Part 38 (2/2)

Their threats, their increasing numbers, and their irrepressible fury, now excited such alarm in the minds of the police, that one of them, calling to his officer, entreated him to take them into the open field, where alone their arms could afford them protection; or if not, he added, that they must fall a sacrifice to the vengeance of their enemies. At that instant, two or three of the leaders of the people were in commotion with that gentleman, one of them resting his hand upon his horse's neck, and the other so close to him that his words could be distinctly heard.

”Captain G----s,” said the latter, ”don't be afraid--meek yourself aisy--not a hair of your head, nor any of the police, will be touched; we only want the process-server; let him be given up, and you will be safe.”

”Sooner than give him up to you,” he replied, ”we will, every man of us, part with our lives. Sacrifice us you may, but we will never surrender our charge.”

Instead, however, of following the sound advice of one of his own men, the chief constable, credulous to infatuation, allowed the infuriated body, by which he and his men were surrounded, still to press in upon him, without taking those precautions which common sense, coolness, and the insecurity of his position, should have dictated.

By the time they had pa.s.sed the place called Tennison's Gate, a large body had collected in their front, blocking up the road they had to pa.s.s, and which would have conducted, them in a different direction, but not one so peculiarly perilous. From this they made a turn to the left into a lane that would have led them back again to a little village, through which they had already pa.s.sed, the bell of which was already sounding their death-knell. The constabulary, by turning into the narrow lane at the left, unconsciously approached the very ambush into which the people, or rather their more disciplined leaders, had intended to decoy them. This lane was enclosed by walls, and on one side the ground was considerably elevated and covered with stones, thus affording to their a.s.sailants every possible opportunity of completing their destruction. The unfortunate men were pressed by a crowd on their right, composed of those who occupied the elevation; another crowd pressed upon their rear; whilst a third body obstructed them in front, thus keeping them pent up, and at the mercy of the crowds on every side.

It is quite obvious that the person in command of the constabulary was not only unfit for his duty, but ignorant of anything like military discipline or manoeuvring. He must have completely lost his presence of mind, otherwise his easiness of belief and simplicity are utterly unaccountable. As it was, in two or three minutes after the hollow a.s.surances of good-will uttered by those whom he saw bristling at the same time with vengeance about him, an effort was made by a man to drag the unfortunate process-server out of the lines. He was immediately pulled back by a policeman, but was scarcely restored to his place, When he was struck on the side of the head with a wattle. The blow caused him to stagger, and would have caused him to fall, but that he was seized and kept upon his legs by the policeman. He had not time, however, to recover his steadiness, when he was felled to the ground by a blow from a stone, which sent him to the ground a corpse. A general a.s.sault with every description of rude and formidable weapons, now commenced upon the unfortunate constabulary. Their imbecile and uncautious officer fired his pistol and in a moment afterwards was knocked from his horse and instantly put to death. The crowd now rushed on them from all sides, and so sharp, short, and decisive was the ma.s.sacre, that in about the s.p.a.ce of two minutes, twelve men lay butchered on the spot.

Other scenes of violence and bloodshed there were, but none so frightful as the above. Most persons remember Rathcormac and Newtonbarry, but we do not imagine that a recapitulation of such atrocities can be at all agreeable to the generality of our readers, and for this reason we content ourselves with barely alluding to them, as a corroboration of the disorganized condition of society which then existed, and which we are now attempting to describe.

But perhaps nothing, after all, can test the inextinguishable hatred of t.i.thes which prevailed at that period, more than the startling and almost incredible fact that the government, aided by as sound a lawyer, and as able an attorney-general as ever lived, and a powerful bar besides, were not able, during the following spring and summer a.s.sizes, to convict a single individual concerned in this ma.s.sacre, which is now a portion of our country's history, and still well remembered as that of Carrickshock, in the county of Kilkenny.

This double triumph of the people over the t.i.the and police, created a strong sensation throughout the kingdom, and even shook the two houses of parliament with dismay.

Indeed, there probably never existed in Ireland, any combination or confederacy of the people so bitter, or with such a deeply-rooted hold upon the popular mind as that against t.i.thes, as it slumbered and revived from time to time. And what is rather singular, too, the frequent agitations arising from it, which in its periodical returns convulsed the country, were almost uniformly, or at least very frequently, productive of a collateral one against priests' dues. Up until the year '31, however, or '32, the agitators against t.i.thes were more for their reduction than their extinction. The reduction of t.i.thes and priests' dues went, as we have said, very frequently together, or rather the one generally produced the other. The Threshers, in their early existence, were as active in their attempts to diminish the income of the priests by intimidation, as they were that of the parson. Their plan was, with white s.h.i.+rts over their clothes, and white handkerchiefs round their hats so as to conceal the features, to pay a nightly visit to some quiet and timid man, whom they swore, on pain of death, to visit the neighboring chapel in order to inform the priest, in the face of his own congregation, that unless he reduced the fees for marriage to half-a-guinea, those of baptism to nineteen-pence half-penny, and celebrate Ma.s.s for thirteen pence, he might prepare his coffin. If he got hay and oats for his horse at a station, he was at liberty to take them, but if not, he was to depart quietly, on pain of smarting for it. The unfortunate individuals on whom they imposed this painful and dangerous duty, were much to be pitied whilst this confederacy lasted.

