Part 14 (2/2)
”I know all,” said he; ”I am to be arrested to-morrow night.”
”To-night, dearest Reilly, to-night. Papa told me this evening, in one of his moods of anger, that before to-morrow morning you would be in Sligo jail.”
”Well, dearest Helen,” he replied, ”that is certainly making quick work of it. But, even so, I am prepared this moment to escape. I have settled my affairs, left the management of them to my uncle, and this interview with you, my beloved girl, must be our last.”
As he uttered these melancholy words the tears came to his eyes.
”The last!” she exclaimed. ”Oh, no; it must not be the last. You shall not go alone, dearest William. My mind is made up. Be it for life or for death, I shall accompany you.”
”Dearest life,” he replied, ”think of the consequences.”
”I think of nothing,” said Cooleen Bawn, ”but my love for you. If you were not surrounded by danger as you are, if the whoop of vengeance were not on your trail, if death and a gibbet were not in the background, I could part with you; but now that danger, vengeance, and death, are hovering about you, I shall and must partake of them with you. And listen, Reilly; after all it is the best plan. Papa, if I accompany you--supposing that we are taken--will relent for my sake. I know his love for me. His affection for me will overcome all his prejudices against you. Then let us fly. To-night you will be taken. Your rival will triumph over both of us; and I--I, oh! I shall not survive it. Save me, then, Reilly, and let me fly with you.”
”G.o.d knows,” replied Reilly, with deep emotion, ”if I suffered myself to be guided by the impulse of my heart, I would yield to wishes at once so n.o.ble and disinterested. I cannot, however, suffer my affection, absorbing and inexpressible as it is, to precipitate your ruin. I speak not of myself, nor of what I may suffer. When we reflect, however, my beloved girl, upon the state of the country, and of the law, as it operates against the liberty and property of Catholics, we must both admit the present impossibility of an elopement without involving you in disgrace. You know that until some relaxation of the laws affecting marriage between Catholics and Protestants takes place, an union between us is impossible; and this fact it is which would attach disgrace to you, and a want of honor, principle, and grat.i.tude to me. We should necessarily lead the lives of the guilty, and seek the wildest fastnesses of the mountain solitudes and the oozy caverns of the bleak and solitary hills.”
”But I care not. I am willing to endure it all for your sake.”
”What!--the shame, the misinterpretation, the imputed guilt?”
”Neither care I for shame or imputed guilt, so long as I am innocent, and you safe.”
”Concealment, my dearest girl, would be impossible. Such a hue and cry would be raised after us as would render nothing short of positive invisibility capable of protecting us from our enemies. Then your father!--such a step might possibly break his heart; a calamity which would fill your mind with remorse to the last day of your life!”
She burst again into tears, and replied, ”But as for you, what can be done to save you from the toils of your unscrupulous and powerful enemies?”
”To that, my beloved Helen, I must forthwith look. In the meantime, let me gather patience and await some more favorable relaxation in the penal code. At present, the step you propose would be utter destruction to us both, and an irretrievable stain upon our reputation. You will return to your father's house, and I shall seek some secure place of concealment until I can safely reach the continent, from whence I shall contrive to let you hear from me, and in due time may possibly be able to propose some mode of meeting in a country where the oppressive laws that separate us here shall not stand in the way of our happiness. In the meanwhile let our hearts be guided by hope and constancy.” After a mournful and tender embrace they separated.
It would be impossible to describe the agony of the lovers after a separation which might probably be their last. Our readers, however, may very well conceive it, and it is not our intention to describe it here. At this stage of our story, Reilly, who was, as we have said, in consequence of his gentlemanly manners and liberal principles, a favorite with all cla.s.ses and all parties, and entertained no apprehensions from the dominant party, took his way homewards deeply impressed with the generous affections which his _Cooleen Bawn_ had expressed for him. He consequently looked upon himself as perfectly safe in his own house. The state of society in Ireland, however, was at that melancholy period so uncertain that no Roman Catholic, however popular, or however innocent, could for one week calculate upon safety either to his property or person, if he happened to have an enemy who possessed any influence in the opposing Church. Religion thus was made the stalking-horse, not only of power, but of persecution, rapacity, and selfishness, and the unfortunate Roman Catholic who considered himself safe to-day might find himself ruined tomorrow, owing to the cupidity of some man who turned a l.u.s.tful eye upon his property, or who may have entertained a feeling of personal ill-will against him. Be this as it may, Reilly wended his melancholy way homewards, and had got within less than a quarter of a mile of his own house when he was met by Fergus in his mendicant habit, who startled him by the information he disclosed.
”Where are you bound for, Mr. Reilly?” said the latter.
”For home,” replied Reilly, ”in order to secure my money and the papers connected with the family property.”
”Well, then,” said the other, ”if you go home now you are a lost man.”
”How is that?” asked Reilly.
”Your house at this moment is filled with sogers, and surrounded by them too. You know that no human being could make me out in this disguise; I had heard that they were on their way to your place, and afeered that they might catch you at home, I was goin' to let you know, in ordher that you might escape them, but I was too late; the villains were there before me. I took heart o' grace, however, and went up to beg a little charity for the love and honor of G.o.d. Seem' the kind of creature I was, they took no notice of me; for to tell you the truth, they were too much bent on searchin' for, and findin' you. G.o.d protect us from such men, Mr. Reilly,” and the name he uttered in alow and cautious voice; ”but at all events this is no country for you to live in now. But who do you think was the busiest and the bittherest man among them?”
”Why Whitecraft, I suppose.”
”No; he wasn't there himself--no; but that double distilled traitor and villain, the Red Rapparee, and bad luck to him. You see, then, that if you attempt to go near your own house you're a lost man, as I said.”
”I feel the truth of what you say,” replied Reilly, ”but are you aware that they committed any acts of violence? Are you aware that they disturbed my property or ransacked my house?”
”Well, that's more than I can say,” replied Fergus, ”for to tell you the truth, I was afraid to trust myself inside, in regard of that scoundrel the Rapparee, who, bein' himself accustomed to all sorts of disguises, I dreaded might find me out.”
”Well, at all events,” said Reilly, ”with respect to that I disregard them. The family papers and other available property are too well secreted for them to secure them. On discovering Whitecraft's jealousy, and knowing, as I did before, his vindictive spirit and power in the country, I lost no time in putting them in a safe place. Unless they burn the house they could never come at them. But as this fact is not at all an improbable one--so long as Whitecraft is my unscrupulous and relentless enemy--I shall seize upon the first opportunity of placing them elsewhere.”
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