Kitabı oku: «The O'Donoghue: Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago», sayfa 15

CHAPTER XX. TEMPTATION IN A WEAK HOUR

When Mark O’Donoghue left the room, his passion had become almost ungovernable – the entrance of his cousin Kate had but dammed up the current of his anger – and, during the few moments he still remained afterwards, his temper was fiercely tried by witnessing the courtesy of her manner to the stranger, and the apparent intimacy which subsisted between them. “I ought to have known it,” was the expression he muttered over and over to himself – “I ought to have known it! That fellow’s gay jacket and plumed hat are dearer to her woman’s heart, than the rude devotion of such as I am. Curses be on them, they carry persecution through every thing – house, home, country, rank, wealth, station – ay, the very affection of our kindred they grudge us! Was slavery ever like this?” And with these bitter words, the offspring of bitterer thoughts, he strode down the causeway, and reached the high road. The snow was falling fast – a chilling north wind drove the thin flakes along – but he heeded it not. The fire of anger that burned within his bosom defied all sense of winter’s cold; and with a throbbing brow, and fevered hand, he went, turning from time to time to look up at the old castle, whence he expected each moment to see Travers take his departure. Now he hurried eagerly onward, as if to reach some destined spot – now he would stop, and retrace his steps, irresolutely, as though half determined to return home.

“Degraded, insulted, outraged on the very hearth of my father’s house!” cried he, aloud, as he wrung his hands in agony, and gave his passion vent. Again he pressed forward, and at last arrived at that part of the glen, where the road seems escarped between the two mountains, which rise several hundred feet, like walls, on either side. Here he paused, and after examining the spot for some seconds, he muttered to himself, “He has no choice here, but stand or turn!” and so saying, he drew from the breast of his coat two pistols, examined the priming of each, and then replaced them. The prospect of speedy revenge seemed to have calmed his vindictive spirit, for now he continued to walk backwards and forwards, at a slow pace, like a sentinel on his post, pausing occasionally to listen if a horse’s hoofs could be heard upon the road, and then resuming his walk once more. A rustling sound in the brushwood above his head once startled him, but the granite cliffs that overhung the road prevented his seeing from what it proceeded, and his heart was now bent on a very different object than the pursuit of the deer. At that moment, the proudest of the herd might have grazed in safety, within pistol-shot of him, and he had not deigned to notice it. Thus passed an hour – a second – and a third succeeded – and, already, the dull shadows of approaching night were falling – yet, no one came. Tortured with strange conjectures, Mark saw the day waning, and yet no sight nor sound of him he looked for. Let not poets speak of the ardent longing of a lover’s heart, as in throbbing eagerness he waits for her, whose smile is life and hope, and heaven. Compared with the mad impatience of him who thirsts for vengeance, his passion is but sluggish apathy. It is the bad, that ever calls forth the sternest energies of human nature. It is in crime, that men transcend the common attributes of mankind. Here was one, now, who would have given his right hand beneath the axe, for but one brief moment of vengeance, and have deemed years of suffering cheaply bought, for the mere presence of his enemy before him.

“He must have guessed my meaning when I left the room;” was the taunting expression he now uttered, as his unsated anger took the shape of an insolent depreciation of his adversary. “An Irishman would not need a broader hint!”

It grew darker – the mountains frowned heavily beneath the canopy of clouds, and night was rapidly approaching, when, from the gloom of his almost extinguished hope, Mark was suddenly aroused. He heard the tramp of a horse’s feet; the dull reverberation on the deep snow filled the air, and sometimes they seemed to come from the opposite part of the glen, when the pace slackened, and, at last, the sounds became almost inaudible.

“There is yet enough of daylight, if we move into the broad road,” was Mark’s soliloquy, as he stooped his ear to listen – and at the instant, he beheld a man leading his horse by the bridle, while he himself seemed seeking along the road-side, where the snowdrift had not yet fallen, as if for some lost object. A glance, even by the imperfect light, and at some thirty paces off showed Mark it was not him he sought, and were it not that the attitude attracted his curiosity, he had not wasted a second look on him; but the horseman by this time had halted, and was scraping with his whip-handle amid the pebbles of the mountain rivulet.

