 | CHAPTER VI. Dermot O'Brien; or, The taking of Tredagh |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
“Now broach ye a pipe of malvoisie,
Bring pastles of the aoe.”
Marmiox.
Again and again the trumpets had sent forth their brazen
summons to the guests in the Red Castle; yet, save the aged
countess and her lovely niece, none were as yet assembled in
the grand saloon.
And there, in high state, with liveried pages waiting at the
doors at the lower end of the immense tapestried apartment,
in strange contrast the one to the other, sat those two women,
silent and alone, and both, as it would seem, oppressed by deep
and anxious thought.
Had a painter been desirous of introducing into his noblest
work the type of the most perfect majesty of womanhood in
extreme age, and the ideal of female loveliness in its youthful
prime, he could not have done so with more complete effect
than by copying those ladies as they sate there, beneath the
crimson canopy, upon the elevated deas at the upper end of
the saloon, as if expecting to receive the homage of a glittering
court.
The elder lady, not only as the wife and mother of one of
the proudest races in the island, but as in her own line and
person the descendant and direct heiress of one of the traditionary
kings of Erin, was perhaps the hanghtiest woman in
the kingdom; yet was her haughtiness rather mental than personal—rather
ideal and imaginary than practical or real. Her
bearing and domeanor were framed and regulated upon a
purely fanciful model; and as she was constantly representing
to her own inner self, her wrongs, her sufferings, and her sorrows,
as a dispossessed and discrowned sovereign, so was she
continually considering and devising how, when she should be
his viceroy, she should best assert her dignity, and display her
contempt of so brief a line, and ill-founded a succession.
It must not be supposed, however, that she had the slightest
idea of ever asserting, or even the desire to assert, a dignity
which her good sense assured her had departed not only from
her house, but from her people forever. The stateliness of
bearing and maintenance of personal grandeur, was but a
tribute, which she thought it necessary to pay to the hereditary
splendor of her race—and was so largely mixed with a sort of
subdued mournfulness and serene depression of spirits, that
they were thereby deprived of all that would otherwise have
been both ludicrous and absurd. As it was, the most irrepressible
of laughers could have discovered nothing at which to
smile in the ancestral pride of that aged lady, even if she
did sit beneath a royal canopy, and did exact service of the
most profound humility, and upon the bended knee. The rather
that the qualities of her mind and her personal appearance
were alike adapted to the station which she asserted; and
that her presence was such as could not fail to impress a
stranger with something not far removed from awe; although
her graciousness to her dependants, and her affection for her
children, were maternally benevolent, and fond, even to tenderness.
She was extremely old—far older than the ordinary term to
which human life is protracted even at the utmost; and it
seemed strange that one so aged should be the mother of a
youth still in the first prime and power of mature manhood.—
But he was her last-born son, the child of her almost decrepitude,
as of her sorrow; for she had borne six goodly sons
before him to the great earl, his father; and, each after each,
she had seen them perish almost before her eyes, by violent
and untimely deaths—four on the battle-field, one on the stormy
ocean, and one—too common a fate, alas! in those days—upon
the blood-stained scaffold; so that they had despaired, at one
in her old age she had borne this last and noblest of her boys,
Dermot O'Brien, to succeed to his father's dignities, when
he, like all his race, fell for his loyalty to his king, and his faith
in the God of his fathers, by the unsparing steel of the Puritan
usurpers of all privilege, all prorogative, all liberty.
In person, the countess was taller than the utmost height to
which women attain—overlooking all her attendants, and even
her fair niece, almost by a head and shoulders; and, indeed,
exceeding almost all the men of her clan in stature, with the
exception of her son and some of his kindred chieftains, who
were all proportioned, more or less, after the fashion of the
sons of Arak. What rendered her height more conspicuous,
was, that in despite the depredations of years, and the remarkable
emaciation of her frame, she was still as erect and
unbending as one of the pine-trees on her native mountains of
Slievh-Buy. Years, indeed, seemed to have glided by her, as
do the keenest blasts of heaven by those giants of the green-wood,
shearing away the graces of their foliage, and minishing
the grandeur of their umbrage, yet leaving them erect in unbended
hardihood, and still proof against all, save steel or fire,
or an earthquake's shock, to move them.
