Feargus O'Connor

“ The leader of the movement was Feargus O’Connor, an Irish barrister and journalist, who had entered Parliament in 1832 as a follower of O’Connell and as member for Cork. He quarrelled, however, with the Irish leader, a circumstance which was fatal to success as an agitator in his own country. Restless and reckless, he henceforth carried his energy and devoted his eloquence to the Chartist movement in England, and in 1847 the popular vote carried him once more to the House of Commons as member for Nottingham. ”

“ We didn't make the world, and we can't mend it. Poor George. Well—he's at rest. The world wasn't the place for him."
They grew silent. The spectre glided slowly to the wall, and stood as if it were thinking what, with Dr. Renton's rule of action, was to become of the greatest good of the smallest number. Nathalie sat on her father's knee, thinking only of George Feval, and of his having been starved and grieved to death. ”

“ Merchant and captain, stupefied and staring, gave him no reply.
“Hark you, now, Atkins,” he went on. “We found that man half dead in the hold when we were three days out—a sight to make one’s flesh crawl. The bloody old pirate he’d [295] run away from, had put a spiked collar on his neck, just as if he was a brute, with no soul to be saved. I’m an old sea-dog—I am; and I’ve seen men ill treated in my time, but I’m damned if I ever seen a man ill-treated like that God-forsaken nigger. He’d run away, and no blame to him for running away. ”

“ Receiving no answer, he looked at her, and saw the sad truth in her averted face.
"I beg your pardon," he said quickly, flushing to the roots of his hair. "I might have known, after what you said to me this evening."
"We had a little fire here to-day, sir," she said, struggling with the pride and shame of poverty; "but we have been out of firing for two or three days, and we owe the wharfman something now. The two boys picked up a few chips; but the poor children find it hard to get them, sir. Times are very hard with us, sir; indeed they are. ”

“ It shook the cruelty of his purpose a little, and he had a vague feeling that he was doing wrong. Not without a proud struggle, during which no word was spoken, could he beat it down. Meanwhile, the phantom had advanced a pace toward the centre of the room.
"That is the state of the matter, ma'am," he resumed, coldly. "People who will not pay me my rent must not live in my tenements. You must move out. I have no more to say."
"Dr. Renton," she said faintly, "I have a sick child—how can I move now? Oh! sir, it's Christmas eve—don't be hard with us!" ”

“ Silent at present, she sat with her white arms tightly clasped below her bosom, which convulsively rose and fell beneath its muslin folds, and with dilated nostrils, and pale lips curved with hate and grief, kept her dark eyes, lustrous with passion, fixed on the evil visage of her husband.
“You are well named,” she broke forth again, her voice, a rich contralto, trembling with vehemence; “but you are worse than your pirate namesake. Worse than the worst of that Baratarian crew. Lafitte! Lafitte, indeed! You are worse than he. Worse than Murrell. Worse than anybody. Devil that you are!” ”

“ Well, as I was saying, he buffeted about in this world a long time, poorly paid, fed, and clad; taking more care of other people than he did of himself. Then mental suffering, physical exposure, and want killed him."
The stern voice had grown softer than a child's. The same look of unutterable tenderness brooded on the mournful face of the phantom by his side; but its thin, shining hand was laid upon his head, and its countenance had undergone a change. ”

“ Rayber said curtly.
"Yeah?" the barber said. "Well, this last speech was a killeroo! Ol' Hawk let them Mother Hubbards have it."
"A good many people," Rayber said, "consider Hawkson a demagog." He wondered if George knew what demagog meant. Should have said, "lying politician."
"Demagog!" The barber slapped his knee and whooped. "That's what Hawk said!" he howled. "Ain't that a shot! 'Folks,' he says, 'them Mother Hubbards says I'm a demagog.' Then he rears back and says sort of soft-like, 'Am I a demagog, you people?" ”

“ The blood rushed to O'Connor's brow as the old man uttered this insulting invective. The fiery impulse which under other circumstances would have been uncontrollable, was, however, speedily, though with difficulty, mastered; and O'Connor replied bitterly,—
"You are an old man, Sir Richard, and her father—you are safe, sir. How much of chivalry or courage is shown in heaping insult upon one who will not retort upon you, judge for yourself. ”