“I’ll never see it again – it’s no use!” was the exclamation of the seeker, as he gathered up his reins, and prepared to mount.

“Is that Lanty Lawler?” cried Mark, as he recognised the voice; “I say, did you meet with a young officer riding down the glen, in the direction of Carrig-na-curra?”

“No, indeed, Mr. Mark – I never saw living thing since I left Bantry.”

The young man paused for a few seconds – and then, as if anxious to turn all thought from his question, said, “What have you lost thereabouts?”

“Oh, more than I am worth in the world!” was the answer, in a deep, heart-drawn sigh – “but, blessed heaven! what’s the pistols for? Oh, Master Mark, dear – sure – sure – ”

“Sure what?” cried the youth, with a hoarse laugh – “Sure, I’m not turned highway robber! Is that what you want to say? Make your mind easy, Lanty – I have not reached that point yet; though, if indifference to life might tempt a man, I’d not say it is so far off.”

“‘Tis a duel, then,” cried Lanty quickly; “but, I hope you wouldn’t fight without seconds. Oh, that’s downright murder – what did he do to you? – was it one of the fellows you met in Cork?”

“You are all wrong,” said Mark, sullenly. “It is enough, however, that neither of us seem to have found what he was seeking. You have your secret; I have mine.

“Oh, faix, mine is soon told – ‘twas my pocket-book, with as good as seventy pounds in goold, I lost here, a three weeks ago, and never set eyes on it since; and there was papers in it – ay, faix, papers of great value – and I darn’t face Father Luke without them. I may leave the country, when he hears what happened.”

“Where are you going now?” said Mark, gloomily.

“I’m going as far as Mary’s, for the night. Maybe you’d step down there, and take a bit of supper? When the moon rises, the night will take up fine.”

The young man turned without speaking, and bent his steps in the direction Lanty was travelling.

The horse-dealer was too well versed in human nature to press for a confidence, which he foresaw would be, at last, willingly extended to him; he therefore walked along at Mark’s side, without uttering a word, and seeming to be absorbed in his own deep musings. His calculation was a correct one. They had not gone many paces forward, when young O’Donoghue unburthened his whole heart to him – told him, with all the eloquent energy of a wounded spirit, of the insult he had received in his own home, before his younger brother’s face. He omitted nothing in his description of the overbearing impertinence of Frederic Travers’s manner – with what cool assurance he had entered the house, and with what flippant carelessness he treated his cousin Kate.

“I left home, with an oath, not to return thither unavenged,” said be, “nor will I, though this time luck seems against me. Had he but come, I should have given him his choice of pistols, and his own distance. My hand is true from five paces to thirty; but he has not escaped me yet.”

Lanty never interrupted the narrative, except to ask from time to time some question, the answer to which was certain to develope the deeper indignation of the youth. A low muttering commentary, intended to mean a heartfelt sympathy with his wrongs, was all he suffered to escape his lips; and, thus encouraged in his passionate vehemence, Mark’s wrath became like a phrenzy.

“Come in now,” said Lanty, as he halted at the door of Mary’s cabin, “but don’t say a word about this business. I have a thought in my head that may do you good service, but keep a fair face before people – do you mind me?”

There was a tone of secrecy and mystery in these words Mark could not penetrate; but, however dark their meaning, they seemed to promise some hope of that revenge his heart yearned after, and with this trust he entered the house.

Mary received them with her wonted hospitality – Lanty was an expected guest – and showed how gratified she felt to have young O’Donoghue beneath her roof.

“I was afeard you were forgetting me entirely, Mr. Mark,” said she – “you passed the door twice, and never as much as said, God save you, Mary.”

“I did not forget you, for all that, Mary,” said he, feelingly. “I have too few friends in the world to spare any of them; but I’ve had many things on my mind lately.”

“Well, and to be sure you had, and why wouldn’t you? ‘Tis no shame of you to be sad and down-hearted – an O’Donoghue of the ould stock – the best blood in Kerry, wandering about by himself, instead of being followed by a troop of servants, with a goold coat-of-arms worked on their coats, like your grandfather’s men – the heavens be his bed. Thirty-eight mounted men, armed, ay and well armed, were in the saddle after him, the day the English general came down here to see the troops that was quartered at Bantry.”

