Volume I Part 14 (1/2)

'On paper.'

'And the French will be here in force--the veterans of the Republic.'

'The French, the French!' growled Curran. 'Say that they land and beat the armies of King George, which I much doubt; will they not soon weary of a precarious possession, and, carrying you to market in some treaty of peace, barter you away to be well scourged? I vow I have no patience with you, grieved though I be for the humble order of the people, who from lack of education are easily deluded. Depend upon it, your acts are all known in London. By the time you are ready, the towns will seethe with British troops. I tremble to think of the result.'

'Would ye have us turn the cheek like good Christians, then?' jeered the giant, who, under influence of wine, was becoming warm. 'Are the sons of the ancient kings meekly to become galley-slaves?'

'What would I have ye do?' retorted the host, who perceived with wrath that he was being driven into a corner. 'I'd have ye keep a civil tongue, and talk no treason till ye're outside my privet-hedge. If ye do not, I'll report what's been said to Clare; I will, upon my honour, to save ye from worse folly.'

The st.u.r.dy little man looked as if he were quite capable of carrying out his threat. If he were to disclose all he knew of them, it would be terrible indeed.

Ca.s.sidy, the claret mounting to his muddled brain, seized a decanter with the laudable intention of belabouring his host with it.

'A traitor!' he muttered fiercely. 'That's the lowest beast that crawls. If ye spake ere a word of us, I'll pistol ye in the street!'

The lawyer looked calmly up at the menacing giant and laughed. 'Put it down, big baby,' he said. 'You dare to think me half-hearted because I won't take a pike and try to knock down St. Patrick's. Does any man in Ireland love Erin more than I? Learn, fool, that men have different functions a.s.signed to them. Do your best, if G.o.d wills it so. When the battle's lost ye'll want me to bind your gashes. I've listened to much rubbish this afternoon. Now you, in your turn, listen to the truth, which is bad enough--ochone! I _know_ that all your martial goings-out and comings-in are reported one by one; I _know_ that they are broidured and embellished before they cross the sea. I have reason to suspect--I admit I cannot prove it yet--that such cooked accounts are given of your doings as actually to alarm the British cabinet. You are playing into Pitt's hands. I have heard that they even talk of ”martial-law” as possible. If they come to that, the Lord be merciful to our poor Erin!'

Mr. Curran's head sank on his breast, and tears ran down his rugged cheeks; while the conspirators glanced one at the other with pallid faces. Martial law! rough and ready tribunals presided over by the tools of England! Sure their host's terrors must carry him away. And yet he might be right, judging from the past. It was quite possible that they were being deliberately driven to the shambles in cold blood--like victims marked out for slaughter by some savage despot.

Ca.s.sidy laid down the decanter, and began to stammer apologies for his petulance.

The noise of voices at high words brought Sara into the room, who, frightened at the sudden dread which seemed to have invaded the party, clung to her father, while she turned an inquiring glance to the undergraduate.

'What is it, father?' she murmured with dim fear, for the adored face of Robert was distorted with pa.s.sion, while his hands shook like leaves.

'A Union is it that they want?' the boy muttered 'twixt chattering teeth. 'I will resist it to the last gasp of my existence--to the last drop of my blood--and when death comes, I will call down the eternal curse of Heaven upon the destroyers of our freedom!'

Sara felt dizzy, and would have fallen but for her father's encircling arm. Dark shadows of foreboding were flitting across her mind. Was he whom she elected to wors.h.i.+p to be drawn into the whirlpool after all?

Was Robert to share Theobald's fate--to be banished from friends and motherland? In her gentle loving heart she registered a vow that if that fate should come on him, the sorrow of his exile should be soothed by no hand but hers.