Her hair was as white as the untrodden snow on the loftiest
mountain-peak, and as bright, as glossy, and as glittering, as
when in her virgin beauty it shamed the wing of the wild
raven by its rich metallic lustre. It was luxuriant too, as in
her seventeenth summer, and was still braided on either side
her broad, pale, lofty forehead, in plaited bands, and raised
upon her crown in a tall, elaborate diadem of tresses, undisguised
and undisfigured by the hideous hair-powder with
which it was the mode of that day to change even the bright
looks of youth and beauty.
Her lineaments were all high and noble; and it was evident
that even when she was at her freshest and fairest, nobility and
dignity, rather than softness or tenderness, must have been the
were well-formed and handsome, they were all of that style
which belongs to the keenest and most aquiline contour. Her
brows were straight, and must have been of old strongly defined—though
now, like her hair, they were silver white; and
the eyes, which looked from beneath these, large, open, and
undazzled as the eagle's, had a clear, penetrating glance, which
seemed to pry into the very soul of whom she would scrutinise;
and at such time, their lustre was intense, and almost
painful to the beholder. The nose, though not prominent,
was high and curved, with large, thorough-bred nostrils, which
she had a habit of expanding, as if she would snuff the air,
when chafed or irritated by anything which she deemed little
or unworthy. Her mouth was well-shaped, although the lips
were now thin and pale, and expressing rather firmness and
resolution of character, than any more womanly feeling in their
ordinary aspect; although at times, a smile of ineffable benevolonce
and softness would play over it, and light up all the face
into loving warmth and lustre, even as a sunset gleam will at
times irradiate a landscape, which all day long has been grave
and lowering.
The Countess O'Brien—for so she preferred to be styled,
regarding the name as older and more noble than the title
which she bore of right—was clad suitably to her age, her sorrows,
and her rank, in a plain robe of heavy black silk, covering
her person from the collar-bone to the wrists, and to the
clasps of her high-heeled shoes, perfectly plain and straight
cut, and gathered in about her waist by a black velvet cineture
with a jet buckle. A mantelet of black velvet, sitting
closely to her shape, fell down to the ground, and extended in
a train of several yards in length behind, which was borne,
when she was in motion, by two handsome girls, who were now
seated on low stools at the foot of the deas—and whose fresh,
plump prettiness offered a striking, though of course unintentional,
of their mistress.
She had no ornament of any kind upon her person, unless
the diamond buckles in her shoes, which were then worn by
every person of any distinction, can be called such, or her
husband's signet-ring, which, notwithstanding her son's majority
she still bore as a thumb-ring; nor did she need any
such—if the meaning of these things be to signify and render
evident personal eminence and distinction—for if she had been
clad in the coarsest servile weeds, her native aristocracy of
bearing must have proved at once her title to hereditary honor.
Ellinor Desmond, as she sat beside her aged relative, on a
seat something less elevated than her chair of dignity, was such
as I have before described her, the fairest of a country and a
race distinguished at all times by a high style of female loveliness.
She had just reached that period of life when the young
female has attained the fullest and most perfect development of
every feminine charm; when every beauty of form, feature, and
expression, is in its flower and flush of luxuriant ripeness; and
before one of the graces, the delicacies, or the fresh softnesses
of youth have yielded to the touch of time, or grown hard
through contact with the world's stern realities.
She too, was attired according to her age and station, but
with a degree of taste peculiarly her own, and with more
reference to the fine models of costume afforded by the portraits
of the fair and noble of the middle ages, than to the frightful
fashions of puritanical austerity, or the new modes of French
frippery which were becoming current latterly among the families
of the cavaliers.
