The sun was now hastening downward among the western hills, and, as it seemed, with a fiery and vengeful light glared murkily upon the old towers of Glindarragh. A low wind moaned and whispered through the chimneys and battlements of the doomed building and the neighbouring wood, with a wild ominous sound, in fitful gusts, which muttered and swelled like the laughter of fiendish revelry, and died away in long wailing moans. On the castle walls, from time to time, might be seen anxious groups scanning the distance with stern and gloomy suspense. The gates were fast closed and barred, and the stout old building, in its bold and sombre isolation, might well have suggested the image of some gallant storm-beaten ship, with rigging taut and all hands alert, awaiting an approaching hurricane.
Occasional snatches of songs floated, as if in defiance, from the gray summits of the old towers, and mingled strangely with the lowing of cattle which arose from within the walls — and again all was lost in the bleak howl of the rising gust. Every thing gave note of preparation — the loopholes in the river tower flanking the great gate, which had been walled up for years, were now again opened for the play of musketry; and from the summit of the Banshee’s tower, which, at the other extremity, in like manner flanked the entrance, peered downward the muzzle of an ancient and honey-combed demi-culverin, loaded with musket bullets half way to the mouth. The castleyard, too, presented an unwonted spectacle; for all the best of Sir Hugh’s cattle had been driven from the neighbouring pastures, and cows and fat oxen and sheep, stood in patient groups, penned closely within the precincts of a rough paling, which left but one free avenue down the centre of the yard, and a clear though narrow passage down the sides. Thus the crowded cattle stood in hundreds closely pent within the dark inclosure of the castle walls, and all the air of stir and bustle within the fortress was enhanced by the arrival, from various quarters, in prompt response to Sir Hugh’s summons, of motley reinforcements, numbering in all full seventy men; some of gentle birth, accompanied by their servants; others, sturdy yeomen, with their sons or brethren; and all with due supply of muskets, matchlocks, birding pieces, or other serviceable firearms, and proportionate and proper ammunition therewith; for Tyrconnell’s proclamation for the disarming of the yeomanry and gentry had been but partial and imperfect in its effect, and, unless where there existed a pressing necessity, or what was so considered by King James’s government, for enforcing its requisitions, had remained practically inoperative; except, indeed, that the new construction of the law exposed the man who ventured to dispute it to the risk of a state prosecution, if by any overt act he evinced his disobedience to the Castle manifesto, and thus was added not a little to the embarrassments and the perils of men, whose properties and lives the government had not at ail times the power, even if it had the desire, to protect, and who were, therefore, in most cases reduced to rely for safety, under Providence, solely upon their own energies and resources.
It was now late enough, in all conscience, for Jeremiah Tisdal, th cool and cautious Puritan to have sought the security of Glindarragh Castle, and along with his ungainly servitor — Praise-God Bligh — to have contributed to the numbers of the little garrison its due contingent from the town land of Drumgunniol; yet Jeremiah Tisdal had not arrived, and Sir Hugh was perplexed to divine the reason of his absence, and often missed his sagacious counsel, as with the aid of the more experienced of his friends he apportioned the defence of the old fortress among its garrison, and assigned to each his post and office when the emergency of actual conflict should have arisen.
The level beams of this stormy sunset, and the lengthening shadows had, however, warned Tisdal that the time had indeed arrived when he could no longer with safety protract his stay within the comparatively unprotected mansion of Drumgunniol. With Praise-God Bligh, therefore, by his side, and a matchlock of marvellous length gleaming upon his shoulder, and a huge horn of gunpowder and a leathern bag of bullets dangling by his belt beneath the cloak, the Puritan might have been seen issuing from the wicket-door of the yard, and tracing with his wonted gait, and with a countenance unusually black and troubled, the pathway which conducted from his house to Glindarragh bridge — the lank and sad-coloured form of the lad who accompanied him, with a short musket slung at his lean back, followed closely and fearfully at his heels; and never did sunset-ray light upon a gloomier or more forbidding pair. In total silence they thus traversed the lonely path together, and without encountering a human form, excepting one or two peasant loungers, whom they passed without one word or gesture of greeting, in sullen silence and with a dark interchange of looks of mutual menace and hatred, they both at length found themselves upon the little bushy eminence which commanded a view of the bridge and castle of Glindarragh. Here the long pent-up feelings of the master of Drumgunniol at last found vent. He stopped short and looked back with an aspect of the extremest distress towards the spot where the gray chimneys of Drumgunniol peered above the bushes which clothed the brow of the intervening slopes.