“No wonder we should go afoot now,” said Mark, bitterly.

“Well, well – it’s the will of God,” ejaculated Mary, piously, “and who knows what’s in store for you yet?”

“That’s the very thing I do be telling him,” said Lanty, who only waited for the right moment to chime in with the conversation. “There’s fine times coming.”

Mary stared at the speaker with the eager look of one who wished to derive a meaning deeper than the mere words seemed to convey, and then, checking her curiosity at a gesture from Lanty, she set about arranging the supper, which only awaited his arrival.

Mark ate but little of the fare before him, though Mary’s cookery was not without its temptations; but of the wine – and it was strong Burgundy – he drank freely. Goblet after goblet he drained with that craving desire to allay a thirst, which is rather the symptom of a mind fevered by passion than by malady. Still, as he drank, no sign of intoxication appeared; on the contrary, his words evinced a tone of but deeper resolution, and a more settled purpose than at first, when he told how he had promised never to leave his father, although all his hopes pointed to the glorious career a foreign service would open before him.

“It was a good vow you made, and may the saints enable you to keep it,” said Mary.

“And for the matter of glory, maybe there’s some to be got nearer home, and without travelling to look for it,” interposed Lanty.

“What do you mean?” said Mark, eagerly.

“Fill your glass. Take the big one, for it’s a toast I’m going to give you – are you ready? Here now, then – drink —

 
A stout heart and mind,
And an easterly wind,
And the Devil behind The Saxon.”
 

Mark repeated the doggerel as well as he was able, and pledged the only sentiment he could divine, that of the latter part, with all his enthusiasm.

“You may tell him what you plaze, now,” whispered Mary in Lanty’s ear; for her ready wit perceived that his blood was warmed by the wine, and his heart open for any communication.

Lanty hesitated but a second, then drawing his chair close to Mark’s, he said —

“I’m going now to put my life in your hands, but I can’t help it. When Ireland is about to strike for liberty, it is not an O’Donoghue should be last in the ranks. Swear to me you’ll never mention again what I’ll tell you – swear it on the book.” Mary, at the same moment, placed in his hand a breviary, with a gilt cross on the binding, which Mark took reverently, and kissed twice. “That’s enough – your word would do me, but I must obey them that’s over me;” and so saying, Lanty at once proceeded to lay before the astonished mind of young O’Donoghue, the plan of France for an invasion of Ireland – not vaguely nor imperfectly, not in the mere language of rumour or chance allusion, but with such aids to circumstance and time, as gave him the appearance of one conversant with what he spoke on. The restoration of Irish independence – the resumption of forfeited estates – the return of the real nobility of the land to their long-lost-position of eminence and influence, were themes he descanted upon with consummate skill, bringing home each fact to the actual effect such changes would work in the youth’s own condition, who, no longer degraded to the rank of a mere peasant, would once again assert his own rightful station, and stand forth at the head of his vast property – the heir of an honoured name and house. Lanty knew well, and more too, implicitly believed in all the plausible pretension of French sympathy for Irish suffering, which formed the cant of the day. He had often heard the arguments in favour of the success of such an expedition – in fact, the reasons for which its failure was deemed impossible. These he repeated fluently, giving to his narrative the semblance of an incontestible statement, and then he told him that from Brest to Dublin was “fifty hours’ sail, with a fair wind” – that same “easterly breeze,” the toast alluded to, that the French could throw thirty, nay, fifty thousand troops into Ireland, yet never weaken their own army to any extent worth speaking of – that England was distracted by party spirit, impoverished by debt, and totally unable to repel invasion, and, in fact, that if Ireland would be but “true to herself,” her success was assured.

He told, too, how Irishmen were banded together in a sworn union to assert the independence of their country, and that such as held back. or were reluctant in the cause, would meet the fate of enemies. On the extent and completeness of the organization, he dwelt with a proud satisfaction, but when he spoke of large masses of men trained to move and act together, Mark suddenly interrupted him, saying —

“Yes, I have seen them. It’s not a week since some hundreds marched through this glen at midnight.”

“Ay, that was Holt’s party,” said Mary, composedly; “and fine men they are.”

“They were unarmed,” said Mark.

“If they were, it is because the general didn’t want their weapons.”

