swept into her place, led forward
by Mr. Wolfe, who had advanced to meet his sister; whilst Lord Clare
raised Doreen's fingers to his lips with a gallant bow, vowing that
her father should be proud of such rare charms. And well he might, and
was, indeed, for there lingered on the girl's face a heightened colour
which gave a lustre to her eye, while the roundness of her tall figure
was shown off at its very best by a tightfitting robe of yellow crape,
elaborately embroidered with silver tassels. Her dark coils of hair
were knotted round her head in a plain thick diadem, raised high
behind to show its noble contour where it joined her neck; while the
olive skin seemed to acquire a richer hue by contrast with a pale
coral necklet and long ear-drops. Lord Clare looked at her with a
half-sarcastic smile, and said:

'Will you walk in the lobby and survey the house? I always like to
show myself with a lovely girl upon my arm. There is a sight there,
too, that will please you, I think.'

Calmly she took his arm. Etiquette demanded that she should remain in
the theatre for half-an-hour. It mattered little how she killed the
time; nevertheless her eyes wandered restlessly about in search of
Cassidy, to whom she was resolved to speak if possible. Suddenly she
started and turned scarlet. In an upper box, talking earnestly
together, were Cassidy and young Robert; with them Tom Emmett,
Russell, and the rest, whom she supposed to be safe under lock and key
within Kilmainham gaol.

'I thought you would be surprised,' drawled the chancellor. 'See how
Government is maligned! The proceedings of those young gentlemen were
such that we were obliged to lock them up. We could not do otherwise,
you know. But having given them this lesson, you see we've humanely
let them out again. Let us hope they'll be wise--wiser, for instance,
than Mr. Tone appears to be--who is indeed singularly foolish. He
seems to imagine that men of property will rally to his standard when
he arrives with his precious expedition. Oh, my country! How truly is
thy colour green! Here is an adventurer without a sou, grandiloquently
promising to pay vast debts of gratitude!'

Doreen looked up in the speaker's face suspiciously. The very language
of the letter she had received that day! Her aunt's warning, hitherto
forgotten, flashed across her. '_See that your correspondence is not
tampered with_.' Verily, Tone was right. There was a Judas playing a
devilish game somewhere.

'Mr. Tone has been long absent,' she said, with a troubled face.

'None the less mischievous,' retorted the other, carelessly. 'But his
claws are cut, for we know all he does as soon as it is done. Now, if
Government has erred, is it not on the side of leniency?'

'The fox was very civil to the bird on the tree-branch,' Mr. Curran
observed dryly, who with Sara now joined them, 'until the fowl was
fool enough to drop his cake! Your lordship is a bad Irishman, we
know; but you should not take us for a race of idiots. The people are
too quiet. You miss the trenchant articles in Tom Emmett's newspaper.
You perceive that even the Orange outrages of Armagh have failed to
goad the poor cowed creatures to rebellion. Give them more rope, my
lord, and they'll certainly hang themselves--aye, and me too amongst
them, I dare say!'

Lord Clare coloured slightly, and bit his lip, but answered nothing.

'At a moment when the foe is at our gates,' Curran pursued
bitterly--'for the French armament at Brest is surely meant for
Ireland--do you strive to unite all parties against a common enemy?
No! Look at the scenes which are daily enacted under your auspices in
the north. Robbery, rape, and murder; one brother at another brother's
throat. Yet I am wrong. We are of one accord on one point. You are
uniting us as one man against the conciliation of our animosities and
the consolidation of our strength. Alas for Erin! Rent by faction as
she is, there is nothing for her but a bridewell or a guard-house--the
grinding tyranny of England or the military despotism of France!'

Arthur Wolfe, who was always endeavouring to prevent these two from
snarling, here interposed, and dragged the irascible little lawyer
away. The chancellor, however, fired a parting shot--crying out in a
tone of airy innocence:

'On my honour, I know not what you'd have. We give every one as much
liberty as possible. Look up at the gallery this moment. Every man in
it has a bludgeon or shillalagh--and they're all staring at the box
where the ex-prisoners are. I vow they look monstrous dangerous. It's
brave of my lord-lieutenant to sit there so quietly!'

It was true that all eyes were turned from time to time to that
particular box, as though something unusual might be expected to take
place. Meanwhile the unconscious lady-lieutenant in the refection-room
continued to smirk and bow, highly pleased at the full gathering
around her.

Stout Madam Gillin panted through the crowd in an amazing turban of
coquelicot and gold, distributing hearty handshakes to the right and
left; and Norah looked so pretty as she brought up the rear, that the
Countess of Glandore's ire was kindled, and she glanced anxiously
about for her elder son. He was not present though, for he never would
go anywhere where there were high-born young ladies.

Mrs. Gillin too was looking out for somebody, and, perceiving Curran,
beckoned him with her fan.

'The young man,' she said in an undertone--'you know who I mean--I
hear from old Jug that he's mighty annoyed about this Orr case. Indeed
it's bad enough i' faith, but don't let him be rash.'

'Terence?' Curran replied; 'I've been expecting him every moment.'

'He's not here,' returned Mrs. Gillin. 'His man Phil's below with
orders to await his coming. I don't like his getting mixed up in these
things. It's not his place, you know. If his mother had a grain of
goodness--but there! I can't mention her with patience.'

Curran looked grave, and hurried away to cross-question Phil. It was
singular that Terence should not have appeared. The two ladies,
between whom there was the bond of a secret, looked each other in the
eyes, and temptation was too much for my lady to resist.

'These are indeed dangerous times,' she remarked sweetly to Lady
Camden, 'when it behoves us all to do our duty. I beg you will assure
his excellency that Glandore will not shrink from his. He can be of
little use here where so many have come forward; but he will retire to
Donegal as soon as it shall seem needful to watch over his tenants in
the interest of Government. And I should not be surprised--but it is a
terrible indiscretion--_if when things are settled he should bring
back with him a bride_.'

The stroke went home. Norah turned deadly pale; and Madam Gillin, who
had commenced confidences about flannel with a neighbour, found
herself suddenly called upon to attend to her daughter, who was
fainting. Scarcely had the court circle gathered round the girl, than
a new source of commotion became evident in the lobby. High words were
being bandied, with a low accompaniment of murmuring. The harsh
accents of the chancellor were ringing in remonstrance; Doreen, who,
despite her aunt's frowns, had handed her pouncet-box to Madam Gillin,
became aware that the other voice was Terence's, raised in unusual
indignation. She was quickly carried by the stream to the scene of the
disturbance.

Yes; it was Terence, sure enough--in his boots; his hair disordered; a
look of menace on his white face; and Lord Clare was striving to bar
his passage. Honest Phil behind, firing-iron in hand as usual, stood
watching his master's eye.

'Let me pass, my lord!' the young man was saying fiercely. 'An
innocent man's life hangs on a thread. I have striven to see his
excellency for hours, but have been prevented. He is in his box I
know, and I will see him. It cannot be that he knows what's happening!
The conscience-stricken jury have repented of their crime, they have
made solemn oath that they convicted Orr (God have mercy on them!)
when they had been made hopelessly drunk by Major Sirr. Even that's
not all. The soldier, too, is afraid of what he's done, and owns that
he had a private reason for his malice. Orr will be hanged at dawn
unless Lord Camden signs his respite. I'm sure his excellency cannot
know what's passing! It's the effect of this horrible one-witness law
of yours. Even Caiaphas and his Sanhedrim dared not, in the great
judicial murder, to set aside the law which demands at least two
witnesses. Even Jezebel suborned two men of Belial to bring about the
end of Naboth!'

Perceiving that the throng were in favour of the pleader, Lord Clare
strove to draw away the son of his old friend, lest the public should
think fit to take an inconvenient part in the discussion--an effort in
which he found unexpected help from Curran. The party retreated
therefore into an adjoining cloak-room, followed only by a few, while
Phil kept doughty guard without, and Lady Camden tried to look as if
she were not flustered.

'Oh, that drunkenness should be employed to procure the murder of a
man!' Terence cried in agitation. 'If Orr dies, this will be the most
savage act which has disgraced even our tribunals. I have striven to
believe in the honesty of Government. Let us go together and explain
to his excellency while there's yet time!'

The chancellor laid his hand on the young man's shoulder as if to
soothe a petulant child; while Curran sat on a table with arms crossed
and a sour smile flitting about his lips.

'Young gentleman,' Lord Clare said, 'take the advice of an older man
and your mother's friend. Keep aloof from these matters, and don't
give credence to grandams' tales. We understand what we are doing, and
want no dictation from raw youths--we are satisfied of Orr's guilt.
You are keeping bad company, as I warned you once' (with a furtive
side-glance at Mr. Curran), 'and will get yourself into trouble!'

Terence's arms dropped to his sides, and he stood thinking. A
whispering without could plainly be distinguished through the closed
door. He looked for help to his chief, who had spoken out so bravely
at the trial, but who now swung his legs in silence.

Presently he sighed, and passing both hands over his face, said
slowly: 'Then they were right--I could not, and would not believe it.
The lord-lieutenant, then, is a passive instrument in the hands of
wicked men--he is made, for a purpose, grossly, inhumanly, to abuse
the royal prerogative of mercy, of which the King himself is but a
trustee for the benefit of his people. Some of those jurymen were
threatened by suborned fellow-jurors--their tottering consciences
deadened for awhile by drink; but they have woke to remorse in time.
You say this hideous farce may not be stopped! Beware, Lord Clare!
Remember to whom you must answer for this man's life! It's true--all
true--and I am helpless!'

Lord Clare was provoked. Things were assuming an awkward and
unexpected phase. It would not do to have a scandal in the theatre.
Suppressing his wrath, he whispered to Mr. Curran before leaving the
apartment:

'This boy must not be made a scapegoat. I rely on you to use your
influence over him for his family's sake. He has listened to idle
gossip, and ardent youth is easily set ablaze. This is most untoward.
I will remove their excellencies at once and disappoint those donkeys
who are greedily on the look-out for an _esclandre_.'

His rasping voice was heard presently above the hum in polished
periods, deploring that false reports should so easily be credited;
explaining that the too sensitive Viceroy must be protected from his
own softness, calling for their excellencies' coach without delay.

'Can nothing more be done for Orr? It is too awful!' the junior asked
his chief, clinging to his coat with anxious hands.

'If aught could be done, should I have remained silent?' was the dry
rejoinder.

Then the lawyer bethought him of his child in the crush, and sallied
forth in search of her.

Master Phil, with instinctive respect for a great man, stood aside
when the chancellor made his exit, allowing the cloak-room to be
flooded with eager inquirers. First entered Cassidy and Doreen,
burning to hear news.

Terence roused himself from his reverie, and, clasping a hand of each,
muttered in choking words:

'I have fought against conviction long enough. There are limits to an
honest man's forbearance. Cassidy! I'll take the oath.'

The giant knitted his brows, and, staring at the cornice, whistled.
Doreen darted forth such a golden flash from her cairngorm eyes as
flooded the heart of the tempest-tossed young man with a gleam of
sunshine.

'Oh, cousin!' he murmured. 'You who are my star! Forgive me for having
mistrusted the direction of your guidance! I am easy-going, and not
prone to believe evil. But my eyes are opened now. Ireland's soil is
sick with the blood of centuries. A little while, and please God she
shall bleed no more!'

'Mr. Cassidy!' the girl said, with heaving breast and such a joyous
confusion as prevented her from reading the giant's face, 'did I not
say to you just now that after darkness comes the morning? Surely
night must be at its blackest now, Terence. I take you at your word.
This change is a miracle wrought by heaven in the nick of time to
prevent Theobald's efforts from being frustrated. I see it, and am
grateful. A champion must be tried, you know,' she whispered, smiling,
'and pass through the ordeal which is to prove his faith. I give you
yours at once. It is urgently needful that some one should start
forthwith for France, to act in concert there with Theobald. Can you
make up your mind to this? Yes or no--there is no time for
hesitation.'

Terence, a prey still to overmastering agitation, clasped the brown
hand that was like a leaf in both of his, while the giant's frown was
fixed on one and then the other.

'I told you one day,' the young man whispered, 'that for one reward I
would set at naught the traditions of my family. If I succeed in the
task which you assign to me----'

A shade passed across the sunlight of Doreen's enthusiasm. How
persistently people tried to rehearse love-passages on the floor of
the charnel-house!

'Do not let us talk of such things,' she faltered dreamily. 'Mr.
Cassidy, you can see the oath administered this evening. Come straight
home, Terence--and I'll manage to meet you when the rest are gone to
bed. You will have to start betimes, _mon preux chevalier_; and return
as quickly as you may, bearing good news. See to the taking of the
oath, Mr. Cassidy, and for once do not make mistakes.'

'I will see to all!' ejaculated the giant, hoarsely; 'though I risk my
neck in doing it.'

Another warm pressure of the hand--a lingering look--and Doreen was
gone. My lady had harshly summoned her, dismayed at Mr. Curran's
recital of the scene, and had bade her don her mantle--wrapt herself
in the contemplation of fresh troubles. Madam Gillin, too, had
listened to his story, and her round, good-humoured face was drawn out
as she listened to inordinate length.

'I can't stand this,' she said by-and-by, to Mr. Curran, as he cloaked
her. 'That magnificent dowager who has trundled off in the grand
carriage will--as I judge--leave difficulties to unravel themselves.
She doesn't like the boy, and would be glad he should come to ruin for
reasons buried in her stony heart. But I promised his father to be a
guardian angel, and, please God, I will. You must keep him out of
mischief--do you hear?'

Keep him out of mischief! Easier said than done; but it was worth
trying for. Mr. Curran, unaware of the interchange of sundry tender
glances in the cloak-room, did not despair of success. He elbowed in
the throng till he met his junior, and bade him be in attendance early
at the Four-courts.

'The Four-courts!' scoffed Terence, with lamentable disrespect. 'When
justice dies, why dally with her empty robes? I've other fish to fry.'

'Sure it's Misthress Doreen that's been at him,' laughed big Cassidy,
with rather forced indifference. 'Who'd be proof against the blarney
of the Dhas Astore?'

'Has Miss Wolfe been up to anything? what?' demanded the lawyer,
knitting his shaggy eyebrows.

'It's a match they'll be making of it--Lord love the purty pair!'
bawled the nettled giant. 'The gintleman's to be complimented who's
thus favoured.'

'Is this true?' Curran inquired. 'Has she been persuading you to make
a fool of yourself? I turned you out of my house, though I love you
like a son, to withdraw you from what might prove a dangerous
atmosphere. Maybe I'd better have kept you after all.'

'Perhaps, if I succeed in this mission, she may be mine!' Terence
muttered in ecstasy, oblivious for the moment of the fate of the
condemned.

'And for such a vague _perhaps_,' Curran retorted in disgust, 'these
goslings will risk their lives!'




                             CHAPTER II.

                           DOREEN'S PLANS.


It is proverbial that the preaching of the wisest sage may be reckoned
as naught in its influence on a young man's fancy when opposed by a
siren's smile. Doreen had never, during the years of her sojourn at
the Abbey, tried to enlist Terence on the side of her oppressed
people. It would have been disloyal to have done so. But now that his
long-careless heart had taken the flame of its own accord, it was not
likely she should attempt to extinguish it. Having communed with Tom
Emmett, she directed her admirer to ride forthwith to Cork, ostensibly
on professional business, slip thence with secrecy across the water to
see Hoche, and then return with as little delay as might be. He was to
tell the French general that ten thousand soldiers were expected--that
less than five thousand would be useless--that arms without soldiers
would be refused, because a rising would be the immediate consequence
of a landing of arms, and it was not thought desirable to turn the
attempt, which should be made in force, into a desultory species of
Chouannerie. Further, he was to employ all his eloquence to ensure a
speedy start, declaring that Erin yearned to break her bonds, that a
small nucleus of regular troops was all that was required to start
with, as the peasantry were prepared to rise if sure of being properly
led.

These orders being succinctly given by a demure girl with rich dark
hair and a touching sadness of expression, was it probable that the
diatribes of an insignificant little person with shaggy elf-locks and
questionable linen should meet with even common courtesy? Curran
argued with his junior contrary to his own convictions, striving by
forensic imagery to save him from the vortex if he could; declared
that nothing but ruin could possibly come of a rising; that the
popular cause was hopeless; that the French would possibly make a
temporary disturbance to spite perfidious Albion, but that so soon as
it should suit their interests, Erin would be blandly restored to the
avenger, to reap the reward of her temerity. What sympathy could
France have for Ireland? What recked the Directory, or Hoche, or
Buonaparte (the clever young general who was becoming celebrated),
whether Erin was a slave or not? Other nations as interesting as the
Irish were slaves, and would remain so. Just now Hoche was warm upon
the subject because he was jealous of Buonaparte and eager for rival
laurels. Granted that he were victorious, he would soon weary of what
to him must be a worthless and precarious possession, would carry it
to market in a treaty of peace, and surrender it to expiate by yet
more grinding servitude the false hopes which were born only to
perish. But Mr. Curran (who didn't quite believe all this in his heart
of hearts) might as well have talked to the trees in his own Priory
orchard.

'You'll be dragged farther than you intend,' he urged. 'Your vanity
will induce you to take an active part, and then you'll be punished by
the revolting slavery entailed by a mob command.'

It was all in vain. Terence went away, and his chief gave out that he
had despatched him on business to Cork.

The unfortunate Orr was hanged, and the result quite pleased the
chancellor. A thrill of horror ran through all but the most callous.
The oath anent the bough was taken by hundreds in desperation. The
toast 'Remember Orr!' became a watchword. People shook their heads,
wondering what would come of it. Riots grew more frequent, which were
suppressed or not according to caprice. Major Sirr's Battalion of
Testimony lived on the fat of the land, for there was no difficulty in
unearthing traitors, now that the spirit of recklessness had gone
forth. Lord Clare pretended to be pained. The ingratitude and
wickedness of his countrymen--their hardened fits of daring--made him
blush, he vowed. The country was in danger, the yeomanry must bestir
themselves, England must send regiments too steady to be undermined;
if the people were so disgracefully unruly, martial law would have to
be proclaimed. He deeply grieved to suggest such a thing, but the
majesty of the executive, whose gravest sin was leniency, must at all
hazards be respected.