To submit to an illegal oath, without reporting the matter to the next magistrate, was a capital felony, as it was voluntarily to execute any of their criminal behests. If, then, the unfortunate individual pitched upon for the performance of this extraordinary office refused to discharge it, he was probably shot by the Threshers or Carders, and if he carried their wishes into effect, he was liable to be hanged by the government, so that his option lay between the relative comforts of being hanged or shot--a rather anomalous state of society, by the way.

The vengeance of the people against Purcel and his sons had now risen or was fast rising, to its height. This intrepid man and these resolute young men, aided by the writs of rebellion and the executive authorities, had nerved themselves up to the collection of t.i.the, through a spirit that was akin to vengeance. In fact, they felt an inhuman delight--at least the father and his eldest son did--in levying the execution of the writs in the most pitiless and oppressive manner.

They themselves provided horses and carts, and under protection of the military and police--for both were now necessary--they swept off cattle, crops, and furniture, at a ruinous value to the defaulters. At length they proceeded to the house of a struggling widow, whose only son, exasperated at the ruin which their proceedings had wrought upon his mother, in an unguarded moment, induced a few thoughtless boys like himself to resist the law. It was an act of folly for which his life paid the penalty. He was shot dead on the spot, and his death proved the signal for raising the gloomy curtain that veils the last of the drama in which the t.i.the-proctor makes his appearance.

Soon after the death of this youth, John Parcel had occasion to go to Dublin, to transact some business with the Rev. Dr. Turbot, and on his way to the metropolis he was obliged to stop for more than an hour at the county town, to await the arrival of the mail-coach. As he lingered about the door of the coach-office, he noticed a crowd of persons corning down the street, bearing something that resembled a human figure on a beir. It was evidently the corpse of some person, but at the same time he felt it could not have been a funeral, inasmuch as he saw that it came from the churchyard instead of going to it. The body was covered with a mort-cloth, so that he could not ascertain whether it was that of a man or a woman. Walking at its head as a chief mourner does at a funeral, was an old man with gray hair, who appeared to have every feature of his venerable countenance impressed with the character of an affliction which no language could express. He neither spoke nor looked to either side of him, but walked onward in a stupor of grief that was evidently too deep for tears--for he shed none, his face was pale even unto ghastliness, whilst at the same time there was a darkness over it, which evidently proceeded from the gloom of a broken down and hopeless heart.

John Purcel, after making some inquiry as to the cause of this singular procession, was enabled, from several of the by-standers, to ascertain the following affecting and melancholy particulars. The reader cannot forget the conversation between the proctor and his sons, concerning the murder of a certain farmer named Murray, in the early part of this narrative. The poor youth who had been appointed, under the diabolical system of Whiteboyism, to perpetrate that awful crime, was the very young man who, during the journey of the Whiteboys to the mountains, had held a kind of _sotto voce_ conversation with the mysterious person who proved himself to be so sincere a friend to Frank M'Carthy. A misunderstanding for several years, or rather a feeling of ill-will, had subsisted between his father and Murray, and as this circ.u.mstance was known, the malignant and cowardly miscreants availed themselves of it to give a color of revenge to the murder, in order to screen themselves.

At all events, the poor misguided youth, who had been stimulated with liquor, and goaded on to the commission of the crime, from fear of a violent death if he refused it, was tried, found guilty, and executed, leaving his childless father and mother, whose affections were centred in him, in a state of the most indescribable despair and misery. By the intercession and influence of friends, his body was restored to them, and interred in the churchyard, from which the procession just mentioned had issued. The heart, however--or to come nearer the truth--the reason of the mother--that loving mother--could not bear the blow that deprived her of her innocent boy--her pride, her only one. In about a week after his interment she proceeded one morning to his grave, bearing with her the breakfast which the poor youth had been accustomed to take. This, in fact, became her daily habit, and here she usually sat for hours, until in most cases her woe-stricken husband, on missing her, was obliged, by some pardonable fiction, to lure her home under the expectation of seeing him. This continued during spring, summer, autumn, and the greater portion of winter--up in fact until the preceding night. She had, some time during the course of that night, escaped from her poor, husband while he slept, and having entered the grave-yard by stone steps that were in a part of the wall--for a pa.s.sage went through it--she reached her boy's grave, where it was supposed, after having for some time, probably until la.s.situde and sorrow, and a frame worn down by her peculiar calamity, had induced sleep--she was found dead in the course of the morning--an afflicting but beautiful instance of that undying love of a mother's heart, which survives the wreck of all the other faculties that compose her being.

