University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.

THE ONSLAUGHT.

Siege of Corinth.

Ten days had passed, and no succor had arrived; yet still,
confident in their strength and loyalty, the defenders of the
city trembled not.

O'Brien was among the number, and Florence Desmond; the
former full of high hope and glorious anticipation, the latter
gloomy and desponding. He alone, of all the royal party,
appeared to comprehend and know the genius of that wonderful
and mighty man against whom they were so unequally
fitted.

And it was observed and noted something against the colonel,
that when the scurril jokes of Red-nosed Noll, the brewer,
were circulating with the loudest mirth, he ever looked the
gravest and most downcast. To all the slang of the day, and
bitterness of partizan calumny, he replied only, that he was a
consummate leader, as they would soon learn to their cost,
who now jeered at him, and a very great, if he were a very
bad, man.

Once only he was provoked into saying, when jeered for his
gravity and silence, and taunted with fear of Cromwell, “that
when fools were brave, it behooved wise men to be cowards!”
—and thereafter they let him alone. For no one wished to
try the last conclusions with Colonel Florence Desmond.

He was, moreover, when alone with O'Brien, most solicitous
that he should send Ellinor—who had become his wife the day
after their arrival in Tredagh, being given away by the Earl

of Ormond himself, before he left the city—out of the town
before the approach of the beleaguering force, which was now,
on the first of September, close at hand.

But Ellinor was now O'Brien's wife, and having, as she
said, obeyed once, contrary to her own will, she was determined,
as she said, to abide now with her husband and her brother
to the last, whether they would or no.

Dermot, moreover, who had always partaken too much of the
cavalier contempt for the Roundheads—contempt most incomprehensible,
when we consider that the Roundheads had now,
for several years, invariably beaten them—and whose ideas had
gained fresh force on that point, by the ease with which, on his
retreat from the Red Castle, he had overthrown above twice
his number with a mere handful—took sides with Ellinor, and
it was useless for the brother to say a word more on the subject.
He was, therefore, according to his wont, silent.

On the third of September, at sunset, the dark, solid columns
of the Puritans encircled the doomed city, as with a hedge of
steel. And the great red flag, with blue edges—the ensign of
the covenant—was reflected in the bright waters of the Boyne
—bright waters doomed, alas! so often to be impurpled with
the best and most loyal blood of Ireland!

That night Florence and Dermot stood together on the
battlements, and watched the ordering of the Roundhead
forces, the landing of the heavy guns, the stir and din, yet all
grave, and orderly, and stern, of martial preparation.

“Within seven days,” said O'Brien, joyously, “on yonder
hills shall we see the flash of the noble Ormond's banners—
and these canting psalm-singers shall be hurled headlong into
the sea!”

“Within nor seven days, nor seventy times seven,” replied
Desmond, coolly, “will any flag of Ormond's show within ten
miles of these walls. Nor within seventy times seven years
will you see any force, even tenfold its number, that shall hurl
back those canting psalm-singers into the sea. Those canting

psalm-singers, O'Brien, within ten days, will sweep like entering
tide over the breaches of this doomed city; but I shall not
be here to see it. God protect those who are then here; for
I foresee such horrors as have never been wrought in a Christian
land by Christians. The first shot fired will kill me
—I know it;—and I should hail that shot, were it not for the
things which I dread for those whom I love more than life—
for whom I fear more than I fear death. But we will talk no
more of these things. Let us go to Ellinor.”

That evening tidings were brought into the city that a Catholic
priest, a Jesuit, had been taken by the Puritans, in lay
clothing, endeavoring to force his way into the city, had been
tried by drum-head court-martial, and hanged summarily.

Sad hope for the defenders of the city!

The next day it transpired that the priest's name was Daly,
called, as the Puritans would have it, by the idolatrous and
Canaanitish title of Ignatius, even a latter type of the arch
beast and devil, Loyola.

So they hanged him. Perhaps he deserved to be hanged;
but surely not because his name was Ignatius—nor yet because
he chose to worship his God after his own manner, and the
manner of his fathers.

The Puritans, like most people, were very averse to being
hanged themselves, but very fond of hanging other people for
exercising the same freedom which they claimed—freedom to
worship God;—videlicet, the Catholics in Ireland, the Quakers
in Connecticut.

And so they hanged Ignatius Daly, and as I said, he certainly
deserved it, for the part he had taken in reference to the traitor,
Hugh O'Neil—to whose lot, by the way, it fell to superintend
the execution of his whilom friend and tutor—a duty which
he performed with all the cool, sanctimonious cruelty peculiar
to the Puritan, mingled with something of the vindictive zeal
which is always seen in the renegado.

