Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  CHAPTER XIX.

  THE CARBRIE.

  IT was upon the evening of Saturday, the 23rd of March, in the eventful year 1689, that the cavalcade which we are bound to follow, slowly entered the suburbs of Dublin city. Spite of the anxious thoughts which occupied his mind, Sir Hugh felt his attention irresistibly interested by the strange and exciting contrast which the appearance of the metropolis then presented, compared with the character it had worn but two years before, when he had last visited it. Stir and bustle enough were, indeed, still there; but it was not the steady energy of vigorous health, so much as the distempered excitement of fever and intoxication. Thick groups of men were earnestly conferring in the streets, with energetic gestures and in animated tones, and with occasional bursts of excited laughter; and from every cluster some lounging listener was ever and anon dropping off and attaching himself to some new group, and sharing in turn in their discussions; — whilst mingling with the civilians, singly or in straggling parties, might be seen the stalworth blue-coated militia-men, or the regular soldiery in their scarlet uniforms and cocked hats. Idlers of all sorts, females as well as men, were congregated about the tavern doors in convivial knots, while from within, the merry scraping of fiddles, or the nasal squeak of the bagpipe, or sometimes the sonorous cadences of an Irish song, or the uproarious voices of hilarious or disputatious revellers, came in busy discord upon the ear; and aloft in the upper windows might be seen the lounging, listless forms of half-dressed soldiers, smoking their pipes, as they leaned lazily from the casements over the crowded street. Occasionally, too, a file of pikemen or musketeers, marching grimly upon duty, traversed the crowded way, and sometimes a friar, in the habit of his order, a license which the times allowed, would show himself, giving quaint and picturesque variety to the character and colouring of the endless combinations which shifted and resolved, and reunited, in inextricably-commingling currents, under the wearied eye of the spectator. Troops of jaded cattle, too, with a guard of soldiers accompanying them, might be seen from time to time, lowing and shambling their way to the slaughter-house, about to die and be pickled in the cause of King James. Here and there the scene was enlivened by some tipsy fellow brandishing his hat or flourishing his halberd; while he shouted “God save King James!” and “To hell with the Prince!” — the broad, quaint street along which they moved presented more the appearance of a fair, or a disorderly barrack-yard, than that of a metropolitan highway; and the air of excitement which pervaded it was, if possible, enhanced by the hammering and sawing of carpenters, busy in erecting scaffolding at points of vantage on either side, and the rapid shovelling of dozens of fellows every where employed in spreading heaps of fine gravel over the massive and unequal pavement — a provident consideration for which King James was indebted to the dutiful attention of his loyal corporation. The town itself exhibited abundant indications of the unsettled and turbulent character of the times. Some of the shops were closed: the battered windows and splintered doors of others testified the violence to which they had been recently exposed. Inns, taverns, and dram-shops alone seemed in full and thriving business. Sentinels paced in front of the church-doors, within which arms and other warlike munitions were stored. Few and far between, might be seen the straight-backed coaches of the few aristocratic inhabitants who still lingered in the city — stiff and ponderous vehicles, blazing with gorgeous colours, carved and gilded, and rumbling and toppling along the crowded streets. As the mounted party whom we are following became gradually involved in this crowd and uproar, Torlogh O’Brien drew his men close together, and himself took his place at the unprotected side of Grace Willoughby.

  “The King enters the city on tomorrow,” said Torlogh, in reply to a question from Sir Hugh. “These artisans and labourers whom you see, are making preparations for his reception.”

  “It is, indeed, a strange spectacle,” said Sir Hugh, as his eye wandered down the oldfashioned street, with its long perspective of projecting gables, now illuminated by the level beams of the sun, while all its motley masses of human life moved and shifted in ceaseless and ever-varying mazes before and about him;— “a strange, and, I trust it is no treason to add, a melancholy sight. Every where I see but the boding indications of protracted civil strife, as well as of the coming military struggle which must for years, it may be, make our country the theatre of war, and stain her fields with the blood of the best and bravest of her sons.”