Her long robe—admirably fitted to the soft, undulating outlines
of a shape which had never been disfigured by the pressure
of the rigid whalebone which rendered the corsage of a
lady of those days scarcely less iron than the corslet of her
lord—was of rich emerald-colored velvet, just edged with a
narrow stripe of gold, and gathered round her slender waist
neck were bare in their dazzling beauty, as were her full
round arms almost to the shoulders; and she wore upon her
head a graceful wreath of the dark-leaved Irish ivy, the berries
of which, having been gilded, glittered in fine contrast to
the black silken masses of her luxuriant ringlets.
Her dress, her attitude, and the half-mournful, half-enthusiastic
expression which hovered like a light cloud over her
beautiful features, would have suited the poet's ideal of the
wild, melancholy muse of unhappy Erin. Nor could any one,
how little liable soever to fanciful or romantic imaginations,
have failed to feel his fancy stirred to something of a higher
flight, as his eye dwelt on that surpassing creature.
She had already possessed the countess of all the occurrences
of the evening, as of the wishes and the apprehensions
of her lover; and had for the time succeeded in kindling the
proud spirit of their race in that aged bosom, and disposing her
to the assertion of something more than mere dignity of bearing
against the anticipated assumption of the priest. A thousand
recollections had flashed upon the mind of the countess at the
high words and energetic counsels of her niece; and she had
responded to them with a burst of truly national eloquence,
bordering almost upon invective, as the idea was forced upon
her that the dignity of her house would be insulted by having
a renegade, a traitor to his country, and an especial enemy of
her race thrust upon her as a guest, even much more as a confident
and friend, by anything of priestly interference. And
for a while, her wonted reverence for the Church, and her personal
respect—not all unmixed with fear—for her confessor,
yielded to the tide of lacerated and indignant feeling which
overflowed her heart at the bare thought of being urged to receive
courteously one whom she had ever regarded as the betrayer
and assassin of her lost lord. By degrees, however,
anxiety and apprehension began to take the place of wrath;
and it were difficult to say whether she were more resolved to
she should carry out her resolves.
Ellinor also was filled with gloomy apprehensions; she
know the temper and feelings of her aged relative, even to
their inmost secrets; and this knowledge it was that filled her
with anxiety; she was aware that her nature partook much in
one respect the quality of the flint:
“Which, much enforced, sheweth a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again—”
into gloom and coldness; and above all, she dreaded, and with
reason, the strange and stern interest which the priest Daly
had gained over her spirit, otherwise so haughty and indomitable.
Such were the causes of the deep thought and anxious gloom
in which both those noble ladies were enveloped, when, at the
third sounding of the trumpets, the great doors at the lower
end of the saloon were thrown open, and the young earl entered,
followed by his paternal cousins, Con and Ulick, and
having the priest Daly walking at his right hand in composed
and apparently serene humility. Many other guests, gentlemen,
and kinsmen of the house, entered in order, each according
to his nearness in blood to the head of the clan, until at
least twenty persons were assembled—as fair a company as
ever graced the court of a crowned sovereign, so far as stateliness
of bearing, and completeness of manly beauty.
The young earl—who was now richly dressed in accordance
with his rank—walked into the room with a rapid and irregular
sten, very unlike his ordinary gait, which was remarkably firm
and even, as is for the most part the case with men of great
characters and fixed resolution. There was a nervous quivering
too of his nether lip, and a bright, hectic-like spot of burning
crimson on either of his cheek-bones, while all the rest of
his face was almost unnaturally pallid.
His right hand was employed constantly, but it would seem
dagger which occupied the left side of his girdle; and by each,
the least, of these signs, Ellinor, who had raised her eyes anxiously
on her lover's entrance, and who, perhaps, saw for the
moment nothing but his high lineaments, read, at the first
glance that he had been singularly chafed and irritated during
his prolonged interview with Father Daly.
