She had scarcely uttered these words when her father, accompanied by his servants, dashed rapidly up, and Cummiskey, the old huntsman, instantly seized Reilly, exclaiming, “Mr. Reilly, we have you now;” and whilst he spoke, his impetuous old master dashed his horse to one side, and discharged a pistol at our hero, and this failing, he discharged another. Thanks to Lanigan, however, they were both harmless, that worthy man having forgotten to put in bullets, or even as much powder as would singe an ordinary whisker.
“Forbear, sir,” exclaimed the sheriff, addressing Cummiskey; “unhand Mr. Reilly. He is already in custody, and you, Mr. Folliard, may thank God that you are not a murderer this night. As a father, I grant that an apology may be made for your resentment, but not to the shedding of blood.”
“Lanigan! villain! treacherous and deceitful villain!” shouted the squire, “it was your perfidy that deprived me of my revenge. Begone, you sneaking old profligate, and never let me see your face again. You did not load my pistols as you ought.”
“No, sir,” replied Lanigan, “and I thank God that I did not. It wasn't my intention to see your honor hanged for murder.”
“Mr. Folliard,” observed the sheriff, you ought to bless God that gave you a prudent servant, who had too much conscience to become the instrument of your vengeance. Restrain your resentment for the present, and leave Mr. Reilly to the laws of his country. We shall now proceed to your house, where, as a magistrate, you can commit him to prison, and I will see the warrant executed this night. We have also another prisoner of some celebrity, the Red Rapparee.”
“By sun and moon, I'll go bail for him,” replied the infuriated squire. “I like that fellow because Reilly does not. Sir Robert spoke to me in his favor. Yes, I shall go bail for him, to any amount.”
“His offence is not a bailable one,” said the cool sheriff; “nor, if the thing were possible, would it be creditable in you, as a magistrate, to offer yourself as bail for a common robber, one of the most notorious highwaymen of the day.”
“Well, but come along,” replied the squire; “I have changed my mind; we shall hang them both; Sir Robert will assist and support me. I could overlook the offence of a man who only took my purse; yes, I could overlook that, but the man who would rob me of my child—of the solace and prop of my heart and life—of—of—of—”
Here the tears came down his cheeks so copiously that his sobs prevented him from proceeding. He recovered himself, however, for indeed he was yet scarcely sober after the evening's indulgence, and the two parties returned to his house, where, after having two or three glasses of Burgundy to make his hand steady, he prepared himself to take the sheriff's informations and sign unfortunate Reilly's committal to Sligo jail. The vindictive tenacity of resentment by which the heart of the ruffian Rapparee was animated against that young man was evinced, on this occasion, by a satanic ingenuity of malice that was completely in keeping with the ruffian's character. It was quite clear, from the circumstances we are about to relate, that the red miscreant had intended to rob Folliard's house on the night of his attack upon it, in addition to the violent abduction of his daughter. We must premise here that Reilly and the Rapparee were each strongly guarded in different rooms, and the first thing the latter did was to get some one to inform Mr. Folliard that he had a matter of importance concerning Reilly to mention to him. This was immediately on their return, and before the informations against Reilly were drawn up. Folliard, who knew not what to think, paused for some time, and at! last, taking the sheriff along with him, went! to hear what O'Donnel had to say.
“Is that ruffian safe?” he asked, before entering the room; “have you so secured him that he can't be mischievous?”
“Quite safe, your honor, and as harmless as a lamb.”
He and the sheriff then entered, and found the huge savage champing his teeth and churning with his jaws, until a line of white froth encircled his mouth, rendering him a hideous and fearful object to look at.
“What is this you want with me, you misbegotten villain,” said the squire. “Stand between the ruffian and me, fellows, in the meantime—what is it, sirra?”
“Who's the robber now, Mr. Folliard?” he asked, with something, however, of a doubtful triumph in his red glaring eye. “Your daughter had jewels in a black cabinet, and I'd have secured the same jewels and your daughter along with them, on a certain night, only for Reilly; and it was very natural he should out-general me, which he did; but it was only to get both for himself. Let him be searched at wanst, and, although I don't say he has them, yet I'd give a hundred to one he has; she would never carry them while he was with her.”
The old squire, who would now, with peculiar pleasure, have acted in the capacity of hangman in Reilly's case, had that unfortunate young man been doomed to undergo the penalty of the law, and that no person in the shape of Jack Ketch was forthcoming—he, we say—the squire—started at once to the room where Reilly was secured, accompanied also by the sheriff, and, after rushing in with a countenance inflamed by passion, shouted out:
“Seize and examine that villain; he has robbed me—examine him instantly: he has stolen the family jewels.”
