At length the long-expected moment arrived — steps were heard outside.
“Deveril,” said Hogan, carelessly addressing the soldier, who had risen, “mount that barrel, will you, and look through the window: there’s some one stirring outside.”
Deveril ascended the post of observation accordingly, and Hogan exchanged a significant look with Ryan.
“Well,” he continued, “what do you see there?”
“It’s one of ourselves,” said Deveril, clearing his voice, which was a little broken and husky; “it’s one of ourselves, an unfortunate fellow called Tisdal, that was witness against old Willoughby — do you remember? I suppose he’s hard up for a hiding hole, like the rest of us.”
As he thus spoke, Deveril had descended, and stood for a moment between the barrel and the door, undecided, with his hands in his coat pockets.
“He is a safe man — isn’t he?” asked Hogan carelessly; “let him in; it id be a hard thing, surely, when the dogs is loose, to stop the earth against a poor devil of an old fox like that; open the door, I say.” Deveril turned carelessly on his heel, and approached the door; his heart swelled almost to bursting, and the hand which he raised to the bar was damp and cold as clay with agitation. His hand was raised, but it did not reach the bar; for a light sound struck his ear, and quick as light he turned. He turned and saw a sight of terror — close to his shoulder, a human countenance, livid and distorted with the fearful energy of hate. There was this face, and an upraised arm. For one breathless instant it was revealed, and in the next, Deveril lay quivering and tumbling like an epileptic, upon the floor; and Hogan, stooping over him, with a second blow despatched him.
“Now, Ned — now,” said Hogan. “Shoulder to shoulder — we’ll do them yet.”
“Drag back the body,” said Ryan, “while I stand by the door. There,” he continued; “now, one look from the window, without showing yourself. Quick, man — quick.”
Meanwhile, although this occupied scarcely half a minute, those without began to grow impatient. First came a low whistle, then a louder one; and, at last, a peremptory knocking at the door. Hogan had mounted the inverted barrel so lately occupied by the wretched Deveril, and reconnoitred stealthily the position of the enemy. Two sturdy soldiers were standing on the little stair platform before the elevated doorway; another, backed by Tisdal, occupied the stair; and the sergeant himself stood underneath, upon the ground, no doubt conceding to liis subordinates the post of danger, in the generous belief that it was also that of honour. Hogan jumped lightly to the floor; hitched up his breeches, pressed down his hat upon his brows, and drew the buckle of his belt a hole or so tighter.
“Are you ready?” he asked of his companion.
Ryan assented.
“Now for it, then. Stand fast. I’ll take the stairs — you the other scoundrel and the sergeant.”
He then applied himself leisurely to undo the iron bars which secured the door. Responding to the impatient and repeated summons of the soldiers in a tone of terrified and deprecating entreaty, which seemed but to stimulate the insolence of their assault.
At last the task was ended; and Hogan, drawing a long breath in preparation of the stupendous effort he meditated, on a sudden swung back the door; with one blow of his Herculean fist smote the foremost of them headlong to the ground, a distance of nearly a dozen feet; hurled the next backward down the precipitous steps, with irresistible violence, carrying Tisdal and his companion along with him. And at the same moment Ryan sprang lightly to the ground, and ere he had recovered from his astonishment, thrust his rapier twice through the serjeant, who fell senseless to the earth.
Amid shouts and curses, with the bleeding rapier still in his hand, he vaulted nimbly through the window of the ruined church; while Hogan, with a wild halloo, sprang through the archway beneath the central tower. A shot from the musket of the only one of the soldiers who had escaped untouched, struck up the tiles and rubbish between them as they ran; and in the next moment they had crossed the outer wall, and so pursuing devious ways, were gone — who could say whither?