“There’s arms enough to be had when the time comes for using them,” broke in Mary.

“Wouldn’t you show him – ” and Lanty hesitated to conclude a speech, the imprudence of which he was already aware of.

“Ay will I,” said Mary. “I never mistrusted one of his name;” and with that, she rose from the fire-side, and took a candle in her hand, “Come here a minute, Master Mark.” Unlocking a small door in the back wall of the cabin, she entered a narrow passage which led to the stable, but off which, a narrow door, scarcely distinguishable from the wall, conducted into a spacious vault, excavated in the solid rock. Here were a vast number of packing-oases, and boxes, piled on each other, from floor to roof, together, with hogsheads and casks of every shape and size. Some of the boxes had been opened, and the lids laid loosely over them. Removing one of these, Mary pointed to the contents, as she said —

“There they are – French muskets and carabines. There’s pistols in that case; and all them, over there, is swords and cutlasses. ‘Tis pike-heads that’s in the other corner; and the casks has saddles and holsters and them kind of things.”

Mark stooped down and took up one of the muskets. It was a light and handy weapon, and bore on its stock the words – “Armée de la Sambre et Meuse” – for none of the weapons were new.

“These are all French,” said he, after a brief pause.

“Every one of them,” replied Mary, proudly; “and there’s more coming from the same place.”

“And why can we not fight our own battles, without aid from France?” said Mark, boldly. “If we really are worthy of independence, are we not able to win it?”

“Because there’s traitors among us,” said Mary – replying before Lanty could interpose – “because there’s traitors that would turn again us if we were not sure of victory; but when they see we have the strong hand, as well as the good cause, they’ll be sure to stand on the safe side.”

“I don’t care for that,” said Mark. “I want no such allies as these. I say, if we deserve our liberty, we ought to be strong enough to take it.”

“There’s many think the same way as yourself,” said Lanty, quietly. “I heard the very words you said from one of the delegates last week. But I don’t see any harm in getting help from a friend when the odds is against you.”

“But I do; and great harm too. What’s the price of the assistance? – tell me that.”

“Oh, make your mind easy on that score. The French hate the English, whether they love us or no.”

“And why wouldn’t they love us,” said Mary, half angry at such a supposition, “and we all Catholics? Don’t we both belong to the ould ancient church? and didn’t we swear to destroy the heretics wherever we’d find them? Ay, and we will, too!”

“I’m with you, whatever come of it,” said Mark, after a few seconds of thought. “I’m with you; and if the rest have as little to live for, trust me, they’ll not be pleasant adversaries.”

Overjoyed at this bold avowal, which consummated the success they desired, they led Mark back into the cabin, and pledged, in a bumper, the “raal O’Donoghue.”

CHAPTER XXI. THE RETURN OF THE ENVOY

Sir Marmaduke Travers and his daughter had passed a morning of great uneasiness at the delay in Frederic’s return. Noon came, and yet no appearance of him. They wandered along the road, hoping to meet him, and at last turned homeward with the intention of despatching a servant towards Carrig-na-curra, fearing lest he should have missed his way. This determination, however, they abandoned, on being told by a countryman, that he had seen the horse young Travers rode still standing at the gate of the “castle.”

A feeling of curiosity to hear his son’s account of the O’Donoghues, mingled with the old man’s excitement at his absence; and, as the day declined, and still no sign of his return, he walked every now and then to the door, and looked anxiously along the road by which he expected his approach. Sybella, too, was not without her fears, and though vague and undefined, she dreaded a possible collision between the hot-blood of Mark and her brother. The evening of her first arrival was ever present to her mind; and she often thought of what might have then occurred, had Frederic been present.

They had wearied themselves with every mode of accounting for his delay, guessed at every possible cause of detention, and were at length on the point of sending a messenger in search of him, when they heard the tramp of a horse coming, not along the high road, but, as it seemed, over the fields in front of them. A few minutes more of anxious expectancy, and Frederic, with his horse splashed and panting, alighted beside them.

“Well, you certainly have a very pretty eye for a country, father,” said he, gaily. “That same line you advised, has got three as rasping fences as I should like to meet with.”

“What do you mean, boy?” said Sir Marmaduke, as much puzzled at the speech as the reader himself may feel.