  “It is, indeed, but too true,” replied the soldier; “every thing portends a coming storm — nor can we know peace or calm until the tempest shall have spent its fury first. How much blood and misery have they to answer for who have, by the reckless extremity of rebellion, involved this fair and loyal kingdom in so dire and desperate a struggle.”

  “Can you read the motto on that flag, that floats so high above yonder housetops?” asked Sir Hugh. “Methinks it waves from the Castle-towers.”

  “Aye, sir,” responded Torlogh, with a stern tone and a kindling eye, as he scanned the distant banner, with its well-defined blazonry of letters; “the words are apposite to the times, and speak home to the hearts of Irishmen: they are ‘Now or never — now and for ever!’”

  These stern and energetic words, so different in the impression they produced upon the two companions, had the effect of reminding them instantaneously of the entire and irreconcileable antagonism of their views and interests. A silence, gloomy, and for some minutes unbroken, succeeded. It was at length, however, interrupted by Sir Hugh.

  “I had for the moment well nigh forgotten, in the excitement of this strange scene, that I am myself a prisoner,” said he, dejectedly. “Whither — to what place of confinement — do you purpose conducting me?”

  “I shall take upon myself the responsibility of giving you so much of your liberty, sir,” replied Torlogh O’Brien, “as my duty will permit. The hurry of these times necessitates many irregularities; and if these are sometimes inevitably attended with hardship, it is at least some compensation that they permit occasional indulgences, such as, in times less lax, we dare not hope for. There are peculiar circumstances attending your case, sir,” he continued, glancing slightly at the light form of the girl beside him, “which make it but humanity to afford you so much of liberty and leisure as may safely be accorded to one in your situation. I shall arrange so that the safe custody of your person shall, for a time at least, remain my charge. You can lodge in the Carbrie; you shall continue to be my prisoner upon your parole, and give me your word of honour that you will not absent yourself for more than two hours at any given time from your lodgings. I and my men shall quarter in the next house, and you shall have no further molestation, meanwhile, than an occasional visit from an orderly.”

  The soldier checked Sir Hugh’s acknowledgments by informing him abruptly that they had now reached their destination; and, accordingly, the cavalcade drew up at the entrance of the Carbrie.

  We must say a few words touching this ancient building, before which the travellers have just halted. The Carbrie, so called, nobody knew why or wherefore, was a huge old mansion; even at the time we speak of, the suns and smoke of more than two centuries had seasoned its quaint timbers, and dimmed the paint and gilding of its gorgeous ornaments — it had been, a hundred years before, the dwelling of the princely and turbulent Earls of Kildare, whose wayward fortunes themselves supply more of the romance of history, than the wildest fiction which calls itself historic can recount. The mansion was built in what was called the cagework fashion, the style employed in all the ancient structures of the Irish capital, its walls being intersected by a compact and firmly jointed framework of oak timber, which formed the skeleton of the structure, afterwards completed by building up the interstices with solid masonry. Upon these timbers were cut in the prevailing fashion, and in well marked projecting letters, sundry Latin texts, along with ancient family mottos, while upon every projecting beam-head, and wherever else sufficient verge was presented, stood forth, in proud relief, the crest, or the ar
morial bearings of the powerful family who had reared it; it showed a wide and varied front of great extent, whose multitudinous projections and recesses were, however, symmetrically arranged, forming a massive centre, and two wings, whose flanking extremities were completed by tall and narrow square towers. As the eye wandered upwards, it lost itself among a goodly row of tall, quaint gables, surmounted with grotesque, and now half rotten decorations in timber. Rusty vanes and fanciful chimney stacks peeped in comfortable clusters, above the dusky tiles and still more dusky ornaments whose paint and gilding had long given place to the soot and dust of time. This vast dwelling-house stood in Skinner’s-row, and having long passed from the possession of its original proprietors, was now divided into three distinct houses, each of vast and unwieldy proportions. The centre one had been converted into an inn or tavern, and was, at the time of which we write, one of great resort; one of the wings seemed scarce half tenanted, and was much gone to decay; it pretended, however, to be also a tavern, as its signboard indicated, where, under the royal shadow of King James’s wig and sceptre, French and Rhenish wines of the first flavour were loyally dispensed by the proprietor. The other was employed as a lodging-house, and it was before the entrance of this last, that the cavalcade dismounted.