The capital was quite in a fever, shivering as pigeons do in their
cote when they feel the electric current. Every one was looking
towards France. Was that armament which was assembling at Brest
intended for their coasts? If the fleet were to appear in the offing,
how would Government behave? It seemed evident enough how they would
behave, for troops kept pouring in from England. Hessians,
Highlanders, Englishmen, under command of Lord Carhampton, arrived by
shiploads, and, spreading over the counties, were placed at free
quarters in the cottages. Dublin and the great towns undertook to look
to themselves. The armed squireens, yeomanry, fencibles, strutted in
scarlet in the streets, clothed in the bully airs which characterise
brief authority.

The burning zeal of Orangeism was let loose in all its excess of
wildness, and a fanatical orgy commenced--a saturnalia of fiends who
acted in the name of religion--which endured for two whole years. Men,
who in the past had made themselves objectionable to Government, were
not forgotten now. Even the semblance of moderation was tossed aside.
They were delivered to privileged marauders, to be kept under lock and
key and ultimately sacrificed in the 'confusion of the times;' whilst
as for private enemies, nothing was easier than to charge such an one
with treason, and lay him low by purchasing the good offices of an
informer. People went openly to the Staghouse, where the 'band of
testimony' were kennelled, just as in our modern days they go to
Scotland Yard to engage the services of a detective.

In the military mania which revived (how different from the Volunteer
movement! the first was an impulse towards good; the latter a carnival
of demons), everybody sported a uniform. The Bar chose its special
facings, so did the 'prentices, so did the adherents of each opulent
grandee. My Lord Powerscourt armed his tenants, but retained them in
the hills of Wicklow, declaring that his contingent was not to be
made a rabble of aggression. Even the Catholics deemed it prudent
to don the red coat in self-defence, as a disguise; and went forth
rebel-hunting, sometimes to lay violent hands on their own brethren.
But the warriors somehow invariably took the wrong road, or
discovered, upon reaching their destination, that gossoons had run
forward to give warning. The Right Honourable Claudius Beresford, not
to be outdone in zeal, set up a riding-school on Marlborough Green,
which later on assumed infamous notoriety as a torture-chamber. Here
the yeomen met to try their horses, to accustom them to the sound of
drum and clarion, to break a friendly bottle. Dublin assumed the
aspect of a garrison; the country of a vast camp.

Still my lord-chancellor vapoured airily of 'martial law;' not that it
signified much practically whether such were declared or no, but it
was as well to accustom polite ears to the words before they became
legal facts.

The arch-conspirators being unaccountably set free, without any
promises having been extorted from them, they naturally set to work at
once to take advantage of the general simmering, and the peculiar
condition of society was favourable to the attainment of their ends.
More than ever now was the anomaly made manifest which has been hinted
at before, namely, the promiscuous mixing in convivial intercourse of
persons of the most opposite views. At time-serving Arthur Wolfe's,
for instance, Clare hobbed and nobbed with the disaffected; such,
that is, as had not gone so far as to frighten the well-meaning
attorney-general. At Strogue Abbey, again, he chatted quite amicably
with Curran, who was never weary of abusing him in Parliament, or
strolled in the rosary with Cassidy, who was known to be a United
Irishman. But the strangest scene of all was the Beaux-walk in
Stephen's Green, more especially on a fine Sabbath, when the _beau
monde_ appeared in glory. The mall, where carriages paraded, ran at
that time along the north side, between a low wall and an impregnable
haha, or dyke; and there, on a Sunday afternoon, might be seen the
strangest medley of muslins and chip hats, fine coaches and swinging
noddies, mingled with cross-belts and helmets and military plumes and
gear; might be heard the wildest diversity of opinions openly broached
and bandied. Horse-races took place sometimes as an ostensible reason
for the gathering, and none marvelled to behold those who were
prisoned traitors a week ago arm in arm with Government officials, or
to hear acquaintances joking each other on the inconvenience of
getting hanged. Thus it failed specially to shock young Robert as a
piece of bad taste, when, walking with other undergraduates, if a
friend rallied him about his brother's newspaper, and the certain fate
which must befall its owner; though it must be admitted that such was
not the case with Sara, who moaned and shuddered with dismay, like a
rabbit in a den of serpents. Tom Emmett's newspaper was openly
published now twice a week, and no one interfered with it, though it
sought out the joints of Lord Clare's harness; and the chief of the
Directory was weak enough to imagine that his foe had grown afraid of
him for his boldness in pointing at injustice. Other newspapers were
gagged or bribed; why should his be privileged? Tom Emmett and Bond
and the rest held their secret meetings as heretofore, and strolled in
the Beaux-walk, and talked treason, like hot-pated Patlanders, to the
top of their bent, oblivious of the claw of the cat, because it
remained uplifted--poor guileless band of mice! They met frequently
and talked earnestly, and squabbled not a little among themselves, for
their opinions were divided on a point--a most important point, upon
which unanimity was essential--no less a one than the grand basis of
future operations.

Bond and Russell and others argued that misgovernment had come to such
a pass, that it might be endured no more without merited disgrace.
These bully squireens, these venal, brow-beating grandees, must be
shown, before more harm was done, that there must be a bound to their
arrogance.

If a tide be bravely stemmed, it will rage awhile; then settle within
its limits. Were the French coming? French or no French, the people
must rise; observant Europe would applaud, for even unfortunate
heroism commands respect and pity; pike-heads by thousands lurked
beneath potato plots, pike-poles in myriads were stacked under
thatched roofs. Surely the spirit of the ancient kings would animate
their sons in this emergency!

Most of the conspirators were for doing something definite at once.
Tom Emmett and his brother were in favour of delay.

'We have waited so long,' Tom said, 'that a few weeks more will make
little difference, save in the increased exasperation of the people.
Lord Clare was obliged by public opinion to set us free. We must do
our duty as men. With French assistance success is certain; without
it, more than doubtful. Wait, at least, till Terence Crosbie's
return--the young aristocrat who has taken up our cudgels. We shall be
none the worse for waiting; and now that he has been baptised into the
true cause, his presence will be valuable in our councils. The
labourer who entered the vineyard at the last hour was not deprived of
his reward. We are terribly weak in military capacity; maybe Heaven,
who has awakened so late in the day a scion of a noble house, may
point to him as a future leader. Wait at least and see him.'

Young Robert enthusiastically seconded his brother's motion, for his
instinctive dread of bloodshed impelled him to postpone the decisive
moment; and he was possessed, besides, with a strong belief in
Terence, whom he had known intimately during his sojourn at the
Priory. Russell and the others obstinately combated the point, urged
thereto by youthful jealousy and wounded self-esteem. True, none of
the council were of mature years; but to be lectured and prated at by
this boy Robert, who was yet a student in Alma Mater, was an indignity
which it behoved them to resent.

Doreen, who, after her noteworthy row upon the bay, threw aside the
appearance of apathy she had assumed, saw this new danger with
concern. Torn well-nigh to death already by factions of many kinds,
was Erin to sit by and see her last forlorn hope, her last bodyguard
of champions, scattered by the same curse? Miss Wolfe became seized by
a frenzy for galloping across country. Her horses were constantly
brought back to the stable with their coats turned, their flanks
heaving, their skins reeking with foam.

'No doubt the girl was crazed,' my lady averred, as constantly as she
marked the grooming of the animals from her bedroom window-seat. 'Why
could she not ride like a well-brought-up young person in the green
alleys of the Ph[oe]nix, or amble on the mall of Stephen's Green?'

My lady did not know that Doreen met separately, at certain cottages,
the different members of the Directory; that she prayed and exhorted
each one, as though he were alone to blame, to wisdom and a sacrifice
of paltry vanity; and that she came away from each interview with such
a dread of impending failure--a distrust of these budding
generalissimos--that it required the most reckless gallops, with a
dangerous fence or two _en route_, to calm her nerves sufficiently to
meet my lady's scrutiny with the accustomed mask of composure on her
face.

At the Abbey she had little to complain of now, for all were too busy
to take much heed of her. Shane, with a prospect of departing
northward, which rumours of accumulating outrages seemed to make more
and more urgent, shilly-shallied and delayed, and selected guns and
fishing-rods, and invited little knots of Cherokees, and spent more
and more time at the Little House, as though the effort to tear
himself away from Dublin delights and beloved Norah were too much for
his resolution.

Under the circumstances he was not likely to trouble his cousin with
attentions; and Doreen breathed freely again so far as her private
affairs were concerned, for she perceived that this project of her
aunt's was fading into a vision which never would and never could be
realised. Any one who watched might see that Shane was desperately
smitten with Norah, and Doreen was in no wise jealous. Norah was a
nice girl, Doreen determined, who was worthy to become a countess, and
she would help to make her happy as much as she could.

My lady's fancies were mere whimsies. If the marriage could be
accomplished, she would of course come in time to like her new
daughter-in-law. Many domineering old ladies object to eligible
maidens, merely because they have not fixed on them themselves.

Miss Wolfe, in her regained independence of thought, felt half
inclined to carry it beyond her own concerns, to speak openly to
Shane, to go and call on Norah, or meet her as if by chance, and
declare that she had come over to the enemy.

But the little love-idyl was destined to an interruption, whether she
interfered or not; for Glandore was pledged to go to the north--to
tear himself from the arms of metaphoric Capua. Would he remain
faithful to his lady-love, when removed from the direct influence of
her attractions? The notion of his going, Doreen remembered with a
quiet sense of fun, was her own; and selfishly glad she was to have
been so inspired, for away at Ennishowen his thoughts would be
diverted into a new channel. Even if he did not learn there to forget
Norah, his mind would certainly be freed from vague visions of his
absent cousin. Thus she, in any case, would be safe. Situated as the
concerns of the patriots were, all her own energies would be needed on
the spot--for without some one to threaten and cajole, the bundle was
sure to fall to pieces.

She would be glad, therefore, when the establishment at the Abbey
should break up, when all the vans and horses and carriages should
migrate to Donegal, leaving her--a waif--behind, with nothing to
attend to but serious business.

Of course when my lady and her son started for Ennishowen, she would
return to her old home in Dublin. She would inhabit once more her
little bedroom in Molesworth Street, and would make herself so
necessary to her father by fond artful prodigalities of love and
tenderness, as to prevent him from ever allowing her to leave him any
more. It was all very well, when she was a child, to send her to abide
with her aunt, but now she was a woman, and her place was with her
father. Then a small inward voice whispered, which caused her heart to
beat quick time:

'What if, by my loving influence, I might change at length his views?
He is weak, but so kind and excellent; he leans on my aunt because
hers is the more masculine nature of the two; and he yearns for
support and countenance. Why should he not come to lean on me? My will
is as strong as hers--our mutual affection unstained by a difference,
unruffled by a ripple! Oh! if I could persuade him that there are
nobler aspirations than mere gathering of gold. That if, instead of
money-grubbing to make me a fortune (well-meaning, tender father!) he
would spend all he has freely for his country's sake, I would love him
all the more dearly for my beggary; what if, by constant dropping on
the stone of obstinacy, I could bring him to feel this--how happy, how
truly happy, we might come to be together!'

Then, in less exalted moments of reflection, she felt that she
deceived herself, that this might never be; that if she elected, in
theory, to embrace for a holy cause the vow of poverty in her own
person, she had no right to force her convictions upon a man whose
glass of life was more than half run out, whose life ran in a groove,
and who had so distinct a predilection for flesh-pots. Well, without
going to extremes, it would be a joy to guide him just a little, to
prevent his truckling too glaringly to Castle influence. If only he
were not attorney-general and prosecutor for the Crown!' When the
French expedition shall have arrived,' she thought, 'and swept this
wicked Government into the sea, how intense a satisfaction will it be
to say to the Irish Directory, "Spare at least my father, for my sake!
I have worked heart and soul in the cause; you owe me this boon, the
only one I ask of you!"'

Certainly, from every point of view it seemed necessary for the young
lady to separate herself from the Abbey and her prejudiced aunt with
all speed, and assume her proper place in her own home.

Hence for more reasons than one she looked forward to the forthcoming
break in the Abbey _menage_ as to the commencement of a new era of
reviving hope and usefulness, and quite longed for Shane's departure
with all his bags and baggage.




                             CHAPTER III.

                           THE CLOVEN HOOF.


My lady's preparations were completed at last, and, thanks to her
maternal supervision, so were those of her favourite son. Though so
close at hand, she went little into Dublin; for the sight of many
strange uniforms reminded her of a past time, the associations
connected with which she did her best to bury. She knew only,
therefore, by rumour what was passing--by the reports of the
_Gazette_, by conversations with Lord Clare. As for Curran, there was
nothing to be got from him. He was as surly and morose as possible;
said rude things about the Orange Societies; told her details of
atrocities which, she felt sure, must be exaggerated; quarrelled with
her about the scarlet woman; showed signs of becoming as bigoted on
one side as she half admitted herself to be on the other.

She grew almost reconciled to the necessity of going northwards, for
Shane's conduct gave her serious alarm. He almost lived at the Little
House, and she saw the possibility, if the journey were delayed much
longer, of his declining to go at all. For all Norah's influence was
evidently thrown into the scale against her, and she bitterly
regretted now having shot off that arrow at Crow Street.

The artful damsel was striving to instil into her lover's mind that it
was cowardly to go away at this juncture; and it was only by
pretending to have private intelligence from the chancellor that his
mother could soothe his _amour propre_ to sleep.

She was credibly informed, so she declared, that Paris spies had told
Dublin spies, who had whispered it at the Castle, that the French
fleet would certainly make for the north. It stood to reason they
would not sail into Cork Harbour or Dublin Bay, where their foe was
ready to receive them. Not a bit of it. They would make for the
lonely, rock-bound coast of Donegal or Antrim, and young Lord Glandore
would cover himself with glory by appearing at the head of the
yeomanry in the neighbourhood to harass the landing of the troops.

This was just such a wild idea as suited the youthful fire-eater. He
saw, in his mind's eye, the shattered vessels on his iron rocks of
Ennishowen; a feeble resistance and surrender--for a mere handful
could do anything on those cliffs--and gave way, as usual, to his
mother. But she felt that, if they were to go, they must be off as
speedily as possible, or even her influence would fail at the last
moment, and that which she most dreaded might take place, despite her
efforts.

Her indignation against the lady of the Little House knew no bounds.
That she should immolate her own daughter for the mean purpose of
revenging herself upon a rival, was too horrible! It was really
amazing to consider what these Catholics were capable of! They had no
consciences. They were ready to commit any enormity, because when it
was done they could go to confession, wipe the stain off the slate,
and come back smiling. Lord Clare was perfectly right about the
scarlet woman, and Mr. Curran in his dotage. For every sort of reason
these Catholics must be kept down. No punishment was bad enough for
them--they should be locked in cages like wild beasts--they were
absolutely incorrigible--at least, so thought the Swaddler. Doreen was
turning out abominably. If she too were not soon caged, she would be
running off some day with a groom--or a United Irishman, which was
worse, breaking her father's heart, and dragging his name through the
mire. She preached to her brother on this subject, making him very
uneasy, and gave up looking after her poor, lest, meeting Mrs. Gillin,
she might forget herself.

Her preparations were complete, yet still she lingered at the Abbey.
Society was in such a state of suspense that freedom of action seemed
paralysed. The lady-lieutenant was frightened, and talked of fleeing
to London, yet she delayed her journey. The mall and the Beaux-walk
were both as full as ever. People went thither in hopes of decided
news one way or other--which never came; and being there, they rode
and gossiped and joked, because it was the habit to do so.

Emmett and his friends were becoming grievously troubled, for the
split in their camp widened daily. Were the French playing with their
Irish allies? This continued inaction on their part was
incomprehensible; for summer had faded to autumn, autumn was
shrivelling into winter--it was almost too late to expect assistance
now. Must the effort be postponed till next year? or a forlorn
hope be attempted single-handed? To make it now would be madness, for
rains were pouring down with Hibernian vehemence--the country was
sodden--would soon be frozen--the exposed patriots would die off like
rotten sheep. To wait till next year was a bad prospect--who can
calculate what may happen in six months? The evil acts of the
executive were piling up with terrible velocity. A sense of treachery
and of dismay seemed to hang over the capital, for none could be
certain who had taken the oath and who had not. Fathers were known to
be loyalists whose sons had received the tonsure. Peasant mothers had
put pikes in hiding whose daughters were living with the soldiers.
Friends met and dined, and laughed with each other about the wide
divergence of their views, just as they had done for some time past;
but the feeling that though they differed their friendship would not
wane was beginning to be shaken, for Major Sirr and his sinister band
were abroad. No one was safe from the informer.

There was a dinner-party at the Abbey--a party of typical incongruity.
The chancellor was there, all smiles and airiness. Mr. Curran was
there, who was becoming strangely absent and sour; his little primrose
Sara too, who looked delicate and nervous, and shrank, as if in pain,
from conversation, which of course turned on politics. Cassidy was
there too, in humble attendance on Doreen; and young Robert Emmett,
whom the chancellor condescended to twit scornfully on his behaviour.

'Keep your head out of the noose, my dear young friend!' he said. 'No
one is so small as to escape the vigilant eye of a paternal
government. Do you suppose we are not informed of your pratings within
Trinity? Your bursts of baby-eloquence, which are flowery but foolish?
It is a harmless amusement possibly within those aged walls, and the
wild talk of undergraduates is of little moment, yet I warn you that
it will not be permitted much longer. Oh dear no! We won't do you the
honour of arresting you. That would give you too much importance. But
it may become my painful duty, as chancellor of that university as
well as of this realm, to erase your name with others from its books,
unless you mend your manners--that's all; so be warned and wise in
time.

Robert chafed and choked at such language as this, which seemed to
mark him for a schoolboy before his wistful love; but he stood in such
awe of the stately dowager that he only reddened and hung his head.
Then Lord Clare, feeling merry, felt disposed to break a lance with
his ancient enemy of the Bar; he therefore gaily asked if he might
take a glass with Colonel Curran of the Lawyer's Corps--whose military
skill would soon be brought into play, considering that the paternal
Government had decided at last to propose a suspension of Habeas
Corpus. The United Irishmen were behaving so badly--were declaiming in
so provoking a fashion about their bonds, that it was as well to show
them for a moment what slavery really meant. But this pleasant little
sally fell dismally flat; for Curran was already aware of this
dreadful resolve, and did not rise in vehement expostulation, as the
other expected. So had Doreen heard of it. Her eye brightened a
little, but her hand never shook as she leisurely peeled a peach.

