Lewis Wingfield

“ When the tide at New Ross began to turn against the insurgents, Father Roche--whose reason had toppled, who was mad in that his influence had shrivelled away from him--swore to be revenged somehow, not on his own erring flock, but on those whom the ill-conditioned god of war was permitting to win the day! It was one of those awful moments when blinding ferocity dictates unchecked, which make one almost believe in the existence of Lucifer; when the human tendency to evil seems to pile itself up into a monument of what wickedness may be able to accomplish. ”

“ My Lady Camden, growing more and more apprehensive--for her lord's babble was incoherent--resolved to go down into the city and see for herself what passed there. She drove her four ponies along Ormond Quay, which was as deserted as if the town were plague-stricken; they swerved, and well-nigh upset her ladyship, for a single naked figure came tearing round a corner with wild yells and windmill arms, who, rushing past, flung himself over the parapet into the Liffey. Helter-skelter behind him came the hounds--in scarlet coats and pipe-clayed cross-belts--but the lady-lieutenant saw them not. ”

“ When the fiery cross was at last lighted--when the hands of kinsmen were at each other's throats--when Dublin was burning--her gutters running red--what would be the fate of delicate sensitive natures like that of Sara--of sweet, pale Sara Curran, round whose form his heart-strings were softly wrapping themselves? What if he were to fall? what if fortune should not smile upon the patriots? He was quite aware that Heaven frequently delights in persecuting those who do well, and showering favours on the most undeserving, almost offering a premium for evildoing. ”

“ There was a long pause, during which the dowager continued to eye her niece.
'Aunt, I will go with you to Donegal!' Miss Wolfe said slowly, her large eyes peering with vague terror into space. 'I think now I will take a walk, for I am rather upset;' and quietly taking her garden-hat from the bench hard-by, she knotted its ribbons under her chin, and disappeared between the beech hedges of the rosary.
There are moments in most lives when so sharp a pang shoots through our hearts, that we feel there is nothing left but to seek a remote covert and wait for death. ”

“ That association at first was small,' pursued Curran, 'the earth seemed to drink it as a rivulet. A thousand streams, through the secret windings of the earth, found their way to one source and swelled its waters; it is prepared now to burst forth as a great river--what will its cataracts not sweep away? It is you, my lord, who will have aggravated sedition into rebellion.'
'Dear, dear!' smiled Lord Clare. 'Do you, too, listen to their claptrap? I say to you, as I've said openly all along, nothing can be more lenient than the executive! We stand simply on the defensive. ”

“ She gauged the inherent weakness of Shane's nature, which cloaked itself under a mask of fierceness; she knew his overbearing, swashbuckling ways would sink into a minor key of mewing if they had no encouraging sympathy from without. She knew better than really to believe that 'absence makes the heart grow fonder.' Nonsense! The heart is too selfish a thing to feed long upon itself or shadows. If she could only manage to keep Shane here long enough, he would become as meek as a lamb, and would cease to bleat of Norah in his dreams. ”

“ One little ghost of doubt yet lingered in my lady's mind, which she did her best to exorcise. Doreen was dreadfully pigheaded. What if moping were to render her more obstinate? She was not a Blaster or a Cherokee, but a stern-browed damsel, with much romance, tempered by a little common-sense, and an awkward tendency to rely upon her own judgment. Being a woman, too, she would probably detect at once another woman's web, such as might hope to escape the scrutiny of male observation. Was it possible that she might choose to upset all her aunt's elaborate scaffolding, after all? ”

“ Sure man was not created only for the sake of torment. Children were not born merely to be ripped asunder--virgins to be ravished--men to be done to death by inches? Why, whilst the sun smiled on earth for good and bad alike--its glory heightened by a casual vapour-fleck--was Ireland alone exempted from the boon of light? The last trump had not yet sounded. Why was Erin alone to be a hell? ”

“ Fortune is cruel to us; but we'll snap our fingers in her face. If we are to die, let us die as men--not in tears like women. Rouse up, Tom! rouse up, boy! Put on a good front. Open the door, Robert. If they have learned to probe thus deeply in our secrets, they will know more--enough to hang us every one. There's no good in battling with them.'
Major Sirr entered, and saluted his victims with one of the elaborate military evolutions which had become the vogue. Tom Emmett started from the form, and held himself erect. ”

“ Nothing could be more dismal than the Irish capital now. There was a species of curfew at sunset, after which few ventured in the street. Major Sirr and his myrmidons glided hither and thither on their devilish errand of cajoling men to their destruction. It was the business of these miscreants to provide victims for the lash by any means. Bands of drunken yeomanry awoke the midnight echoes with their shouting as they returned from breaking into a dwelling, or from flogging victims in the riding-school. ”

“ Dublin and the great towns undertook to look to themselves. The armed squireens, yeomanry, fencibles, strutted in scarlet in the streets, clothed in the bully airs which characterise brief authority.
The burning zeal of Orangeism was let loose in all its excess of wildness, and a fanatical orgy commenced--a saturnalia of fiends who acted in the name of religion--which endured for two whole years. Men, who in the past had made themselves objectionable to Government, were not forgotten now. ”

“ I am easy-going, and not prone to believe evil. But my eyes are opened now. Ireland's soil is sick with the blood of centuries. A little while, and please God she shall bleed no more!'
'Mr. Cassidy!' the girl said, with heaving breast and such a joyous confusion as prevented her from reading the giant's face, 'did I not say to you just now that after darkness comes the morning? Surely night must be at its blackest now, Terence. I take you at your word. This change is a miracle wrought by heaven in the nick of time to prevent Theobald's efforts from being frustrated. ”