It never was known clearly whether the priest was more

dupe or knave. In some degree he was both, assuredly. But
I believe no instance is on record in all history—none, at least,
of which I am aware—of a Catholic priest betraying his
church and his flock to an enemy, since the days, at least, of
Orpas of Seville. It is reasonable, therefore, and just, to suppose
that it was the selfish thirst of power, the self-conceit of
superior wisdom, and the love of tortuous paths, in preference
to the straight road, which is so commonly attributed to the
Jesuits, and not dellberate treachery, or an intention of wronging
his own people, that led the unhappy priest to fall so easily
into the snares of the traitor.

But my tale is drawing to a close, and sad is that close, and
bloody—almost the bloodiest page in the gory book of human
history; and I know not if it be not quite the most horribly
hideous: for that blood was all shed, coldly, deliberately, for set
plan and purpose of malice aforethought. Therefore, not the
lapse of ages shall obliterate, nor the waters of Lethe itself
wash out, the curse of Cromwell.

Not of the times, but of the man—for the times were refined
and merciful; and it had been the boast of a contemporaneous
historian, that during all the bloody civil wars of England,
though the opposing Englishmen would slay one another
sharply enough while both sides stood to it, so soon as the one
party turned to fly, the other could not be brought to do execution
on the flyers. Not of the man, but of the sect—for the
man was in the main merciful and sparing of blood, except
when bloodshedding was imperatively necessary to his career;
but the sect, as all sects are in turn when they are dominant
and unresisted, was bigotted, fanatical, and barbarous.

But to return to that doomed city. Day after day passed on,
quiet and calm, in the horrid hush of expectation. The sun
shone brightly on the green fields and the fair river, the fresh
and pleasant air dallied with the streamers and ensigns,
equally of morose Puritan and fiery cavalier; but the sun
showed not, and the breeze stirred not, any banner of his Grace
of Ormond, nor came there any tidings of approaching succor.

It was now the ninth of the month, the sixth since that
strange conversation had passed between Desmond and
O'Brien; and by all that was going forward in the trenches of
the enemy when the preceding night fell dark upon the earth,
it was apparent that the siege would commence in earnest with
the dawn of day.

And so in truth it was; for ere the sun was above the horizon,
and while the east was yet scarcely grey, the batteries of
Cromwell opened along the whole of the southern and western
faces of the works.

On that morning, fully expecting that which was to ensue,
the earl and his brother-in-law, now that the time of action
had arrived, in better spirits and more cheerful than he had
been since the investment, went forth, lightly armed, at an
early hour, with the governor, to inspect the works.

These three were standing together, close to the flag-staff, on
which, the sun not having as yet risen, the royal colors were
not unfurled; the governor, to the right of the three, having his
hand on the ensign-staff, with Colonel Desmond, to whose
opinion he had shown, throughout, the greatest deference, next
to him, then conversing earnestly; and on the left, O'Brien,
leaning upon his brother's shoulders, and listening attentively
to every word that was passing.

O'Brien was now by far the gravest and most serious of the
three—for he remembered the strange words which Florence
Desmond seemed to have forgotten, and they weighed upon
his heart; for he loved him for his own sake very earnestly;
and in every man's—certainly in every Irishman's—heart, there
is a touch of something nearly skin to, if it be not, superstition.

While they were standing thus upon the south-western bastion,
the drums in the trenches of the Puritans beat to arms,
and at the same moment the great red and blue banner of the
covenant soared slowly up to the top of the staff.

“Show them the royal standard, knaves!” exclaimed the go
vernor, “since they will have it; trumpets and kettle-drums,
God save the king!”

And at his words, amid the splendid symphonies of brazen
instruments, up went the glorious blazonry of England's crown.

“Now we shall have it!” exclaimed Desmond; and ere his
lips had ceased moving, ten or a dozen flashes leaped out from
the trenches, and the smoke, driven out in dense white volumes,
rolled lazily along the plain toward the glacis.

Then came the howl and hurtling of the heavy balls—the
crash of the masonry beneath their feet, the splintering of the
wood above their heads; for one shot had cut the massive enaign-staff
in twain, close above the fingers of the governor; and
a dozen smote the face of the bastion, three feet or less below
the spot where they were standing.

“Good faith! my lord,” said the governor, an old and tried
soldier, half-smiling as he said it, “but that they say two bullets
never strike in the same place, I should propose to seek
some cooler quarters!”—then turning to the artillerists, who
were busy training the guns—“Bustle,” he shouted, “bustle,
knaves! Answer me this shot speedily, and see if you cannot
cut down their red rag yonder. You have a great name for a
gunner, Colonel Desmond,” he added. “Will you not try a
shot for God and the king? But, great heaven! what is this!”