  Having intimated to Sir Hugh, that should occasion render his presence desirable for any purpose, he would be always to be found in the inn next door, and having, with head uncovered, respectfully, and even mournfully bade farewell to the young lady whose changed fortunes made her doubly an object of interest to his generous sympathies, Torlogh O’Brien withdrew; and old Sir Hugh and his beautiful daughter took possession of the dim and spacious apartments which their host assigned them, and on whose painted pannels and dusky carving were still traceable many a half effaced memorial, and many a scarcely legible record of their former ownership and bygone splendour.

  The old man saw his daughter to her chamber door, and sighed heavily as he pressed her hand in his; with an effort, however, he smiled as he looked with a melancholy anxiety, which that smile vainly essayed to conceal, upon her young and once happy face. She entered her apartment, and as she heard his receding steps, she threw herself upon a chair, and yielding to the agony which had long struggled at her heart, she burst into a paroxysm of weeping, so bitter and protracted, that even if the worst event which her terrified imagination at times presented had actually befallen, she could scarcely have mourned her lost guide and friend with a wilder abandonment of woe. While the journey continued, the adventures and changes of each successive day had occupied her mind, and more than all, the unacknowledged happiness which Torlogh’s presence every moment inspired, had beguiled the sadness of her heart; but now all this was gone, and all her sorrows and her fears returned upon her with accumulated power. Tediously, and mournfully, and fearfully the watches of the night wore on. Many a mournful pageant of happier memory, and many a train of anxious doubts, of harassing and maddening fears coursed one another through her sleepless brain — interrupted only when her startled ear was aroused to present consciousness by the loud songs, or louder brawling of the turbulent and noisy spirits who had pushed their debauches beyond the modesty of midnight, and were now straggling homewards through the streets. At length she slept, locked for a time in deep and happy forgetfulness of all her fears and griefs, and never waked until her chamber glowed with the bright sunlight of that memorable day, which was to witness the stately entrance of the last king of the Stuart line, into his loyal and ancient city of Dublin.

  Never yet was an event more calculated to produce a deep and thrilling sensation among the population of a great city, than that whose immediate approach impressed every citizen of Dublin, upon the morning of the 24th of March, 1689, with the exciting consciousness that a momentous and irrevocable scene was about to be enacted within the ancient capital of Ireland. Many a heart that morning fluttered and faltered, as hour after hour told the nearer and nearer approach of a crisis, not only in their own individual fortunes, but, grander far — in the destinies of the empire, perhaps of Europe; many a man that morning rose with a clouded brow and an aching heart, filled with stem and gloomy anticipations of personal disaster, and coming ruin; and many a one, upon the other hand, with head and heart throbbing with the high aspirations of fiery ambition, and the fevered intoxication of rapacity and avarice; and many too, more nobly animated by the pure and generous enthusiasm of a patriotism as fondly, nay, desperately cherished as it was afterwards bitterly and frightfully disappointed. Over how many dark anxieties, and selfish schemes, and noble aspirations of purest patriotism, the red light of that morning dawned, none can tell; but few there were within those ancient walls, of the tens of thousands who were expecting that coming event, who awaited it with no deeper and livelier emotion than that of mere curiosity — with no sterner and more thrilling sensation than the mere excitement of a holiday amusement.