Thence her eye wandered to the priest, and although the
man was to most eyes inscrutable, him too she perused almost
to his inmost soul, discovering secret thoughts and sentiments
kept down by an iron will, and subdued by a long course of
mental discipline—albeit herself so young in years and so unaccustomed
to the great world, which would probably have
escaped the observation, or baffled the judgment, of the wiser
and more worldly spirits.
For, in truth, the human heart has its instincts, is endowed
with strange and mysterious powers, with passions of wonder-working
efficacy, which seem sometimes to create a sudden,
and as it were, self born capacity of intuition, which stands the
owner instead of experience, wisdom, logical conclusion, and
sets the veriest child of nature—for the moment—above the
subtlest disputant, the most thoughtful investigator of human
actions, and their source—the human soul.
The strongest and most active of these passions is love.—
And almost miraculous are at times the powers of perception,
of comprehension, and almost of prophecy which it pours like
a flash of lightning into a night of blackness, over the earnest
and unselfish heart, informing what was but now Cimmerian
gloom with clearness as of the sun at noon.
And thus it was now with Ellinor Desmond. She too, like
all around her, had been more or less subdued to the remorseless—and
as it seemed—inevitable rule of his serene and unostentatious,
yet all-controlling despotism.
She too had regarded him as a man apart from all things—
almost indeed, above them; as one whose sway over her mind
were wholly useless to enquire.
But now, at once, and as it were, by a single glance, she read
every present thought of his dark soul, and could have almost
presaged his future line of action.
He was a tall, spare man, with an exceedingly erect carriage,
so far as to the shoulders; but his neck was bowed and stooping,
so that his face was for the most part nearly invisible to
any one standing in front of him—especially if he were conversing
on any topics of unusual interest—at which times his
eyes would be so completely covered by his drooping lids, that
it was difficult to believe that he did not resort to this posture
from a desire to prevent his thoughts from being deciphered
through the expression of his face. At other times—especially
when he knew himself to be unobserved—he would gaze with
a sharp, marking, and inquisirive look, into the countenances
of all around him, wandering with the speed of intuition from
face to face, and passing onward so rapidly as to avoid detection.
But if, by any chance, the face of the observed was
lifted suddenly, so as to meet his glance, it fell instantly, without
a sign of embarrassment or confusion, leaving the man—so far
as all outward expression was concerned—a blank inscrutable;
and at such times, he would usually begin to discourse upon
some fascinating abstract topic, with an eloquence of language,
a silvery sweetness of tongue, and a serene unconsciousness
of manner, which might have imposed upon the shrewdest-minded.
In dress and demeanor, he exhibited nothing of the clerical
profession. At that period, indeed, it would have been unsafe
to do so; and although Ignatius Daly was made of no stuff
that should shrink from any peril incurred for the real advancement
of his order, in which was wrapped up all the selfishness,
all the ambition, all the egotistical pride of his own wily and
aspiring nature, still less was he of that temper which would
seek the barren honors of unnecessary martyrdom.
As was frequently the case with the more trusted memoers
of the order of Jesus, even in ordinary times, when concealment
of his rank or profession might tend ad majorem Dci gloriam,
as the phrase ran, Father Ignatius had a general dispensation
to wear the garments and the weapons of a layman; and it
was well-known that he had often wielded the latter with the
skill and prowess of a soldier, literally of the church militant,
rendered singularly formidable by the coldness of his impassive
temperament.
Such was the man who glided into the room with the noiseless
and stealthy step of the prowling panther, shooting keen
glances, true to the mark as so many winged arrows, from beneath
the long, thick lashes of his downcast lids; observing every
thing which he cared to notice; while to a casual spectator, it
would have seemed that he scarce cared to note how many
persons, much less who, were present in the saloon.