*
Sir Thomas Neville, as we have seen, had set his heart upon entirely and hopelessly dissolving whatever ties subsisted between his son, Percy, and the rustic maiden, whose aspiring audacity had filled him with so much horror and indignation. Of the actual nature of that connexion, he had, indeed, no suspicion. His measures, as we have seen, were promptly taken: the letters which his son had intended for poor Phebe, Sir Thomas, in the exercise of what he considered to be his paternal rights, intercepted and destroyed. Percy he managed to have removed to England, and he himself wrote a stern and peremptory letter to Phebe, which, if anything of which Percy himself was not the author, could have done so, would unquestionably have broken the poor girl’s heart. So much importance did Sir Thomas attach to this affair, that he despatched a special messenger — a trusted domestic of his own — from Dublin, to bear this decisive document to its proper destination.
The messenger accordingly set forth, and at the first Irish outpost upon which he stumbled, procured a “protection,” which carried him without adventure to his journey’s close. It was evening as he turned into the little by-road, which, breaking off at the old bridge of Glindarragh, winds under oak and thorn trees along the river’s brink, opposite the grey walls of the castle. A ride of little more than five minutes brought him to the now silent mills; and beyond this picturesque little group of buildings, and embowered in silvan seclusion, by the brook’s side, stood the quaint farm house, with its steep thatcli, and two stories of diamond casements, softly and sadly lighted in the mellow evening sun. In a moment more, the messenger stood in the homely chamber, occupied by our, now alas! mournfully altered — little friend, Phebe. Pale was her cheek and dim her eyes with untold watchings and patient sorrow. She rose, as he entered, with the untaught and artless grace with which nature had so beautifully endowed her. He intimated that he was a messenger from Dublin.
“Sir,” said she, while her cheeks flushed with a blight and sudden glow, and then grew paler even than before, “Oh, sir, do you bring any news of — of him?”
“Mr. Percy Neville is in England,” said the messenger, with involuntary respect. “He is in England; and I believe not likely to return for a long time— “
“Oh! did you see him? — is he well?” she said, hurriedly.
“Yes, well; very well — very well,” answered the man.
“And is there — is there — have you” — she trembled so violently that she could not, for a moment, go on; “Is there any letter, any token — any message?”
“None from him,” answered the messenger. “I have one from Sir Thomas, Mr. Percy’s father — Sir Thomas Neville.”
She took the letter with a trembling hand, and broke the seal. What it contained he knew not; but he saw in her face, first a momentary wildness, and then such a look of unutterable desolation and anguish as no limner could ever paint. In silence, she pressed her thin, clasped hands upon her side, as if in anguish insupportable, but no word betrayed her agony. She stood without motion, in the same woful attitude minute after minute. At length, nature relieved her bursting heart, and the tears flowed fast and silently down her cheeks.
“I feared it, I long feared it, sir; oh, how I dreaded it night and day; and now, it’s come at last — after all, after all, the worst, the worst is come.” She wept on in silence, wringing her little hands in untold agony. “Sir, I have no friend that is able to advise me in this great sorrow,” she resumed at length; but I often thought, and I told him — I told him then, and I thought it many a time since — I was not worthy to be his wife — for I thought his people in England, sir, and all his great friends, could not like me the way he did; and when the time passed on, a year — oh, a long year — now, sir, and no tale or tidings of him, I began to think — for I, could not help it — he was maybe wishing himself that it was all over — that he had never seen me, and I could not blame him even if he did;
and it often came into my mind to write him word to get the marriage broken, and that I would not say against it — and but for one thing I think I would have written: the little child — his little child and mine. It was the lovingest, sweetest — all its little ways, and, oh, sir, it was so like himself — I think it often kept my heart from breaking. But it’s there now, lying in that bed — it’s dead and gone; oh, my darling — my darling — my darling.”
She drew the curtain of the bed where lay the lifeless infant, and clasping its cold form to her heart, she kissed it, and wept, and wept, and kissed it again.
The messenger was leaving the room, but his heart was full — he turned again, and drying his eyes hastily, he took the poor mourner gently by the arm and said hastily —
“Never mind that letter — Master Percy knows nothing of it — he loves you better than his life — I know it well — and he’ll be back soon, I tell you — soon — God knows I speak the truth.”
And God bless thee, honest fellow, for thy frank compassion: in this parting sentence — a few words of rough pity and truth thus briefly spoken — thou hast bequeathed her a hope — one hope — without which the poor heart that shall cling to it, through many a day and month of disappointment, with desperate trust, would soon have lain as still and cold as the little form she folds so passionately in her lonely bosom.