When the news had first gone forth, she had ridden over to the Priory,
lest haply some one might be there who could advise what might best be
done. She found Curran on his doorstep, putting on his gloves.

'I knew they'd do it,' was all he said to her. 'You stop here till I
return. I am going to Mr. Grattan.'

Presently he came cantering back on his shaggy pony, and said to the
anxious girl:

'There is nothing for it but patience. Mr. Grattan expected this, and
so did I. We shall oppose the bill, but that will make no difference.
This wretched land is doomed. If the bill is carried, Mr. Grattan will
retire from parliament, and so shall I. We are both sick of the
murderous farce.' Then, drumming his fingers on the window, in an
attempt to keep down his agitation, he muttered forth at intervals:
'Habeas Corpus! the very last guardian of our liberties! They'll bring
in the knife when every one's asleep, and stab our guardian in the
dark!'

So the lawyer--not taken unawares--only smiled, and, bowing stiffly
over his glass, asked quietly:

'Did you ever read AEschylus, my lord? I know you are a fine scholar.
You always remind me of Mercury in "Prometheus Vinctus," who was
constantly abusing the poor martyr for howling, when his only
grievance was a stake of adamant through his breast!'

The party broke up early, as both of the elder gentlemen were due at
the House, and the social atmosphere was stormy. My Lord Clare
whispered to his old friend at starting that he would call round in
the morning, as he had something very particular to say to her. Doreen
took the opportunity of imploring Curran to send a message to the
shebeen, with intelligence as to the fate of the bill (care of
red-polled Biddy), that she might know from him what happened with as
small a delay as possible.

That astute person turned out but too true a prophet. The bill which
was to close the courts of law, and place power over life and property
in the hands of military despots (and such despots!), was shuffled
into the House by the attorney-general at 2 a.m., and read for the
second time after _grave and mature deliberation_ at 2.10 a.m.; and
Doreen, when she read the note which informed her that it was carried
by 137 against 7, had an extra douche of sorrow poured over her, in
that her too facile parent had been its godfather!

So martial law was declared, and the humane and benignant soldiery,
whose good feeling had already been proven at Armagh and elsewhere,
were to work their wicked will unrestrained. Doreen was too much upset
to appear at breakfast, so my lady picnicked alone on the window-seat
which looked upon the stable-yard, watching for her vagrant darling,
keeping a keen look-out, too, as to whether her niece went out for a
scamper. For my lady had passed a sleepless night--one of those
terrible _nuits blanches_ much worse than any nightmare--when all our
sins sit heavy on our chests; when our brains throb to bursting, and
we hope there is no hereafter. She tossed--listening for Shane's
return--growing more feverish as hour after hour passed silently.
Still at the Little House! This was maddening. The vision of Shane and
Norah arriving to throw themselves upon their knees, danced before her
eyes. Once or twice, when sinking into a doze, she sat up with a
start, clutching the luxuriant braids of white hair which gave her in
her looking-glass such an odd look of winter and autumn united.
Manfully she had quelled any shrinking on her own account about
returning to Ennishowen. To her who had borne so much, what mattered a
little extra suffering? It was excellent advice that her niece had
given her. The way, and the only way, out of the labyrinth was to
transfer the establishment _en bloc_; she had recognised the fact, and
had resolved, for her dear boy's sake, not to spare herself. But now,
in dead of night, when the past stood out in phosphorescent light, and
the future loomed even yet more ghastly, she had to fight the old
weary moral fight again, in which she had so frequently been worsted.
Again she saw her husband on that bed of chairs at Daly's. Again she
heard him say, ere the last rattle stopped his voice for ever, 'Make
right that wrong while there is time!' Again she welled over with
impotent rage, whimsically mixed with penitence, in that she must wear
the Nessus shirt which he had shuffled off long since. She realised,
as she ruminated, that she had been deceiving herself as to the
motives which kept her still at Strogue. It was a terror of the island
of Glas-aitch-e at Ennishowen--of the tales which each twig and shrub
would tell her there--of the songs which the waves would sing to her
as they dashed against the cliffs--which had really delayed her
starting. But there must be an end of this weakness. All was ready.
For Shane's sake she would like to start upon the morrow, for the
sooner she drank her dose the better; but, unfortunately, a promise
had been given to attend their excellencies at a great ball which was
to take place at the Castle--and to retire suddenly, in ticklish times
like these, would certainly be construed as big with political import.
But after all, this fete (which was to show the scum that their
betters did not fear them) would be past in a few days. Till that time
arrived my lady would continue to wait; but in order to underline for
herself in her midnight self-communing the determination that there
was to be no more cowardice, she then and there resolved that the
great coach should take them upon the very same evening within the
Castle-yard, and spirit them forward on their way, instead of making a
fresh start from the Abbey on the morrow. This resolution being come
to, my lady's mind became calmer. As the blue light of wintry morning
struggled in she felt quite relieved, and got up presently--as
imperious as usual--to await Lord Clare's communication, and watch the
stable-yard for Shane's return.

It was fully eleven o'clock before Lord Clare's carriage wheezed up
the avenue--the casket which held Ireland's great man. For once Doreen
had not bucketed forth on one of her wild rides. Shane had not yet
come in.

My lady swept out upon the narrow terrace in front of the hall-door to
receive her guest. He must stand in need of refreshment; what would he
please to take?

He would take nothing for the moment. Yes--he would. It was a strange
conceit in one who had visited there as a familiar gossip during so
many years. He would take a view of Strogue Abbey--he would be shown
over the mansion by its chatelaine. My lady was surprised. Indeed, she
had not been over the quaint place herself for ages. What did my Lord
Clare desire to see? Was it the dungeon? or the ancient kitchen and
buttery, with its black woodwork, or the water-tower?

He would see everything while he was about it, he said. In the first
instance the young men's wing, with its museum of fishing-rods and
guns--and--what was that over it--an armoury? Oh, indeed! he would
like to look at it.

'But perchance I should disturb the young gentlemen,' her guest said
with hesitation. 'By-the-bye, has your son gone out?'

To Lord Clare's genuine astonishment, my lady reddened and looked
away. Could she know the mission on which he had come? If so, then she
was a greater mistress of her face than he supposed. If not, what
troubled her? He forgot that shrined in her love there was but one
son. That while he was hinting of the second, she, with sorrow, was
thinking of the first--who was dallying--where?

The twain wandered in the young men's rooms--in Shane's, whose bed was
smooth and neat--in Terence's, where faithful Phil was sitting, deeply
engrossed in fly-making, as innocently as if he had never heard of a
bough in England's crown.

'Both boys out, then? so much the better,' gaily quoth the chancellor,
who chose for a moment to ignore Terence's mysterious absence. 'I hope
Terence is safe; I can assure you Shane is; I saw him not an hour
since. He roystered with the Blasters all night, and of course had to
fight a duel in the morning. Is not the motto of their gay society
"Nemo me impune lacessit"? But he didn't get a scratch--indeed he's a
splendid swordsman--such a tactician--so sharp and quick of eye! I
must really congratulate him when he comes in by-and-by. Those spiral
stairs? Ah! That's the armoury.'

Phil dropped his flies, and leapt up from his seat. My lady and her
guest, taking no heed of him, climbed upward, opened the armoury-door,
went in and shut it. He could hear the creaking of their feet
above. What could he do? Nothing! He sank panting on his seat,
bewildered--then, stealing out, made the best of his way to the
shebeen.

'By-the-bye, where is Terence?' asked Lord Clare. 'You don't know? I
do. My poor old friend, prepare yourself for a shock. Sit down.'

With a gentleness which would have astonished his numerous enemies,
the chancellor laid his two hands on my lady's shoulders and pressed
her into a seat. The pupils of her eyes assumed that look, as of a
startled hare, which shone in them sometimes. She sat down silently
and waited.

Had Terence been guilty of something base? That was her first thought,
in which there was a touch of remorse. Then came a feeling of anger in
that he existed at all. Oh that he had never been born, or had died
in his early childhood! This in its turn was followed by intense
self-loathing; but her face remained immovable, while she looked up
with inquiring gaze.

'I have most unpleasant news for you,' said Lord Clare kindly, for he
liked my lady better than any one except himself, 'and thought it
would come best to you from me. For we'll hush the matter up--rest
easy on that score, trusting that no worse may come of it. Terence, as
you know, was rude to me at Crow Street, t'other day. I didn't mind
his petulance, of course; but for your sake I was hurt that he should
have gone astray and made an exhibition of himself in public. It's
your rough diamond Curran's fault, with his romantic balderdash about
his country. He threw the young man into dangerous society, forgetting
that it takes a seasoned head to weigh the hollowness of enthusiasm.
Terence has been bitten by the prevailing rabies; the fever's hot upon
him, and being of a higher breed than his companions, has rushed
straightway into action, instead of merely prating like the others. As
his mother, you should have greater influence over him than any one.
Argue him out of his dangerous course. You think he's at Cork on law
business? He's strutting up and down the landing-stage at Brest, with
Tone and Hoche, and all the rest of the jays in peacock-plumes. He's
urging the bevy of juvenile generals there to come across the water,
despite the lateness of the season; in fact, he's beginning the risky
game which brought Balmerino, Kilmarnock, Lovat, to the block. I'm
sure of what I state--trust me for that. Why! these hot-pated fools do
nothing that we're not informed of; and Mr. Pitt's staff in France is
every whit as sharp as ours here. Do you desire a proof that I speak
with authority? What are these things stacked here, under these
cloths, within these presses, even piled, as you see, right up the
chimney!' Lord Clare moved about the room with the precision of
one who is sure of what he does. 'Pikeheads, my lady--rough but
efficient--which are to rip his Majesty's soldiers when the struggle
shall begin. It was an ingenious notion to store them under the roof
of a known loyalist. Who placed them here? Your ingenuous boy,
Terence, with the assistance of the people at the shebeen below. That
"Irish Slave," by the way, must have a visit from us; also the fair
dame on whose ground it stands. Look at this paper. A design for a
pikehead, precisely like these, with written directions--in whose
hand? Terence's! I gave five hundred guineas for that piece of paper.
See! do not tremble--it's destroyed--the evidence is gone.'

My lady sat upright in her chair without moving, staring up at the
speaker, scarcely comprehending what he said, through the singing in
her ears. Terence, her son, had actually joined the disaffected--these
deluded persons whose proceedings shocked all her prejudices--whom she
sincerely believed were only fit for Bedlam. He might come to an
ignominious death unless she put forth all her influence to drag him
from the danger. What influence could she expect to have? Whose fault
was it that she had none? Her sin was finding her out in an unexpected
fashion. A great cry rose up within her, that her fortitude was near
its end. It broke from her bosom in a sigh of weariness. She looked
old and haggard as she stared up at the chancellor. Her ancient
friends poke of the situation: of how the commander-in-chief my Lord
Carhampton must inaugurate a new regime, now that martial law was
declared; of how, all things considered, in the complications which
were arising, it would be wise for the denizens of the Abbey to depart
shortly. Terence might be expected back in a day or two; then his
mother must speak to him and take him with her if she could. It would
be well to take Miss Wolfe away too, as she was playing the fool most
egregiously. She, too, had a hand in this pike-stacking.

My Lord Clare laughed in his disagreeable manner as he recounted how
he had succeeded in terrifying poor vacillating Arthur Wolfe about
her. At all events it was most wise that Lord Glandore should go; for
it would be a terrible thing--supposing Terence proved obstinate--if
the brothers should come to be in rival camps upon the scene of
action.

'My dear lady,' he concluded, 'we shall have a hot time of it before
we've done, I do assure you. Take your measures as I advise. Now I
must be off to turn the screw upon the "Irish Slave."'

The coach rolled citywards. My lady, face to face with a new trouble,
clung to the one speck of brightness which glittered like a star.
Gillin certainly was committing herself. There was to be a search upon
her premises. Her ruin would surely follow. The pressure from that
side would be removed. Thank heaven for that! Yes! This was a real ray
of light shining from out the gloom. Things at their worst must mend.
With firm step the countess swept along the passages, striving to
stifle the remorse which whispered that if evil came to Terence, she
would be responsible. She would follow her friend's sage advice to the
letter, she determined. It was time to do battle with Doreen, as to
her proposed visit to the north.

Miss Wolfe was bending over the sun-dial in her little flower-plot,
which was sad-looking with quaint-toned chrysanthemums, her head bowed
upon her arms--a statue of despair. An open letter lay crumpled at her
feet. My lady saw it and smiled grimly. Indeed, the poor maiden had
received a terrible blow--one heavy enough to stagger even her
firmly-knit nature. The beauteous _Chateau en Irlande_, which she had
been so busy building, had come crashing down. Its gargoyles and
turrets were admirable to behold--but, alas! its foundations were of
sand. It had toppled bodily upon her head, and she was stunned by the
completeness of the ruin. Her fond parent had indited her a note
bidding her pack up her clothes; for, that she might be removed from
danger, she was to go to Glas-aitch-e with her aunt.

She was caught in her own trap. Those dainty visions of returning to
her father, of weaning him from the flesh-pots, of bolstering him up
in the buckram of her love against his weak sensual self, were
vanished. 'She was to be taken away out of danger,' her cruel father
wrote, as though she did not pant for danger as doth the war-horse!
The misfortunes which might result from this unlooked-for arrangement
rose up before her one by one, each armed with its separate shiver.
The struggle would come. She, whose heart was wrapped in it--who had
made up her mind in which direction duty lay--would be a prisoner far
away in a desert island, to which news would trickle slowly: that was
bad enough. But of late she had become morbidly anxious, on account of
the disorganisation which delay was causing among the United Irishmen.
It was only by her own personal influence that Russell and Bond had
bowed to Tom Emmett's dictum, and consented to await Terence's return.
Were the French coming, or were they not? If not, would the society
fling down the gauntlet alone? If it should do so, what would be the
result? Would Emmett continue to carry his point as to delay? If he
failed in his endeavours, what could be expected to take place? Even
if he should be able to control the unruly, how fraught with danger
was the prospect. Help from France was the willow that bound the
sticks; that band removed, with what ease might each separately be
broken!

At sound of my lady's footstep, Doreen started from her crouching
attitude. Her aunt's were the last eyes on earth which she would wish
to pry into her despair. She was vaguely suspicious too that her
aunt's wild projects of matrimony had something to do with this last
arrangement. It was, beside the others, a mild phase of annoyance no
doubt, but it certainly was annoying to consider that in Donegal she
would find herself shut up well-nigh alone with Shane, who, urged by
his mother, might tease her dreadfully. Taken altogether, her future
looked black as Styx. She promised herself to make one effort more to
remain behind in Dublin. Then it flashed upon her that perchance some
one had warned her father of the prominence which she had assumed of
late. Yet who would tell him? Her precautions were always well taken.
In public she acted with extreme reserve towards Tom Emmett and the
rest. Private interviews had always been held at obscure cottages,
whose owners she knew would be hanged ere they betrayed her. There was
no doubt though, she reflected with sore foreboding, that there were
traitors somewhere. If only they could be unmasked. Well, well! time
unravels many tangles.

'I see your father has written to you,' my lady said, stepping down
into the garden. 'He must even defend you against yourself. Upon my
word, the Irish are all insane. I shall have the honour to be your
keeper for awhile--in a most impregnable asylum.'

Then it was her aunt who had suggested this step. At this instant how
bitterly she hated her!

'I have yet to learn,' she said with hauteur, 'what business you have
to interfere with me. I am of age, and not your daughter.'

'You will not presume to disobey your father, I suppose?' the countess
inquired coldly. 'Though I ought rather to be surprised if for once
you are dutiful.'

'My duty is to my mother's people!' Doreen murmured absently.

'I told you once before,' her aunt went on, unheeding, 'that you would
disgrace the family and break your father's heart. For both reasons it
is my distinct business to interfere with you. The friends whom you
have chosen to make, are rushing like sheep to the slaughter. You
shall not be one of the flock if I can help it. I have spoken gravely
to your father about you; and so has some one else--Lord Clare.'

'Lord Clare!' echoed Doreen, astonished. 'What does he know about me?'

'Too much,' retorted her aunt, dryly. 'He showed me, just now, a
delectable sight in the armoury, a discovery which cost him five
hundred guineas. For shame! It is kindness to deem you mad.'

'How did he know of the pikes?' startled Doreen inquired.

'Through Terence,' replied my lady, shortly--for she knew not how much
or how little her niece and son were mixed up in this affair, and
always instinctively avoided talking of the latter to the former.
There was a long pause, during which the dowager continued to eye her
niece.

'Aunt, I will go with you to Donegal!' Miss Wolfe said slowly, her
large eyes peering with vague terror into space. 'I think now I will
take a walk, for I am rather upset;' and quietly taking her garden-hat
from the bench hard-by, she knotted its ribbons under her chin, and
disappeared between the beech hedges of the rosary.

There are moments in most lives when so sharp a pang shoots through
our hearts, that we feel there is nothing left but to seek a remote
covert and wait for death. Such strokes age us suddenly and surely. To
few is it given to become old by slow and imperceptible steps. We
remain in the solitude of our covert without speech; almost without
feeling. Presently we perceive that we were mistaken about death (for
the White Pilgrim comes not for the bidding); and emerge into the
world again, apparently the same as before--young outwardly, and
smooth-browed, but really altogether different. Poets have sung much
of broken hearts, at which cynics have scoffed, time out of mind.
Hearts have broken under a sudden mental shock, but seldom. They are
more usually turned inside out and changed.

Doreen had just received such a shock as calls imperatively for
solitude. Then the snake in the grass--the Judas--was Terence--her own
cousin! Rapidly she walked through the rosary, and out by the wooden
gate into the open--away--inland across the fields, for miles.