Reilly's countenance fell, for he knew his Fearful position; but that which weighed heaviest upon his heart was a consciousness of the misinterpretations which the world might put upon the motives of his conduct in this elopement, imputing it to selfishness and a mercenary spirit. When about to be searched, he said:
“You need not; I will not submit to the indignity of such an examination. I have and hold the jewels for Miss Folliard, whose individual property I believe they are; nay, I am certain of it, because she told me so, and requested me to keep them For her. Let her be sent for, and I shall hand them back to her at once, but to no other person without violence.”
“But she is not in a condition to receive them,” replied the sheriff (which was a fact); “I pledge my honor she, is not.”
“Well, then, Mr. Sheriff, I place them in your hands; you can do with them as you wish—that is, either return them to Miss Folliard, the legal owner of them, or to her father.”
The sheriff received the caske't which contained them, and immediately handed it to Mr. Folliard, who put it in his pocket, exclaiming:
“Now, Reilly, if we can hang you for nothing else, we can hang you for this; and we will, sir.”
“You, sir,” said Reilly, with melancholy indignation, “are privileged to insult me; so, alas! is every man now; but I can retire into the integrity of my own heart and find a consolation there of which you cannot deprive me. My life is now a consideration of no importance to myself since I shall die with the consciousness that your daughter loved me. You do not hear this for the first time, for that daughter avowed it to yourself! and if I had been mean and unprincipled enough to have abandoned my religion, and that of my persecuted forefathers, I might ere this have been her husband.”
“Come,” said Folliard, who was not prepared with an answer to this, “come,” said he, addressing the sheriff, “come, till we make out his mittimus, and give him the first shove to the gallows.” They then left him.
The next morning rumor had, as they say, her hands and tongues very full of business. Reilly and the Red Rapparee were lodged in Sligo jail that night, and the next morning the fact was carried by the aforesaid rumor far and wide over the whole country. One of the first whose ears it reached was the gallant and virtuous Sir Robert Whitecraft, who no sooner heard it than he ordered his horse and rode at a rapid rate to see Mr. Folliard, in order, now that Reilly was out of the way, to propose an instant marriage with the Cooleen Bawn. He found the old man in a state very difficult to be described, for he had only just returned to the drawing-room from the strongly sentinelled chamber of his daughter. Indignation against Reilly seemed now nearly lost in the melancholy situation of the wretched Cooleen Bawn. He had just seen her, but, somehow, the interview had saddened and depressed his heart. Her position and the state of her feelings would have been pitiable, even to the eye of a stranger; what, then, must they not have been to a father who loved her as he did? “Helen,” said he, as he took a chair in her room, after her guards had been desired to withdraw for a time, “Helen, are you aware that you have eternally disgraced your own name, and that of your father and your family?”
Helen, who was as pale as death, looked at him with vacant and unrecognizing eyes, but made no reply, for it was evident that she either had not heard, or did not understand, a word he said.
“Helen,” said he, “did you hear me?”
She looked upon him with a long look of distress and misery, but there was the vacancy still, and no recognition.
This, I suppose, thought the father, is just the case with every love-sick girl in her condition, who will not be allowed to have her own way; but of what use is a father unless he puts all this nonsense down, and substitutes his own judgment for that of a silly girl. I will say something now that will startle her, and I will say nothing but what I will bring about.
“Helen, my darling,” he said, “are you both deaf and blind, that you can neither see nor hear your father, and to-morrow your wedding-day? Sir Robert Whitecraft will be here early; the special license is procured, and after marriage you and he start for his English estates to spend the honeymoon there, after which you both must return and live with me, for I need scarcely say, Helen, that I could not live without you. Now I think you ought to be a happy girl to get a husband possessed of such immense property.”
She started and looked at him with something like returning consciousness. “But where is Willy Reilly?” she asked.
“The villain that would have robbed me of my property and my daughter is now safe in Sligo jail.”
A flash of something like joy—at least the father took it as such—sparkled in a strange kind of triumph from her eyes.