There was, evidently, a feeling of uneasiness and wonder
pervading the bosoms of all the gentlemen in the young earl's
train; for all knew that a stranger had been brought in with
the hunting party, under strange circumstances, and that he
was now in confinement, as a sort of honorable prisoner, under
the ward of Colonel Desmond. None, however, knew—with
the exception of the gentlemen and vassals who had composed
the hunting party—who this stranger was; and as these either
evaded answering any questions put to them, or replied openly,
that they were forbidden to speak out, curiosity and suspicion
were both vehemently excited, to which not a little touch of
fear was added by the character and temper of the times. The
earl's interview with the priest had not passed unmarked, and
it had transpired too that warm words had been used, and that
the O'Brien was greatly moved.
No one, however, dared to ask a question, nor was a word
spoken, until the young earl reached the foot of the deas, when
and with a bow so deep, as is usually rendered to strangers
only.
“I pray your ladyship to pardon me,” he said, “for keeping
you thus awaiting in what must have seemed so unmannerly
a way. But strange things have befallen us to-day, and it was
necessary that we should take counsel on them promptly.”
“I pardon you, my son,” replied the aged lady, who had
risen to her feet as the guests entered the saloon, and advanced
to the edge of the low steps leading into the body of the apartment,
where the two attendant maidens extended her train,
and disposed themselves to bear it, as she should move forward.
“I pardon you right willingly; and that the rather that you
have never failed of respect in the right sort before, and that I
therefore doubt not your having a sufficient cause, which you
have communicated doubtless to our excellent counsellor, and
good friend, Father Daly; although, I wonder somewhat that
my son should have sought any counsellor before his mother.”
“I pray you pardon me again,” answered the earl, speaking
more quickly than before; “but I have not sought any counsel
of the reverend and pious father—seeing that the matter
partook not of any ghostly nature, nor needed divine admonitions—but
called for worldly knowledge, and something, perchance,
of military wisdom. I conferred with him merely to
let him know my will touching the course of conduct to be
observed by all beneath my roof, to a most strange and unexpected
inmate.”
“A most unwelcome inmate, you would say, my son,” interposed
the aged lady, with a deep frown depressing her long,
straight brows, although it did not alter the grave tranquillity
of her features.
“A most unwelcome inmate,” he returned, with grave emphasis.
“And yet he saved your life, my son,” replied the priest, or
ere the countess could frame her answer; and he spoke in an
like a soft silvery trumpet. “Saved your life—perchance sent
especially unto that end. Have you considered what it is to
call one sent of the Most High, unwelcome?”
“I have heard say,” answered the earl quickly, and even
sharply, “that Hr of whom we may not judge, has, at times,
in his wisdom, sent evil spirits and false prophets to whom he
would try. Would you call these welcome, right reverend sir
and father?”
“I would not judge, my son,” returned the priest; “at least
until I knew the ends which not only prove, but justify the
means.”
“Nor I,” answered the earl; “and therefore, judging of
the present from past ends, him I do call unwelcome.”
“Indeed, most unwelcome,” said the countess, so sternly and
decidedly, that even the priest deemed it advisable to say no
farther at that time. “But more of this, hereafter. Supper
awaits us, and our meat will be cold if we tarry longer. But
where is our honored guest, and trusty cousin, Florence Desmond?—where
is your brother, Ellinor?”
“Colonel Desmond has of his love for us consented, mother,
to take upon himself a most unpleasant task—to be the entertainer,
namely, of this inmate, holding him in such honorable
ward as I dare only for the present to impose upon him, and
suffering no one to converse with him, let what may be the
color of his coat.”
And as he spoke he glanced his eye slightly toward the black
velvet just au corps of the priest, who adhered to the color,
if not to the cut, of his order.
“I knew not,” interrupted Con O'Brien shortly, “that there
was any coat but of one color under this honorable roof. Methinks,
if there be, it will not be long until a score or two of
rapiers find out of what stuff it is made.”
“Many turn their coats sometimes, Con,” answered the
earl, with slow, stern emphasis.
“And some wear black coats, our dear son would say,” the
priest again interposed, “who have not turned, nor are like to
turn them. Is it not so, my lord?”