It was most strange; but, in the great excitement of that
moment even O'Brien, who was leaning on his shoulder with
their arms mutually interlaced, had not, until the governor's
words called his attention to his more than friend, perceived or
suspected what had happened.

A round shot of the heaviest size had struck him on the right
shoulder, dashing the whole of that limb to atoms, and crushing
in all the chest and side. Yet he had uttered no sound, given
no sign of that agony, save in a convalsive shudder which Dermot
afterward remembered to have felt, though at the time he
noted it not.

He was not dead—he was sensible still—he had still strength
to stand erect, leaning, as he did, with his left arm on his brother's
shoulder. The shock had struck him for a moment

speechless. His lips quivered, and his eyes rolled wildly for a
moment. But as they made a movement to bear him away, he
recovered both power and voice.

“No!” he said firmly. “No. Here!—I knew it, O'Brien
—did I not?” And he smiled sadly.

Another roar from the ordnance of the Puritans, and again
the iron hail smote all around them—and already the masonry
at the angle of the bastion began to crumble.

“Governor,” said the wounded man, faintly; “this cannot
last. This bastion will be breached before noon to-morrow.
Retrench at once. Begin to retrench inside. Take that church
for your point d'appui! But I have done with battles. I am
going. Lay me in that church, Dermot, until all is over; and
as you live, conceal this thing from Ellinor until the siege is
ended.”

“Even as you will, Florence, brother. God be with you!”

“Be good to her, Dermot; but I know you will. Ora pro
nobis!”—and he signed himself with the cross—“sanctissima
purissima, ora pro nobis!”

A third time the dreadful roar of the ordnance burst from the
batteries of Cromwell; and as the sound reached the ears of
the dying man, the ruling passion strong in death burst forth
—indomitable loyalty—loyalty and courage!

Shaking off the support of his brother's arm, he reared his
form to its full height, as proudly as though he had been unwounded,
tore off his steel cap, and waved it in the air toward
the lines of the enemy. “God save the king!” were the last
words of that true Catholic and gallant Irishman!—Peace to
his ashes! Honor to his name—a name that will not soon or
easily be forgotten! Peace and renown to Florence Desmond!

Little remains to tell. All that day, all the following night,
all the succeeding morning, incessant roared the cannon from
the trenches—the cannon from the city; but the latter feebly,
inefficiently, and at length singly—the former, faster and fiercer,
and more overwhelming every moment.

The angles of the bastions, the parapets, curtain, and counter-scarp
went down; before noon there were three wide and
yawning breaches; and against these, in three massive columns,
was the iron might of the Roundheads rolled forth.

Three separate assaults were given and repulsed at each
breach. It needs not to multiply words, for words can supply
nothing which the imagination cannot better fill. The picked
men of the bravest race on earth were fighting, hand to hand,
within a circumscribed and narrow space, with every terrible
engine and implement of destruction that human skill had then
invented. They were animated by all the strongest motives
that can inflame, invigorate, infuriate the human breast. Political
rancor—religious fanaticism—liberty—loyalty—personal
hatred—personal interest—all motives high and holy—all motives
base and sordid. And the result was, call it what you will,
glory or crime—the result was blood and havoc, and the disfiguring
of the Creator's image!

In the second and most desperate assault, Hugh O'Neil and
the O'Brien met in the melée, recognised each other, and
never unjoined hands—for each had griped the other by the
left—till, both their swords being shattered to the hilt, they had
fought out that old feud with daggers; till the earl's blade had
divorced the foul spirit, choked almost in its flight by its own
fearful imprecations, from its dark earthly rabernacle. Double
traitor—double apostate—he had no earthly creed in which
to die sublimely loyal—no heavenly faith in which to die serenely
confident. He passed, as the good and great had passed
before him—whither we know not, and dare not enquire!

At that instant, wounded, and spent, and still confused by the
long and desperate struggle—scarce conscious that the assailants
were repulsed, so thoroughly had he been engrossed in
that breathless strife for life, and death, and vengeance—O'Brien
felt himself grappled suddenly by four or five strong men.
Overdone as he was, and exhausted and unarmed, all to his
dagger—he could at best have offered but small resistance to

those vigorous antagonists; taken by surprise, he was easily
dragged down the breach—for it seemed to be the object of
the men who had fallen on him by concert, to capture, not to
injure him—and almost before he had time to think what had
occurred, he was a prisoner in the trenches of the Roundheads.