“Ha,” said she, “is that villain safe at last? Dear papa, I am tired of all this—this—yes, I am tired of it, and it is time I should; but you talked about something else, did you not? Something about Sir Robert Whitecraft and a marriage. And what is my reply to that? why, it is this, papa: I have but one life, sir. Now begone, and leave me, or, upon my honor, I will push you out of the room. Have I not consented to all your terms. Let Sir Robert come tomorrow and he shall call me his wife before the sun reaches his meridian. Now, leave me; leave me, I say.”
In this uncertain state her father found himself compelled to retire to the drawing-room, where Sir Robert and he met.
“Mr. Folliard,” said the baronet, “is this true?”
“Is what true, Sir Robert?” said he sharply.
“Why, that Reilly and the Red Rapparee are both in Sligo jail?”
“It is true, Sir Robert; and it must be a cursed thing to be in jail for a capital crime.”
“Are you becoming penitent,” asked the other, “for bringing the laws of the land to bear upon the villain that would have disgraced, and might have ruined, your only daughter?”
The father's heart was stung by the diabolical pungency of this question.
“Sir Robert,” said he, “we will hang him if it was only to get the villain out of the way; and if you will be here to-morrow at ten o'clock, the marriage must take place. I'll suffer no further nonsense about it; but, mark me, after the honeymoon shall have passed, you and she must come and reside here; to think that I could live without her is impossible. Be here, then, at ten o'clock; the special license is ready, and I have asked the Rev. Samson Strong to perform the ceremony. A couple of my neighbor Ashford's daughters will act as bridesmaids, and I myself will give her away: the marriage articles are drawn up, as you know, and there will be little time lost in signing them; and yet, it's a pity to—but no matter—be here at ten.”
Whitecraft took his leave in high spirits. The arrest and imprisonment of Reilly had removed the great impediment that had hitherto lain in the way of his marriage; but not so the imprisonment of the Red Rapparee. The baronet regretted that that public and notorious malefactor had been taken out of his own hands, because he wished, as the reader knows, to make the delivering of him up to the Government one of the elements of his reconciliation to it. Still, as matters stood, he felt on the whole gratified at what had happened.
Folliard, after the baronet had gone, knew not exactly how to dispose of himself. The truth is, the man's heart was an anomaly—a series of contradictions, in which one feeling opposed another for a brief space, and then was obliged to make way for a new prejudice equally transitory and evanescent. Whitecraft he never heartily liked; for though the man was blunt, he could look through a knave, and appreciate a man of honor, with a great deal of shrewd accuracy. To be sure, Whitecraft was enormously rich, but then he was penurious and inhospitable, two vices strongly and decidedly opposed to the national feeling.
“Curse the long-legged scoundrel,” he exclaimed; “if he should beget me a young breed of Whitecrafts like himself I would rather my daughter were dead than marry him. Then, on the other hand, Reilly; hang the fellow, had he only recanted his nonsensical creed, I could—but then, again, he might, after marriage, bring her over to the Papists, and then, by the Boyne, all my immense property would become Roman Catholic. By Strongbow, he'd teach the very rivers that run through it to sing Popish psalms in Latin: he would. However, the best way is to hang him out of the way, and when Jack Ketch has done with him, so has Helen. Curse Whitecraft, at all events!”
We may as well hint here that he had touched the Burgundy to some purpose; he was now in that state of mental imbecility where reason, baffled and prostrated by severe mental suffering and agitation, was incapable of sustaining him without having recourse to the bottle. In the due progress of the night he was helped to bed, and had scarcely been placed and covered up there when he fell fast asleep.
Whitecraft, in the meantime, suspected, of course, or rather he was perfectly aware of the fact, that unless by some ingenious manoeuvre, of which he could form no conception, a marriage with the Cooleen Bawn would be a matter of surpassing difficulty; but he cared not, provided it could be effected by any means, whether foul or fair. The attachment of this scoundrel to the fair and beautiful Cooleen Bawn was composed of two of the worst principles of the heart—sensuality and avarice; but, in this instance, avarice came in to support sensuality. What the licentious passions of the debauchee might have failed to tempt him to, the consideration of her large fortune accomplished. And such was the sordid and abominable union of the motives which spurred him on to the marriage.
The next morning, being that which was fixed for his wedding-day, he was roused at an early hour by a loud rapping at his hall-door. He started on his elbow in the bed, and ringing the bell for his valet, asked, when that gentleman entered his apartment half dressed, “What was the matter? what cursed knocking was that? Don't they know I can hunt neither priest nor Papist now, since this polite viceroy came here.”