“ Tassle following, and contemplatively regarding, as he spat and chewed, the shaking calves of the negro’s legs, which he had a chance to do, as the old trowsers, too short in the first instance, were now split up the backs, nearly to the knees, and feebly flapped as the slave tottered on. Antony himself, giddy with his long exposure in the sun, and with the glow of the liquor he had drank, felt his poor mind wander a little, and was conscious of nothing so much as of the queer tattered shadow that bobbed around him, and which he half fancied would trip him up if he were to try to run away now. ”

“ Renton, sententiously.
"I thought, sir," she continued, emboldened by his silence, "that if you would be willing to wait a little longer, we would manage to pay you soon, and not let it occur again. It has been a hard winter with us, sir; firing is high, and provisions, and everything; and we're only poor people, you know, and it's difficult to get along." ”

“ Lifting his dizzy eyes to the level of his master’s hand, Antony saw that it held a heavy iron collar with a prong, on which he read in stamped letters, Lafitte Brothers, New Orleans.
“My brother had a nigger that wore this collar once,” said the smooth, cruel voice, “and now you’ll wear it. If you ever get away again, which I’ll take care you never will, people will know who you belong to, my fine boy. Kneel down here.” ”

“ And there was a rigid, sharp, suffering look in her pinched features that betokened she might have been hungry, too.
"Poor people don't mind the cold weather, miss," she said, with a weak smile, her voice getting a little stronger. "They have to bear it, and they get used to it."
She had not evidently borne it long enough to effect the point of indifference. Netty looked at her with a tender pity. Dr. Renton thought to himself—Hoh!—blazoning her poverty—manufacturing sympathy already—the old trick—and steeled himself against any attacks of that kind, looking jealously, meanwhile, at Netty. ”

“ As I'm a living man, he's with me every night—there—there is the body, gaping and nodding—there—there—there!"
As he shouted this with frantic and despairing horror, shaking his clenched hands toward the place of his dreaded nightly visitant, O'Connor felt a thrill of horror such as he had never known before, and hardly recovered from this painful feeling, when Sir Henry Ashwoode turned to the little table on which, among many things, a vessel of water was placed, and filling some out into a cracked cup, he added to it drops from a phial, and hastily swallowed the mixture. ”

“ Many an earthly marriage is but [499] a tent of the night, folded by death, and never to be raised again; but ours is a temple eternal in the heavens.”
Drawing her to his bosom, he pressed his lips to hers; then rose to his feet, and stood before her.
“My duty is clear, Muriel,” he said, in firm, determined tones. “What is all suffering that will follow my death, compared with the suffering and the wrong my death will prevent? Think of the scene we saw at Roux’s house, when Emily wished to buy his brother. Think of Antony being dragged back to torture and murder. ”

“ Spite of O'Connor's struggles, the order was speedily executed, and with such good-will that the blood almost started from his nails.
"Now, sir," continued the same speaker, "who are you, and what may your errand be?"
"Before I answer your questions you must satisfy me that you have authority to ask them," replied O'Connor. "Who, I pray, are you, who dare to seize the person, and to bind the limbs of a free man? I shall know this ere one of your questions shall have a reply."
"I have seen you, young sir, before—scarce an hour since," observed one of those who stood by the hearth. ”

“ Renton compressed his lips on an involuntary smile.
"Ah! James, you're up late. It's near one."
"I sat up for Mrs. Renton and the young lady, sir. They're just come, and gone up stairs."
"All right, James. Take your lamp and come in here. I've got something to say to you." The man followed him into the library at once, with some wonder on his sleepy face.
"First, put some coal on that fire, and light the chandelier. I shall not go up stairs to-night." The man obeyed. "Now, James, sit down in that chair." He did so, beginning to look frightened at Dr. Renton's grave manner. ”

“ Antony swung up his club, and stood with opened nostrils and glaring eyes, his black face alive with fierce courage. The [57] man halted, and looked at him with a sullen scowl. In the blank pause all life seemed to have died from the air, and the moon lay faded in a vacant, sky, ghast and grey in the pale light of the morning. The man was a large, gaunt fellow, with a harsh and sallow taciturn face, but to the dark, half demented fancy of the fugitive, he dimly seemed a devil, and the place was still vaguely Hell. ”

