Friends, though divided: A Tale of the Civil War

by G. A. Henty

  CHAPTER XVII.

  THE SIEGE OF DROGHEDA.

  Under the influence of the warm, close air of the hut, and the spiritshe had taken, Harry soon felt drowsiness stealing over him, and theleader, perceiving this, pointed to a heap of dried fern lying in thecorner of the hut. Harry at once threw himself on it, and in a very fewminutes was sound asleep. When he awoke daylight was streaming inthrough the door of the hut. Its inmates were for the most part sittingas when he had last seen them, and Harry supposed that they had talkedall night. The atmosphere of the hut was close and stifling, and Harrywas glad to go to the door and breathe the fresh air outside.

  The weather had changed, and the sun, which had just risen, was shiningbrightly. The hut stood at the foot of a long range of stony hills,while in front stretched, as far as the eye could see, an expanse ofbrown bog. A bridle path ran along at the foot of the hills. An hourlater two figures were seen approaching along this. The one was amounted horseman, the other running in front of him, at a long, easytrot, was Harry's guide of the preceding evening.

  On reaching the cottage the gentleman on horseback alighted, and,advancing to Harry, said:

  "Captain Furness, I am heartily sorry to hear that you have had whatmust have been a disagreeable adventure. The lad here who brought yourletter told me that you were regarded as a prisoner, and considered tobe a Protestant emissary. I am Tom Blake, and I live nearly twenty milesfrom here. That is the reason why I was not here sooner. I was keepingit up with some friends last night, and had just gone to bed when themessenger arrived, and my foolish servants pretended I was too drunk tobe woke. However, when they did rouse me, I started at once."

  "And has that boy gone forty miles on foot since last night?" Harryasked, in surprise.

  "Oh, that's nothing," Mr. Blake said. "Give him half an hour's rest, andhe'd keep up with us back to Killicuddery. But where is your horse, andhow did you get into this mess? The boy tells me he found you in thebog."

  Harry related his adventures.

  "You have had a lucky escape indeed," Mr. Blake said. "There are placesin that bog thirty feet deep. I would not try to cross it for a thousandpounds on a bright day, and how you managed to do so through the mistyesterday is more than I can imagine. Now, the first thing is to getyour horse. I must apologize for not having brought one, but the factis, my head was not exactly clear when I started, and I had not taken inthe fact that you'd arrived on foot. My servant was more thoughtful. Hehad heard from the boy that an English gentleman was here, and judgingthat the larder was not likely to be stocked, he put a couple of bottlesof claret, a cold chicken, and some bread into my wallet, so we can havebreakfast while they are looking for your horse. The ride has sharpenedmy appetite."

  Mr. Blake now addressed a few words in Irish to the men clustered roundthe door of the hut. One of them climbed to the top of the hill, andpresently shouted down some instructions, and another at once startedacross the bog.

  "They see your horse," Mr. Blake said, "but we shall have to wait fortwo or three hours. It is some four miles off, and they will have tomake a long detour to bring it back."

  Mr. Blake now distributed some silver among the men, and these, with theexception of the master of the house, soon afterward left. Harryheartily enjoyed his breakfast, and in cheery chat with his host thetime passed pleasantly until the peasant returned with the horse andsaddle. The horse was rubbed down with dry fern, and a lump of blackbread given him to eat.

  "What can I do for the boy?" Harry asked. "I owe him my life, for I wasso thoroughly drenched and cold that I question whether I should havelived till morning out in that bog."

  "The boy thinks nothing of it," Mr. Blake said. "A few hundred yardsacross the bog night or day is nothing to him."

  Harry gave the lad a gold piece, which he looked at in wonder.

  "He has never seen such a thing before," Mr. Blake laughed. "There,Mickey," he said in Irish, "that's enough to buy you a cow, and you'veonly got to build a cabin and take a wife to start life as a man."

  The boy said something in Irish.