“Even so, sir,” answered O'Brien. “It is my will that no
man, whether clerical or lay—whether citizen or soldier—
whether for the king or the Parliament, shall see that personage
to-night—no, not if it were in extremis, even to make his
last confession.”
“There is little fear, my son, that such emergency shall
arise—though if it should, I think you would scarce adhere
to so impious a resolve—”
“But I should—strictly, to the letter,” answered the earl
steadily, while the priest went on, as if he had not heard or
noted the interruption—“unless, indeed, Colonel Florence
Desmond have it in part of his trust to slay this unwelcome inmate.”
“To do murder under trust—under the O'Brien's trust!”
exclaimed the O'Brien fiercely, with his hand upon his hilt—
“Priest, it is well for you that you are a priest; for otherwise—”
“You should not shame your noble sword upon him!” cried
Ellinor, taking a quick step forward—her beautiful cheeks
blazing, and her eyes flashing with fiery indignation. “He
who slanders the absent, the noble, and the good, sheltering
himself behind the dark shield of Church privilege, is thrice
a coward, and ten times a knave, were he a thousand times a
priest.”
“Ellinor, Ellinor!” exclaimed the aged countess, raising her
long, thin arm—“peace, peace! You have forgotten. Is this
maidenly?”
“As maidenly as that is priestly,” she made answer. “And
if I have forgotten, what has he done—daring to hint an assassin's
stain upon a soldier, before a sister's face? Has not he
forgotten?”
“Most grossly—most disgracefully,” answered the earl;
and that to a lady.”
The priest raised his eyes, for the first time, fully, and looked
the countess in the face directly, with a strange meaning gaze.
That piercing, fascinating gaze was at once in itself a question
and a command.
It spoke almost as audibly, as with articulate words: “And
dost thou too dare to brave me?” It commanded with imperious
power: “Silence this puny opposition!”
But for once the question was unanswered—the command
disobeyed; and, as he saw that his will was for the first time
frustrate, and that his power had departed, assuming an air of
the deepest humility, almost of contrition, and smiting his breast
with his hand, he exclaimed in a low, quiet tone:
“Wo is me! wo is me! When the flocks go astray, surely
the leader of the flock is not guiltless. How I have sinned, I
know not; but of a very truth my sin is flagrant before heaven!
Farewell, my children—fare ye well. My mission here is ended.
When confidence is gone away, utility must needs go
likewise. Heaven's blessings be about this house, and upon its
dwellers, now and evermore. Fare ye well—fare ye well for
ever!”
And he turned on his heel slowly and reluctantly, expecting
in his own heart to be recalled and humbly sued for pardon,
and strode with a firm and stately step across the echoing floor,
until he reached the large arched doorway, under which he
paused and looked back upon that silent and astounded group
with an air and gesture which, though it was ill-dissembled
for a courteous, sad farewell, was in reality a sterl, prophetic
menace.
Deeply religious, however, as is the genius of the Irish people,
and inclined to the profoundest reverence for the priestly
character of office, the offence which he had offered to the head
of that great and noble clan, whereof all his auditors were
members, was so flagrant, and his interposition in favor of one
was but one feeling of outraged dignity and injured patriotism
among the company; and he was suffered to depart without
a word or a salutation, much less an offer to recall him.
There was a moment's pause after he had left the saloon—
a short, breathless interval before any one spoke or stirred; but
when he had departed, it was evident that the hearts of all
beat more lightly in their bosoms, and that a cause of restraint
at least, if not of apprehension, had been removed by the secession
of the dark churchman.
But collecting himself in an instant, and thoroughly reassured
by the demeanor of his subordinate chieftains, if he had
over doubted how they would incline between his patriarchal
authority and the discipline of the church, the young Earl advanced
with much respect to the foot of the deas, and taking
his mother's hand in his own, conducted her with as much observance
of decorum, as if she had been a crowned head, from
the state saloon—one of hie cousins tendering the like service
to the fair Ellinor, and all the gentlemen of his train following
his steps according to their rank, followed in their turn by a
long retinue of feudal servitors, seneschals, stewards, esquires,
and pages, toward the grand hall, in which the evening meal
awaited them.