“I don't know what the matter is, Sir Robert; they are at it again; shall I open the door, sir?”
“Certainly; open the door immediately.”
“I think you had better dress, Sir Robert, and see what they want.”
The baronet threw his long fleshless shanks out of the bed, and began to get on his clothes as fast as he could.
“Ha!” said he, when he was nearly dressed, “what if this should be a Government prosecution for what I have undertaken to do on my own responsibility during the last Administration? But no, surely it cannot be; they would have given me some intimation of their proceedings. This was due to my rank and station in the country, and to my exertions, a zealous Protestant, to sustain the existence of Church and State. Curse Church and State if it be! I have got myself, perhaps, into a pretty mess by them.”
He had scarcely uttered the last words when Mr. Hastings, accompanied by two or three officers of justice, entered his bedroom.
“Ah, Hastings, my dear friend, what is the matter? Is there any thing wrong, or can I be of any assistance to you? if so, command me. But we are out of power now, you know. Still, show me how I can assist you. How do you do?” and as he spoke he put his hand out to shake hands with. Mr. Hastings.
“No, Sir Robert, I cannot take your hand, nor the hand of any man that is red with the blood of murder. This,” said he, turning to the officers, “is Sir Robert Whitecraft; arrest him for murder and arson.”
“Why, bless me, Mr. Hastings, are you mad? Surely, I did nothing, unless under the sanction and by the instructions of the last Government?”
“That remains to be seen, Sir Robert; but, at all events, I cannot enter into any discussion with you at present. I am here as a magistrate. Informations have been sworn against you by several parties, and you must now consider yourself our prisoner and come along with us. There is a party of cavalry below to escort you to Sligo jail.”
“But how am I to be conveyed there? I hope I will be allowed my own carriage?”
“Unquestionably,” replied Mr. Hastings; “I was about to have proposed it myself. You shall be treated with every respect, six.”
“May I not breakfast before I go?”
“Certainly, sir; we wish to discharge our duty in the mildest possible manner.”
“Thank you, Hastings, thank you; you were always a good-hearted, gentlemanly fellow. You will, of course, breakfast with me; and these men must be attended to.”
And he rang the bell.
“I have already breakfasted, Sir Robert; but even if I had not, it would not become me, as your prosecutor, to do so; but perhaps the men—”
“What,” exclaimed the baronet, interrupting him, you my prosecutor! For what, pray?”
“That will come in time,” replied the other; “and you may rest assured that I would not be here now were I not made aware that you were about to be married to that sweet girl whom you have persecuted with such a mean and unmanly spirit, and designed to start with her for England this day.”
Whitecraft, now that he felt the dreadful consequences of the awful position in which he was placed, became the very picture of despair and pusillanimity; his complexion turned haggard, his eyes wild, and his hands trembled so much that he was not able to bring the tea or bread and butter to his lips; in fact, such an impersonation of rank and I unmanly cowardice could not be witnessed. He rose up, exclaiming, in a faint and hollow voice, that echoed no other sensation than that of horror:
“I cannot breakfast; I can eat nothing. What a fate is this! on the very day, too, which I thought would have consummated my happiness! Oh, it is dreadful!”
His servant then, by Mr. Hastings' orders, packed up changes of linen and apparel in his trunk, for he saw that he himself had not the presence of mind to pay attention to any thing. In the course of a few minutes the carriage was ready, and with tottering steps he went down the stairs, and was obliged to be assisted into it by two constables, who took their places beside, him. Mr. Hastings bowed to him coldly, but said nothing; the coachman smacked his whip, and was about to start, when he turned round and said:
“Where am I to drive, Sir Robert?”
“To Sligo jail,” replied one of the constables, “as quick as you can too.”
The horses got a lash or two, and bounded on, whilst an escort of cavalry, with swords drawn, attended the coach until it reached its gloomy destination, where we will leave it for the present.
The next morning, as matters approached to a crisis, the unsteady old squire began to feel less comfortable in his mind than he could have expected. To say truth, he had often felt it rather an unnatural process to marry so lovely a girl to “such an ugly stork of a man as Whitecraft was, and a knave to boot. I cannot forget how he took me in by the 'Hop-and-go-constant' affair. But then he's a good Protestant—not that I mean he has a single spark of religion in his nondescript carcass; but in those times it's not canting and psalm-singing we want, but good political Protestantism, that will enable us to maintain our ascendancy by other means than praying. Curse the hound that keeps him? Is this a day for him to be late on? and it now half past ten o'clock; however, he must come soon; but, upon my honor, I dread what will happen when he does. A scene there will be no doubt of it; however, we must only struggle through it as well as we can. I'll go and see Helen, and try to reconcile her to this chap, or, at all events, to let her know at once that, be the consequences what they may, she must marry him, if I were myself to hold her at the altar.”