  "I thought so," Mr. Blake laughed. "You haven't got rid of him yet. Hewants to go as your servant."

  Harry laughed too. The appearance of the lad in his tattered garmentswas in contrast indeed to the usual aspect of a gentleman's retainer.

  "You'll find him useful," Mr. Blake said. "He will run errands for youand look after your horse. These lads can be faithful to death. Youcannot do better than take him."

  Mickey's joy when he was told that he might accompany the Englishgentleman was extreme. He handed the money he had received to hisfather, said a few words of adieu to him, and then started on ahead ofthe horses.

  "He had better wait and come on later," Harry said. "He must be utterlytired now."

  Mr. Blake shouted after the boy, who turned round, laughed, and shookhis head, and again proceeded on his way.

  "He can keep up with us," Mr. Blake said. "That horse of yours is morefagged than he is."

  Harry soon found that this was the case, and it took them nearly fourhours' riding before they reached Killicuddery. Here a dozen barefootedmen and boys ran out at their approach, and took the horses. It was alarge, straggling house, as good as that inhabited by the majority ofEnglish gentlemen, but Harry missed the well-kept lawn, the trimshrubberies, and the general air of neatness and order to which he wasaccustomed.

  "Welcome to Killicuddery," Mr. Blake said, as he alighted. "Believe me,Captain Furness, you won't find the wild Irish, now you are fairly amongthem, such dreadful creatures as they have been described to you. Well,Norah," he continued, as a girl some sixteen years of age bounded downthe steps to meet him, "how goes it with you this morning?"

  "As well as could be expected, father, considering that you kept usawake half the night with your songs and choruses. None of the othersare down yet, and it's past twelve o'clock. It's downright shameful."

  "Norah, I'm surprised at you," Mr. Blake said, laughing. "What willCaptain Furness think of Irish girls when he hears you speaking sodisrespectfully to your father. This is my daughter Norah, CaptainFurness, who is, I regret to say, a wild and troublesome girl. This, mydear, is Captain Furness, a king's officer, who has fought through allthe battles of the war."

  "And who has lately been engaged in a struggle with an Irish bog," thegirl said, laughing, for Harry's gay dress was discolored and stainedfrom head to foot.

  Harry laughed also.

  "I certainly got the worst of that encounter, Miss Norah, as indeed hasbeen the case in most of those in which I have been engaged. I neverfelt much more hopeless, when I thought I should have to pass the nightsitting on a tuft of grass with mud and mist all round me, except when Iwas once nearly baked to death in, company with Prince Rupert."

  "It must have been a large oven," the girl laughed; "but come in now. Iam sure you will both be ready for breakfast. But papa would keep youchattering here all day if I would let him."

  Mr. Blake, Harry soon found, was a widower, and his house was presidedover by his eldest daughter, Kathleen, to whom Harry was introduced onentering the house. As it was now some hours since they had eaten thefood which Mr. Blake had brought, they were quite ready for anothermeal, at which they were soon joined by six or eight other gentlemen,who had been sleeping in the house. Breakfast over, Harry retired to hisroom, put on a fresh suit from his wallet, and rejoined his companions,when a sort of council of war was held. Harry learned that there was nodifficulty as to men, as any number of these could be recruited amongthe peasantry. There was, however, an entire absence of any arms savepikes. Harry knew how good a weapon are these when used by steady andwell-disciplined men. The matchlocks of those days were cumbrous arms,and it was at the point of the pike that battles were then alwaysdecided.

  Mr. Blake begged Harry to make his house his headquarters during hisstay in the West, and the invitation was gladly accepted. The lettersof which he was the bearer were dispatched to their destinations, and afew days after his arrival the
recipients called upon him, and he foundhimself overwhelmed with invitations and offers of hospitality. The timetherefore passed very pleasantly.