CHAPTER XLIX.
A DOUBLE RECOGNITION.
THE political and military struggle in whose events the current of our tale is inwoven, was, as the reader is no doubt well aware, a singularly protracted one. It was not until the third year after the date of the English revolution that the Jacobite army was withdrawn from the shores of Ireland. To this, the closing year of the grand and tragic drama of Irish resistance, our story brings us. Nearly a full year has passed since the events recorded in our last chapter — a year which had witnessed William’s ineffectual siege of Limerick, and Sarsfield’s brilliant exploit, achieved in the interception and destruction of the heavy battering train and ammunition destined for the destruction of the beleaguered city. William’s forces were, with the approach of ‘winter, withdrawn, and the hopes of the Jacobite leaders again revived; meanwhile intrigue, ambition, and jealousy were at work in spreading dissension and its attendant weakness among the party of the exiled king. Tyrconnel, the haughty favourite, had become hateful to many, and suspected nearly by all. Sarsfield, a strange compound of vanity, devotion, sagacity, and daring, stimulated by the exaggerated admiration and praises of his satellites, now openly aspired to the chief command of James’s army in Ireland; a post, which had he obtained it, he might have filled with signal effect. His boundless popularity — his daring promptitude, and strong common sense, were qualities which, in conjunction with his high rank and immense sacrifices, might reasonably have secured for him the object of his ambition. But French interests and intrigues prevailed, and the Marquis de St. Ruth was commissioned with a command, which Sarsfield had certainly earned by his services, and which he would probably have wielded, if not with ultimate success, at all events with better fortune than attended the foreigner.
The waste which had been so recklessly committed upon the country, now reacted with fearful disaster upon the very army whose licentiousness had wrought it. A dreadful scarcity, little short of famine, prevailed throughout the west and south, except in such parts as were accessible to supplies from abroad — and the Irish army was reduced to extremities which, perhaps, no other army in the world would have endured with a like patience, and indeed without disorganization or mutiny.
General St. Ruth had, as we have said already, arrived — a bold, energetic, and skilful officer — somewhat vain andobstinate, however, and having earned for himself already a bad notoriety by the severity with which he had executed several of the atrocious dragonades against the defenceless Huguenots of France. This latter ingredient in his military experience, was perhaps one of the qualifications which recommended him for a command, where, as in France, the faith of Rome was assumed to be contending with fire and sword against the powers of heresy.
*
It was a lovely summer’s night, then, in the year of grace, 1691, when a coach — one of those clumsy, straight-backed vehicles, which we see in old prints, came jogging and rumbling along a narrow road, somewhere in the rich county of Kildare, and between a double row of fine old trees. This vehicle contained two personages — a venerable old gentleman, richly dressed, and a beautiful girl, somewhat pensive, and dressed also as became a person of wealth and worship. Irish roads were by no means then what they have since become. A steep and broken acclivity made it necessary for the travellers to descend and walk, a task, however, which the softness and beauty of the night rendered pleasant rather than otherwise, and which no sense of danger or insecurity disturbed; for, as the reader is aware, the perils and uncertainties of war were now removed so far as the beleaguered town of Athlone, between which and the capital Ginkle’s army interposed. The district through which wound the quiet road in question was safe as in the most tranquil time of peace. It was therefore with a feeling of perfect security that the young lady placed her arm through that of her venerable protector, and paused with him to enjoy, from the eminence they were ascending, the beautiful moonlit landscape that expanded before them.
At this moment a tall and stalworth figure stood near them. He had just descended from a footpath upon the road. He carried a rough walking staff in his hand, and was dressed as might beseem a thrifty yeoman, with a grey cloth mantle hanging upon his well-formed shoulders. He stopped — gazed on them intently, and exclaimed —
“Gracious heaven! can it — can it be they?
“What!” said he, fervently, advancing toward them; “Grace, dear Grace — will you not know me?”
“How — who — Torlogh!” she gasped.