She was surprised to find that she felt more grieved than was at all
necessary, in that the snake was Terence. Only a few minutes ago she
had been praying heaven to unmask the villain, with the laudable
intention of pointing him out to the reprobation and contempt of the
society. But Terence! The open-visaged, careless youth who exasperated
her, as a woman, chiefly because he was prodigal of promise which was
not likely to be fulfilled. He had been so importunate in blundering
puppy fashion (really almost as ridiculous as Cassidy), heaving absurd
sighs, carrying on his intermittent wooing in so ludicrously naive a
manner, as to provoke scorn in so high-spirited a mistress. Looking
within herself, she discovered that behind her light estimate of his
amatory ravings there was a genuine liking for the lad. Could she have
been entirely mistaken in him? Could her judgment have been utterly at
fault when she decided, that if feebly endowed by nature, he was at
least honest and true? For the more she considered the subject as she
trudged across country, the more she felt that it would be indeed
grievous if that fine open face, which had looked so noble in its
indignation on account of the martyr Orr, should turn out to be only a
grinning mask.

Terence the Judas--the betrayer of the innocent--the snarer of the
unwary! Terence, her cousin, whose jocund visage she admitted to be
rather dear to her. If he proved so base a scoundrel, in whom then
might an earnest soul place trust? Was his perfidy a fall, or original
sin? She remembered how she had read wise thoughts in books, wherein
sages had explained that our nature is unstable, liable to trip--that
none can resist temptation if clothed in the fittest garb. Is not the
prayer which should be oftenest on our lips, 'Lead us not, O God, into
temptation?' Women are perverse, choosing always the left one, when
they ought to take the right turning; and with the perversity of women
Doreen chose at once to accept the most distasteful phase of the
situation. She took it for granted that Terence was in the wrong,
instead of more prudently suspending her judgment till his return from
France.

The feet of her cousin were cloven. He wore a tail and smelt of
brimstone. She stood still beside a paling as she thought of him, and
shook it in a rage with both her hands, while a vague feeling of
uneasiness came over her in that she should care so much that Terence
should prove the Judas. Yet was she not quite justified in her dismay?
Was it not natural that her faith in truth and goodness should be
thrown out of gear by such low calculating turpitude? Clutching the
gnarled paling, the unhappy lady bowed her face on it and burst into
sobs which shook her to the centre.

Five hundred guineas! That was the sharpest of the many thongs which
smote her. She had declined to look at the sordid motive--it was so
very mean and vile. But now it clamoured with open palms at the gates
of her brain, and shouted deafeningly. Vulgar money troubles are at
the bottom of everything that's base! What a pity that there should be
such a thing as money! Five hundred guineas! How small--how miserable
a sum! He was always in debt, she knew: to such easy-going creatures
as he always seemed to be, debt was a state of nature. But could he
have sunk so low as this? Was he capable, for five hundred guineas, of
suddenly assuming a noble love of motherland, which was a farce--of
laying a gin for the feet of persons who had never injured him--nay,
whom he reckoned among his dearest friends? For the wretched price of
five hundred guineas, could he look her--his cousin, almost his
sister--in the face, and endeavour to steal her heart, that he might
stick it on a pole for the amusement of fellow-traitors? Traitor!
Arch-traitor--wretch! Tears having come to her relief, Doreen sat on
the grass and wept, and felt like the wounded beast within the covert.

Piecing scraps together, with the key which my lady had furnished,
many cloudy matters became clear. My lady was proud and prejudiced,
but her pride revolted against treachery. If not, why had she suddenly
warned her niece to see that her correspondence was not tampered with?
Who should tamper with it? Not Jug, or Biddy, or Phil. They were
children of the soil, who knew not treachery. How could my lady know
of any tampering of theirs? No! It was against Terence--the son whom
my lady loved not--whose unworthy proceedings filled her aristocratic
soul with repugnance--that she had warned her niece. Lord Clare knew
the very wording of Theobald's last letter--through whom? Through
Terence, of course--for five hundred guineas--alas! alas!

All of a sudden a new idea struck Doreen, and she sat up, her cheeks
blanched and tear-stained. The traitor had worked well for the
degrading pittance. He had succeeded in hoodwinking the society as
well as herself. He was now at Brest, with every secret in his
possession--every detail--every aspiration--cut and dried--in cold
black and white--and she it was who had despatched him. The Emmetts,
Russell, Bond, were doomed men. Their young lives were unconsciously
sacrificed by her. There was no end to the blood for which she would
be answerable. The cycle of her frenzied thoughts came back to the
point at which she started. She had been trifling like some innocent
child with burning brands which had scorched her. Not herself alone.
Her life was her own, for better or for worse. When she should be
called to appear before the throne to account for her deeds, she would
be asked, 'Why broke you your father's heart for a chimera? why did
you lead Emmett, Russell, Bond, by your wiles to the scaffold? Who
were you to set yourself up as a teacher? To lure honest men, like a
siren, to destruction? What could her faltering answer be? I meant
well. I acted for the best. I was presumptuous. I am sorry.... Can
regret undo the injuries which are due to our presumption? No. The
wretched Doreen was crushed by an overwhelming sense of her own
littleness and failure. There was nothing for it but to kneel down and
cry, 'I have sinned;' to clasp her sorrow and take it to the north,
there to hold vigils of unfruitful repentance, whilst praying humbly
to be released from earth. The wilds of Glas-aitch-e should be her
covert. Into it she would creep like a stricken doe. If the White
Pilgrim would obey her summons, with what gratitude she would cling to
his filmy raiment! If he refused to hearken to her pleading--why then
she must, kneeling on the stones, endure unto the end with such
meekness as a vengeful heaven might vouchsafe to her.

The wild paroxysm past, she got up and returned with trailing feet
towards the Abbey. Her limbs were aching from contact with dank
herbage: her brogues and stockings soiled with clinging mud. A
drizzling veil was settling on the earth, which looked, as far as ken
might reach, dun-toned and colourless. Raising dazed eyes, she beheld
a slim figure moving with rapid strides, and recognised young Robert
from afar.

What could he be doing? Was he also crushed in spirit, as weary of the
world as she; wandering in search of peace? or on one of his many
missions of private charity?

He had been to the Abbey in quest of her; was told by a garden-lad
that she had passed through the wooden postern, and had tracked her
wanderings from hut to hut.

'They are going too far!' he said abruptly, with bent brows, as he
turned to walk back with her. 'Already the squireens are abroad,
imitating their fellows in the north. Dublin's in a ferment. It needs
but the coming of the French to settle the affair at a blow. Every
magistrate has received orders to raise twenty men to preserve the
peace in place of the militia, should these be ordered to the coast.
But they overreach themselves. Decent people are so furious at the
tactics of Lord Clare, that even the militia are dying to turn against
the Government. Cassidy says so, who should know, seeing that he keeps
up a friendship with the Castle. I speak to-night at the Debating
Club. Look at these notes,' he added, smiling. '"Recipe to make a
Rebel! Take one loyal subject uninfluenced by pension; burn his house
over his head; murder his wife and babes before his eyes; march away
with such plunder as you choose to save from the flames----" But what
is the matter? You look ill!'

'I am leaving Dublin almost at once,' Doreen said, 'and am glad of it.
If there is one power which has the gift of withering up the soul, it
is treachery! I am sick of the world. Go to your brother. Tell him the
cause is lost. One who held all their secrets has betrayed them--for
five hundred guineas; that is their value in his eyes.'

Here the girl broke into wild laughter--she who never laughed; and
Robert looked at her in surprise, with a sense of coldness, creeping.
Then, with a hectic spot upon each cheek, she eased her breast with
words; recounted all she knew, and much more which was conjecture,
though in her perturbed state she was not aware of it. Explained that
they were all dupes of Terence's false _bonhomie_--that he had coldly
and deliberately played a part; had, as it were, eaten their bread and
salt, and then stabbed them in the back. In the midst of the hideous
recital, her voice choked in a great gulp, and clasping her hot face
with her hands, she burst into a flood of tears.

Ardent young Robert was shocked, but not convinced. Terence! whom
every one loved for his bright eyes, through which shone forth an
honest soul. To whom Robert and fellow-undergraduates looked up as to
a _preux chevalier_ in the matter of grouse-shooting and the beguiling
of the wily trout. He could not believe such a thing, and would not.
Lord Clare was capable of any amount of lying. His ways were so
tortuous that they were difficult to follow. His spies were legion,
who ferreted out everything. No doubt Phil and Biddy had been watched;
they had billed and cooed too loudly as they had handed the pikes over
the wall. Terence was unduly heedless about money; his friends
frequently declared that he didn't know its value. It was absolutely
out of the question that he should suddenly be tempted to do so crafty
and mean a thing. As for the delegates of the society being betrayed
and their secrets known, there was nothing new in that. Had they not,
months ago, been arrested at his own chambers, their papers seized,
themselves arbitrarily imprisoned, and afterwards as arbitrarily
released? He could not fathom the tactics of the executive, the youth
was forced to confess, for their movements seemed planned to
circumvent each other. The rank and file were being captured by dozens
and hanged, while the commanders and organisers of the scheme were
permitted to remain at large.

It was not unpleasing to Doreen to hear her cousin defended; but she
shook her head.

'If the French were to come now,' she said, 'they might set things
right; but then they must come in force; and Terence, having gone to
Brest, would probably clinch the irresolution of Hoche, and
effectually decide him not to come at all. Verily, the world and its
affairs were vexation of spirit; conspiracy a disheartening game;
Ireland an accursed land, foredoomed to eternal misery.'

By the wooden postern which gave access to the rosary, stood a group
of peasants, who humbly bowed to Miss Wolfe, then returned to the
dirge of lamentation which her appearance had interrupted.

'Jug Coyle, what is the matter?' Doreen inquired; for she recognised
in a heaving heap before her the shattered remains of that lady.

'Whisht! acushla!' a man whispered. 'Let her tears flow. Sure she's
burned out of house and home. Her cabin's desthroyed. The sodgers--bad
luck to 'em!--have taken her bit of bacon and the dhrop of potteen
the quality used to loike, and thin they began to turn up the
pratey-garden, and Biddy gave a yelp and wanted to run to the Little
House, but the blagyards gagged her mouth with an ould rag, and tuk
her away screeching.'

'The "Irish Slave" destroyed?' inquired Robert.

'Yes, your honour,' replied the man, lowering his voice as he glanced
around. 'But they didn't find much. Phil, Masther Terence's man, came
down from the Abbey to give the office, and most of the pike-heads
were tossed over the wall, till we can put 'em back to-night. Wake up,
Jug, and spake with the lady. Sure the shock has druv the collough
crazy. When the thatch was all ablaze we went up to Madam Gillin, who
always has the kind word and bit and sup; but she said she could do
nothing, and bade us come to you.'

'To me!' echoed Doreen, bitterly. 'Am I not too a Catholic, and
helpless?'

'But it's your father's the great gintleman,' urged the fellow
coaxingly, as he twisted his corbeen between his horny hands. 'If ye'd
spake the word, acushla----'

'My father!' Doreen groaned, breaking abruptly through the knot of
suppliants. 'What can he do? He is sending me away. I'll pray to God
for you; but He has been deaf this long while.'




                             CHAPTER IV.

                          WE PIPED UNTO YOU.


So the "Irish Slave" was destroyed by fire, and its hapless occupant,
finding that no redress might be obtained through, Miss Wolfe, crawled
to the Little House, where she was taken in by its kind mistress, who
in her turn received, a few minutes later, a visit from Major Sirr. He
pointed out with deferential politeness to the good-humoured dame
that, as a Catholic possessing property, it was scarcely wise to
harbour traitors, whereat the stout lady broke into her hearty laugh
and invited him to lunch.

'Is it me, meejor, that causes the Secret Council to shiver in their
shoes,' she asked, 'with a Protestant daughter to go bail for me, and
meeself, all but the fine airs, an aristocrat? Not but what Ollam
Fodlah, mee ancestor, was better than the best of the stuck-up
crathers! I'm a "no-party woman," as all the world knows, just as the
buckramed bag-o'-bones at the Abbey foreninst us is a "no-popery
woman." Let my ould collough be; she was my nurse, and won't trouble
any one for long. Come in. Ye shall taste a gulp of my fine claret
just to show there's no spite betune us--the very same, on my word of
honour, as Justice Carleton and Judge Clonmel have such a tooth for.'

And Major Sirr pledged his hostess in his best manner, with a smirk on
his thin features and a worldly twinkle glimmering from under his
bushy brows, and departed presently to report at the Castle that Madam
Gillin was a staunch loyalist who had miraculously escaped the taint
which poisoned most ladies of her creed.

When he had departed, the good lady's face lost its dimples and grew
long.

'That wicked fellow will bring them all to the gallows,' she muttered
to herself, frowning at some one she saw in her mind's eye who was not
Major Sirr. 'And my lips are sealed! It's a fearsome thing to have to
watch what's going on, and not dare speak a word of warning. If he
only didn't know that I take Norah to the mass! Yet I'm bound to do my
best for the child's soul, though my lord would have her brought up a
Protestant. Sure Father Daly said I must bring the pet to chapel for
her soul's sake as well as mine.'

Then Madam Gillin, who was dividing the sheep from the goats in the
matter of faded frippery in an untidy cupboard, resigned herself to
unwonted meditation, with lines of gravity about her mouth which
seldom rested there, as she recalled the day some time since, when he
whom she had looked upon as friend unveiled himself to her in drunken
frenzy as a viper; when she had stared into his big jolly face with an
expression that had sobered him, while he explained that for the
future she must do as she was bidden, or else all sorts of penalties
would swoop upon her for tampering with the religion of a Protestant.
On that occasion he fairly terrified her, and she kept the secret as
to his being a viper in disguise, though it sickened her to think of
it o' nights. She recalled the scene now for the thousandth time, and
shuddered; and her best frock slipped out of her hands on the dirty
floor while she contemplated that genial pleasant boon companion as
she and only a few others knew him. Norah found her standing absently
among crumpled gauzes when she returned from a jaunt to Dublin, and
rallied her mother on her looks, with a smacking kiss like a
whip-crack.

'Have ye heard a banshee, mamma?' she asked. 'See! I've done all the
commissions. Feathers a foot long, lovely flowers for our skirts, and
gloves to cover the elbow. I met Shane upon the road, and we went
together; but I could not wheedle him into coming to the ball, though
I did my best. He said the grand ladies frightened him--bored him more
likely. He's mighty timid for a Blaster. It's a wonder he's not afraid
of _me_.'

As the girl surveyed herself archly in the glass, she perceived why
her lover feared her not. Indeed there was little of the grand style
about the colleen. A rosy cheek; a liquid merry eye; a large ripe
mouth, and an impudent upturned nose. No classical belle was poor
Norah--only a healthy, comely wench--just such an one as would be
likely to enchain a man with no loftier aspirations than Glandore's.

Though mamma was inclined to be glum, her daughter was in the highest
spirits; for before her was the delicious prospect of the ball (such
gaieties were becoming rarer and more rare), and she was quite
convinced, from what Shane had said, that that spiteful cat the
countess had lied when conversing at Crow Street with Lady Camden. It
was true, certainly, that he was going away for a few weeks. It
appeared that he had duties to perform, and she liked him too well to
stand in the way of his duties. But as to that sinful, deceitful,
odious story about bringing home a bride, the notion was quite too
foolish. He had sworn as much with entrancing kisses, and was she not
delighted to believe him? Why, there would be only two ladies of the
party, he averred. Did his little goose suppose that he could lead his
own mother to the altar? As for Doreen, the idea was quite as
preposterous. Her frigid ways and tiresome national wrongs were not to
his taste at all. Therefore Miss Norah was quite content, though she
had just bidden her lover farewell. She would see him no more for
several months, perhaps; for, to avoid attending a ball where
objectionable fine ladies would congregate, my lord had settled to
ride as _avant courier_ to Drogheda, to superintend the preparations
at the inn where my lady and the household were to sojourn.

Though the volcano was heaving in portentous fashion, society seemed
of one mind as to dancing jigs upon it to the last. Upon formal
proclamation of martial law, the yeomanry had thrown off all disguise.
The squireens were ruffianly through ignorance, their betters through
self-interest, for it was easy to detect which way the wind was
blowing. The chancellor was plainly for harsh measures. 'I will make
these Irish as tame as cats,' he was heard incautiously to say. It was
to be a war of class against class, in which both parties were
artistically goaded by dark suspicions and deftly-spread falsehoods.
Internecine strife is always remarkable for a display of the vilest
passions. It seems as if the flow of gall is the more bitter from the
difficulty of first pumping it to the surface. Major Sirr and his gang
took to prowling in the night-houses--to making evening raids on
taverns--a species of political crimping which was fruitful of
brilliant hawls. Lists were even despatched to the Staghouse by Mr.
Secretary Cooke that the town-major's lambs might study them, and
'pencil off such as they deemed dangerous to the country.' Bands of
armed squireens sallied out in the mad frolics begot by drink, to
'give their opinion' to the disaffected, and the result was such a
succession of night-brawls that Lord Clare was sorry and hurt.

'What are we to do with these depraved turbulent creatures?' he
plaintively inquired of the cabinet. And one and all--Arthur Wolfe
even reluctantly consenting--admitted that stringent measures were
imperative, or anarchy would surely supervene. So an order went forth
that none should appear in Dublin streets after eight o'clock p.m.,
unless armed with a special permit to do so. The theatres were closed.
The city was in a state of siege, as though really Hoche were at its
gates.