Mr. Curran set himself to calm his darling. 'Silly child!' he said, patting her yellow curls. 'There, there, why not in bed? Fie! young ladies mustn't rush in where gintlemen are toping. Well, as ye are here, pick up the matarials from the hearth, my love, and squeeze in another lemon. This won't do. I shall lose my reputation as a _bon viveur_. A sentiment? Bravo! Here 'tis. Come, b.u.mpers! ”If a man fills the bottom of his gla.s.s, more shame to him if he doesn't fill the top; and if he empties the top, sure he'd not be so base as to deny the bottom the same compliment!” Now we'll lock the doors, and my big friend shall expend his exuberance in song. A toast first. You too shall sip of it, my blossom, for there's ne'er a bit of treason in it.' Then, clasping Sara's slender waist, he raised his haggard eyes, and said solemnly: 'As G.o.d in these latter days is unfolding in His creatures strange new powers, so may they all tend to Freedom, Peace, and Harmony. May those who are free never be enslaved--may those who are slaves be speedily set free. Amen!'

Ca.s.sidy, quite good-humoured and repentant now--for his bark was always more awful than his bite--tuned up and sang his choicest ditties; yet somehow there was a pall over the party which music could not dissipate. Truths had slipped out in the desultory talk which weighed down the souls of all. Mr. Curran, usually a pearl among hosts, was worried and absent, for, look at the situation as he would, there was nothing to be seen but impending disaster, and he thought that perhaps he had spoken out too openly. Terence, too, seemed much disturbed in mind; more moved at Robert's story and his own hints than he liked to see. Perchance it would be safest to pack him home without delay. Yet no--his was not the soul-harrowing indignation which exercised the patriots. He was shocked, but there was no real danger of his being trapped. It would lie heavy on his conscience, though, if this artless joyous creature should be dragged into the vortex. Much better that he should shoot, and hunt, and fish, and make the most of the happy accident of his social standing. Certainly he would show little affection for his _protege_ if he permitted him to be trapped, and Ca.s.sidy showed wondrous anxiety to trap him. An odd person, Ca.s.sidy; a whimsical combination of opposing essences; one of those dangerous hot natures whose ill-balanced zeal is more fatal to a cause than enmity. No one could on occasion be more oafishly stupid than he, or more rashly brave; and yet the way he kept up a show of intercourse with Major Sirr and my Lord Clare, after the fas.h.i.+on of a safety-rope to which to cling in peril, was worthy of quite a subtle plotter. That the giant meant well there could be no doubt. But if he, Curran, had had aught to do with the society, he would have stipulated that this firebrand should be kept as much as might be in the background.

While he meditated thus the punch-bowl was emptied, and, as he made a move to refill it, the party broke into knots and resumed the topic which engrossed them.

Terence listened to young Robert's views, which, under the auspices of liquor, grew more rosy and more loud.

'I don't mind telling you about it,' the boy was saying, 'for I know that your honour is too fine to allow the smallest hint to be dropped of what I say. The French will come with 15,000 men, and gunpowder, and muskets. Pikeheads are being hammered out of hours on hundreds of village anvils.'

'They will never send 15,000 men,' Terence objected, with a doggedness induced by drink. 'Their coffers are empty. Holland, Switzerland, the Rhine, claim the attention of their arms.'

'If they send but 5,000 the work can be done. You don't believe it?

With three hundred as officers to head our own people, we could make an effort.'

'What can a rabble hope to do against a disciplined force?' exclaimed Terence, with animation. 'The French could not spare three hundred officers to this outlying island. Who have you amongst you who could teach a single military man[oe]uvre? Who could save an army from rout if attacked in rear, or judiciously decide upon a line of entrenchment? What a reckless waste of life--a march into the grave!'

'There are cultivated gintlemen who will come forward when they see that we are in earnest,' put in Ca.s.sidy slyly; 'lots of them. There is no telling what mines of military genius may be found amongst the high-born. I confess I'd like to know what we really may expect from France. Theobald has been ten months in Paris, is hand and glove they say with General Hoche, and Carnot, the ”Organiser of Victory.”

Strange he should never write.'