  From nine o’clock and earlier, the long line of street from St. James’s Gate, including James’s-street, Thomas-street, and thence through the new-gate into High-street, and up to the castle-gate, were crowded with eager and excited multitudes; a double line of foot soldiers at each side extending the whole length (a full mile) of this continuous street, kept the centre clear for the passage of the expected procession; the long line of cocked hats and grounded muskets, the scarlet coats and bandoliers of the new-raised Irish troops, sternly reminded the spectator of the fearful military struggle which that day’s pageant was too surely to precipitate. The loyal care of the Jacobite corporation had provided an evenly spread coating of fine gravel over the heavy and unequal pavement, in honour of the royal passenger who was about to traverse the streets. Looking upward, the quaint, unequal houses, from their tall gables and steep roofs, down to the very basement, showed at every window no less eager groups of human faces; and from the crowded balconies as well as from the windows, descended rich draperies of cloth and arras, while in the clear space in the centre of the street patrolled, from time to time, detachments of that splendid cavalry, which afterwards, in many a field, proved themselves worthy of a braver king, and a more fortunate cause. Nine o’clock came, and ten, and eleven, and the crowd had as yet had nothing to entertain them except the procession of the aldermen and common councillors in their robes, seated in coaches, and headed by their hotheaded and pompous lord mayor, Terence Dermott, in the state coach and four horses, with the mace-bearer and sword-bearer, and all the other civic officers in attendance — as they proceeded to the boundaries of the city walls, there to greet his majesty when he should arrive, with a loyal welcome, ana in due form to surrender up the keys of Dublin into his royal hands.

  Suspended expectation partakes of the nature of hope deferred — and if it maketh not the heart sick, is yet irksome enough, and hard to bear.

  Thus monotonously and tediously did the hours pass unrelieved except by an occasional scuffle among the mob, or by the appearance of some terrified cur-dog scampering and yelping down the long open space, amid the laughter, hootings, and missiles of the listless rabble — or by an occasional display, from the housetops, of some new banner, with a motto of loyal vaunting emblazoned on its folds, and which found a ready response in the fierce plaudits and thundering acclamations of the multitude.

  Every face that showed itself wore an aspect of eagerness and good humour. The Protestants, of course, who, for the most part apprehended little but mischief from the events of that day, and whose memories were stored with the judicial atrocities of Jeffries, and the then recent horrors of the French dragonades, kept close within doors, or contented themselves with peeping, with anxious and sombre curiosity, from upper windows, and the back recesses of their shops — shrinking from remark, and sullenly resolved against mingling in the loyal crowd, or offering honour to one whom England had pronounced no longer King. Exceptions, of course, there were: some in the sincere belief that James meant well, and would mend matters by his influence; others, in the time-serving alacrity of mere subserv
iency and self-seeking; all, however, with the few exceptions above described, wore an air of excitement and joyful expectation.

  Broad as was the street, it was densely crowded — from the castle drawbridge and Cork tower to St. James’s gate, and the distant liberties of the city — at which point, in passing, we may remark, a broad and lofty stage, carpeted and canopied with tapestry, was erected; and upon this platform two harpers, arrayed in the true old national costume — rang out inspiring music from their wire-strung harps — filling the free air with the shrill clangour of those Celtic maurshauils, to which, perchance, in days gone by, the ancient septs had marched to battle. Beneath this high platform stood some forty friars, in their solemn and picturesque vesture, and marshalled around a high cross, which rose like a standard from the midst of their ranks; and these, whenever the warlike harping paused, raised in full and mighty chorus some solemn anthem of welcome and benediction, appropriate to the occasion; and thus alternated the warlike measure and the holy chaunt, swelling the full tide of national enthusiasm, like the grand and melancholy echoes of the deeds and the worship of the old days of Irish glory; and as if one master chord of the Irish heart would yet have remained untouched, without some such provision, grouped at either side, were troops of pretty, graceful girls, dressed fancifully in white, and carrying baskets of flowers, to strew in the way before the king. That ill-natured fellow, the puritan author of “Ireland’s Lamentation,” indeed, insinuates some scandal touching these loyal nymphs of Flora; but we renounce him and his stories, and so pass on.