“Yes, dearest,” he said, and in an instant Torlogh O’Brien stood by her side, paler and thinner, indeed, than when she had last seen him — but still her own betrothed and adored lover— “yes, your own true lover — your betrothed, and, if heaven spare me, your proud and happy partner through all the years of life instore for us. Dearest, dearest how I bless God for this chance meeting. Oh! that we were met here and now to part no more — dear, dearest Grace. And you, my kind, my dear, my honoured friend,” he continued, addressing Sir Hugh, “what happiness — what fortune to meet you here. My letters reached you, did they not?” he proceeded, addressing Grace again.
“Oh, yes — but — but I have been very anxious, very wretched and the poor girl burst into tears; “are you — are yon, indeed, quite recovered?”
“Quite, dearest, though my recovery has been slow, and long doubtful,” he answered; “had they but given me my way, I should have been out and serving months ago; but when did a leech suffer his patient to slip through his fingers. As for me, I have been literally a prisoner among a set of goodnatured savages, who, in the excess of their kindness, would, I believe, have knocked me on the head, rather than permitted my escape, until my strength and health were duly certified by a doctor of physic. I incline to think I’ve suffered more from this compulsory confinement than I could have done merely from my wounds.”
“And, now,” resumed she, looking earnestly in his face; “what means this strange dress — this disguise? Oh, Torlogh, I fear me you are again about to hazard your life and mine — for mine is now bound up in yours. If you die, Torlogh, I care no more for life: oh, tell me, tell me — say you will not hazard your life so soon again. Oh, Torlogh, dear Torlogh, I fear — I fear, we shall never meet more.”
“And better even so, dearest,” he answered, “than that you should wed a disgraced and dishonoured man. No, dear Grace, while my regiment serves in these wars — while I hold King James’s commission, and have health and strength to carry my cuirass, and draw my sword, it never shall be said that Torlogh O’Brien was unseen upon the day of battle.”
“The lad is right — aye, right in every syllable,” said the old kn
ight, with emotion. “Give me your hand again. I honour you, my friend, for your brave resolution, although, in truth, I would fain those honest barbarians had held you still in durance for a month or so longer.” Torlogh smiled, and then replied more gravely —
“This war is near it’s close — everything proves the crisis is indeed upon us — a month, a week may see it ended. Ginkle is a rapid campaigner, and St. Ruth, his opponent, is an enterprizing general also. “With such antagonists, war is a quick game, and the evil of suspense, at least, is not added to its other woes.”
Thus the conversation was pursued, which, having so far followed, we need pursue no farther. Suffice it to say, that they parted with a thousand renewed and passionate pledges of undying love.
A hurried farewell, and the two fond hearts were once more severed. Away rolled the oldfashioned coach, by a quiet bye-road, in a southerly direction, where some five miles further, the knight and his fair daughter were to remain, for a time, the guests of an old friend, in a fine old rambling mansion, with terrace gardens, and long lonely fish ponds closed in with dark yew hedges, and boasting every scenic accessory, in a word, which a love-sick damsel need desire. Here we leave them until the military events, which as yet impend over the country, shall have determined finally the prudence or the danger of venturing a homeward journey to Glindarragh Castle.
Our resolute friend, meanwhile, with a firm and vigorous tread, pursued his way upon the morning following, loitering occasionally in the villages through which he passed, to learn, without suspicion, whatever he could glean of the movements of the contending armies.
The day was now spent, and the summer moon was sailing high in the heavens, and shone upon a dreary sweep of heathy hills, so low and gradual as scarcely to deserve that name; bleak and monotonous, the white mist lurking in the hollows began now to creep chilly over the dark slopes and undulations of the uplands, and not a living form, save that of our wayworn friend, was visible over the expanse. Still, with firm tread and constant purpose, he pursued his way, conscious, meanwhile, that as he approached the neighbourhood of the hostile armies, his own personal risk increased an hundredfold. The perpetual danger — in his present uncertainty of the exact position of the contending parties — of falling in unexpectedly with some detachment of the enemy, was of itself enough to inspire anxiety, and whet his vigilance.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 91