“It is a sore extremity and hard to bear,” he muttered, clutching the stock of his matchlock with the energy of rage.
The servant responded by one of those peculiar groans, which rise mournfully from the depths of the stomach, and finding no vent at the compressed and drawn-down lips, escape, at last, with a dismal twang from the nose. With this meek and mournful response, he folded his lean hands, and turned up his eyes.
“Bligh,” said his master, clutching him decisively by the arm, “thou art a fleet runner, even as Ashael, who followed after the chariot of Abner; unsling thy firelock, and back to the house — it will be dark ere thou hast reached it, and the serpent eyes of that incarnate devil cannot penetrate the dark; try once more what has baffled us — (woe is me!) all the day long — without his seeing thee, get me the money bags and thou shalt have — I will give thee — I will not tell thee what, at present — but speed thee, and I will wait for thee where I stand; at all events, be sure that you return with speed — our lives may rest on it — away!”
Bligh knew too well the absolute and cruel temper of him with whom he had to deal — much as his bowels yearned to plead for a remission of the dreaded order — even for a moment to dispute his master’s command, and with trembling knees, and a sinking heart, he started upon his very doubtful mission. But, ere he did so, the sun went down, and the murky twilight began to strive more and more faintly with the wan moonlight, whose cold radiance was soon to illume the wide expanded landscape.
Every thing conspired to enhance the uneasiness of the proprietor of Drumgunniol. Half-an-hour had now elapsed, and his servant had not returned — though, as his impatient master calculated, so fleet a runner as he might have easily traversed the intervening distance four times over in the time. He cursed his hard fate a thousand times — bitterly he anathematized the lagging courier, whom he would have cheerfully seen roasted to a cinder at a slow fire, in exchange for the blessed assurance that his precious gold was safe. Another half hour had nearly passed, and Tisdal eyed the dark battlements of the tower, and inwardly prayed that he might, ere ten minutes more had passed, find himself safely within their compass — resolved that, should that time elapse without bringing the return of his absent messenger, the lad, and, alas! the gold must be left to their doom.
With the nervousness of a man who knows that every moment of his stay may prove that of his own destruction, and who yet feels, that to desert the post of suspended danger which he occupies, is, in effect, to abandon that which is dearer to him almost than his very life, Tisdal paced the narrow platform which he had chosen for his watch, from bush to bush; the chill blast froze his heart, and its deep threatening and wild sounds dismayed him. With looks of jealous and ferocious scrutiny, he trod the narrow space and searched the distance, as the daring and storm-beaten captain of some surrounded smuggler, in the desperation of his circumstances, might pace his quarter-deck, and strain his eyes for the distant chance of relief or escape. The moon, however, was now the only source of light, and her silvery d
isk was fast approaching the verge of the horizon — to stay any longer, indeed he felt, would be but madness — one despairing curse he launched at his lagging messenger, and then was about, in sheer distraction, to cross the bridge, and claim admittance to the castle, when he saw a dark figure gliding along the pathway from Drumgunniol toward him.
“It is Bligh,” thought he, while his heart bounded with exultation — but, alas! never was hope more delusive. Bligh had had his adventures, and was then far enough away.
Tisdal moved a pace or two to meet the approaching form, and, as he did so, his ear was startled with the report of a musket, sharply echoed from the direction of his own house, and, with a momentary glance, he beheld a strange blood-red light tinging the horizon with a wild and lurid glare, exactly where his mansion stood.
“As I live, it burns,” said Tisdal, while his colour shifted to a livid hue, and his breath came thick; “they have fired the house. Now — now, it is all up with thee, crafty, subtle, illfated miscreant.”
There was, however, no triumph in his face as he thus spoke — nothing but a deadly, livid horror. His eye travelled again to the path way, where he had beheld the solitary figure but a moment before, and now it seemed as though, in dense and sombre masses, the dark bushes themselves were creeping and stealing onward to meet him.