When he had concluded this soliloquy, Ellen Connor, without whose society Helen could now scarcely live, and who, on this account, had not been discharged after her elopement, she, we say, entered the room, her eye resolute with determination, and sparkling with a feeling which evinced an indignant sense of his cruelty in enforcing this odious match. The old man looked at her with surprise, for, it was the first time she had ever ventured to obtrude her conversation upon him,or to speak, unless when spoken to.
“Well, madam,” said he, “what do you want? Have you any message from your mistress? if not, what brings you here?”
“I have no message from my mistress,” she replied in a loud, if not in a vehement, voice; “I don't think my mistress is capable of sending a message; but I came to tell you that the God of heaven will soon send you a message, and a black one too, if you allow this cursed marriage to go on.”
“Get out, you jade—leave the room; how is it your affair?”
“Because I have what you want—a heart of pity and affection in my breast. Do you want to drive your daughter mad, or to take her life?”
“Begone, you impudent hussy; why do you dare to come here on such an occasion, only to annoy me?”
“I will not begone,” she replied, with a glowing cheek, “unless I am put out by force—until I point out the consequences of your selfish tyranny and weakness. I don't come to annoy you, but I come to warn you, and to tell you, that I know your daughter better than you do yourself. This marriage must not go on; or, if it does, send without delay to a lunatic asylum for a keeper for that only daughter. I know her well, and I tell you that that's what it'll come to.”
The squire had never been in the habit of being thus addressed by any of his servants; and the consequence was that the thing was new to him; so much so that he felt not only annoyed, but so much astounded, that he absolutely lost, for a brief period, the use of his speech. He looked at her with astonishment—then about the room—then up at the ceiling, and at length spoke:
“What the deuce does all this mean? What are you driving at? Prevent the marriage, you say?”
“If the man,” proceeded Connor, not even waiting to give him an answer—“if the man—had but one good point—one good quality—one virtue in his whole composition to redeem him from contempt and hatred—if he had but one feature in his face only as handsome as the worst you could find in the devil's—yes, if he had but one good thought, or one good feature in either his soul or body, why—vile as it would be—and barbarous as it would be—and shameful and cruel as it would be—still, it would have the one good thought, and the one good feature to justify it. But here, in this deep and wretched villain, there is nothing but one mass of vice and crime and deformity; all that the eye can ses, or the heart discover, in his soul or body, is as black, odious, and repulsive as could be conceived of the worst imp of perdition. And this is the man—the persecutor—the miser—the debauchee—the hypocrite—the murderer, and the coward, that you are going to join your good—virtuous—spotless—and beautiful daughter to! Oh, shame upon you, you heartless old man; don't dare to say, or pretend, that you love her as a father ought, when you would sacrifice her to so base and damnable a villain as that. And again, and what is more, I tell you not to prosecute Reilly; for, as sure as the Lord above is in heaven, your daughter is lost, and you'll not only curse Whitecraft, but the day and hour in which you were born—black and hopeless will be your doom if you do. And now, sir, I have done; I felt it to be my duty to tell you this, and to warn you against what I know will happen unless you go back upon the steps you have taken.”
She then courtesied to him respectfully, and left the room in a burst of grief which seized her when she had concluded.
Ellen Connor was a girl by no means deficient in education—thanks to the care and kindness of the Cooleen Bawn, who had herself instructed her. 'Tis true, she had in ordinary and familiar conversation a touch of the brogue; but, when excited, or holding converse with respectable persons, her language was such as would have done no discredit to many persons in a much higher rank of life.
After she had left the room, Folliard looked towards the door by which she had taken her exit, as if he had her still in his vision. He paused—he meditated—he walked about, and seemed taken thoroughly aback.
“By earth and sky,” he exclaimed, “but that's the most comical affair I have seen yet. Comical! no, not a touch of comicality in it. Zounds, is it possible that the, jade has coerced and beaten me?—dared to beard the lion in his own den—to strip him, as it were, of his claws, and to pull the very fangs out of his jaws, and, after all, to walk away in triumph? Hang me, but I must have a strong touch of the coward in me or I would not have knuckled as I did to the jade. Yet, hold—can I, or ought I to be angry with her, when I know that this hellish racket all proceeded from her love to Helen. Hang me, but she's a precious bit of goods, and I'll contrive to make her a present, somehow, for her courage. Beat me! by sun and sky she did.”