“Simply, sir, that though the cob is a capital horse, and has a great jump in him, that I’d rather have day-light for that kind of thing; and I really believe the ragged fellow you sent for me, chose the stiffest places. I saw the rascal grinning when I was coming up to the mill-stream.”

“Messenger! – ragged fellow! The boy is dreaming.”

“My dear Frederic, we sent no messenger. We were, indeed, very anxious at your delay, but we did not despatch any one to meet you.”

Frederic stared at both the speakers, and then repeated, in astonishment, the last words – “Sent no messenger!” but when they once more assured him of the fact, he gave the following account of his return: —

“It was very late when I left the castle. I delayed there the whole day; but scarcely had I reached the high-road, when a wild-looking fellow, with a great pole in his hand, came up to me, and cried out,

“‘Are you for the Lodge?’ ‘Yes,’ said he, answering himself, ‘you are her brother. I’m sent over to tell you, not to go back by the road, for the bridge is down; but you’re to come over the fields, and I’ll show you the way.’”

“Supposing the fellow was what he assumed to be – your messenger, I followed him; and, by George, it was no joking matter; for he leaped like a deer, and seemed to take uncommon pleasure in pitting himself against the cob. I should have given up the contest, I confess, but that the knave had me in his power. For, when it grew dark, I knew not which way to head, until, at length, he shouted out —

“‘There’s the Lodge now, where you see the light.’ And after that, what became of himself I cannot tell you.”

“It was Terry, poor Terry,” cried Sybella.

“Yes, it must have been Terry,” echoed her father. “And is this Terry retained to play Will-o’-the-Wisp?” asked Fred; “or is it a piece of amateurship?”

But both Sir Marmaduke and Sybella were too deeply engaged in canvassing the motive for this strange act, to pay due attention to his question.

As Frederic was but little interested in his guide, nor mindful of what became of him, they were not able to obtain any clue from him as to what road he took; nor what chance there was of overtaking him.

“So then this was a piece of ‘politesse,’ for which I am indebted to your friend Terry’s own devising,” said Fred, half angrily. “The fellow had better keep out of my way in future.”

“You will not harm him, Fred, you never could, when I tell you of his gallant conduct here.”

“My sweet sister, I am really wearied of this eternal theme – I have heard of nothing but heroism since my arrival. Once for all, I concede the matter, and am willing to believe of the Irish, as of the family of Bayard, that all the men are brave – and all the women virtuous. And now, let us to dinner.”

“You have told us nothing of your visit to the enchanted castle, Fred,” said his sister, when the servants had withdrawn, and they were once more alone; “and I am all impatience to hear of your adventures there.”

“I confess, too,” said Sir Marmaduke, “I am not devoid of curiosity on the subject – let us hear it all.”

“I have little to recount,” said Frederic, with some hesitation in his manner; “I neither saw the O’Donoghue, as they call him, nor his brother-in-law – the one was in bed, the other had gone to visit some sick person on the mountain. But I made acquaintance with your prieux-chevalier, Sybella: a fine-looking young fellow, even now wasted with sickness; he was there with an elder brother, an insolent kind of personage – half peasant, all bully.”

“He was not wanting in proper respect to you” said Sir Marmaduke. “I trust, Mark, he was aware of who you were?”

“Faith, sir, I fancy he cared very little on the subject; and had I been a much more important individual, he would have treated me in the same way – a way, to say the least of it, not over-burthened with courtesy.”

“Had you any words together, boy?” said Sir Marmaduke, with an evident anxiety in his look and voice.

“A mere interchange of greeting,” replied Fred, laughing, “in which each party showed his teeth, but did not bite withal. I unhappily mistook him for a game-keeper – and worse still, told him so, and he felt proportionably angry at the imputation – preferring, probably, to be thought a poacher. He is a rude coarse fellow,” said he with a changed voice, “with pride to be a gentleman – but not breeding nor manner to enact the character.”

“The visit was, after all, not an agreeable one,” said Miss Travers, “and I am only surprised how you came to prolong it. You spent the whole day there.”

Although there was not the slightest degree of suspicion insinuated by this remark, Fred stole a quick glance at his sister, to see if she really intended more than the mere words implied. Then, satisfied that she had not, he said in a careless way —

“Oh, the weather broke; it came on a heavy snow-storm; and as the younger brother pressed me to remain, and I had no fancy to face the hurricane, I sat down to a game of chess.”

