Part 19 (1/2)
”Cupid! I thought he was drowned in the honey-pot, yet he's up again, and as brisk as ever, it appears. However, go on--let us understand fairly what you're at. I think I see a glimpse of it; and knowing your character upon the subject of persecution as I do, it's more, I must say, than I expected from you. Go on--I bid you.”
”I say, then, sir, that if Reilly were either hanged or out of the country, the consciousness of this would soon alter matters with Miss Folliard. If you, then, sir, will enter into an agreement with me, I shall undertake so to make the laws bear upon Reilly as to rid either the world or the country of him; and you shall promise not to press upon your daughter the subject of her marriage with me until then. Still, there is one thing you must do; and that is, to keep her under the strictest surveillance.”
”What the devil's that?” said the squire.
”It means,” returned his expected son-in-law, ”that she must be well watched, but without feeling that she is so.”
”Would it not be better to lock her up at once?” said her father. ”That would be making the matter sure.”
”Not at all,” replied Whitecraft. ”So sure as you lock her up, so sure she will break prison.”
”Well, upon my soul,” replied her father. ”I can't see that. A strong lock and key are certainly the best surety for the due appearance of any young woman disposed to run away. I think the best way would be to make her feel at once that her father is a magistrate, and commit her to her own room until called upon to appear.”
Whitecraft, whose object was occasionally to puzzle his friend, gave a cold grin, and added:
”I suppose your next step would be to make her put in security. No--no, Mr. Folliard; if you will be advised by me, try the soothing system; antiphlogistic remedies are always the best in a case like hers.”
”Anti--what? Curse me, if I can understand every tenth word you say.
However, I give you credit, Whitecraft; for upon my soul I didn't think you knew half so much as you do. That last, however, is a tickler--a nut that I can't crack. I wish I could only get my tongue about it, till I send it among the Grand Jury, and maybe there wouldn't be wigs on the green in making it out.”
”Yes, I fancy it would teach them a little supererogation.”
”A little what? Is it love that has made you so learned, Whitecraft, or so unintelligible, which? Why, man, if your pa.s.sion increases, in another week there won't be three men out of Trinity College able to understand you. You will become a perfect oracle. But, in the meantime, let us see how the arrangement stands. _Imprimus_, you are to hang or transport Keilly; and, until then, I am not to annoy my daughter with any allusions to this marriage: but, above all things, not to compare you and Reilly with one another in her presence, lest it might strengthen her prejudices against you.”
”I beg your pardon, Mr. Folliard. I did not say so; I fear no comparison with the fellow.”
”No matter, Sir Robert, if you did not knock it down you staggered it.
Omitting the comparison, however, I suppose that so far I am right.”
”I think so, sir,” replied the other, conscious, ”after all, that he had got a touch of 'Roland for his Oliver'.”
Then he proceeded: ”I'm to watch her closely, only she's not to know it. Now, I'll tell you what, Sir Robert, I know you carry a long noddle, with more hard words in it than I ever gave you credit for--but with regard to what you expect from me now--”
”I don't mean that you should watch her personally yourself, Mr.
Folliard.”
”I suppose you don't; I didn't think you did; but I'll tell you what--place the twelve labors of Hercules before me, and I'll undertake to perform them, if you wish, but to watch a woman, Sir Robert--and that woman keen and sharp upon the cause of such vigilance--without her knowing it in one half hour's time--that is a task that never was, can, or will be accomplished. In the meantime, we must only come as near its accomplishment as we can.”
”Just so, sir; we can do no more. Remember, then, that you perform your part of this arrangement, and, with the blessing of G.o.d, I shall leave nothing undone to perform mine.”
Thus closed this rather extraordinary conversation, after which Sir Robert betook himself home, to reflect upon the best means of performing his part of it, with what quickness and dispatch, and with what success, our readers already know.
The old squire was one of those characters who never are so easily persuaded as when they do not fully comprehend the argument used to convince them. Whenever the squire found himself a little at fault, or confounded by either a difficult word or a hard sentence, he always took it for granted that there was something unusually profound and clever in the matter laid before him. Sir Robert knew this, and on that account played him off to a certain extent. He was too cunning, however, to darken any part of the main argument so far as to prevent its drift from being fully understood, and thereby defeating his own purpose.
CHAPTER VIII.--A Conflagration--An Escape--And an Adventure
We have said that Sir Robert Whitecraft was anything but a popular man--and we might have added that, unless among his own clique of bigots and persecutors, he was decidedly unpopular among Protestants in general. In a few days after the events of the night we have described, Reilly, by the advice of Mr. Brown's brother, an able and distinguished lawyer, gave up the possession of his immense farm, dwelling-house, and offices to the landlord. In point of fact, this man had taken the farm for Reilly's father, in his own name, a step which many of the liberal and generous Protestants of that period were in the habit of taking, to protect the property for the Roman Catholics, from such rapacious scoundrels as Whitecraft, and others like him, who had acc.u.mulated the greater portion of their wealth and estates by the blackest and most iniquitous political profligacy and oppression. For about a month after the first night of the unsuccessful pursuit after Reilly, the whole country was overrun with military parties, and such miserable inefficient police as then existed. In the meantime, Reilly escaped every toil and snare that had been laid for him. Sir Robert Whitecraft, seeing that hitherto he had set them at defiance, resolved to glut his vengeance on his property, since he could not arrest himself. A description of his person had been, almost from the commencement of the proceedings, published in the Hue-and-Cry, and he had been now outlawed.
As even this failed, Sir Robert, as we said, came with a numerous party of his myrmidons, bringing along with them a large number of horses, carts, and cars. The house at this time was in the possession only of a keeper, a poor, feeble man, with a wife and a numerous family of small children, the other servants having fled from the danger in which their connection with Reilly involved them. Sir Robert, however, very deliberately brought up his cars and other vehicles, and having dragged out all the most valuable part of the furniture, piled it up, and had it conveyed to his own outhouses, where it was carefully-stowed. This act, however, excited comparatively little attention, for such outrages were not unfrequently committed by those who had, or at least who thought they had; the law in their own hands. It was now dusk, and the house had been gutted of all that had been most valuable in it--but the most brilliant part of the performance was yet to come. We mean no contemptible pun. The young man's dwelling-house, and office-houses were ignited at this moment by this man's military and other official minions, and in about twenty minutes they were all wrapped in one red, merciless ma.s.s of flame. The country people, on observing this fearful conflagration, flocked from all quarters; but a cordon of outposts was stationed at some distance around the premises, to prevent the peasantry from marking the chief actors in this nefarious outrage. Two gentlemen, however, approached, who, having given their names, were at once admitted to the burning premises. These were Mr. Brown, the clergyman, and Mr. Hastings, the actual and legal proprietor of all that had been considered Reilly's property. Both of them observed that Sir Robert was the busiest man among them, and upon making inquiries from the party, they were informed that they acted by his orders, and that, moreover, he was himself the very first individual who had set fire to the premises. The clergyman made his way to Sir Robert, on whose villainous countenance he could read a dark and diabolical triumph.