He then proceeded to Helen's chamber, and ordered her attendants out of the room; but, on looking at her, he felt surprised to perceive that her complexion, instead of being pale, was quite flushed, and her eyes flashing with a strange wild light that he had never seen in them before.
“Helen,” said he, “what's the matter, love? are you unwell?”
She placed her two snowy hands on her temples, and pressed them tightly, as if striving to compress her brain and bring it within the influence of reason.
“I fear you are unwell, darling,” he continued; “you look flushed and feverish. Don't, however, be alarmed; if you're not well, I'd see that knave of a fellow hanged before I'd marry you to him, and you in that state. The thing's out of the question, my darling Helen, and must not be done. No: God forbid that I should be the means of murdering my own child.”
So much, we may fairly presume, proceeded from the pithy lecture of Ellen Connor; but the truth was, that the undefinable old squire was the greatest parental coward in the world. In the absence of his daughter he would rant and swear and vapor, strike the ground with his staff, and give other indications of the most extraordinary resolution, combined with fiery passion, that seemed alarming. No sooner, however, did he go into her presence, and contemplate not only her wonderful beauty, but her goodness, her tenderness and affection for himself, than the bluster departed from him, his resolution fell, his courage oozed away, and he felt that he was fairly subdued, under which circumstances he generally entered into a new treaty of friendship and affection with the enemy.
Helen's head was aching dreadfully, and she felt feverish and distracted. Her father's words, however, and the affection which they expressed, went to her heart; she threw her arms about him, kissed him, and was relieved by a copious flood of tears.
“Papa,” she said, “you are both kind and good; surely you wouldn't kill your poor Helen?”
“Me kill you, Helen!—oh, no, faith. If Whitecraft were hanged to-morrow it wouldn't give me half so much pain as if your little finger ached.”
Just at this progress of the dialogue a smart and impatient knock came to the door.
“Who is that?” said the squire; “come in—or, stay till I see who you are.” He than opened the door and exclaimed, “What! Lanigan!—why, you infernal old scoundrel! how dare you have the assurance to look me in the face, or to come under my roof at all, after what I said to you about the pistols?”
“Ay, but you don't know the good news I have for you and Miss Helen.”
“Oh, Lanigan, is Reilly safe?—is he set at large? Oh, I am sure he must be. Never was so noble, so pure, and so innocent a heart.”
“Curse him, look at the eye of him,” said her father, pointing his cane at Lanigan; “it's like the eye of a sharp-shooter. What are you grinning at; you old scoundrel?”
“Didn't you expect Sir Robert Whitecraft here to-day to marry Miss Folliard, sir?”
“I did, sirra, and I do; he'll be here immediately.”
“Devil a foot he'll come to-day, I can tell you; and that's the way he treats your daughter!”
“What does this old idiot mean, Helen? Have you been drinking, sirra?”
“Not yet, sir, but plaise the Lord I'll soon be at it.”
“Lanigan,” said Helen, “will you state at once what you have to say?”
“I will, miss; but first and foremost, I must show you how to dance the 'Little House under the Hill,'” and as he spoke he commenced whistling that celebrated air and dancing to it with considerable alacrity and vigor, making allowances for his age.
The father and daughter looked at each other, and Helen, notwithstanding her broken spirits, could not avoid smiling. Lanigan continued the dance, kept wheeling about to all parts of the room, like an old madcap, cutting, capering, and knocking up his heels against his ham, with a vivacity that was a perfect mystery to his two spectators, as was his whole conduct.
“Now, you drunken old scoundrel,” said his master, catching him by the collar and flourishing the cane over his head, “if you don't give a direct answer I will cane you within an inch of your life. What do you mean when you say that Sir Robert Whitecraft won't come here to-day?”
“Becaise, sir, it isn't convanient to him.”
“Why isn't it convenient, you scoundrel?”
“Bekaise, sir, he took it into his head to try a change of air for the benefit of his health before he starts upon his journey; and as he got a very friendly invitation to spend some time in Sligo jail he accepted it, and if you go there you will find him before you. It seems he started this morning in great state, with two nice men belonging to the law in the carriage with him, to see that he should want for nothing, and a party of cavalry surroundin' his honor's coach, as if he was one of the judges, or the Lord Lieutenant.”