But this was too dull for my lords and my ladies, who were not given
to reading books, and had no intention that annoyance should fall upon
themselves. They met for cards at one another's houses, their sedans
protected by retinues of servants; but this was a poor pastime to
folks who were accustomed to the public dances of Fishamble
Street--the sumptuous entertainments at the Castle. They grumbled that
this premature alarm was ridiculous. The French were not in Ireland,
though the 'Shan van Vocht' was wont lyrically to declare at all hours
of the day that they were on the sea. As for the United Irishmen, they
were a 'Bugaboo.' With the troops which had been sent over any
attempted rising could be frustrated at once; but they would not be so
stupid as to rise--the tongues of these foul-mouthed patriots were
more killing than their swords. My Lord Clare must be losing his
nerve, he was not severe enough. They--the lords, urged by their
ladies--would see that a proper spirit of terror was instilled into
the scum, so that even if called on by their chiefs to rise, they
would sit like beaten hounds--their tails between their legs. Lord
Clare looked at Lord Camden from under his beetling penthouse. Lord
Camden looked at Lord Clare and hummed, and hawed, and shuffled. For
the unfortunate gentleman who represented majesty, though he lived as
much as he could, like some Japanese monarch behind screens, could not
hide himself so well but that unpleasant speeches reached his ears. He
had consented tacitly to make a Guy Fawkes of himself, and permit the
bearers of the pageant to explode malodorous squibs under his nose;
but when the evil savours choked him he winced in tribulation. He grew
to hate his tormentor well-nigh as much as the people did, which was
no little. But Lord Clare's day of triumph seemed in nowise on the
wane--everything went as he wished it to go. His ruthless bearing had
made him a despot in the imbecile senate. His colleagues, forgetting
their rank, their country, and their dignity, yielded to the spell of
his dictation as a fascinated bird drops before the snake. The letters
of congratulation which he received from Pitt and others were
accumulating within his escritoire. So soon as he should have tamed
the tiger-Irish, how great would his reward be! He saw in the
distance a vision no longer dim. An English peerage. A position in the
English House of Lords, where great statesmen should listen to his
periods--where Nestors should encourage his ambition. There seemed no
end to the gorgeous vista. Why not some day assume the place of Pitt
himself, who, though young, was (at least the world said so) eaten up
by debauchery and excess? And what was there which stood 'twixt
himself and this glorious prospect? His own country, its interests,
its safety, its political existence--nothing more! Pooh! Time works
wonders. Things were going well. If those idiots would only fall upon
the swords which were held out to them, there was no knowing what
might not be accomplished. The Hibernian lords and gentlemen were in a
fair way of exhibiting themselves to the odium of the world. Having
danced their infernal dance at the bidding of those who clutched the
purse-strings, they would make a sorry figure when the latter spurned
them in disgust. What would they do then? Only sink lower still, and
become more abject, till the pit of degradation should know no deeper
depth. That was the way to work on them! To hold out threats that
pensions would not be paid unless certain dirty work was done. To
declare then that it was much too dirty--that by disobeying
instructions they had forfeited the right to sit in the presence of
decent people; that, having gone so far, all sense of respect must be
abandoned; that, honour being lost, nothing was left to them but
money; that with their own guilty hands they must cut the throat of
their legislature, and drown remorse so long as the blood-money should
last. This was to be the crowning edifice of my Lord Clare's scheme;
and Mr. Pitt laughed a sardonic laugh as he tied a wet towel round his
throbbing temples. He had got very drunk and lost at whist, had the
gay young British premier; but the excellence of this conceit caused
him to grin, despite his headache.

'This Irishman,' he laughed, 'talks monstrous fine about the low ebb
to which the Irish lords have sunk--forgetting that his own place is
lower still than theirs; but he does his burrowing with rare ability.'

So Lord Clare worked and wormed with consummate diplomacy and tact,
while those who employed him despised their tool in increasing ratio
with his success; and Lord Camden's seat of thorns became daily more
galling, and the silly mice gambolled with a recklessness which
compelled pity--and old Father Time hurried on, afraid to look behind
him.

My lords and my ladies, finding Dublin very dull, began to vent their
spleen. The chancellor therefore saw that he must break the ice, which
had been freezing up too rapidly. He announced, accordingly, that the
Castle festivities would not be postponed, as had been intended. The
grand ball, usually given on Christmas Eve, would take place a week
later instead--no other change would result from the threatening state
of affairs. Gentlemen, however, were requested to wear their swords;
for all sorts of rumours were abroad, which the executive sincerely
hoped were merely the invention of the enemy. How any enemy could be
so heartless as to plot and conspire against so angelic an executive,
etc., etc., as usual.

That the great ball was really to take place, was hailed with
universal delight. Everybody knows St. Patrick's hall--its magnificent
proportions, the suite of state-rooms to which it leads; the splendid
staircases, balconies, lobbies; ideal spots for flirtation--or
conspiracy. All parties, patriotic and the reverse, rejoiced at
prospect of this _fete_, for several reasons.

Sirr and his Battalion of Testimony were becoming so
ubiquitous--informers had a way of turning up so unexpectedly--that it
grew daily more difficult to hit on a place of meeting secure from
their spying presence. Of course only gentlemen and ladies 'to the
backbone' could expect to gain admittance to Castle dinners and
concerts; but with the St. Patrick balls it was otherwise. These
assemblies bore so official a character that respectable citizens of
all denominations were certain of receiving an invitation. Lord Clare,
aware of this, had made his calculations. The United Irishmen were
sure to be there in force; it would not be his fault if they did not
flounder into a hole.

It was for this ball on New Year's Eve that Norah Gillin had gone
forth to purchase ribbons and plumes. It was for this ball that my
Lady Glandore had waited--after which she and Miss Wolfe were to start
for Donegal, changing their gala-dresses at the first stage upon the
road.

Sara, who burned to see Robert and hear how his red-hot speech at the
debating society had been received, importuned her father with unusual
eagerness to take her to this ball. Was his little primrose becoming
worldly? he inquired, with a gloomy smile. No, no! Twinkling feet
should go with light hearts. Whose hearts might be light at this awful
crisis? His girl must stop at home and say her prayers for Erin, and
he would soothe himself and her by strains on the violoncello. That
instrument was constantly in his hand now, whenever he was at home;
and folks trembled as they passed by at night, for sure such dreadful
sounds must come from the damned in agony!

Mr. Curran was exceeding sick at heart. His friend Wolfe upbraided him
constantly for too openly opposing Government; whilst, on the other
hand, anonymous letters arrived by dozens, abusing him for
lukewarmness in the cause. He shook his head at the latter, muttering,
as he tossed them into the fire, 'Blind fools! Mine is the waiting
game. Ye'll be glad enough by-and-by that I stood neutral!'

But on the morning of the 29th a report came to the lawyer's ears
which filled him with amazement. He put aside his beloved violoncello,
and trotted to Dublin to see Emmett, Russell, Bond. The report was
true, he found. Vainly he argued and protested--vowed that to save
them from their madness he must go and tell Lord Clare. No! He would
not betray them, but would go and intercede. The chancellor was not at
home to him, though he saw him come from behind a curtain; so,
retiring disconsolately to the Priory, he bade Sara fetch out her
gewgaws, as he must even take her to the Castle after all.

St. Patrick's hall was crowded when he and his child entered it--she
in a white muslin dress, with a single frilling round its short skirt,
a scarf of soft green about her neck, for the night was bitter, and
the dancing-room beset by draughts. It was a gay assemblage, for
General Lake (who had arrived recently) and all his staff were present
in glittering English uniforms, which were not to be outdone in
splendour by the officers of Irish militia. Even Mr. Curran's
unmartial figure was buckramed in gold and scarlet, for was not he too
an officer of the Lawyer's corps, which forbade its members to wear
mufti?

The national love of parade showed strongly in the martial costume
which the sons of Erin donned. Sumptuous embroidery was scattered
with a lavish hand over cuffs, high collars, padded breasts, and
tight-fitting pantaloons; while some regiments, whose colonels
boasted of picturesque proclivities, were grand in the matter of
shoulder-knots and becoming scarves around the waist. The effect was
enhanced by contrast, for metal ornaments were little used at that day
to adorn the dresses of the fair, who with towering ostrich feathers,
silken fillets, lofty wreaths of flowers, could afford to resign to
their lords and masters the glories of gold and silver. Variety of
texture, too, heightened the fine effect; for whilst men were swathed
quite stiff in gold-laced coats and voluminous cravats, young ladies
wore as little as possible, and that of thinnest gauze or crape, and
their mammas the scantiest quantity of shot or patterned silk.

The scene was the more animated for the strangeness of its component
parts. Irish patriotic belles were putting forth all their attractions
to pump young English exquisites--aides-de-camp to Lake or
Abercromby--to entrap them into unguarded statements, which might
convey useful information to their brothers. General Lake himself was
literally besieged by beauty, who lavished before that vain person the
fascination of neat ankles, the flash of diamond eyes, the charms of
pouting bosoms--in order to wring from him, in spite of caution, some
hint of the intentions of the military. This was a game open to both
parties. Aides-de-camp were instructed to ensnare their partners as to
the plans of the United Irishmen; to discover, if possible, under the
mask of innocent flirtation, who the acting delegates were, what were
their views, their capacities, their characters; but it must be
admitted that the weak sex generally had the best of it, for
hot-headed youth is apt to be distracted by externals, and the costume
of the period was characterised by peculiarities which were calculated
to mislead young men.

This practice of seeking the society of political opponents for the
purpose of discovering secrets, and of frustrating designs by sly
hand-pressure or furtive kissing behind doors, was one quite after the
burrowing heart of the astute lord chancellor, who stood smiling by
the side of the throne, his dapper figure clothed in official costume,
his neat limbs displaying their roundness in black silk breeches and
stockings. He was chatting with my Lady Glandore, who with Doreen
sat close to Lady Camden, directing her attention to some prettier
girl than usual--(where are more to be found than in the Irish
capital?)--some peculiar headdress or _outre_ garment. Nothing could
seem more guileless than he, as he busied his pure soul with
trifles--the colour of a shoe--the fashion of a sash. When Curran and
Sara entered he changed colour, muttering ere he recovered himself:
'What brings him here, I wonder?'

He was not left long in suspense; for the lawyer bowed before the
Viceroy, made straight for my lady's bench, and having deposited Sara
by Doreen, began to speak abruptly in undertones.

'I tried to see you to-day, my lord, and could not. We were friends
once, though it is long since we quarrelled. Yet I feel impelled to
make one more protest. You are driving this unhappy country to the
brink of a great tragedy. You, and you alone, are responsible for
this. It is not yet too late, but to-morrow it may be. Reflect, Lord
Clare, while yet there's time!'

Curran grasped the chancellor's arm in his earnestness.

'Do you refer to the United Irishmen?' drawled the latter.

'Do not despise your enemy, my lord. That association at first was
small,' pursued Curran, 'the earth seemed to drink it as a rivulet. A
thousand streams, through the secret windings of the earth, found
their way to one source and swelled its waters; it is prepared now to
burst forth as a great river--what will its cataracts not sweep away?
It is you, my lord, who will have aggravated sedition into rebellion.'

'Dear, dear!' smiled Lord Clare. 'Do you, too, listen to their
claptrap? I say to you, as I've said openly all along, nothing can be
more lenient than the executive! We stand simply on the defensive. I
don't mind telling you in confidence,' he continued, eyeing his
companion askance, 'that there is a plot which is to be carried out at
this very ball to-night, for kidnapping his excellency and your humble
servant, and locking us up somewhere quite cosy and comfortable.
Audacious and clever, is it not? Yes, we have all the details--indeed,
we had them yesterday, which may account to you for the muster of
troops in the yard below, and the display of scarlet on the stairs and
in the corridors. Clever, but, oh dear, how wild! I hope for their own
sakes that the troops will daunt them; for nothing could come of this
but an unseemly scuffle which would distress the ladies. Would you
like to hear the rest of the plot? If these fools shall succeed in
possessing themselves of our valuable carcases, a rocket is to be sent
up from the corner of Ormond's quay, when two parties will start
simultaneously--one to seize the artillery at Chapelizod, the other to
surprise Newgate and Kilmainham. You look astonished. Well you may,
for it is indeed astonishing.'

Curran looked deeply pained, but made no reply. The chancellor's cold
flippant tones pierced his heart like knives. How could a band of
unwary, warm-hearted, impulsive fellows, who were prepared to dare all
for motherland, cope with this hard calculating schemer? Truly, it was
well for them that _he_ was there. The feeblest arm may be nerved by
wrong for miracles. It was news of this rash project which had changed
his plans as to the ball. He saw at a glance that it was
impracticable. He had explained this to those whom it concerned; that
it was an impossible compromise between those of the Directory who
wished to wait, and those others who were for commencing a regular war
this winter, which could be productive of nothing but disaster. The
enthusiasm of the delegates had simply exasperated him. The God of
battles, they said, was always on the side of right! Was He? Such had
not been the experience of Mr. Curran's schooling. All he could do was
to intercede with those in power--to make a final call on their
humanity; and if that failed, humbly to bend the knee to Providence.

He was moving away when Lord Clare stopped him.

'Mr. Curran,' he said, with a winning show of teeth, 'as you said, we
once were friends; why not again? It's not my fault, mind. The heroic
role no doubt is charming; but, believe me, fitted more for
adolescence than for men in middle life. You aim at becoming the
champion of the oppressed. You will come to grief with them, I fear.'

'In a general intoxication the most grievous of offenders is he who
passes the cup, refusing to be degraded,' snapped the lawyer.

'Rebuking by importunate sobriety the indecent revelry around--eh, Mr.
Curran?' laughed the chancellor. 'That's a fit finish to your period,
I think. What a mistake it is when orators forget that they are not
always addressing juries or constituents.'

As the lawyer plunged into the crowd, Lord Clare muttered:

'Damn him, he can't be bought; let us try what traps will do.' Then
cried with the artlessness of infancy, 'Miss Wolfe! Miss Wolfe! What
makes you look so animated? The statue has come to life while I've
been gossiping with that eccentric friend of ours.'

Pupil of Machiavelli! He knew as well as did Doreen, though his back
was turned--for he had a way of looking aslant like a hare--that a
party of young men had just appeared in the grand doorway, who not
long since were suffering as traitors. Tom Emmett and his associates
presented themselves before their natural enemy, the Viceroy; then
retired into a side-room to deliberate. Things were going wrong, yet
the Emmetts did not despair. Tom had fought with all his might in
council against the kidnapping scheme--in vain--and was no little
relieved when he discovered that the massing of troops about the
Castle had rendered this plot abortive. As they marched up the grand
staircase the delegates scrutinised each soldier who stood upright and
impassive on each step. One hummed between his teeth of a 'green
bough,' but met with no response. The executive fell into no errors.
These soldiers, ostensibly placed there as a new spectacle for Dublin
eyes, belonged to a regiment just landed, who could not by any
possibility know aught about a green bough, or care about it, or
bestow mysterious sidewinks upon such as chose to babble of it. The
mine had through treachery of some sort been countermined. Those two
parties who were waiting in ambush for a signal must wait and shiver
in the cold; there could be no starting either for Chapelizod or
Kilmainham. Perhaps they would all agree now to place firmer faith in
their chief--to trust to the judgment of him who stood in the shoes of
Tone. Why, the French might be under weigh by this time. A pretty
thing it would be if upon his landing Hoche found the ground already
cut from beneath his feet by the precipitancy of his Irish allies!
They had been awaiting intelligence for weeks. Terence would return
anon with news--something tangible on which to build up future
edifices.

At mention of Terence a shade of coldness came over the faces of some
of the young men. Cassidy--who was in splendid military garb, which
made his stalwart figure look like a modern Mars--had joined them on
their entry; and chid them severely now for daring to be suspicious of
Mr. Crosbie.

'What matters it,' he asked, 'about his brother's views? Brothers
usually take up opinions as diametrically opposed as possible, as
though to establish a family balance.' He himself who spoke, whom none
would presume to suspect, had angled after Councillor Crosbie as an
invaluable accession to their ranks; had angled in vain for long,
till the Orr atrocity had roused even him. He, Cassidy, their old
boon-companion, who would give his lifeblood for any of them, would go
bail for the honesty of Terence. 'His honesty, forsooth! The suspicion
was ludicrous. What had he to gain by joining them, in proportion
with what he lost? He, an aristocrat, who might be Earl of Glandore
to-morrow--his brother being the fighting champion of the Cherokees.'

Robert followed suit with grateful glances at Cassidy. 'Their faith
had been shaken by Miss Wolfe, than whom there was no patriot more
earnest. But they must remember that Miss Wolfe, masculine and shrewd
as by whiffs she seemed, was a woman who was, like all women, guided
by her heart rather than her head. Terence, for aught he knew, might
have been worshipping at some other shrine than hers, which, to a
woman's mind, would be quite excuse enough for allowing private malice
to trip up public good. Terence had been his (Robert's) friend for
years. Aye, and Tom's too. They must beg the members of the Irish
Directory to avoid hasty decisions which afterwards they might repent.
Terence should have been back ere this, no doubt; but when he did
arrive he would show good reason for delay.'

This discussion was carried on in whispers in the little drawing-room
through which a flirting couple strolled now and then on the way to
the buffet. Therefore Cassidy, who of late had begun to assume a
whimsically patriarchal air in his communion with the delegates,
because he was by a few years their senior, thought it prudent to
stroll up and down the room now and again, lest haply his ubiquitous
friend Sirr should be lurking behind a shutter, or the lord chancellor
himself be squatting under a chair. The situation, to our modern
minds, is well-nigh impossible to realise. Traitors wandering close
under the viceregal nose, which they had arranged that very night to
tweak; traitors who were marked men, yet who were allowed to be at
large; who made no pretence to loyalty, who openly admitted that they
panted to see the tricolour; that when this hour should come their
vengeance would be like a thunderbolt. Spies, too, in all directions,
and families rent in twain by greed of gold, and rare examples of
honesty. Brothers against brothers, fathers against sons, daughters
against mothers; yet all dancing and smirking together on the powder
magazine which might be fired at any moment.

Cassidy deemed it prudent to keep watch and ward, to be sure that no
eavesdroppers were listening to the squabbles of the delegates; and,
in wheeling his big body round, caught sight of a new figure entering
the ball-room.

Could it be? Terence! returned from Cork, looking handsome and well in
the dress of the Lawyer's corps. The jealous giant ground his teeth as
he marked him pressing gently through the crowd to make his bow,
smiling his bright smile to his numerous friends, then turning to the
left to where his relations sat. Doreen affected not to see him,
Cassidy perceived with glee. She would not speak to him at all. She
was busy arranging Sara's scarf about her neck. This was prime. He
must see what happened next. Alas! the devil gets hold of the best
of us through jealousy! So, whispering, 'Whisht! boys--here's
Terence--returned!' he hurried to observe what was passing, pursued
shortly after by the others, who for a second had been transfixed by
the sudden appearance of the man about whose conduct they were
quarrelling.