Her miserable husband and friends were then bearing her body home, in order that it might be waked decently and with due respect, ere it should mingle with the ashes of him whom she had loved so well. So much for the consequences of being concerned in those secret and criminal confederacies, that commit such fatal ravages, not only in society, but in domestic life, and stand so strongly opposed to the laws of both G.o.d and man.

Purcel, on reaching the metropolis, was a great deal astonished at the change which he observed in Dr. Turbot. That gentleman's double chin had followed the carnal fortunes of the church that supported it. The rosy dewlap, in fact, was no longer visible, if we except a slight pendulous article, which defied the whole nomenclature of colors to cla.s.sify its tint, and was only visible when his head and neck a.s.sumed a peculiar att.i.tude. In fact, the change appeared to Purcel to have been an exceedingly beneficial one. The gross carnal character of his whole appearance was gone; his person had become comparatively thin, and had a far and distant, but still an approximating, tendency to something of the apostolic. He was now leading by compulsion, a reasonable and natural life, and one not so much at variance with the simple principles of his religion, whatever it might be with those of the then establishment. His horses and carriages and powdered servants were all gone too, so was the rich air of wealth and costly luxury which formerly breathed throughout his fine mansion, in one of the most fas.h.i.+onable streets of the metropolis. His eye, no longer loaded by the bloodshot symptoms of an over-fed and plethoric const.i.tution, was now clear and intellectual, and there appeared to be an unenc.u.mbered activity about his jaws that argued a vigor and quickness of execution in matters of a sumptuary character, which, when gross and unwieldy from luxury, they never could reach. He was by no means in his usual spirits, it is true, but then he was in much better health, and a vague report of something in the shape of a loan to the clergy, to the tune of a million, gave him a considerable degree of cheerfulness.

John Purcel, having dispatched his business with him as quickly as he could, called upon M'Carthy in college. This gentleman having, in fact, heard such an account of the threats and determinations of vengeance with which the Purcel family were threatened, had felt deep anxiety as to their fate. He had written more than once to them on the subject, entreating that, as their wealth had rendered them independent, they would remove either to Lisnagola or Dublin. This, however, was a determination to which they had come recently themselves, and one portion of John's business to the metropolis was connected with it.

On the day previous to Purcel's visit to M'Carthy, that young man had received the following short and somewhat mysterious communication from the country:--

”Mr. M'Carthy.--Sir--If you wish to save some of Mr. Purcel's family--save them all you cannot--and if you have courage, and isn't afraid to risk your life, you will come down to Longshot Lodge and wait there till you here more from 'One that has proved himself your Friend'.”

This determined M'Carthy; and when John Purcel asked him to spend the Christmas with them, he felt gratified at the alacrity with which the other embraced his offer. The next morning they started for Longshot Lodge, and in due time were cordially greeted by the proctor and his family.

The day before Christmas--universally known as Christmas Eve--at length arrived. On that morning, our friend Mr. Temple and his family were seated at breakfast with easy and cheerful hearts, when the following conversation took place; and we introduce it for the purpose of gratifying our readers, who, we are certain, will rejoice in hearing the circ.u.mstances that form its subject matter.

”Charles, my dear, I always knew that my dear grandpapa was a kind and forgiving man; and, to tell the truth, I felt a conviction that such sincerity of heart, and such unexampled purity of purpose as yours, would not be permitted long to suffer. Read the letter again my love.”

Her husband, whose mild features were absolutely radiant with an expression of delight--an expression that was elevated, besides, with a glow of fervent and devotional feeling--now read the letter again, which was to the following effect:--

”My dear Maria,--I do not think that a man of my years--now near seventy-two--who feels how many duties he has neglected in this life, and who, consequently, knows how much he requires to be forgiven, ought any longer to cla.s.s himself with those who are disposed to withhold their pardon from human error. I wrote some time ago to your father, requesting, nay, commanding him, to suffer himself to be reconciled to you; but his reply was, that, although he was not averse to it in due time, yet he said that for the present he must decline it--not so much, he added, for want of affection for you, as that he might the more strongly manifest a sense of his displeasure at your conduct, in throwing yourself away upon an 'educated beggar.'”

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