“ Destined to be citizens of the highest respectability, when their wild oats—and they were wild—were sown and come to the hard and selfish harvest. Already they had begun, and begun well. Furnished with their father’s money, they had their club, their boon-companions, their mistresses, their fast horses, and drank and drove and gamed and revelled in a manner hardly outdone by Lord Hawbury and Lord Charles Chawles themselves. They were, moreover, stanch young Whigs—Union men, Constitution men, Law and Order men, Fugitive Slave Law men, sound on the goose in every conceivable particular. ”

“ He did not look at his tenant's face, determined that her piteous expressions (got up for the occasion, of course) should be wasted on him.
"Well, Mrs. Miller," he said again.
"Dr. Renton," she began, faintly gathering her voice as she proceeded, "I have come to see you about the rent. I am very sorry, sir, to have made you wait, but we have been unfortunate."
"Sorry, ma'am," he replied, knowing what was coming; "but your misfortunes are not my affair. We all have misfortunes, ma'am. But we must pay our debts, you know." ”

“ So sweet and still the air—so full and mellow the thrilling chorus of merry birds among the rustling leaves, flitting from bough to bough in the clear and lofty shadow—so cloudless the golden flood of sunlight. Such was the day—so gladsome the sounds—so serene the aspect of all nature—as O'Connor, dismounting under the shadow of a tall, straggling hawthorn hedge, and knotting the bridle in one of its twisted branches, crossed a low stile, and thus entered the grounds of Morley Court. ”

“ In the dead stillness there was the sense of mighty pulses madly beating, and the air was flame. All his being rose like the torrent surge and thunder of a heaven-drowning sea, and for one fierce instant the world of life quivered through and through with agony. He gazed before him with tense and burning eyes. A faint radiance cast from the funnel of his lamp, lit the kingly-fronted statue of Verulam on its pedestal. The light lay lucid on the vast and sovereign brow, melting into fainter light below, and the face was as the face of a god rapt in the white peace of Eternity. ”

“ It flashed into his mind just how Roux would behave. The submissive, docile negro, so different from that sullen, fiery Antony, overcome with fright he would never think of struggling, and with the old servile habit of instant obedience falling again upon him, cowed by the stern mandate, paralyzed by the strong grasp, thunder-stricken by the unexpected appearance of his old master, he would just march along without a word. Quickly he would walk him, cram him into the carriage, pull down the curtains, and drive away like fury. ”

“ I’ll do anything I can for a friend.’
“‘Has it come to this?’ says O’Connor, raging up and down his cell. ‘Am I to be starved to death and then shot? I’ll make those traitors feel the weight of an O’Connor’s hand when I get out of this.’ And then he comes to the bars and speaks softer. ‘Has nothing been heard from Dona Isabel?’ he asks. ‘Though every one else in the world fail,’ says he, ‘I trust those eyes of hers. ”

“ Alone he did it—alone he took your victim from his captors—alone and naked-handed he crushed the seven assassins who dared to front him in his manhood—and with that red star of honor on his breast he came home here to die in my exulting arms. There he lies—dead in the noblest death a man can suffer—death in the service of the weak and poor. Dead—and on all his life the splendor of that heroic devotion; dead—and on his breast that red blazon of glory immortal; and I could rifle earth of its roses to deck this hour, and break up heaven for the music of my joy! ”

“ The phantom watched them, silently.
"What made pa so cross and grim, to-night? Tell Netty—do," she pleaded.
"Oh! because;—everything went wrong with me, to-day. There." And he looked as sulky, at that moment, as he ever did in his life.
"No, no, pa-sy; that won't do. I want the particulars," continued Netty, shaking her head, smilingly.
"Particulars! Well, then, Miss Nathalie Renton," he began, with mock gravity, "your professional father is losing some of his oldest patients. Everybody is in ruinous good health; and the grass is growing in the graveyards." ”

“ Antony is one. I saw the wretch just now, as I went down to the cabins. There you have him bucked in this scorching heat, his head bleeding where you and Tassle beat him with your whipstocks, and the flies tormenting him. Is there another planter in the parish that would treat that boy so? No wonder he ran away, like his brother before him. He might as well be in Hell as on this plantation. They might all as well be in Hell—as they are. Sweltering in the cotton-field, on a Sunday, too, there they are, fifty miserable wretches—hark, now! Tassle is laying it on to some of them. ”