Chapter 12
I would gladly have detained Darby to interrogate him about my new abode and its inhabitants; but he was obliged to obey, and I heard the door locked as they closed it on the outside, and shortly after the sounds of their feet died away, and I was left in silence.
Determined to con over, and if possible explain to myself, the mystery of my position, I drew my sofa towards the fire and sat down; but fatigue, stronger than all my curiosity, had the mastery, and I was soon sound asleep.
CHAPTER VIII. NO. 39, AND ITS FREQUENTERS.
When my eyes opened the following morning, it was quite pardonable in me if I believed I was still dreaming. The room, which I had scarcely time to look at the previous evening, now appeared handsomely, almost richly furnished. Books in handsome bindings covered the shelves, prints in gilded frames occupied the walls, and a large mirror filled the s.p.a.ce above the chimney. Various little articles of taste, in bronze and marble, were scattered about, and a silver tea equipage of antique pattern graced a small table near the fire. A pair of splendidly mounted pistols hung at one side of the chimney gla.s.s, and a gorgeously gilt sabre occupied the other.
While I took a patient survey of all these, and was deliberately examining myself as to how and when I had first made their acquaintance, a voice from an adjoining room, the door of which lay open, exclaimed,--
"_Sacristi! quel mauvais temps!_" and then broke out into a little French air, to which, after a minute, the singer appeared to move, in a kind of dancing measure. "Qui, c'est a!" exclaimed he, in rapture, as he whirled round in a pirouette, overturning a dressing-table and its contents with a tremendous crash upon the floor.
I started up, and without thinking of what I was doing, rushed in.
"Ha! bonjour," said he, gayly, stretching out two fingers of a hand almost concealed beneath a ma.s.s of rings. And then suddenly changing to English, which he spoke perfectly, saving with a foreign accent,--"How did you sleep? I suppose the _tintamarre_ awoke you."
I hastened to apologize for my intrusion; which he stopped at once by asking if I had pa.s.sed a comfortable night, and had a great appet.i.te for breakfast.
a.s.suring him of both facts, I retreated into the sitting room, where he followed me, laughing heartily at his mishap, which he confessed he had not patience to remedy. "And what 's worse," added he; "I have no servant. But here 's some tea and coffee; let us chat while we eat."
I drew over my chair at his invitation, and found myself--before half an hour went by--acted on by that strange magnetism which certain individuals possess, to detail to my new friend the princ.i.p.al events of my simple story, down to the very moment in which we sat opposite to each other. He listened to me with the greatest attention, occasionally interposing a question, or asking an explanation of something which he did not perfectly comprehend; and when I concluded, he paused for some minutes, and then, with a slight laugh, said:--
"You don't know how you disappointed the people here. Your travelling companion had given them to understand that you were some other Burke, whose alliance they have been long desiring. In fact, they were certain of it; but," said he, starting up hastily, "it is far better as it is.
I suspect, my young friend, the way in which you have been entrapped.
Don't fear; we are perfectly safe here. I know all the hackneyed declamations about wrongs and slavery that are in vogue; and I know, too, how timidly they shrink from every enterprise by which their cause might be honorably, boldly a.s.serted. I am myself another victim to the a.s.sumed patriotism of this party. I came over here two years since to take the command. A command,--but in what an army! An undisciplined rabble, without arms, without officers, without even clothes; their only notion of warfare, a midnight murder, or a reckless and indiscriminate
I--"
Here he hesitated, and blushed slightly; after which he resumed:--
"I yielded to a credulity for which there was neither reason nor excuse: I remained. Promises were made me, oaths were sworn, statements were produced to show how complete the organization of the insurgents really was, and to what purpose it might be turned. I drew up a plan of a campaign; corresponded with the different leaders; encouraged the wavering; restrained the headstrong; confirmed the hesitating; and, in fact, for fourteen months held them together, not only against their opponents, but their own more dangerous disunion. And the end is,--what think you? I only learned it yesterday, on my return from an excursion in the West which nearly cost me my life. I was concealed in a cabin in woman's clothes--"
"At Malone's, in the Glen?"
"Yes; how did you know that?"
"I was there. I saw you captured and witnessed your escape."
"_Diantre_! How near it was!"
He paused for a second, and I took the opportunity to recount to him the dreadful issue of the scene, with the burning of the cabin. He grew sickly pale as I related the circ.u.mstance; then flus.h.i.+ng as quickly, he exclaimed,--
"We must look to this; these people must be taken care of, I 'll speak to Dalton; you know him?"