“May the Almighty guard me, it is the wild Irish!” he muttered, with a terrible revulsion, and instantaneously turned and ran, with what speed his stiff joints could command, down the rugged pathway toward the bridge.
A dense mass of human forms, however, noiselessly deployed before him upon the open road at the near bridge end — he knew not how or from whence — like a black sea, overflowing its banks, and noiselessly pouring its waters into the neighbouring flats and hollow’s.
“Surrounded! — oh, merciful Father, deliver me,” he ejaculated, in the extremity of his despair.
And now, all around him, were seen the same dark masses, stealing, and crowding, and creeping along; and now another, and another shot was heard in the dull distance from Drumgunniol, and the fierce glare which lighted up the horizon glowed deeper and wilder. It was no longer possible to avoid detection, so, with the desperate resolution of selling his life as dearly as he could, Jeremiah Tisdal grasped his long matchlock firmly in both hands, and ran towards the bridge, upon the desperate chance of forcing his way unexpectedly between the party who occupied the river brink and the castle gate, and, this done, of keeping them at bay until he had reached the shelter of the walls. His plan, however, was hardly conceived ere it was frustrated; for, in, his quick descent, he stumbled upon the rugged pathway, and striding with accelerated speed down the broken slope, he at length fell headlong, and, in doing so, discharged innocuously, with loud explosion, the whistling bullet from his matchlock, through the night air; and ere he could recover his feet, was overpowered and secured.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE ASSAULT.
WHILE this is passing without, the reader must pardon us if we transport him for one moment within the castle walls, on which from place to place are posted some score of sentinels, armed, vigilant, and anxious — their weapons glancing, and their forms showing darkly in the uncertain moonlight. He must follow us into the great hall of the castle. It is a long and broad stone-floored chamber, with a low oaken ceiling sustained by heavy beams, blackened by age and smoke; at each end yawns a capacious hearth, in which roars an eddying cloud of smoke, and sparkles, and flickering flame, as the piles of turf and crackling bogwood glow and blaze, like rival bonfires, beneath their opposing chimneys. A mighty oaken table stretches down the centre of this great chamber, so vast that in the flaming smoky torchlight one can scarcely see clearly from end to end. Huge dishes, high-piled with savoury fare, poultry and mighty joints, and pyramids of potatoes, and dishes of the now obsolete “cobladdy,” send up their savoury canopy of steam, which overhangs in genial festoonery of cloud the busy guests, fully a hundred in number, who with their weapons beside them, and in strange and grotesque variety of demi-military equipment, sit upon stout oak stools upon either side, and with knives and forks raise such a din and clatter on the pewter plates, as well nigh drown the obstreporous clangour of voices raised in jest, or disputation, or excited narrative, and the uproar of laughter and good wishes, an the ringing of goblets when the guests pledge one another in cordial revelry, and altogether there swells and thunders such a volume of festive uproar, as might have stunned a miller in his tuck-mill.
At the upper end of the board, as beseems the host, sits the stou Sir Hugh, and at his right and left those of the highest consideration among his visiters. Casks of good wine, as well as of mighty ale propped along the walls, yielded to the simple appliance of the faucet and spiggot their delicious burthens, which foamed in many a silver and many a pewter tankard, cup, and flagon: and all this scene of hilarity and festive cheer was heightened and exaggerated by the exciting consciousness of approaching conflict and companionship in danger; and in its picturesque effect mellowed and enriched by the warm and lurid glare of torches, flaming redly from their sockets in the walls over the warlike and variously attired banqueters.
“Nevertheless,” continued Stepney of Annagh — a white-headed old gentleman, with full, red, stolid cheeks, small grey, goodhumoured eyes, shaggy eyebrows, and almost no forehead at all, looking gravely upon Sir Hugh— “nevertheless I think it were well to sally forth, and lay about us. Trust me, there’s nothing like a vigorous sally.”
“We have no right to assault them till they have first attacked us,” replied Sir Hugh; “and all I seek is to defend my house against them. God forbid that I should shed one drop of blood more than our protection requires. Besides — besides,” he continued with a mournful shake of the head, “I would not set my child’s safety upon the precarious chances of such an enterprise.”
“What if they try to burn us out of the place?” urged the old man. “If it be possible to burn the house,” said Percy Neville, glancing upward at the torches which flared within a few feet of the ceiling, “which seems to me a problem, methinks we’re like to save the gentlemen that trouble.”
