Volume Iii Part 16 (1/2)

'A useful sacrifice, truly!' the incensed lawyer rejoined. 'You don't think of _her_--whom you are killing!'

'The breath of the tomb is on me!' implored the lad, with a dry mouth.

'Spare any addition to my misery. I was infatuated, too certain of success, and knew she would be so glad when I succeeded. Those lives--those lives! Would success have blotted out the recollection of them? I go, and it is well that I should go, though I leave to so many a legacy of sorrow.'

There was a dreamy resignation about the youth, as of one who does wrong and leaves others to bear the brunt, which infuriated Curran. If ever there was a moment for prompt.i.tude to the exclusion of dreaminess, this was that moment, for the sake of others as well as himself; and here he stood, soliloquising like a Hamlet--the unpractical dangerous dreamer!

'You might have got away, and did not,' said the lawyer, tartly. 'Do you know that the country is being scoured for you--that if you are taken the scrag-boy will make short work of you? You don't care, maybe. Is it nothing to us--to _her?_'

'Perhaps there is still time. Get ye gone by the postern in the rosary. The peasantry are staunch. You might lie in a cabin under the bed-furniture till night, and then steal out to sea under cover of the darkness.'

'If I fall into their hands I will speak my own defence, sir,'

murmured Emmett, without moving.

'And much good may it do you--fool!' shouted the enraged councillor.

'Don't stand s.h.i.+lly-shallying here like a great goose. Sara, order him to go. If he's hanged you'll have yourself to thank for it.'

Sara took no heed, but lay back, watching the dear youth--as white as wax, like one in a trance.

There was a turmoil in the next room, a rustle of silk, an upsetting of chairs, and Mrs. Gillin darted through the doorway. 'Is he gone?'

she asked. 'Then it's too late! There's a body of sodgers marching in.

They are surrounding the house.'

Robert pa.s.sed his hands through his matted hair. His belief in his star was gone. He was plainly not destined to be a Joshua. He panted to join those who had crossed the rubicon. On the boundary-line of the other life we are apt to plunge into a selfish beat.i.tude, forgetting the trouble which our exit may entail on those whom we leave behind.

In a few moments his fate was fixed. The regular tramp of disciplined men was heard on the gravel with a ring of matchlocks. Then a figure darkened the cas.e.m.e.nt. It was Major Sirr demanding admittance. Robert opened the window himself, and the town-major's lambs streamed in.

Doreen gave a sharp exclamation of surprise--for one of the group was Ca.s.sidy--another, who came forward with arms outstretched, was Terence--safe and sound.

The town-major's bushy eyebrows came down upon his nose, as, grinning, he struck Robert on the shoulder. 'Do you recollect, young fellow,' he railed, 'how anxious you twice were to be arrested? I told you then that your turn would come soon enough. It has come now, and I hope you are satisfied, though I fear I shan't keep you long.'

Robert Emmett bowed absently, as if he but half-heard, and, kneeling by Sara's chair again, muttered--forgetful of lookers-on: 'Oh, my love--my love. Do we part thus? I hoped to have been a prop, round which your affections might have clung; but a rude blast has snapped it--they have fallen across a grave!' Then, twining her fair hair about his fingers with affectionate regret, he fell a dreaming, whilst Madam Gillin gulped down her sobs.

'I go into my cold and silent tomb,' he whispered, as he stroked the baby-fingers of his mistress. My lamp of life is nearly extinguished; the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom.'

Major Sirr perceived with his usual tact that this sentimental scene was producing a bad impression, and must be interrupted. The extreme youth and woe-begone appearance of Robert--his half-distracted, half-inspired look--moved the spectators to tears. Surely he was too young--too much of a visionary--to be held really accountable for the storm that he had raised. As to the frail girl, she appeared to be beyond sublunary cares. Lulled by angel-strains, she was gazing upon a world which has nothing in common with ours--what she saw was beautiful, and true, and real--the people flitting round her couch were the unreal shades. The town-major tapped his prisoner's arm, and begged him to make haste. 'I must obey orders,' he said. 'They are straightforward, and concise as Lord Clare's always are. I've brought one prisoner here, and must take another hence. Come along!'

Mrs. Gillin, unhooking a pair of scissors from her girdle, between convulsive hiccups, handed them to Doreen. The one woman understood the other's thought. Doreen gently cut the longest tress from Sara's golden head and pressed it into Robert's palm.

'Thanks,' he said, with a quiver of the lip. 'I will wear this in my bosom when I mount the scaffold. I am ready, gentlemen, and will not detain you. Before I leave the world--and I leave it now when I leave my friends--I have one request to make. May the charity of oblivion be accorded to my memory! Let no one write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dares now to vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed!'

This would never do. Major Sirr grasped him roughly by the coat-tail to drag his prisoner away. The soldiers, accustomed to the business, closed in quickly. But ere Robert went, Mr. Curran, with tears streaming down his rugged features, placed his arms about his neck, and held him in a long embrace.

Then was the last of Moiley's victims marched away under a strong guard, and the rest were left to their own sombre meditations. A stillness of oppression fell on all as Curran, Terence, and Doreen gathered round prostrate Sara. Mr. Ca.s.sidy found himself awkwardly situated, for n.o.body took any notice of him. Vainly his boots creaked, while he coughed behind his hand. Mrs. Gillin was no longer afraid, for she as well as others saw that, the tussle over, the final clearing away of Catholic disabilities was only a matter of time--that even if he launched the thunderbolt at her, in terror of which she had held her peace concerning what she knew of him, it would signify little. With the Union a new era was dawning--all the Catholics felt that--one in which Irish and English interests would grow to be the same in the future, when the sea of blood was bridged--one in which the last vile fragments of the Penal Code must soon be swept away--a relic of the dark ages. Even if Mr. Ca.s.sidy were to declare publicly that she took her Protestant daughter with her to the ma.s.s, it was possible she might escape tribulation for the enormity. So Mr. Ca.s.sidy coughed at her in vain. Curran had never liked him. Doreen knew too much of him. It was a satisfaction to all, himself included, when, with a clumsy excuse, he twirled his fine beaver and backed himself out of the apartment.

The old earl, his parent, smirked from his frame upon the new wearer of the coronet. Was the simper more full of meaning than it used to be, or was it merely the limner's conventional flattery? The desire expressed with such solemnity upon his deathbed was accomplished; the wrong was righted now--at last.