'Hope you enjoyed yourself at Cork. The sea-breeze has done you good,'
my lady was saying in frigid accents to her son; for she resented the
unfailing good-humour of this boy who was always respectfully dutiful,
as if he were not the seed of his mother's long remorse. It was the
thought of him that had sent the crows to plough furrows on her face;
that kept her awake sometimes all through the dreary night. If he had
only reviled her, she would have preferred it to this studied
courtesy. If he would only complain--but her conscience was leading
her astray. He knew nothing, except that she loved him not. Why should
he revile her? She had promised Lord Clare to caution him about his
conduct; therefore she asked him to sit beside her. But for once he
appeared undutiful, for he hurriedly postponed the invitation.

'I want to talk to you, Terence; sit by me,' she said.

'Presently, mother,' he answered. 'I will come back by-and-by; there
is business that must be seen to.'

Then turning his back on her, he looked towards Doreen. She was so
much occupied with that scarf of Sara's that it engrossed all her
attention. She would not look up.

'I have come back, Doreen,' he whispered. 'Have you nothing to ask
me?'

She raised her brown eyes to his for a moment. 'Nothing!' she said,
then resumed her occupation.

Biting his lip he turned away, to be received in the exuberant embrace
of his dear Cassidy, behind whom came trooping Tom Emmett and Robert;
Russell, Bond, and others hanging back waveringly, as if not quite
certain how they should act. Was he not an aristocrat? Had not Miss
Wolfe warned them? Was it not too likely that he should be playing a
double game? How difficult a task it was to separate friends from
foes!

Terence, despite his cousin's ill-humour, was in great spirits.
Eagerly he conducted his friends into a remote boudoir. He was dying
to tell his news, and to hear theirs. So earnest was he, so strong a
ring of truth was in his voice, that the delegates could doubt no
more. Bond, Russell, gathered round as anxiously as the two Emmetts.
Cassidy's broad visage was alight with grins. He slapped his thigh in
huge delight as Terence unfolded his budget. He had been treated with
every civility at Brest. Hoche, his fears removed, was taking up the
matter with all his might; his rival, young Buonaparte, was getting on
too well. Both these generals were straining every nerve to outstrip
each other. The Irish envoy had seen Tone in his uniform as general de
brigade. He was to sail in the expedition aboard the _Indomptable_.
The force was of fifteen sail of the line, ten frigates, and seven
transports. There was some diversity of opinion as to the plan to be
pursued, for Admiral Gardner was cruising in the Channel with the
English fleet, and, crowded as the ships were with troops, it was well
to avoid a sea-fight if possible. The message to the Irish Directory
was that their allies might be expected at any moment--_where_, it was
impossible to say--for much would depend on events, and it was taken
for granted that on the first signal the country would rise _en
masse_. Terence, indeed, was surprised that nothing had yet taken
place, for when he left Brest on the 10th all was ready, the men
embarked--thirteen thousand strong--the etat-major prepared to follow.
He, the envoy, had been compelled to travel through England, which had
delayed his coming; but he had ridden as fast as possible, lest all
should be over before he could arrive.

'Started at last!' exclaimed Robert, full of glee.

'Ready to start twenty days ago!' ejaculated Emmett, with a long face.
'Please God no evil has befallen them.'

The conspirators looked one at the other uneasily. What if that
English fleet should have intercepted the convoy?

'They've bin weather-bound,' Cassidy declared with confidence. 'Bad
news flies quickly. If the English had done anything, we should have
had them crowing over us long since.'

'There were fogs in the Channel, I remarked that,' assented Terence.
'I went down into the great cabin of the _Indomptable_ on the evening
of the tenth, to wish the officers God-speed. It was an exhilarating
spectacle. The ceiling was a mass of firelocks; the candlesticks were
bayonets, stuck in the table. A fine band was playing the
"Marseillaise;" the officers, in full fig, were lounging about, some
playing cards, some singing to the time--all full of hope. As my boat
rowed me away, the effect of the grand hymn on the water, diminishing
as the black hull seemed flitting into haze, was delicious. It is
surprising, though, that they delay so long.'

The colloquy was interrupted by a general move to supper. It might
create suspicion if they were to stand too long aloof from the
company.

Arthur Wolfe plucked Curran by the sleeve, as he met him, in
mid-stream, and whispered in his ear:

'I saw you talking to Lord Clare. Ye've not been insulting him, I
trust? Take the advice of your friend. Do not make an enemy of him,
for he'll have it all his own way by-and-by, depend on it.'

Curran shrugged his shoulders with contempt.

'Intelligence of some sort has arrived,' continued the
attorney-general, gravely. 'Lord Camden was called away half an hour
ago, and sent presently for Clare, who was rubbing his hands and
smiling when the two came back again. I overheard him say, "With your
permission, I'll announce it after supper. It will make a good
impression."'

'It's something cruel, then,' returned Curran, sadly. 'It's always
something cruel when the chancellor looks pleased!'

Supper was served in the picture-gallery which adjoins St. Patrick's
hall, and it was a splendid _coup d'[oe]il_ that met your eye as you
crossed the threshold. Two long lines of snowy cloth, illuminated by
myriads of wax-lights in massive silver candelabra, vanished in
perspective like the iridescent path cloven by a ship at night-time.
Great piles of fruit and flowers gave relief to the scarlet and gold
masses of the uniforms, broken as they were, in regular sequence, by
the plumes and dresses of the ladies; whilst the general richness of
effect was still further heightened by dark rows of feathery palms and
large-leaved shrubs, which served as a sombre background.

At the centre of the chief table, the Countess of Glandore occupied
the place of honour beside the Viceroy, faced by Lord Clare, with Lady
Camden on his right and Doreen on his left. On glancing down the
table, my lady perceived with rage that the chances of the rush had
placed Sara upon one side of Terence, while--(was this accident, or
fate?)--the other was occupied by Madam Gillin! The young man seemed
highly amused by his elderly companion, who--two monstrous ostrich
feathers nodding over her the while--was vowing by her soul and body
that she couldn't touch another skelp of jelly--no, not the tiniest
wee bit--unless somebody fed her with a spoon; which Terence, entering
into the humour of the situation, proceeded immediately to do, amid
the laughter and applause of all his neighbours.

The human animal being apt to run after bellwethers, it may be looked
upon as natural that this strange conduct of a respectable matron was
speedily imitated by the girls. They vowed one and all, at this end of
the table, with a unanimity which looked like an epidemic, that they
must be fed with spoons; and fed they were accordingly, by amorous
sons of Mars, whose blood bubbled to their brains at close contact
with perfumed curls; whilst their cheeks glowed, fanned by fragrant
breath, and their eyes were dazzled by snowy busts thrown back, their
nerves thrilled by fairy little kicks from elfin feet and pinches from
pink fingers, in the course of this bringing-up by hand of grown-up
bantlings.

Claret and champagne assisting, it must be admitted that at this end
of the table the hilarity was more joyous than genteel. My lady looked
thitherward several times with frowns, for in her day men, when they
worshipped Bacchus, did so when the ladies had withdrawn. Then it
mattered little what jests were bandied, what coarse freedom used. But
it shocked her that a sabbat such as this should take place in the
presence of his Majesty's representatives, of high-born dames and
dowagers, of young girls who were presumably innocent, and that her
own son should set it going.

'That boy is a thorn in my side,' she reflected, with grim resentment.
'He has never brought me anything but trouble from the moment of his
birth till now. I promised to reason with him, and he has declined
even to hear me speak. On his own shoulders then let the burthen of
the future lie.'

The Countess of Glandore, stung by the humiliation which her pride was
just then suffering, irritated as it was by the canker which had
poisoned the maternal milk in her breast so long, almost wished, in a
throb of wickedness, that her second-born might entangle himself
irrevocably. Her evil monitor whispered that if he were to die or
disappear, the numbing dread which had sallowed her life would be
buried in his grave. So are we impelled by little puffs of wind, when
we have once started in the ice-sleigh down the slippery incline hewn
out like a steel ribbon, our vision blinded by snow swirls and the
rapidity of transit, till with amaze we find ourselves at the bottom
with a jerk, not knowing what urged us on the road.

When Madam Gillin had convinced her beau that she could take no more
jelly without choking, he desisted from his well-meant efforts, and
the two began to converse on a pleasantly easy-going basis.

'Indeed, ye're a strapping chap,' she declared, with a tap of her fan
and a great laugh, 'although ye're a bad neighbour. I like your face,
and I'm a quare body. Would ye make me a promise now, just to plase a
fanciful old woman? I wouldn't have an oath, there are too many,
about, worse luck! Ye would? Promise me, then, on your honour, that if
ever ye get into a scrape, in which I can be of service, ye'll come to
the Little House? Now didn't I say I was a quare woman, and you almost
a stranger? You're a lad of your word, I know.' Then she added,
exchanging her tone of banter for a serious whisper: 'Maybe I know
more of ye than ye think, with the lock of hair cut away behind. Ye've
taken up the cause. Bedad, I can't blame ye, though I'm sad for your
sake. Mum's the word. We're strangers till you need me. Hush! They are
watching us.'

Terence had scarcely recovered his surprise at the eccentric conduct
of Madam Gillin, before there was a clattering of glasses and a hum,
then a dead stillness of respect, for the Viceroy had risen on his
legs.

He mumbled slavish platitudes anent the virtues of his gracious
Majesty. No doubt everybody present was in the habit of reading the
_Gazette_. Of course they were, for they loved their sovereign, and
were thankful for the privilege of watching, with respectful awe, his
daily movements. He was at Weymouth, indulging in warm baths; so was
her Majesty Queen Charlotte, and so likewise were their august
children the Princesses. For his part, he, the unworthy representative
of so perfect and enlightened and generally admirable a monarch, could
scarcely peruse without tears the simple bulletin of that household.
'This morning the Princess Amelia walked, with her gouvernante, on the
sands, to study the wonders of the shore. The Princesses Augusta and
Elizabeth rode for two hours, on their Shetland ponies, whilst their
Majesties were enjoying a bath!' Indeed it was a high privilege for a
nation to have daily before its eyes so pure and noble an example of
unsullied virtue, of innocent enjoyment and sterling worth. With
heartfelt thankfulness for the blessing bestowed by Providence, he
would propose the health of 'The King and Queen--God bless them!'
upstanding, with all the honours.

All this time claret and champagne had been freely going the rounds.
The roses had deepened from pink to damask on the cheeks of the Dublin
fair--the young officers of yeomanry and militia had reached the stage
of aberration which follows thirst and precedes coma. Standing on
their chairs the better to let loose their bursting loyalty, they
drank the health of their Majesties; whilst others--amongst whom some
of our friends were--raised their glasses with a flourish, muttering
as they did so, 'Remember Orr!'

Terence, with his arm round Sara, who shrank at the uproarious din,
took her glass, and, pressing to his lips the place where hers had
touched it, whispered in her ear--then in that of Madam Gillin: 'To
the diffusion of Light--may it break upon us soon!'

Then--silence being with difficulty restored--Lord Clare stood up to
speak.

He surveyed the assemblage for a moment, casting his eagle eye on one
and then another as though to consider how best to touch the
sympathies and flick the raws of so incongruous a gathering. The
attention of all was riveted on his smiling face, for a murmur had
flitted along the lines like a breeze over corn, which was an echo of
Arthur Wolfe's surmise. There was something behind--some intelligence
of moment--the divulging of which the all-powerful lord chancellor had
expressly reserved to himself.

'It is nearly twelve o'clock,' he said at length, in the rasping voice
which set so many people's teeth on edge. 'We have gone through a year
of trouble and anxiety, and are on the eve of a new one, which, I
trust, will prove vastly different from that which is now dying. I
will venture to propose a toast to you--gentlemen and ladies
all--which may at first seem a riddle--but which you will, I know, all
join with me in drinking, trusting to a satisfactory solution. I beg
you to drink to the Wind.'

The chancellor paused--one white hand upon his hip--to mark the effect
of his exordium. Young' officers banged applause upon the table, not
knowing why they did it, save that the leading spirit who guided
them seemed to expect the silence to be broken. Arthur Wolfe made
bread-pills with feverish absentness. Curran placed his hand behind
his ear, and leaned forward with impatient anxiety. Doreen sat, her
hands folded in her lap, staring before her into space.

'I give you the Wind,' the chancellor went on, with the clear coldness
of a glacier rivulet 'because those who deplore the evil which has
gathered of late like a mist over our unhappy country, will have to
thank the wind for driving it away, and leaving a clear atmosphere.
Alas! I cannot say that the horizon is as yet quite clear--small
cloudlets float still upon the waters--but those heavy banks of rain,
which we have all feared would drench us presently, are in mercy put
to rout, and it is the wind that we have to thank for it. "The French
are on the sea, said the Shan van Vocht." So runs the ditty which was
in all careless mouths to-day. Well! I am authorised by his
excellency's goodness to tell you that the French _are_ on the
sea--but flying back to their native ports by this time in every phase
of discomfiture and distress.'

A pause--while the doves shivered. Girls drew their feet into safety
under chairs, and pushed away--shuddering--the importunate hands of
British aides-de-camp.

'Some among you,' innocently insinuated the speaker, 'may possibly be
aware that the French have been preparing for some time past to make a
descent upon our coasts, and I tell you now (danger being over) that
supposing they could have evaded the English fleet and landed in
force, much difficulty might have resulted. But thanks to the wind
which has blown persistently for days, although they did escape for
awhile the vigilance of the English admiral, yet are they, by heaven's
mercy, routed and put to flight, after beating about in the offing for
well-nigh a week.'

Again the speaker paused to mark the success of his efforts. Curran,
like Arthur, was rolling pills of bread upon the tablecloth; the young
ladies, so demonstratively lively but a few moments before, were
glancing at each other with blanched lips. Mrs. Gillin was sitting
bolt upright, her trembling fingers making sad havoc with her fan. A
low hum of dismay passed along the tables. The sound seemed to tickle
my Lord Clare's ear. He waited for a moment or so, and fixed his eye
upon Miss Wolfe as he took up the thread of his discourse.

'Yes!' he said with exultation. 'The French fleet has come and gone!
The menacing danger has faded harmlessly away. It started 15,000
strong. Tempests arose, such as are always at the beck of Britain when
invasion threatens her rights, which scattered the Gallic fleet.
Hoche--who was to do such wonders--was aboard the admiral's ship;
General Wolfe Tone (who by-the-bye will certainly, though he dubs
himself general, bring himself to the gallows) was aboard another. The
flower of Republican valour was packed like herrings between decks.
Where now are those gawdy cohorts? Making for Brest as fast as fear
can drive them. I pray that the King's admiral may intercept them in
their flight!'

The chancellor's little oration came upon the party like a
thunderclap. There was no more flirting now, or dallying with taper
waists. Doreen, at mention of her hero, woke with a start from
reverie. Her lids quivered for a second, and shrank as though her eyes
were blinded by the lightning. She cast one wild glance of reproach at
her cousin--then was herself again--a trifle paler maybe; but
otherwise the staid, impassive maiden whose grave austerity so awed
the turbulent squireens. The Emmetts and their friends seemed stunned.
Their hopes were blasted now, as it appeared, for ever. It would have
been better not to have waited for tardy assistance so feebly
administered. At times of deep anguish, thoughts whirl through the
brain in vivid flashes. Tom Emmett saw at once that the executive had
won a double victory. The bugbear which had threatened them was
dissolved and gone. The members of the Irish Directory, who had been
for acting at once, would turn now upon their comrades with a
plausible appearance of justice, and revile them for having allowed
precious moments to slip by. The breach in the national bulwark, which
had been showing in dangerous fissures, would be rent into chasms
now--the edifice, which had taken such anxious pains to rear, would
crumble into dust. It was the oppressor's hour of triumph. Ireland's
fate was sealed. Such were the gloomy thoughts which crushed the
leader of the patriots. With the majority of the party present it
was far otherwise. A mighty huzza shook the rafters--another and
another--like waves rolling in to shore. The officers of yeomanry and
militia saw before them a bright perspective of lawlessness, wherein
the Helots would be handed over to their mercy--to smite, and revile,
and torture, and kill--wherein their daughters would become a
legitimate prey, their flocks and herds a booty, their household gods
an appanage. Now was the time come when it behoved them to display
their zeal. So thought the squireens, so also thought the lords their
leaders, who hoped that they might earn extra pensions by accepting
the bait that was held out. So the glittering assemblage rose with one
accord--on the chairs--even on the tables, and the luckless professors
of a different creed were compelled to follow suit, as small stones
are dashed along at the mercy of the breakers. With shouts, with
frantic wavings of swords and handkerchiefs--supporting each other as
they swayed in their excitement---the lord-lieutenant's guests drank
to the wind, and, at the same time, to the new year, which was thus
heralded to the Irish capital in noise and drunken tumult.

The chancellor had turned up a trump and played it skilfully. With
smiles on their faces and despair in their hearts, the Dublin belles
returned to the dancing-hall. But the innate ruffianism of the
yeomanry officers had been let loose by wine and frenzy. The girls
fled to their brothers for protection--their excellencies retired to
their own apartments m a hurry. A youth with down upon his lip seized
the green scarf of pretty Sara, and wrenched it from her neck with a
brutal jest.

'What do you hide?' he gibed. 'That lily bosom may not be hidden by
the rebel colour--off with it!'

The youth sprawled prone at once, felled by a blow between the eyes.
Sara shrieked, and clung to a protecting arm. It was Terence who had
knocked him down, and who was soon the centre of a _melee_. Madam
Gillin's feathers were seen tossing in the throng, while her voice
added to the hubbub.

'In the days of Brian Buroo,' she wailed, 'bejewelled leedies might
walk alone from one end to t'other of Innisfail! Now, faith, we can't
be safe even in Pat's hall!'

My lady and Doreen made the best of their way to their coach. The
soldiers stood in motionless rows upon the stairs, as though there was
no brawl above. Their captain had hurried to the chancellor to ask if
he should clear the hall.

'No!' was the laughing reply. 'Their blood is hot--a little phlebotomy
won't hurt them. Let be! let be! It's not a good omen for the year
though, that it should dawn in bloodshed!'




                              CHAPTER V.

                           AWAY TO DONEGAL.


The countess was much scandalised at the scene from which she had
escaped, and favoured her niece with decided opinions on the subject,
as six horses dragged the carriage through the night along the road to
Drogheda.

'This will give you a notion, my dear,' she said, 'of the results of
letting low people have too much of their own way. I confess that Lord
Clare's conduct surprises me. If your friends the United Irishmen were
to obtain the upper hand for a few days, they would disgrace
themselves and disgust the world. You can't expect wisdom from a
Helot-class.'