"No; I know not one here."
"It was he who met you last night; he is a n.o.ble fellow. But stay; there 's a knock at the door."
He approached the fireplace, and taking down the pistols which hung beside it, walked slowly towards the door.
"'Tis Darby, sir,--Darby the Blast, coming to speak a word to Mister Burke," said a voice from without.
The door was opened at once, and Darby entered. Making a deep reverence to the French officer, in whose presence he seemed by no means at his ease. Darby dropped his voice to its most humble cadence, and said,--
"Might I be so bould as to have a word with ye, Master Tom?"
There was something in the way this request was made that seemed to imply a desire for secrecy,--so, at least, the Frenchman understood it,--and turning hastily rounds he said,--
"Yes, to be sure. I 'll go into my dressing-room; there is nothing to prevent your speaking here."
No sooner was the door closed, than Darby drew a chair close to me, and bending down his head, whispered,--
"Don't trust him,--not from here to that window. They 're going to do it without him; Mahony told me so himself. But my name was not drawn, and I 'm to be off to Kildare this evening. There 's a meeting of the boys at the Curragh, and I want you to come with me."
The state of doubt and uncertainty which had hara.s.sed my mind for the last twenty-four hours was no longer tolerable; so I boldly asked M'Keown for an explanation as to the people in whose house I was,--their objects and plans, and how far I was myself involved in their designs.
In fewer words than I could convey it. Darby informed me that the house was the meeting place of the United Irishmen, who still cherished the hope of reviving the scenes of '98; that, conscious the failure before was attributable to their having taken the field as an army when they should have merely contented themselves with secret and indirect attacks, they had resolved to adopt a different tactique. It was, in fact, determined that every political opponent to their party should be marked,--himself, his family, and his property; that no opportunity was to be lost of injuring him or his, and, if need be, of taking away his life; that various measures were to be propounded to Parliament by their friends, to the maintenance of which threats were to be freely used to the Government members; and with respect to the great measure of the day,--the Union,--it was decided that on the night of the division a certain number of people should occupy the gallery above the Ministerial benches, armed with hand-grenades and other destructive missiles; that, on a signal given, these were to be thrown amongst them, scattering death and ruin on all sides.
"It will be seen, then," said Darby, with a fiendish grin, "how the enemies of Ireland pay for their hatred of her! Maybe they 'll vote away their country after that!"
Whether it was the tone, the look, or the words that suddenly awoke me from my dreamy infatuation, I know not; but coming so soon after the Frenchman's detail of the barbarism of the party, a thorough disgust seized me, and the atrocity of this wholesale murder lost nothing of its blackness from being linked with the cause of liberty.
With ready quickness, Darby saw what my impression was, and hastily remarked:--
"We 'll be all away out of this, Master Tom, you know, before that. We 'll be up in Kildare, where we 'll see the boys exercising and marching; that's what 'ill do your heart good to look at. But before we go, you 'll have to take the oath, for I'm answerable for you all this time with my own head; not that I care for that same, but others might mistrust ye."
"Halloo!" cried the Frenchman, from within; "I hope you have finished your conference there, for you seem to forget there's no fire in this room."
"Yes, sir; and I beg a thousand pardons," said Darby, servilely. "And Master Tom only wants to bid you goodby before he goes."
"Goes! goes where? Are you so soon tired of me?" said he, in an accent of most winning sweetness.
"He's obliged to be at the Curragh, at the meeting there," said Darby, answering for me.
"What meeting? I never heard of it."
"It 's a review, sir, of the throops, that 's to be by moonlight."
"A review!" said the Frenchman, with a scornful laugh. "And do you call this midnight a.s.sembly of marauding savages a review?"
Darby's face grew dark with rage, and for a second I thought he would have sprung on his a.s.sailant; but with a fawning, shrewd smile he lisped out,--
"It's what they call it. Captain; sure the poor boys knows no better."
"Are you going to this review?" said the Frenchman, with an ironical p.r.o.nunciation of the word.
"I scarce know where to go, or what to do," said I, in a tone of despairing sadness; "any certainty would be preferable to the doubts that hara.s.s me."
"Stay with me," said the Frenchman, interrupting me and laying his hand on my shoulder; "we shall be companions to each other. Your friend here knows I can teach you many things that may be useful to you hereafter; and perhaps, with all humility I may say, your stay will be as profitable as at the camp yonder."