The figurative style of his narrative would unquestionably have caused him to catch the weight of the cane aforesaid had not Helen interfered and saved him for the nonce.
“Let me at him, Helen, let me at him—the drunken old rip; why does he dare to humbug us in this manner?”
“Well, then, sir, if you wish to hear the good news, and especially you, Miss Folliard, it will probably relieve your heart when I tell you that Sir Robert Whitecraft is, before this time, in the jail of Sligo, for a charge of murdher, and for burnin' Mr. Reilly's house and premises, which it now seems aren't Mr. Reilly's at all—nor ever were—but belong to Mr. Hastings.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed the squire, “this is dreadful: but is it true, sirra?”
“Why, sir, if you go to his house you'll find it so.”
“Oh, papa,” said Helen, “surely they wouldn't hang him?”
“Hang him, Helen; why, Helen, the tide's turned; they want to make him an example for the outrages that he and others have committed against the unfortunate Papists. Hang him!—as I live, he and the Red Rapparee will both swing from the same gallows; but there is one thing I say—if he hangs I shall take care that that obstinate scoundrel, Reilly, shall also swing along with him.”
Helen became as pale as ashes, the flush had disappeared from her countenance, and she burst again into tears.
“Oh, papa,” she exclaimed, “spare Reilly: he is innocent.”
“I'll hang him,” he replied, “if it should cost me ten thousand pounds. Go you, sirra, and desire one of the grooms to saddle me Black Tom; he is the fastest horse in my stables; I cannot rest till I ascertain the truth of this.”
On passing the drawing-room he looked in, and found Mr. Strong and the two Misses Ashford waiting, the one to perform, and the others to attend, at the ceremony.
“Sir. Strong and ladies,” said he, with looks of great distraction, “I fear there will be no marriage here to-day. An accident, I believe, has happened to Sir Robert Whitecraft that will prevent his being a party in the ceremony, for this day at least.”
“An accident!” exclaimed the ladies and the clergyman. “Pray, Mr. Folliard, what is it? how did it happen?”
“I am just going to ride over to Sir Robert's to learn everything about it,” he replied; “I will be but a short time absent. But now!” he added, “here's his butler, and I will get everything from him. Oh, Thomas, is this you? follow me to my study, Thomas.”
As the reader already knows all that Thomas could tell him, it is only necessary to say that he returned to the drawing-room with a sad and melancholy aspect.
“There is no use,” said he, addressing them, “in concealing what will soon be known to the world. Sir Robert Whitecraft has been arrested on a charge of murder and arson, and is now a prisoner in the county jail.”
This was startling intelligence to them all, especially to the parson, who found that the hangman was likely to cut him out of his fees. The ladies screamed, and said, “it was a shocking thing to have that delightful man hanged;” and then asked if the bride-elect had heard it.
“She has heard it,” replied her father, “and I have just left her in tears; but upon my soul, I don't think there is one of them shed for him. Well, Mr. Strong, I believe, after all, there is likely to be no marriage, but that is not your fault; you came here to do your duty, and I think it only just—a word with you in the next apartment,” he added, and then led the way to the dining-room. “I was about to say, Mr. Strong, that it would be neither just nor reasonable to deprive you of your fees; here is a ten-pound note, and it would have been twenty had the marriage taken place. I must go to Sligo to see the unfortunate baronet, and say what can be done for him—that is, if anything can, which I greatly doubt.”
The parson protested, against the receipt of the ten-pound note very much in the style of a bashful schoolboy, who pretends to refuse an apple from a strange relation when he comes to pay a visit, whilst, at the same time, the young monkey's chops are watering for it. With some faint show of reluctance he at length received it, and need we say that it soon disappeared in one of his sanctified pockets.
“Strong, my dear fellow,” proceeded the squire, “you will take a seat with these ladies in their carriage and see them home.”
“I would, with pleasure, my dear friend, but that I am called upon to console poor Mrs. Smellpriest for the loss of the captain.”
“The captain! why, what has happened him?”
“Alas! sir, an unexpected and unhappy fate. He went out last night a priest-hunting, like a godly sportsman of the Church, as he was, and on his return from an unsuccessful chase fell off his horse while in the act of singing that far-famed melody called 'Lillibullero,' and sustained such severe injuries that he died on that very night, expressing a very ungodly penitence for his loyalty in persecuting so many treasonable Popish priests.”