'It was not my friends who misbehaved themselves to-night,' Doreen
retorted, 'but yours; the vulgar squireens and half-mounted gentry,
who belong to the dominant party.'

'They certainly should have learnt manners from their betters,'
acquiesced my lady, lowering her standard. She had seen but little of
the world of late, had been content to view events through coloured
glasses, and the hasty glimpse of garish daylight which had just
flashed out saddened and shocked her. She began unconsciously to
wonder whether Lord Clare had always spoken the truth. It would be
hard, she felt, to lose faith in her old friend. Then the tangle of
long-rooted prejudice, parted for an instant, closed round her again.
'Well, well! the squireens might possibly be more brutish than was
desirable; but they were at least Protestants, and as such, superior
to the Helots over whom they tyrannized!'

This reflection was a comfort to my lady; for she was not a bad woman,
but one whose sympathies had been narrowed by the hardness of the
world, and who had grown as uncharitable as many excellent people are
who, professing to be more enlightened than their neighbours, are
certain that they only are right, and all those who differ from them
wrong.

Doreen lay back on the cushions, too sore in mind and body to carry on
the argument. All that she could distinctly realise was that hope had
flown away; that Theobald had been near at hand and was gone; that
perhaps he had been captured and executed. What must he have suffered
to have been within touch of motherland, only to be swept back again
to sea! Hope, forsooth! What is hope? too often but long-drawn
disappointment in disguise!

The party jerked and jolted over the interminable road. The hostelries
at Drogheda and Dundalk were full. It was well that my lord had ridden
forward, for so many families were beginning to steal out of Dublin
that, as an ostler put it, there was a 'furious penury of beds.'

At Derry they were compelled to leave the great family coach, for
there was only a rough track along each wild bank of Lough Swilly, at
whose mouth--its feet laved by the Atlantic--stood the island home of
the pirate earls of Ennishowen. Their yacht lay ready in Rathmelton
harbour; but Shane said he preferred riding across the bog to Malin
Head, whence a boat would transport him in no time to Glas-aitch-e;
and Doreen offered to ride too, even in his company--so anxious was
she in her numbed condition to divert her thoughts by exercise. My
lady--her projects being what they were--was little likely to object
to a prolonged _tete-a-tete_ which might assist in the realisation of
cherished wishes; but her own riding-days were over, she said. She
would take the yacht, and would not be sorry of a few hours' solitude.
Poor mother! She was sacrificing more to her elder-born than he would
probably ever know, in revisiting the ill-omened place--where that
which darkened her life had been accomplished--where everything would
prattle of that past time which it had been a never-ending struggle to
forget. She desired to look again on the weather-worn parapets and
slender watch-tower of Glas-aitch-e Castle alone, lest her face should
betray her feelings, and hint at the secret which had blanched her
hair before its time.

The triangular peninsula which lies 'twixt Lough Swilly and Lough
Foyle has been known, time out of mind, as Ennishowen; has belonged to
the pirate earls for centuries, who, by reason of their craft, built
themselves a fortress years ago on the sea as more convenient than a
dwelling on mainland. It was a territory well suited to such masters,
for, by guarding its narrow neck, it could be converted into an
impenetrable fastness which was protected by sheer cliffs to seaward,
whilst its internal features rendered it a foolhardy proceeding to
attempt to invade it from the land side. Hence its population was a
peculiar one, differing in many respects from the other dwellers in
Donegal. When James I. planted Ulster with staunch Protestants, the
ousted Catholics fled, some to Connaught, some to the extreme points
of the north-western county where nothing flourished but wild birds. A
large number took refuge in Ennishowen, where they embraced the trade
of fishing, eking out a precarious existence by rearing flocks of
geese upon the barren moors, whilst their wives wove frieze for
clothing. An independent, warm-hearted, frugal, superstitious colony,
extremely poor but decent, accustomed from the cradle to endure all
hardships with a cheerful mien, too far removed from the world to know
aught of Orangeism. Imbued with the clannish feeling which elsewhere
had nearly vanished, they looked to Glas-aitch-e with reverence as to
a holy shrine, and fully believed that the bodyguard of Sir Amorey
were sleeping by their horses in the sea-caves ready to defend the
fortress if peril dared to threaten it. It was evident that if the
disease, which Lord Clare was so fond of discussing, should take a
serious turn in the north, it would be well for the chiefs to be among
their followers, at least those who were friendly with the Government;
for a timely word might prevent much trouble--a timely order be of
incalculable service. My Lord Glandore, then, carried with him the
blessings of the executive, with sundry vague promises of good things
in store for him if he showed prudence, and directions as to how his
time would be best spent; namely, in cajoling the peasants to put
their shoulders to the wheel for the speedy erection of beacons along
the seaboard. The recent Gallic escapade (for Hoche's expedition was
really nothing more) taught the executive a lesson. Happily the fleet,
or a portion of it, had been driven upon the coast of Bantry, whose
inhabitants, being disinclined to rebellion, looked on the tricolour
with the eye of unconcern. But for the blessed wind, the expedition
might have landed on some more friendly spot, and be half-way to
Dublin before the Viceroy heard anything about it. The enemy must not
have such a chance again. Martello towers must be built within short
distances all round the coast. On the apparition of the tricolour a
fire must be kindled, which should be the signal for a second on the
summit of the next tower, and so on; so that in case of danger a
girdle of fires would encircle the island, warning the soldiery in all
directions--speeding intelligence to the capital in the twinkling of
an eye.

My Lord Glandore was to busy himself with this matter so far as
Donegal was concerned, and his sense of self-importance was so far
tickled and amused that for awhile he endured, without too much
swearing, the temporary separation from his Norah.

So my lady sailed up Lough Swilly, marking the new forts of Rathmullen
and Knockalla, of Duneen and Inch, which gave to it a resemblance to a
shark's mouth with teeth set raggedly in either jaw; whilst her son
and niece started in the twilight before sunrise with a wild ride
before them of forty miles and more. First they passed rows of
mud-huts in straggling knots beside the way, which became more sparse
as they advanced; crazy hovels whose rotten roofs were kept together
by hay-ropes--thatch dyed to richness by decay, adorned with dry tufts
of oats and barley, wafted in the summertime from some less forbidding
spot. Their ears could catch the clicking of a homely loom within as
they passed, ere the housewife, low-browed and heavy-jowled, came to
her door to gape at the unusual sight of strangers, an amusement in
which she was speedily joined by a pack of naked children, then by her
goodman, who rose as if out of a dung-heap--a dudheen between his
coarse lips, a long coat of faded homespun on his back.

Presently the road became a mere track upon the heather, which,
leaving the lough to the left, struck out across the hills inland--a
wheel-track over a vast expanse of purple prairie, now deep-indented
in the bog, now barely discernible on a plateau of rock--impression of
the rude carts of the turf-cutters across the mountains. No human
dwelling might be seen for miles; no human figure, save perhaps an
elfish child plying knitting-needles on a stone as she watched her
herd of geese for fear of foxes--an uncanny, shock-pated pixie who
seemed half-sister to the herons that were scrutinising their
portraits in the pools.

Mountain succeeded mountain with a great heaving like that of the
ocean hard-by, sometimes in an unbroken wave of black and russet;
sometimes rent into a gorge where it had been torn by a strong
convulsion, with overhanging crags of grey and twisted trees bent awry
by the sea-blasts. Sometimes in the hazy distance might be detected a
string of circular stains of a blacker colour than the rest--tarns in
the moorland, home of the silver trout. Bushy and reedy some--some
tawny with the paled glories of dead water-lilies. Then would the
scene change to a bleak spread of stones--flat stones of monster size,
with rifts like rivulets between, choked thick with feathery herbage.
It was as though the rubbish left from the creation of the world had
been carted and shot out there--a secluded medley of unconsidered
trifles, of no value or consequence to the human race. Then again
would the stones give place to water--morasses of peat sodden with
salt ooze which quaked under the weight of the traveller, the
hoof-marks of his horse bubbling with slimy wash as he splashed on his
uncertain way; troops of scurrying fowl starting up before him,
protesting loudly as they fled at the irruption into their cherished
solitude.

Shane and Doreen arrived by-and-by at the summit of a hill-crest, from
which the northern half of the promontory lay spread like a map before
them. Just below was a white speck--the village of Carndonagh--beyond,
a row of lakes, tiny mirrors set in the hill-flank--on either side the
jagged lines of Loughs Foyle and Swilly, varied with many a peaked
headland and jutting point and shelving bay scooped out of the living
rock. In front, a flat stretch on which cloud-shadows were playing
hide-and-seek--a bopeep dance of subtly-chequered tones; and away
still farther, looming through the mist, the bluffs of Malin Head, the
extreme limit, to the north, of Ireland. As they looked, the mists
melted in eddying swirls of gold, unveiling an expanse of immense and
lonely sea, dotted with fairy islets strewn in a ravelled fringe--the
long span of the blue-green Atlantic, marked with a line of white
where it seethed and moaned and lashed without ceasing against the
foot of the beetling cliff.

'What a lovely spot!' Doreen exclaimed, as she sniffed the brisk
breeze; 'how wild--how desolate--how weirdly fair! Not the vestige of
a dwelling as far as eye can reach--except that speck below us.'

Unpoetic Shane had been busy counting the wildfowl, watching the
hawks, marking the sublime slow wheeling of a pair of eagles far away
in ether heavenward. At the call of his cousin he brought his thoughts
down to earth, and cried out:

'By the Hokey! a nice coast for the French to land upon. I wish them
joy of it if they try. If they do we shall be in the thick of it, for
look! You can just discern Glas-aitch-e---that dot in the sea, no
bigger than a pin's point--between Dunaff and Malin. A fleet would
have to pass close by us that was making either for Lough Swilly or
Lough Foyle. But come--a canter down the hill, and we will see what we
can get to eat. This sharp air gives one a plaguy appetite!'

Doreen spoke truly, for Ennishowen is weirdly fair. The atmosphere of
winter gave the desolation she had passed through a special charm. The
ponderous banks of rolling steel-grey clouds, which had only just been
conquered by a battling sun, gave a ghastly beauty to its wildness.
Dun and steel-grey, sage-green and russet-brown, with here and there a
bit of genuine colour--a vivid tuft of the Osmunda fern. Such
chromatic attributes were well in harmony with the intense stillness,
broken only by the rustle now and then of whirring wings, or the sharp
boom of the frightened bittern. But beyond Carndonagh the face of
nature changed--or would have, if it had been summer--for bleak
elevated moorland and iron gorge vary but little with the season,
whilst lower-lying districts are more privileged. During the warm
months the track between Carndonagh and Malin is like a garden--an
oasis of rich, damp, dewy verdure from the ever-dripping vapours of
the Atlantic--an expanse of emerald mead saturated with the moisture
of the ocean. Every bush and bank breaks forth in myriad flowers. Each
tarn is edged with blossom, each path is tricked with glory. It is as
if Persephone had here passed through the granite-bound gates of hell,
and had dropped her garland at its portals. White starry water-lilies
clothe the lakelets. The bells of the fuschia-hedges glow red from
beneath a burthen of honeysuckle and dog-roses; orange-lilies and
sheets of yellow iris cast ruddy reflections into the streams, while
purple heather and patches of wild heartsease vie with each other in a
friendly struggle to mask the wealth of green.

Strabagy Bay cuts deep into the peninsula. A rider must skirt its edge
with patience, rewarded now and again by some vision of surprise, as
he finds himself at a turn in the pathway on the summit of a precipice
1200 feet above the water, or in a sheltered cove where waves of
_celadon_ and malachite plash upon a tawny bed. At one point, if the
tide happens to be in, he must sit and await its ebb; for the only
passage is by a ford across the sand, which is dangerous to the
stranger at high-water. Not so to the dwellers in this latitude, for
they speed like monkeys along the overhanging crags, or like the
waddling penguins and sea-parrots that are padding yonder crannies
with the softest down from off their breasts for the behoof of a yet
unborn brood.

Towards Malin Head the ground rises gradually from a shingly beach
till it breaks off abruptly to seaward in a sheer wall of quartz and
granite--a vast frowning face, vexed by centuries of tempest, battered
by perennial storms, comforted by the clinging embrace of vegetation,
red and russet heath of every shade, delicate ferns drooping from
cracks and fissures, hoary lichens, velvet mosses, warm-tinted
cranesbill; from out of which peeps here and there the glitter of a
point of spar, a stain of metal or of clay, a sparkling vein of ore.
The white-crested swell which never sleeps laps round its foot in
curdled foam; for the bosom of the Atlantic is ever breathing--heaving
in arterial throbs below, however calm it may seem upon the surface.
Away down through the crystal water you can detect the blackened base
resting on a bank of weed--dense, slippery citrine hair, swinging in
twilit masses slowly to and fro, as if humming to itself, under the
surface, of the march of Time, whose hurry affects it not; for what
have human cares, human soul-travail, human agony, to do with this
enchanted spot, which is, as it were, just without the threshold of
the world? The winter waves, which dash high above the bluffs in
spray, have fretted, by a perseverance of many decades, a series of
caverns half-submerged; viscous arcades, where strange winged
creatures lurk that hate the light; beasts that, hanging like some
villanous fruit in clusters, blink with purblind eyes at the fishes
which dart in and out, fragments of the sunshine they abhor; at the
invading shoals of seals, which gambol and turn in clumsy sport, with
a glint of white bellies as they roll, and a shower of prismatic gems.

In June the salmon arrive in schools, led each by a solemn pioneer,
who knows his own special river; and then the fisher-folk are busy. So
are the seals, whose appetite is dainty. Yet the hardy storm-children
of Ennishowen love the seals although they eat their fish--for their
coats are warm and soft to wear; their oil gives light through the
long winter evenings for weaving of stuff and net-mending. There is a
superstition which accounts for their views as to the seals; for they
believe them to be animated by the souls of deceased maiden-aunts. It
is only fair, in the inevitable equalisation of earthly matter, that
our maiden-aunts should taste of our good things, and that we in our
turn should live on theirs.

A mile from the shore--at Swilly's mouth--stands Glas-aitch-e Island,
a mere rock, a hundred feet above sea-level, crowned by an antique
fortress, which was modernised and rendered habitable by a caprice of
the late lord. At the period which now occupies us, it consisted of a
dwelling rising sheer from the rock on three sides; its rough walls
pierced by small windows, and topped by a watch-tower, on which was an
iron beacon-basket. The fourth side looked upon a little garden,
where, protected by low scrub and chronically asthmatic trees, a few
flowers grew unkempt--planted there by my lady when she first visited
the place as mistress. On this side, too, was a little creek which
served as harbour for the boats--a great many boats of every sort and
size; for the only amusement at Glas-aitch-e was boating, with a cast
for a salmon or a codling now and again, and an occasional shot at a
seal or cormorant.

My lady arrived there in the yacht, and spent her afternoon alone as
she wished, for it was late at night before Shane and Doreen were
rowed across--the latter wearied by the long ride, but calmed in
spirit by communing with nature.

It was with a gloomy face and set lips that the Countess of Glandore
wandered from room to room, all damp and chill from long neglect, each
chair and table telling its own tale, each faded carpet and curtain
whispering of the hated past, with its desperate anguish of
humiliation. For this was the heart-chord which twanged most painfully
in my lady's breast upon revisiting the place again. 'Set right the
wrong while yet there is time'--how often had that wailing cry echoed
in her ears! Yet while there still was time that wrong was never
righted; for my lady had been so humbled, so abased, so utterly
wrenched and mangled, during the year she had dwelt upon that island
with my lord, that she revolted, with indignant protest, at a
possibility of having to traverse the dark Valley of the Shadow yet
again.

As she looked at the chairs and tables, the whole bitterness of that
degradation flooded back on her. She recalled how, sobbing on that
sofa, she had prayed for death with scorching tears; how, standing by
that casement, the sublime panorama of Donegal had been shut out by
boiling drops of agony.

She sat down on an old chair, and looked back upon her life since last
she touched its worm-eaten woodwork. A life lulled sometimes to a half
forgetfulness, which was nearer to positive happiness than she ever
expected to attain. The reflection returned again and again to her,
that what had been done was my lord's fault, not hers--that she had
acquiesced as the weaker vessel, and had washed her hands of the
consequences. But then, several times, her peace had been rudely
broken by vague terror of troubles renewed.

Would she be able to avert them? Would her puny woman's arm be strong
enough to grapple with Fate? Events certainly looked threatening.
Terence had involved himself in a forlorn hope. What if he should
fall? My lady rose hastily, and flinging wide the window, panted there
for breath. She realised, with a tingling horror of abasement, that if
he fell, her own burthen would be lightened--that far away, muffled in
her inmost soul, there was a voice babbling a hint that it would be a
mercy if he fell. Her own son! It was a mother's inner voice that
spoke! She pressed her face helplessly upon the tattered curtain, as
she had used to do when imploring a release, and groaned aloud--it was
well that the others had not yet arrived.

Then, her mental vision sharpened by this pang, she wandered on,
oblivious of the stories murmured by the tables and the chairs--for
she was peering with all her might into the future now. Things were
going crooked. There could be no denying that. She had schemed for the
best. What would come of her scheming? Shane was deplorably difficult
to manage--looked so like his father sometimes when angered, that she
recoiled as she remembered the expression of his visage when she
moaned over her fate to him upon this very spot all those years ago.
He grew daily more difficult to manage, did Shane; because he was a
Cherokee, a Hellfire; and it stands to reason that an important
attribute for a Hellfire to cultivate must be a scorn of maternal
lecturing and fiddlefaddle.

Lady Glandore (taught by a rough apprenticeship) quite admitted this;
but looked forward now with satisfaction to the taming his spirit
would undergo through a judiciously prolonged residence on a barren
rock, with no one to uphold him in resistance to her will. Here he had
no bully-Blasters to oppose a check to her influence. He would have
nobody to talk to but the fisherfolk, save when he sailed down the
lough to Letterkenny to be entertained by the squireens in garrison.