“ We have reached that limit, and will feel no more;' and, strange as it may seem, with that resolve comes an impression of calm, which, in its way, is a sort of negative happiness. We have lost something, we are bereft of something which above all things we valued, yet we seem vaguely better for the loss. It is like the expression of peace which all blind faces wear, though their most precious treasure has been stolen--the sense of sight.
Doreen shrank from probing her own feelings with regard to Terence. ”

“ I have striven to believe in the honesty of Government. Let us go together and explain to his excellency while there's yet time!'
The chancellor laid his hand on the young man's shoulder as if to soothe a petulant child; while Curran sat on a table with arms crossed and a sour smile flitting about his lips.
'Young gentleman,' Lord Clare said, 'take the advice of an older man and your mother's friend. Keep aloof from these matters, and don't give credence to grandams' tales. We understand what we are doing, and want no dictation from raw youths--we are satisfied of Orr's guilt. ”

“ We know that a demand invariably creates a supply. The gentlemen of the yeomanry vied one with the other in cultivation of their inventive faculty and the result was an array of practical jokes, novel and splendid indeed! Even the great French reign of terror was thrown into the shade. The French, as we all know, are not inventive or witty. A guillotine--a constant flow of blood and falling heads; a boat with a trap-door to drown people by the dozen--amusing rather for a minute, then nauseously dull and monotonous. The jolly Irish boys were much wittier than this, and more ingenious ”

“ Doreen was too much upset to appear at breakfast, so my lady picnicked alone on the window-seat which looked upon the stable-yard, watching for her vagrant darling, keeping a keen look-out, too, as to whether her niece went out for a scamper. For my lady had passed a sleepless night--one of those terrible nuits blanches much worse than any nightmare--when all our sins sit heavy on our chests; when our brains throb to bursting, and we hope there is no hereafter. She tossed--listening for Shane's return--growing more feverish as hour after hour passed silently. Still at the Little House! ”

“ Lord Clare coloured slightly, and bit his lip, but answered nothing.
'At a moment when the foe is at our gates,' Curran pursued bitterly--'for the French armament at Brest is surely meant for Ireland--do you strive to unite all parties against a common enemy? No! Look at the scenes which are daily enacted under your auspices in the north. Robbery, rape, and murder; one brother at another brother's throat. Yet I am wrong. We are of one accord on one point. You are uniting us as one man against the conciliation of our animosities and the consolidation of our strength. Alas for Erin! ”

“ Robert's face assumed a guilty hue, and he lowered his eyes.
'Nay--don't blush, man!' returned the elder, whilst Terence looked from one to the other curiously. 'When the spring comes, birds will mate even on battle-fields! The perseverance of nature, despite obstacles, is incorrigible! Would ye believe it, Terence? A girl to whom I'm a bit partial flung herself into my arms this very morning with shrieks, declaring that if all a foolish servant told her was true, and Ireland doomed to be a slaughter-house, one crathur at least must be saved--who was not her papa! ”

“ You look ill!'
'I am leaving Dublin almost at once,' Doreen said, 'and am glad of it. If there is one power which has the gift of withering up the soul, it is treachery! I am sick of the world. Go to your brother. Tell him the cause is lost. One who held all their secrets has betrayed them--for five hundred guineas; that is their value in his eyes.'
Here the girl broke into wild laughter--she who never laughed; and Robert looked at her in surprise, with a sense of coldness, creeping. ”

“ Happily for Lady Camden's peace of mind, she had fled long since. Soldiers were sent out at free quarters to the right and left, with hints that it would be well that their hosts should not forget their coming. Virgins were tossed naked in blankets, while their fathers and brothers were compelled to watch their shame. The pitch-cap was in daily use; gunpowder was exploded in the hair. A new and splendid jest was invented by a merry dog. Why not picket the recalcitrant scum? What better joke than to poise an insolent fellow barefoot upon a pointed stake? ”

“ Terence was packed in the celebrated wrapper, which once to see was never to forget. A beaver bonnet and veil covered his head. An arm was deftly bandaged. He stepped into the coach, drew up the glasses, and leaning back in the shadow as the coachman whipped his horses, began to collect his thoughts. Whew! What a whirl it was! Why dear Madam Gillin should suddenly become nervous, and wag her plumes so, he could not imagine. Unpleasant things are ofttimes for the best. Concealed in the capital itself he would be all the better able to superintend in person the proceedings of New Year's Eve. ”

“ She could not be so hoighty-toighty if afraid.
'You are right,' he returned; 'business is business. I regret to say I must search your house, for I've reason to know that Councillor Crosbie is concealed here. I advise you to produce him, and have done with it.'
Oh, Major Sirr! Major Sirr! You should have sent your better-half to cope with Mrs. Gillin. What are a dozen men against one woman, in a battle of wits? What are two dozen men against one woman whose blood is roused, who stands like a tigress 'twixt her whelp and danger? ”

“ The letters would speedily reach their destinations, Cassidy assured him. This new turn of events might induce Government to take active measures of some kind. What would they do? Repent them of their evil ways and take to leniency, or, thinking they had their victim quite at their mercy, still further goad and harass her? What would Terence's private enemy do--he of whom my Lord Clare so mysteriously spoke?
With so many spies about, it was almost inevitable that the active part that the young councillor was playing would become known to Government. ”

“ It was for this ball on New Year's Eve that Norah Gillin had gone forth to purchase ribbons and plumes. It was for this ball that my Lady Glandore had waited--after which she and Miss Wolfe were to start for Donegal, changing their gala-dresses at the first stage upon the road.
Sara, who burned to see Robert and hear how his red-hot speech at the debating society had been received, importuned her father with unusual eagerness to take her to this ball. Was his little primrose becoming worldly? he inquired, with a gloomy smile. No, no! Twinkling feet should go with light hearts. ”