It was a vast apartment, floored, wainscoted and ceiled with
black bog oak, rarely sculptured, and polished, till it shone in
the light of the numerous waxen torches, blazing in silver
candlesticks and sconces, like one continuous mirror. The
great board, in the shape of a letter T, the upper or transverse
limb of which was appropriated to the members of the proper
family alene, extended down two-thirds the length of the hall,
covered with snow-white linel, for the manufacture of which
Ireland was beginning already to be noted, and laid with
plates and dishes of pewter, burnished as bright as silver, and
intermixed with flagons, cups, and tankards of the purer metal.
The upper board, which was occupied by the earl and
Ellinor Desmond and the two noble youths, Con and Ulick
O'Brien, beside whom stood a vacant chair for the absent
Florence, was spread with crimson velvet, and laid with a
service of massive silver. The salt-cellar, a rare and splendid
piece of plate, and all the drinking-cups and vessels being
either of pure gold, or so richly gilded as not readily to be
distinguished from it.
The feast was sumptuous and delicate, according to the notions
of that day, although it was composed of dainties far too
solid and subtantial to meet our ideas of a supper. There
were huge tureens steaming with strong venison soup, vast
barons of beef, haunches and chines of the fallow deer, pasties
of red deer venison, looking like fortalices of pastry, wild fowl,
roebucks and cyenets roasted whole; and to complete the
table, the latest remnant of the feudal ages, a peacock, with his
train replaced in all its glory; its crest and claws superbly
gilded, occupying the post of honor.
And all this splendid show of edibles was accompanied by a
display of potables in no degree less masculine and potent.—
Tankards of ale and mead, flagons of Malvoisie and Bourdeaux
wines, spiced wassail bowls of hippocras and pigment, and
great horns of the national beverage, the fiery usquebaugh, circulated,
unchecked and unreproved by the presence of the ladies.
Still, in spite of the good cheer, and the hospitable efforts of
O'Brien, the mirth of the meeting was destroyed. A cloud
bung over the spirits of all—as well of those who were conscious
of the cause of the strange events of that night, as of those
who had been merely the ignorant spectators of the scene; nor
was the spirit or harmonious feeling of the company at all increased
by the entrance, so soon as the meats were removed, and
the ladies had withdrawn, of the old seneschal, completely armed
from gorget to spur, in an antique suit of plate armor, bearing
the keys of the three different gate-houses upon a salver, which
he deposited on the board at his lord's right hand; after which
war-sword, as if awaiting orders.
Had a bomb-shell fallen unexpected into the midst of that
fan company, it could hardly have created greater confusion
or astonishment than did that singular and warlike apparition
at a moment when, save two or three of the immediate
kinsmen of the earl, no one anticipated aught of danger, or
had conceived the possibility of any interruption of the evening's
revel.
“Ha! Torlogh,” said the O'Brien, calmly, “the wards are
all made sure, then?”
“As sure as iron bolts and stone walls can make them, noble
earl,” replied the old man quietly. “I locked the gates with
mine own hand, and saw sach portcullis lowered. Trusty
men are on the watch in all the towers, and for this night all
is safe, I can assure you.”
“I take your assurance, Torlogh,” said the earl, “as if I myself
had seen it done. It remains, however, to post some one
on the eagle tower, who will not close his eyes in sleep, that he
watch the beacon upon Claude-boy, and rouse the castle if it
blaze ere daybreak.”
“That post is mine, my lord,” the old man answered in
a calm, low voice, but with an air of fixed determination. “Mine
now as it was in the days of yore, under the great earl, your
father.”
“You do not spare yourself, old Torlogh. There be younger
men enow who may watch, while you take the rest that is
needful to your years.”