A few minutes passed, during which his brain reeled, and
his senses swam, and everything seemed indistinct and whirling
round him—brilliant with strange, prismatic gleams, and blurred
with blood. He was weak with loss of blood—weak with
pain—weak with misery.

Gradually his senses, his sight returned. He was sitting
down in an angle of Cromwell's trenches, with a knot of
grim musketeers, leaning on their matchlocks, at some dozen
paces distance, and a tall, stately figure, armed cap-a-pie in
bright steel, with a crimson scarf and plume, standing before,
gazing at him, from under the shade of his raised vizor, with
a smile half melancholy, half self-complacent.

Perceiving at once that he was seen and recognised, as the
light returned to O'Brien's eyes, and the color to his cheeks,
this person spoke in a frank, cheerful voice, that told of something
chivalrous and open in the character of the man.

“You would not know me,” he said, “the other day, lord
earl, when you did me a favor. Will you know me now, when
fortune—fortune de guerre you know—has put it in my power to
return it?”

“I know you very well, sir,” answered O'Brien, “as I did when
I gave you your life, if that was a favor. But if you wish to
do me one in return, just draw those fellows yonder up in file,
and give them a quick word, and me a steady volley.”

“Fie, sir!” replied the young man sternly, and a grave,
serious shade fell over his fine open features. “For
shame!—for shame!—a soldier, and such cowardly words!—
a Christian, and such wicked words! For shame! Let me not
hear such!—much less my father, if you chance to meet him;”
—and then he half smiled again. “For he will very surely

take you at your word. But hark!—they are beating again to
arms! I have no time. First, Dermot O'Brien, Earl of Thomond,
give me your parole of honor—rescue or no rescue; you
cannot refuse me. Then tell me where I shall find Colonel
Florence Desmond—and then where the countess—for I know
that you are wedded to the fair lady for whom you fought so
gallantly, and cost me so many of my best men. Do this, and
I pledge myself that you shall see them both this night in
safety.”

“Pledge not yourself, sir, for you cannot fulfil. You will
find Colonel Desmond even where you will find my mother—
before the high altar of the first church you come to, an if
you win the town—”

“There is no if.—We shall win it!”

“I may not gainsay you, Master Henry Cromwell. I do not
mean to offend; but I know not by what title to address you.
But you have cost me very dear!—at our first meeting, a dear
mother—at our second, a dear brother!”

“At least, I have returned you life for life, as earnest of what
I will do; and if you will permit, will restore to you this night
a wife for whom alone I have captured you. Trust in me, lord
earl—trust in me. You will know why to-morrow.”

“I will trust in you, though I know not wherefore. I give
you my parole of honor—rescue or no rescue. You will find
her in the governor's lodging, in Castle-street, near to the Mill
mount; and as you deal with her, so may God do unto you, and
much more also!”

“Amen!” replied Henry Cromwell. “Amen—so be it! Now
lead him to my quarters, Nicholson. Treat him with every
honor, but let him not go forth. Mount a guard over him with
loaded muskets. Let none enter in to him until I return. I
make you answerable for him with your life. Fare-you-well,
Earl of Thomond. I go to lead the assault, and if I live, I will
not fail you!”

He did not fail him. Ere ten o'clock of that horrid night

in which Tredagh was taken—in which two thousand men were
slaughtered in cold blood, or roasted wilfully to death in God's
desecrated temples—in which the kennels of the city streamed
with human gore—ere ten o'clock of that horrid night, O'Brien
elasped to his heart the living wife, and wept with her, unhindered,
over the rescued corpse of the dead brother.

Years passed away. The young earl and his lovely bride
departed on the very morrow, self-exiled to the hospitable realm
of France; and there dwelt, happy and in honor, until the restoration
of the second Charles to his hereditary crown restored
the Earl of Thomond also to his hereditary lands and honors.

Years passed away, and the gallant son of the great usurper,
early called away, went down to the grave before his mighty
sire—and, dying, sealed the doom of his father's blood-bought
dynasty. Had Henry Cromwell lived to succeed Oliver, a
Cromwell might have now sat on the throne of England. The
imbecility of Richard, and not the strength of Charles, produced
the restoration. Strange is the course of circumstances!
That was not the last revolutionary dynasty destined to fall by
the death of the energetic, able heir, while the weak should
survive, to be found wanting at the time of trial.

Years passed away, I said; but never, as they came and
went, did the O'Brien and his gentle Ellinor fail to give one
tear to the memory of Henry Cromwell, so often as they
thought upon

THE TAKING OF TREDAGH.