  A few men were found in Galway who had served in the wars. These weremade sergeants of the newly raised regiment, which was five hundredstrong. This was not embodied, but five central places were chosen at adistance from each other, and at these the peasants assembled for drill.Several of the sons of the squires received commissions as officers, andthe work of drilling went on briskly, Harry superintending that at eachcenter by turns. In the evenings there were generally dinner parties atthe houses of one or other of the gentry, and Harry greatly enjoyed thelife. So some months passed.

  In July the news came that the Earl of Ormonde's force outside Dublinhad been routed by the garrison, under General Jones, the governor, andshortly afterward Harry received orders to march with the regiment tojoin the earl, who, as the king's representative, forwarded him at thesame time a commission as its colonel, and the order to command it.

  It was on the 13th of August that Harry with his force joined the armyof Ormonde, and the next day the news came that Cromwell had landed atDublin, and had issued a bloodthirsty proclamation against the Irish.Harry was at once ordered to march with his regiment to Tredah, nowcalled Drogheda, a seaport about forty miles north of Dublin. At thistown Harry found in garrison twenty-five hundred English troops, underthe command of Sir Arthur Ashton, an old Royalist officer, he had lost aleg in the king's service.

  During the six months he had passed in the West Harry had found Mike aninvaluable servant. He had, of course, furnished him with decent suitsof clothes, but although willing to wear shoes in the house, nothingcould persuade Mike to keep these on his feet when employed without. Asa messenger he was of the greatest service, carrying Harry's missives tothe various posts as quickly as they could have been taken by ahorseman. During that time he had picked up a great deal of English, andhis affection for his master was unbounded. He had, as a matter ofcourse, accompanied Harry on his march east, and was ready to follow himto the end of the world if need be.

  The garrison of Drogheda employed themselves busily in strengthening thetown to the utmost, in readiness for the siege that Cromwell would, theydoubted not, lay to it. In September Cromwell moved against the place.He was prepared to carry out the campaign in a very different spirit tothat with which he had warred in England. For years Ireland had beendesolated by the hordes of half-savage men, who had for that time beenburning, plundering, and murdering on the pretext of fighting for oragainst the king. Cromwell was determined to strike so terrible a blowas would frighten Ireland into quietude. He knew that mildness would bethrown away upon this people, and he defended his course, which exciteda thrill of horror in England, upon the grounds that it was the mostmerciful in the end. Certainly, nowhere else had Cromwell shown himselfa cruel man. In England the executions in cold blood had not amounted toa dozen in all. The common men on both sides were, when taken prisoners,always allowed to depart to their homes, and even the officers were nottreated with harshness. It may be assumed that his blood was fired bythe tales of massacre and bloodshed which reached him when he landed.The times were stern, and the policy of conciliating rebels andmurderers by weak concessions was not even dreamed of. Still, no excusesor pleas of public policy can palliate Cromwell's conduct at Droghedaand Wexford. He was a student and expounder of the Bible, but it was inthe old Testament rather than the new that precedents for the massacreat Drogheda must be sought for. No doubt it had the effect at the timewhich Cromwell looked for, but it left an impression upon the Irish mindwhich the lapse of over two centuries has not obliterated. The wholesalemassacres and murders perpetrated by Irishmen on Irishmen have longsince been forgotten, but the terrible vengeance taken by Cromwell andhis saints upon the hapless towns of Drogheda and Wexford will never beforgotten by the Irish, among whom the "curse of Cromwell" is still thedeadliest malediction one man can hurl at another.

  Cromwell's defenders who say that he warred mildly and mercifully inEngland, according to English ideas, and that he fought the Irish onlyas they fought each other, must be hard driven when they set up such adefense. The fact that Murrogh O'Brien, at the capture of Cashel,murdered the garrison who had laid down their arms, and three thousandof the defenseless citizens, including twenty priests who had fled tothe cathedral for refuge, affords no excuse whatever for theperpetration of equal atrocities by Cromwell, and no impartial historiancan deny that these massacres are a foul and hideous blot in the historyof a great and, for the most part, a kind and merciful man.