“The cause, the cause, lord earl, will spare none of its upholders;
and if the leaders spare themselves, how shall the
kerns and vassals do their duty?”
“Well said! well said! Such is the true spirit. Our God
and our king cannot spare us, and Heaven's malison on him!”
exclaimed O'Brien, starting to his feet, “who seeks to spare
himself, whether for fear or favor!”
“Heaven's malison upon him!” shouted a hundred voices;
for as the earl arose, each gentleman down the long board
sprang to his feet simultaneously, perceiving now, for the
first time, that the hour for action had arrived; and as they
arose, their rapiers flashed from their sheaths in the bright candle-light,
and they re-echoed, as a single man, the high words
of their chieftain; while kindling at the fire which blazed in
the bosoms of their nobles, the squires and servitors caught up
the word and gave it stirring utterance, until the tapestries
trembled, and the torches winked and quivered in the commotion
of the atmosphere caused by that sudden clamor.
From the hall through the vestibule it passed, and into the
court-yard, and to the outer walls, the bastion, the dungeon-keep,
until the whole of the old fortalice was wakened with
its thousand echoes into loud and unexpected life.
A proud eye did the young earl cast around him, over that
high and gallant company, whose every heart, as he perceived
at a single glance, panted responsive to his own. He unhooked
his long broadsword from his belt, scabbard and all, and
unsheathing the weapon with a slow, but steady gesture, cast
the sheath over his shoulder high into the air.
Not a breath was drawn, not a plume fluttered, not a cloak
rustled—so deep was the anxious silence of that moment; the
empty sheath fell with a ringing rattle upon the oaken floor;
and as the echoes sank, the clear voice of O'Brien filled the
apartment as if with a real presence—so clear, so full, so puissant
was its volume.
“You have done well!” he said. “Gentlemen, fellow-soldiers,
friends! you have done well to unsheath the mortal sword.
You had done better to cast away the scabbard likewise; for
never must those swords go up again until the cause for which
we fight is conquered; the cause of our God, our country, and
our king; and if the news which I have heard this day prove
true, as well I fear it will, every sword, every arm, every heart
in Ireland will be right dearly needed. Ormond is routed,
already raised, the arch fiend Cromwell is himself upon the
seas—perhaps upon the shores of Ireland already. To arms,
then, every manly hand! To arms, every loyal heart! To
arms, one and all, even of who are neither brave nor loyal, if
he would not be seized in his own house cowardly, and butchered
like a mere sheep in the shambles. Before the sun shall
arise in the east, the truth, the whole truth, shall be known;
and if it be as I deem it is, his first rays shall see the O'Brien's
banner on the breeze, the O'Brien's foot in the stirrup, the
O'Brien's weapon in his hand. Who will not side with the
O'Brien?”
Had the call been to the banquet or the dance, to the tourney
or the chase, some might have lagged reluctant—some
might have turned aside, indolent or heedless.
It was to the battle!—to the battle, against puritan hypocrisy
—against democratical oppression—against fanatical intolerance
and every man sought to be foremost—the very boys—
the pages, scarcely children in their years, stood forth at once,
eager to be the champions of the cause—the noblest cause for
which the sword was ever drawn—for that cause was divine,
was threefold—religion, patriotism, loyalty; and who should
dare oppose them!
Again, from battlement to dungeon, the castle rang with the
exulting cheers of the true-born, the loyal Irish cavaliers; and
in the courts without, the trumpeters struck up unbidden; and
kettle-drum and bugle blast pealed far and wide through the
summer night, sending abroad the stirring strains of the Island
melody, “Erin Mavourneen, Erin go bragh,” mixed with the
wild hurrah and the high name of England's loved and lawful
king.
Long, long may those notes sound together—and shame on
him who would divide them—Ireland for ever, and God save
the king!
| CHAPTER VI. Dermot O'Brien; or, The taking of Tredagh | |