She did not fear their influence--poor country oafs! She gauged the
inherent weakness of Shane's nature, which cloaked itself under a mask
of fierceness; she knew his overbearing, swashbuckling ways would sink
into a minor key of mewing if they had no encouraging sympathy from
without. She knew better than really to believe that 'absence makes
the heart grow fonder.' Nonsense! The heart is too selfish a thing to
feed long upon itself or shadows. If she could only manage to keep
Shane here long enough, he would become as meek as a lamb, and would
cease to bleat of Norah in his dreams.

On one side things were going crooked, no doubt, but on the other they
were preternaturally straight. Could they be expected to remain so?

Arthur Wolfe, whose self-interest told him to stay on in Dublin and
watch events, was only too thankful to throw a responsibility on his
sister (in whom he trusted), who, oddly enough, was gracious as to the
burthen. He might have been compelled to leave Ireland for Doreen's
sake--to take her away out of a false position, and so sacrifice the
opportunity of rapid advancement, which is the marked characteristic
of a turbulent time.

But this difficulty was got rid off by packing the girl off to
Donegal. He could drift where expediency drove, unshackled, to add to
his darling's fortune. Nothing could be more satisfactory to her
father's peace of mind; nothing could jump better with my lady's
long-established plan of joining these two incongruous cousins in holy
matrimony. Shut up in idleness in Glas-aitch-e (for the building of
Martello towers could not really engross his attention), what else
could he do but fall a victim to the charms of his handsome cousin?

One little ghost of doubt yet lingered in my lady's mind, which she
did her best to exorcise. Doreen was dreadfully pigheaded. What if
moping were to render her more obstinate? She was not a Blaster or a
Cherokee, but a stern-browed damsel, with much romance, tempered by a
little common-sense, and an awkward tendency to rely upon her own
judgment. Being a woman, too, she would probably detect at once
another woman's web, such as might hope to escape the scrutiny of male
observation. Was it possible that she might choose to upset all her
aunt's elaborate scaffolding, after all?

She had her own reasons for determining to tie Shane, wealthy Lord
Glandore though he might be, to somebody with money. What a pity that
he declined polite society, where complaisant heiresses were to be met
with who would joyfully take his coronet, and afterwards obey his
mother. Circumstances had so ordained it that there was absolutely no
available or possible heiress for him but this stiff-necked Catholic.

It is exasperating, is it not, to mark how people persist in opposing
that which others think is best for them? The prejudiced, warped
Countess of Glandore must have had urgent motives indeed for the
prosecution of her project to account for the way in which she was
stooping from her pedestal. Doreen was sharp enough to recognise this
fact, and was never weary of marvelling at the enigma which seemed
ever and anon to languish, then to spring to new life again. But Lady
Glandore, when her mind was made up, could be obstinate too, though
she had suffered much buffeting in life's conflict. That these two
cousins were to be drawn together somehow, she was resolved.
Opposition would come probably from Doreen's side, not Shane's. When
her friends of the forlorn hope were slain and gone, she would surely
succumb from mere despair.

My lady was glad, then, when she meditated on Lord Clare's hints as to
the certain fate of the United Irishmen. It was distressful, though,
that her own son should be amongst them. Was it distressful, or a
relief? Would his mother be sorry if word came that he was dead?

My lady buried her face in the curtain yet again, and rocked her bowed
form and wrung her hands. There is a phase of self-hatred and
upbraiding which is more poignant than any physical pain, from which
we emerge more wrecked and broken after each fresh access, and pray
more desperately to be set free from torment.




                             CHAPTER VI.

                            GLAS-AITCH-E.


The nautico-arcadian life of Glas-aitch-e restored Doreen's mental
equilibrium by degrees, which had been sorely shaken by recent
proceedings in Dublin. There she had come to ask herself whether there
could be indeed a God with eyes to see and ears to hear, or whether
the new-fangled creed was the correct one, which spoke of a mysterious
principle--a species of magnet--in accordance with whose influence, as
a dumb machine, the affairs of the world marched in established
sequence. But in the front of this superb nature it was impossible to
hold any such cold-blooded theory. When on waking she opened her
casement to drink the brine-laden air, her youthful vigour got the
better of her sorrows. She marked, stretching on the one hand as fare
as ken could reach, the wondrous _silhouette_ of mountains, rising
tier behind tier in its series of morning changes from jetty black to
purple and then orange; or, not so far away, the chameleon cliffs
whose varieties of effect were endless. She watched the seals tumbling
in flocks; the guillemots and gannets at play, and shrieking petrels,
Cassandras of the deep; and the eagles that had their eyrie in the
dizzy crags of Malin-Head, disdaining low companionship. Then peering
down from her window-sill, straight as a plummet-line, into that
wondrously pellucid ripple, she mused of the legends of the place
concerning the McSweenys--kings of those parts; known as the McSwynes
of the unconquered axe, till Sir Amorey set his foot upon their necks;
of how the rude chieftains had built themselves this fortalice,
defended by three rows of concentric battlements, and had held it in
the teeth of Corsair-fleets till the awful day of retribution for long
thieving, when Sir Amorey Crosbie came--himself the greatest thief; of
how, by stratagem, he lured the defendants out upon the narrow strip
of sand which the waves leave bare at ebb, then scaled the rocks upon
the other side with all his merry men, and watched with laughter while
the garrison perished in the rising waters; of how their bracelets and
ornaments and collars of gold were washed up from time to time to
attest the truth of the story; of how the elfin-guard were sleeping
even now within circumjacent caves, to clatter forth in force when
wanted. If that were true, sure they would have come out long since,
seeing what their motherland had suffered. Yet, after all, not so: for
this wild region had naught to do with the throes which had racked
Erin's frame for seven centuries. It was cut off, severed as by a
spell from the world's troubles and its tragedies.

Doreen felt this strongly when she went among the people on the
mainland. Not one of them could speak anything but Gaelic--their
mental ken saw nothing beyond the arrival of the salmon, or the number
of distressful rents in a new fishing-net. They talked with awe of the
sleeping bodyguard; had pricks of conscience when they slew their
maiden-aunts; looked with compassion on Miss Wolfe when she entered
upon mundane arguments. Vainly she strove to persuade them that the
treasures which the waves threw up were relics of the Spanish
Armada--a portion of which was shattered in these ironbound creeks and
gullies. They preferred to believe in the McSwynes, and did; yet for
all that they came to adore Doreen, who was of their own faith; who
never shot her coracle upon the beach but she was sure to be
surrounded forthwith by a bevy of dancing, screaming imps that
sprawled upon the sand, that sidled up to have their heads patted like
little tame nut-brown birds; then fluttered off to herald out the fact
that the good lady had arrived ashore. The people loved her, and she
loved the people. The Irish heart is so warm, that a very little
kindness will win it--for that very reason, perhaps, their English
foes have chosen to repulse the gift, as one of too easy attainment to
be worth the winning!

Once or twice she was persuaded by her cunning aunt to accompany Shane
along the northern coast in the yacht. He was making a prodigious fuss
about the Martello towers, and it would amuse her to explore the bays
and inlets. Once--only once--she sailed down Lough Swilly, when her
cousin went thither to examine the forts of Knockalla and Inch; and
was royally entertained at the barracks of Letterkenny, by the amateur
soldiers quartered there. It was like returning into Hades after a
glimpse of the stars. The sheepish looks and bungling compliments of
the squireens could not hide from her that this was the fabric from
which the yeomanry were cut who hanged the people and burnt their
cottages.

At Letterkenny the world began again--the wicked, cruel world.
Inwardly she prayed that at least the harmless folks of Ennishowen
might be spared, though all the isle beside should have to pass under
the yoke. But the sight of these ruffians in uniform made her quail
for them. Since Fate debarred her from the right of joining her people
in their suffering, she would close her ears to their cries if she
could, and return into the world no more.

The gentry about Derry and Antrim were divided upon all subjects
except ruffianism. On this point they were in surprising concord. They
were for the most part Presbyterians. The republican nature of their
tenets disposed them to join the United Irishmen, and many entered
heartily into the conspiracy, until Government agents demonstrated
that the triumph of the popular party would bring with it Catholic
emancipation.

Now the Ulster men of the middle and upper class were Orange as well
as Presbyterian. They looked upon a Catholic as a toad--an unclean
thing which had no business to be created--which must be hurried out
of life without delay, as a lesson to their Maker to make such
mistakes no more.

Therefore, upon this fact being made quite plain to them, their
patriotic ardour cooled amazingly, and they bade fair to rival the
excesses of their brethren down south.

At this very dinner a tipsy young 'half-mounted' told as a fine joke a
tale of what had happened at Armagh when he went there 't'other day to
buy a horse. A certain rapscallion,' he said, 'was suspected of having
some gunpowder concealed, contrary to the mandate of his Majesty.
Shots had been heard in the neighbourhood of his cabin--that was
enough. He denied the charge, and so must be made to confess. How was
it done? Mighty ingeniously, i' faith! He was hung up by the heels
with a rope full of twist, by which means he whirled round most
laughably, like a bird before the fire; while the soldiers lashed him
with their belts to make him speak. But his stupid old father spoiled
the joke; for upon his son calling on him for help he up with a
turf-spade and broke a soldier's pate open; upon which, of course, the
old fool had to be disembowelled.' The other sparks laughed with great
he-haws at; this funny anecdote, till one of them, looking at Miss
Wolfe, thought 'maybe the leedy didn't loike it.' And Shane, surprised
that his stiff cousin should be such a milksop, changed the subject to
the building of his towers. The stone being handy, they would take but
little time, he said. So soon as his task was complete he would send
down the yacht for these agreeable young sons of Mars, and entertain
them at his quaint old castle.

'It was indeed moighty koind in his lordship, to be sure; anything
they could do to obleege,' etc., etc. So there was a great shaking of
hands and display of newly-acquired military salutes, and everybody
was charmed with everybody, except Doreen, who voted them bears and
brutes, whilst they thought her stuck-up.

After this episode, nothing could induce her to revisit Letterkenny.
She spent her time in daydreams, drifting about in her coracle for
hours, to return dripping wet, but, in a hazy way, more than half
content. There is never much snow in Ennishowen, because brine is
inimical to snow; but in winter there is much rain and mist and dense
sea-fog, which penetrates to the bones and chills them. When the
revolving cycle brought fine weather, she liked to establish herself
by her window, to watch the strange glory of the dawn, sitting, as she
smilingly observed, in her 'Grianan,' or sun-chamber. And what a
spectacle it was to lull a vexed spirit into peace! First, as light
crept near, she was aware of nothing but a vast sheet of pearl--above,
below, around--without line to mark where earth or sea joined heaven.
Her enchanted prison seemed the centre of an orient jewel, through
which the light of heaven filtered dimly. She occupied a magician's
castle, suspended by mystic agency in a translucent ether of opal hue.
The illusion was complete, for presently tiny cloudlets of rose and
grey flecked the space above, to be repeated in dappled reflections on
the still mirror below, which as yet knew no rim. Cloudlets overhead;
cloudlets far down, under the hanging castle. Then, by imperceptible
degrees, the opal flushed to brass with spots of tarnish (where
seaweed banks shone through). Then a ridge of palest pink loomed into
shape from nothingness, warming slowly to blood-red, and darkening to
Tyrian purple--and the misty film was rent and crumbled, and lo! there
was the rim to the still mirror--the glorious rim of that noble
mountain-chain, now turned to a sharply-defined deep-blue--in unison
with sky and water.

Doreen was comforted for the day when nature chose thus to open the
casket for her; and rowed, or fished over the garden parapet, and was,
by reason of her new peacefulness, more soft than heretofore with her
aunt; and even strove sometimes to make herself agreeable to Shane. My
lady marked the improvement as a good omen of success, but was not
quite satisfied; for there was mixed with the damsel's good behaviour
a cool indifference which suggested a carelessness of what should next
befall.

When Shane was cross (alas! he grew crosser as he grew bored),
Doreen's face never lost its calm. If it had, her aunt would have felt
more easy, for it would have shown that the young lady noticed her
cousin's moods. But no; she was kindly and polite--was not even
shocked, as his mother was, when my lord made a boon-companion of the
skipper of his yacht, hobbing and nobbing till both master and man
were magnificently drunk. My lady was really displeased at this, for
it wounded her pride that the head of the house should condescend to
such companionship. Squireens from Letterkenny would have been better;
but then they might have made love to the young lady, and my lady had
settled in her mind that nobody must do that but Shane.

Poor mother! How earnestly she schemed, and how little came of her
scheming! With what angelic self-denial she endured the ghostly
whisperings of the chairs and tables, which would keep babbling of
that past, however much she stopped her ears. Shane made no effort to
woo his cousin. On the contrary, her superior manners and serene airs
provoked him, by causing him to feel how inferior he himself was to
her. Norah never made him feel this, for she did dreadfully vulgar
things sometimes, for which he liked her as he chid her--things
which would have made his mother's white hair stand straight up on
end--tricks which the colleen had learnt from her good-natured
plebeian mamma. Now he never would have dared to chide Miss Wolfe; for
even in her wildest escapades--when conversing with mysterious young
men at night, or galloping helter-skelter over the country--she
carried matters with so high a hand that even my lady herself was
routed. Indeed Shane, though far enough off, was nearer to love than
she was, for he felt something akin to a good wholesome hatred of his
cousin, whilst she was only indifferent to him.

The fact was, that Shane, not being fond of booklore, became sullen
and fiercely sulky, as week followed week and he found himself a
prisoner with no prospect of release. He had a suspicion that he had
been trapped. Yet, while he revolted at the thought of it, his nature
was too weak to permit of his shaking himself free without, at least,
somebody's friendly countenance.

Now and then he ventured to suggest that there really was no reason
why they should not return to Strogue. The French fiasco had put an
end to danger from the Continent, as well as to the pretensions of the
United Irishmen. What was his mother's opinion? Surely she must be
tired of being cooped up, much as she seemed to love the place--(love
it! poor lady!)--for she never went on shore among the benighted
Catholics, being content, as a change, to make a solemn progress on
the lough on calm days, rowed by ten sturdy rowers. Should her son
order the yacht to take in bag and baggage? Should he send a messenger
on horseback, to announce their proximate arrival in Dublin?

To all of these insidious proposals my lady merely opposed a quiet
negative, producing budgets from her pocket--voluminous letters from
Lord Clare--upon the events which were passing in the capital.

According to him, affairs grew worse and worse, instead of better. The
perverseness of his countrymen was appalling to an enlightened mind.
There was no knowing what might happen. His dear old friend's second
son was behaving ill. Happily, the loyal behaviour of the elder one
would be counted as righteousness to the family, by a forgiving and
benignant Government.

'It was evident from this,' she declared, with a decision there was no
gainsaying, 'that Shane must do as he was doing. Terence might choose
to disgrace himself; so Shane's conduct must be all the more
immaculate.' (My lady's voice did not falter as she discussed this
delicate matter. Doreen merely frowned and turned away.) 'It was the
duty of Shane, for the sake of the honour of the Glandores, to keep
staunch to the side of Government--the side of law and order--and the
best way of doing that was by stopping where he was.'

Shane groaned in spirit, but submitted, and cursed the patriots by all
his gods--empty-headed, crack-brained fools--who thus stood betwixt
him and pleasure. He pined for Norah, for Cherokee suppers, Blaster
orgies. Why, he was almost forgetting what a duel was like! His rapier
was rusting on the wall. He became crabbed in his enforced idleness;
pinched viciously the satin skins of his pet dogs, instead of stroking
them; took more and more to claret; was constantly making trips to
Letterkenny.

With the exception of Lord Clare's occasional budgets, the party
received little news, save garbled accounts from Letterkenny barracks.
My lady insisted upon reading her own letters aloud, for the benefit
of her niece; but that young person heeded not the chancellor's
prosing, being serenely occupied in following the gyrations of a
seamew, or the eccentric movements of a fishing cormorant, so that
oft-reiterated abuse of her friends troubled her temper in nowise; and
her aunt marvelled how it could be that the froward girl should have
become proper and submissive, like well-behaved young ladies.

Is it not singular how to some people we unaccountably and invariably
are impelled to show only the ugly or seamy side, which forms part of
all our characters, and how to others we, without special effort,
always turn the best? My lady and Doreen, though they dwelt together,
never really knew each other. At times Doreen considered my lady mad;
always harsh and disagreeable; while it was never given to my lady to
detect the unselfish devotion and the strong worship of all that is
beautiful and free, and the overpowering horror of all that is unjust
and base, which was the better phase of her niece's character.

As for the newspapers, nothing could be gleaned from them. So soon as
a paper became popular, it was acquired by money or threats (with the
exception of Tom Emmett's, which ran its rigs unchecked), and
patriotism gave way to padding. There was little Irish intelligence.
The Dublin prints might as well have been edited at Sierra Leone; and
Doreen turned with impatience from their dulness. She received few
letters herself, for there was no one to write to her except the
proscribed, and, of course, it would not do for treasonable
correspondence to pass through the hands of Lord Glandore, who amused
himself by sailing to Rathmelton for the bag. There was no convenient
shebeen here, where notes might cunningly be dropped; no useful Biddy
or Jug Coyle--not even a handy cabin; for, whilst the peasantry round
Dublin were one and all ready to do anything for the cause, those of
Ennishowen cared not about it. And she was not sorry for this. With
the French fiasco her hopes had melted--she knew too well the
discordant elements which composed the Irish Directory. All that had
kept its members together had been the expectation of French
assistance--now that that was over they would fall asunder, and
Cinderella would sit down again amongst the ashes. And was it not
indeed better so? The wrath of God was kindled, for some reason which
she knew not, against unhappy motherland. Was it not better, then,
that her sons should accept their bondage with meekness rather than
waste their blood uselessly? Doreen's contentment sprang in the first
instance from the nipping of despair. A moment comes to us in our sore
trouble, when we fold our arms and murmur, 'By God's mercy there is a
limit to the sense of feeling. We have reached that limit, and will
feel no more;' and, strange as it may seem, with that resolve comes an
impression of calm, which, in its way, is a sort of negative
happiness. We have lost something, we are bereft of something which
above all things we valued, yet we seem vaguely better for the loss.
It is like the expression of peace which all blind faces wear, though
their most precious treasure has been stolen--the sense of sight.

Doreen shrank from probing her own feelings with regard to Terence.
Certainly his conduct distressed her more than seemed warranted by
cir

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