  Upon arriving before Drogheda on the 2d of September Cromwell at oncebegan to throw up his batteries, and opened fire on the 10th. Hisartillery was abundant, and was so well served that early the sameafternoon two practical breaches were made, the one in the east, in thewall of St. Mary's Churchyard, the other to the south, in the wall of thetown. Sir Arthur Ashton had placed Harry in command at St. Mary'sChurchyard, and seeing that the wall would soon give way under the fireof the enemy's artillery, he set his men to throw up an earthworkbehind.

  Seven hundred of the Roundheads advanced to the assault, but so heavywas the fire that Harry's troops poured upon them that they were forcedto fall back with great slaughter. At the other breach they were alsorepulsed, but attacking again in great force they made their way in.Near this spot was an ancient tumulus, called the Hill Mount. The sidesof this were defended by strong palisades, and here the Royalists,commanded by Sir Arthur Ashton himself, opposed a desperate resistanceto the enemy. These, supported by the guns on the walls, which theyturned against the Mount, made repeated attacks, but were as oftenrepulsed. The loss, however, of the defenders was great, and seeing thatfresh troops were constantly brought against them they at last lostheart and surrendered, on promise of their lives; a promise which wasnot kept, as all were immediately massacred.

  Up to this time Harry had successfully repulsed every attack made uponthe other breach, but at length the news of the Roundheads' success atthe Mount reached both assailants and defenders.

  With exulting shouts the Roundheads poured over the wall. The garrison,headed by Harry and the other officers, strove hard to drive them back,but it was useless. Cromwell and Ireton were in the van of their troops,and these, accustomed to victory, hewed their way through the ranks ofthe besieged. Many of them lost heart, and, throwing down their arms,cried for quarter. With shouts of "No quarter!" "Hew down theAmalakites!" "Strike, and spare not!" the Roundheads cut down their nowdefenseless foes. Maddened at the sight, the besieged made anotherdesperate effort at resistance, and for awhile fought so stoutly thatthe Roundheads could gain no ground of them.

  Presently, however, a party of the enemy who had forced their way overthe wall at another point took them in rear. Then the garrison fled inall directions pursued by their victorious enemy, who slaughtered everyman they overtook. Mike had kept close to Harry through the whole of thestruggle. He had picked up a pike from a fallen man, and had more thanonce, when Harry was nearly surrounded by his foes, dashed forward andrid him of one of the most pressing. Seeing, by the general slaughterwhich was going on, that the Roundhead soldiers must have receivedorders from their general to give no quarter, Harry determined to sellhis life dearly, and rushed into a church where a score of the Englishsoldiers were taking refuge. The door was closed and barricaded withchairs and benches, and from the windows the men opened fire upon theRoundheads, who were engaged in slaying all--men, women and children,without mercy. Soon, from every house around, a heavy fire was pouredinto the church, and several of those within fell dead under the fire.Under cover of this, the Roundheads attacked the door with axes. Manywere killed by the fire of the defenders, but as the door yielded, Harrycalled these from their post, and with them ascended the belfry tower.Here they prepared to fight to the last.

  Looking from a window, Harry beheld a sight which thrilled him withhorror. Gathered round a cross, standing in an open space, were twohundred women on their knees. Even while Har
ry looked a body ofCromwell's saints fell upon them, hewing and cutting with their swords,and thrusting with their pikes, and did not desist while one remainedalive. And these were the men who had the name of God ever on theirlips! When the dreadful massacre began Harry turned shuddering from thewindow, and with white face and set teeth nerved himself to fight to thelast. Already the door had been beaten down, and the assailants hadstreamed into the church. Then a rush of heavy feet was heard on thestairs. Assembled round its top stood Harry and the twelve menremaining. Each knew now that there was no hope of quarter, and foughtwith the desperation of men who cared only to sell their lives dearly.Fast as the Roundheads poured up the stairs, they fell, pierced by pike,or shot down by musket ball. For half an hour the efforts continued, andthen the Roundheads, having lost over fifty men, fell back. Three timesduring the day the attack was renewed, and each time repulsed with thesame terrible slaughter. Between the intervals the defenders could hearthe never-ceasing sound of musket and pistol firing, as house afterhouse, defended to the last by desperate men, was stormed; while loud,even above the firing, rose the thrilling shrieks of dying women andchildren.