“I fear them not,” said old Sir Hugh; “my trust is in the Almighty. My family in time past have suffered sore distresses and dreadful extremities within this very house of Glindarragh, yet the old towers stand firm as ever, and a Willoughby is here tonight to guard them with his own right arm.”
“And a Neville, too, by my faith,” said the young man briskly, and with a flashing eye. Then as instantaneously relapsing into his usual careless vein, he added— “A Neville, too, as the devil would have it — wherever kicks and cuffs are plentiest, there my benignant star is sure to carry me. But meanwhile does it not strike you, cousin Willoughby, that while we are swilling and cramming here, the castle might be stormed, and the sentries all impaled, and we know nothing of the matter, until our own turn came to die upon these piles of beef and poultry; for my part I could not hear so much as the crack of that old cannon on the — what d’ye call it tower?”
“Smuggling Dick has the culverin in charge,” said Stepney, pompously.
“Then Smuggling Dick is not long for this world,” rejoined Neville; “they have loaded it to the very mouth, and, never believe me, or it will burst like an egg-shell. Reserve the culverin, good cousin Hugh, I beseech you, to the last act of the tragedy, and when things are altogether desperate, and you have made up your mind to put the garrison out of pain, and blow the old castle into infinite space, then, and not till then, give Smuggling Dick the signal, spring the culverin, and so discharge us, castle and all, with eclat into the clouds.”
“You’re a brave lad, though somewhat hairbrained,” replied Sir Hugh, gravely; “but there is reason in much that you have said, and so methinks it were well that we were stirring, and this supper ended.” As he thus spoke, a messenger from without, his long hair wisped and straggling wildly from the wind, and his face scared and pale, stood at the door, and shouted in accent
s that rose above the din and clatter of the feast, as with uplifted arms he gazed eagerly toward Sir Hugh— “The Irish are coming! — the Irish — the Irish!”
A hundred voices in wild confusion caught up, and echoed the startling summons. At the instant every face darkened with the stern reality and presence of danger; wild and savage was the hubbub — the clang of weapons, as in breathless haste each guest resumed his own — the scrambling of men across the table, amid crashing dishes and rolling tankards — the tumbling of stools and barrels, and the hoarse cries of “the Irish! — the Irish! — the Rapparees — Ned o’ the Hills. Let them come on, they’re welcome; we’re ready for them. We’ll give them a bellyful — Protestant powder and ball. Hurrah! — hola! — huzza!”
Thus shouting in terrible and deadly excitement, hurtling and hustling along, and jostling one another, they poured forth into the castle yard, and each mounted to his post of vantage, with the deep, stern curiosity of brave men, who in the tempest hear on a sudden the dreadful words, “the ship is on a rock,” and climb breathless to the deck to see for themselves the dangers which surround them. With feelings such as these, but toned by resolute daring and indomitable self-reliance, did the little garrison mount to the various posts assigned them on the walls and towers, and in the narrow embrasures from which their musquetry could tell.
Let us glance for a moment at another group. While this boisterous and desultory meal, so abruptly concluded, was yet proceeding, old Con Donovan, the butler, was enjoying, in the privacy of his own chamber, a pleasant booze with Dick Goslin and Tim Dwyer, the two squires who, as we have already mentioned, in their several capacities, followed the fortunes of Percy Neville. The butler’s chamber was a small stone-vaulted apartment in one of the flanking towers, with a single narrow casement peering, like a miniature tunnel, through the thickness of the wall, and commanding a circumscribed but pleasant view of the quaint white statues and trim yew hedges of the formal flower-garden we have already mentioned. All was, however, now dark without; and in the butler’s snuggery no blinking candle, with lengthening wick and feeble ray, gleamed dismally upon the jolly party; but their carousal was meetly lighted by the joyous blaze of wood and turf, flaming in the hearth, strong, fierce, and roaring as the spirit of revelry itself. By a clumsy, strong-jointed table, stored with flasks and cups, and seated upon stout old ponderous stools, the three companions glowed in genial confidence and growing jollity before the warm blaze of the fire, that murmured and sputtered in comfortable rivalry with the fitful moaning of the chill night wind.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 60