The squire seemed amazed, and, after a pause, said:
“He repented, you say; upon my soul, then, I am glad to hear it, for it is more than I expected from him, and, between you and me, Strong, I fear it must have taken a devilish large extent of repentance to clear him from the crimes he committed against both priests and Popery.”
“Ah,” replied Strong, with a groan of deep despondency, “but, unfortunately, my dear sir, he did not repent of his sins—that is the worst of it—Satan must have tempted him to transfer his repentance to those very acts of his life upon which, as Christian champion, he should have depended for justification above—I mean, devoting his great energies so zealously to the extermination of idolatry and error. What was it but repenting for his chief virtues, instead of relying, like a brave and dauntless soldier of our Establishment, upon his praiseworthy exertions to rid it of its insidious and relentless enemies?”
The squire looked at him.
“I'll tell you what, Strong—-by the great Boyne, I'd give a trifle to, see you get a smart touch of persecution in your own person; it might teach you a little more charity towards those who differ with you; but, upon my honor, if any change in our national parties should soon take place, and that the Papists should get the upper hand, I tell you to your teeth that if ever your fat libs should be tickled by the whip of persecution, they would render you great injustice who should do it for the sake of religion—a commodity with which I see, from the spirit of your present sentiments, you are not over-burdened. However, in the meantime, I daresay that whatever portion you possess of it, you will charitably expend in consoling his widow, as you say. Good-morning!”
We must return, however, to the close of Smellpriest's very sudden and premature departure from the scene of his cruel and merciless labors. Having reached the strip already described to him by Mr. Strong, and to which he was guided by his men, he himself having been too far advanced in liquor to make out his way with any kind of certainty, he proceeded, still under their direction, to the cottage adjoining, which was immediately surrounded by the troopers. After knocking at the door with violence, and demanding instant admittance, under the threat of smashing it in, and burning the house as a harbor for rebellious priests, the door was immediately opened by a gray-headed old man, feeble and decrepit in appearance, but yet without any manifestation of terror either in his voice or features. He held a candle in his hand, and asked them, in a calm, composed voice, what it was they wanted, and why they thus came to disturb him and his family at such an unseasonable hour.
“Why, you treasonable old scoundrel,” shouted Smellpriest, “haven't you got a rebel and recusant Popish priest in the house? I say, you gray-headed old villain, turn him out on the instant, or, if you hesitate but half a minute, well make a bonfire of you, him, the house, and all that's in it. Zounds, I don't see why I shouldn't burn a house as well as Whitecraft. That cursed baronet is getting ahead of me, but I think I am entitled to a bonfire as well as he is. Shall we burn the house?” he added, addressing his men.
“I think you had better not, captain,” replied the principal of them; “recollect there are new regulations now. It wouldn't be safe, and might only end in hanging every man of us—yourself among the rest.”
“But why doesn't the old rebel produce the priest?” asked their leader. “Come here, sirra—hear me—produce that lurking priest immediately.”
“I don't exactly understand you, captain,” replied the old man, who appeared to know Smellpriest right well. “I don't think it's to my house you should come to look for a priest.”
“Why not, you villain? I have been directed here, and told that I would find my game under your roof.”
“In the first place,” replied the old man, with a firm and intrepid voice, “I am no villain; and in the next, I say, that if any man directed you to this house in quest of a priest, he must have purposely sent you upon a fool's errand. I am a Protestant, Captain Smellpriest; but, Protestant as I am, I tell you to your face that if I could give shelter to a poor persecuted priest, and save him from the clutches of such men as you and Sir Robert Whitecraft, I would do it. In the meantime, there is neither priest nor friar under this roof; you can come in and search in the house, if you wish.”
“Why, gog's 'ouns, father,” exclaimed one of the men, “how does it come that we find you here?”
“Very simply, John,” replied his father—for such he was—“I took this cottage, and the bit of land that goes with it, from honest Andy Morrow, and we are not many hours in it. The house was empty for the last six months, so that I say again, whoever sent Captain Smellpriest here sent him upon a fool's errand—upon a wild-goose chase.”
The gallant captain started upon hearing these latter words.
“What does he say,” he asked—“a wild-goose chase! Right—right,” he added, in a soliloquy; “Strong is at the bottom of it, the black scoundrel! but still, let us search the house; the old fellow admits that he would shelter a priest. Search the house I say.