  In all the history of England, from its earliest times, there is no suchblack and ghastly page as that of the sack of Drogheda. Even supposingCromwell's assertion that he wished only to terrify the Irish rebels tobe true, no shadow of an excuse can be pleaded for the massacre of thewomen and children, or for that of the English Royalists who formedfive-sixths of the garrison.

  All through the night occasional shrieks and pistol shots could beheard, as the wretched people who had hidden themselves in closets andcellars were discovered and murdered. No further assault was made uponthe church tower, nor was there any renewal of it next morning. As hourafter hour passed on Harry concluded that, deterred by the great losswhich his men had already sustained in endeavoring to capture the post,Cromwell had determined to reduce it by starvation.

  Already the defenders were, from the effects of exertion and excitement,half-mad with thirst. As the day went on their sufferings becamegreater, but there was still no thought of surrender. The next day twoof them leaped from the top of the tower and were killed by their fall.Then Harry saw that it was better to give in.

  "My lads," he said, "it is better to go down and die by a bullet-shotthan to suffer these agonies of thirst, with only death as the issue. Wemust die. Better to die in our senses as men, than mad like wild beastswith thirst. Mike, my lad, I am sorry to have brought you to this pass."

  Mike put his parched lips to his master's hand.

  "It is not your fault, master. My life is no differ to any."

  The men agreed to Harry's proposal. There was a discussion whether theyshould go down and die fighting, or not; but Harry urged upon them thatit was better not to do so. They were already weak with hunger andthirst, and it would be more dignified to meet their fate quiet andunresistingly. They accordingly laid by their arms, and, preceded byHarry, descended the stairs.

  The noise of their footsteps warned the soldiers in the church below oftheir coming, and these formed in a semicircle round the door to receivethe expected onslaught. When they saw that the Royalists were unarmedthey lowered their weapons, and an officer said: "Take these men outinto the street, and shoot them there, according to the general'sorders."

  Calmly and with dignity Harry marched at the head of his little partyinto the street. They were ranged with their backs to the church, and afiring party took their places opposite to them.

  The officer was about to give the order, when a divine in ahigh-steepled hat came up. He looked at the prisoners, and then rapidlyadvanced between the lines and gazed earnestly at Harry.

  "Is your name Master Furness?" he asked.

  "I am Colonel Furness, an officer of his majesty Charles II.," Harrysaid coldly. "What then?"

  "I am Ebenezer Stubbs," the preacher said. "Do you not remember howseven years ago you saved my life at the risk of your own in the streetsof Oxford? I promised you then that if the time should come I would doas good a turn to yourself. Captain Allgood," he said, "I do beseech youto stay this execution until I have seen the general. I am, as you know,his private chaplain, and I am assured that he will not be wroth withyou for consenting to my request."

  The influence of the preacher with Cromwell was well known, and theofficer ordered his men to ground arms, although they muttered andgrumbled to themselves at the prospect of mercy being shown to men whohad killed so many of their companions. A quarter of a hour later thepreacher returned with an order from the general for the prisoners to beplaced in durance.

  "I have obtained your life," the preacher said, "but even to my prayersthe general will grant no more. You and your men are to be sent to theBermudas."

  Although Harry felt that death itself would be almost preferable to alife of slavery in the plantations, he thanked the preacher for hisefforts in his behalf. A week later Harry, with the eight men who hadtaken with him, and twenty-seven others who been discovered inhiding-places, long after the capture of the place, were placed on boarda ship bound for the Bermudas, the sole survivors of the garrison--threethousand strong--and of the inhabitants of Drogheda.