“Chess! Indeed, Fred, that sounds very humanizing. And how did he play?”

“It was not with him I played,” answered he, hesitatingly.

“What – with the elder?”

“No, nor him either; my antagonist was a cousin – I think they called her cousin.”

“Called her,” said Sybella, slyly. “So then, Master Fred, there was a lady in the case. Well, we certainly have been a long while coming to her.”

“Yes, she has lately arrived – a day or two ago – from some convent in the Low Countries, where she has lived since she was a child.”

“A strange home for her,” interposed Sir Marmaduke. “If I do not misconceive them greatly, they must be very unsuitable associates for a young lady educated in a French convent.”

“So you would say, if you saw her,” said Fred, seizing with avidity at the opening, then offered, to coincide with an opinion he was half afraid to broach. “She is perfectly foreign in look, dress, and demeanour – with all the mannerism of Paris life, graceful and pleasing in her address; and they, at least one of them, a downright boor – the other, giving him credit for good looks and good nature, yet immeasurably her inferior in every respect.”

“Is she pretty, Frederic?” said Sybella, not lifting her eyes from her work as she spoke.

“I should say pretty,” replied he, with hesitation, as if qualifying his praise by a word which did not imply too much. “I prefer a quieter style of beauty, for my own part; less dazzle, less sparkling effect; something to see every day, and to like the better the more one sees it” – and he placed his arm around his sister’s waist, and gazed at her as if to give the interpretation to his speech.

“You have made me quite curious to see her, Fred,” said Sybella. “The very fact of finding one like her in such a place has its interest.”

“What if you were to visit her, my dear?” said Sir Marmaduke; “the attention would only be a proper one; you have books and music, here, besides, which she might be glad to have in a region so remote as this.”

Frederic never spoke a word, but anxiously awaited his sister’s answer.

“I should like it greatly; what says Fred to the notion?”

“I see nothing against it,” replied he, with a well-affected indifference. “She is a most lady-like person; and, if it be your intention to pass a few weeks longer in this solitude, would be of infinite value for companionship.”

“A few weeks longer! – I shall remain till Christmas, boy,” said his father, with determination. “I have taken a fancy to Ireland; and my intention is to go up to Dublin for a few months in winter, and return here in the spring.”

This was at once approaching the very subject which Frederic had journeyed to determine; but, whether it was that the time seemed unfavourable, or that his own ideas in the matter had undergone some modification since his arrival, he contented himself with simply a doubtful shake of the head, as if distrusting Sir Marmaduke’s firmness, and did not endeavour to oppose his determination by a single argument of any kind. On the contrary, he listened with patience, and even seeming interest to his father’s detailed account of his project – how he had already given orders to secure a house in Stephen’s-green for the winter, intending to make acquaintances with the gentry of the capital, and present himself and his daughter at the viceregal court.

“Sybella may as well make her debut in society here as in London,” said Sir Marmaduke. “Indeed I am not sure but the provincial boards are the best for a first appearance. In any case, such is the line I have laid down for myself; and if it only secured me against a sea voyage to England in such a season, I shall be amply repaid for my resolve.”

Against the season of his return, too, Sir Marmaduke hoped to make such additions to the Lodge as should render it more comfortable as a residence; various plans for which were heaped upon the library table, and littered the chairs about the room.

Miss Travers had already given her hearty concurrence to all her father’s schemes, and seconded, most ably, every one of his views by such arguments as she was possessed of; so that Frederic, even if disposed to record his opposition, saw that the present was not an opportune moment; and prudently reserved for another time, what, if unsuccessful now, could never be recurred to with advantage.

The conversation on these topics lasted long. They discussed with interest every detail of their plans; for so it is – the pleasures of castle building are inexhaustible, and the very happiest realities of life are poor and vague, compared with the resources provided by our hopes and fancies. The slightest grounds of probability are enough to form a foundation – but there is no limit to the superstructure we raise above.

In the indulgence of this view, they continued to chat till a late hour, and parted for the night in high good humour with each other – a visit to the O’Donoghue being the plan for the succeeding day’s accomplishment.