 | CHAPTER I. Dermot O'Brien; or, The taking of Tredagh |  |
1. CHAPTER I.
On every syde shear;
Grea-hordes thorowe the greves glent
For to kill thear deer.”
Chzvy Chase.
The bright, warm sunshine of a July morning was pouring
its full stream of vivifying lustre over a wide expanse of wild,
open country, in one of the south-eastern counties of Ireland.
For miles and miles over which the eye extended, not a sign
of a human habitation, or of man's handiwork, was visible;
unless these were to be found in the existence of a long range
of young oak woodland, which lay to the north-east, stretching
for several miles continuously along the low horizon in that
quarter, with something that might have been either a mist-wreath,
or a column of blue smoke floating lazily in the pure
atmosphere above it. The foreground of this desolate, but
lovely landscape, was formed by a wide, brawling stream,
which almost merited the name of a river, and which here
issuing from an abrupt, rocky cleft or chasm, in the round-headed
moorland hills, spread itself out over a broader bed,
flowing rapidly in bright whirls and eddies upon a bottom of
glittering pebbles, with here and there a great boulder heaving
yellow-finned trouts, flashing up like meteors from
the depths, and breaking the smooth ripples in pursuit of
their insect prey.
The banks of this beautiful stream were fringed on the farther
side by a feathery coppice of aspen, birch and alders,
with here and there a doddered oak overgrown with the
broad-leaved Irish ivy; or a dark holly brake, relieving by
their evergreen foliage the lighter verdure of the deciduous
trees around them. Above this screen of brushwood, the
moorlands rose in a long expanse of gently-swelling, heath-clad
ridges, now glowing with the purple bloom of the sweet
heather and the mountain thyme, knoll above knoll, with deep
hollows intervening, like the seas and troughs of a storm-tossed
ocean, until afar off in the dim distance they were bounded to
the westward by the blue towering heights of the great mountain
of Slieyh-Bay.
It was perhaps ten of the clock, though there was little
chance that the hour of God's day should be proclaimed in
that delicious solitude by the iron tongue of man's machinery;
where not a sound had been heard since the peep of dawn, except
the rippling music of the stream, the low sigh of the soft
west wind among the aspen leaves, the busy hum of the bees
from the heather blossoms, and the occasional crow of the gallant
goreock from his station on the crest of you sunny hillock.
No lack was there, however, of animal life to gladden the
tranquillity of that lone moorlands cenery; the water-ousel, with
his broad white gorget, now took his stand on the summit of
some dripping stone, now dived into the clear stream, on the
gravelly floor of which he might be seen a moment afterward
running as briskly to an fro as if he had not three feet of water
glancing above his head; the kingfisher shot down the channel,
gleaming like a winged turquoise in the sunshine; the whiskered
otter prowled along the pebbly margin, and plunged, and
emerged again, with a five-pound brook-trout quivering in his
heath-cock sank into silence, and the ousel and the kingfisher
cowered beneath the shelter of the caverned bank, a magnificent
grey gosshawk came gliding down from his mountain eyrie on
his balanced pinions, and after wheeling hither and thither for a
little space, alighted on the bare stag-horned crest of an old oak
beside the stream, and ever and anen renewed the terrors of
the feathered tremblers of the wold by his shrill, shivering
cry.
But now another sound arose, faint and far, swelling up from
the westward, on the wings of the gentle wind; a strange, confused,
yet harmonious murmur. For a long time it continued
rising and falling with the rise and fall of the breeze, scarcely
distinguishable above the tinkling music of the river, and the
fitful cadences of the air among the tree-tops, unless it were by
something indescribable, save to those who have heard it, of
wild, spirit-stirring, yet half-discordant music.
Still, however, it came nigher and more nigh, pealing up to
the ear, had there been any human ear to listen it, until the
shrill, sharp, savage trebles, and the deeper ringing bass-notes of
a full pack of stag-hounds, running upon a breast-high scent,
became distinctly audible. The falcon, which, up to this time
had set motionless, as if she had been a portion of the weatherbeaten
oak, upon her airy perch, now spread her broad vans
to the breeze, and darted away like an arrow from the bow,
soaring up, up, into the empyrean, until she was almost beyond
the ken of human vision, a mere speck in the azure firmament.
The otter, which alone of the living things had maintained its
ground in the falcon's presence, grumbling and hissing, cat-like,
over its scaly prey, now raised its round head, erected its ears,
and listened anxiously to the blended din which still rang
nearer and nearer, until the echoes of the neighboring hills
began to reverberate the cry, and the coppice itself, under the
verge of which it lay, seemed to thrill and reply to the cheery
crash of that dog-music.
Then launching itself into the glittering waters it oared its
way with its webbed feet, and steered itself with its muscular
tail down the glancing shallows, until having gained the deeps,
it dived in the mid pool, and arose no more above the surface,
until it had gained the shelter of its secluded holt beneath the
tortuous roots of the water-loving willows.
A moment or two afterwards a brood of well-grown moor-fowl
came whirring along the wind from beyond the heathery
knolls among which they had been flushed by the staghounds;
and, crossing the bed of the river and its little valley,
skimmed out of sight beyond the southern eminences. Ere
this, the tongue of every several hound was distinguishable
from its mate's; and the nice ear of a practised hunter could
have perceived with certainty which of the pack were foremost
on the traces of the quarry; and now the brushwood of
the coppice began indeed to crash audibly to the ear, and
quiver visibly to the eye, as if torn asunder by the passage of
many bodies in swift motion.
A deep, hoarse croak was next heard; and, a moment later,
a large raven, grizzled about the head with age, sailed over
the low tree-tops, and perched itself secure and well satisfied
on the very scathed oak-branch from which the gosshawk had
so recently departed; then, almost ere its wings were folded,
a noble stag, a royal hart of ten, as a forester would have
termed him, with cupped antlers, broke from the underwood,
almost as black from the effects of toil and sweat as the ill-omened
bird above him—and after hesitating for an instant on
the brink, plunged into the shallow river, dashing the spray
high into the air, and, bounding with a sure foot over the slippery
and treacherous pebbles, rushed up the channel, until, as
the headmost hounds appeared on the farther side, he turned
to bay in a deep narrow cove or recess of the rocks, where
both his fianks were protected by the abrupt crags, while for
the front, his own broad and branching antlers seemed to be
guard enough against a host of foes.
And need there was enough that the staunch quarry should
be so guarded; for, yelling with redoubled zeal and fury as
they ran from the scent into view, hound after hound plunged
down the precipitous descent, and stemmed the rapid current
in pursuit, until full twenty couple of black or brindled talbots
were raving at close quarters around the royal hart, hemming
him in on every side, yet daunted by his bold aspect,
and the fierce raking thrusts of his terrible brow antlers upon
their gallant game.
Once or twice some bolder hound than his fellows would
dash in with a shrill, snarling bay; but the pack hung aloof,
and at each fresh assault the brave adventurer fell back
gored by the horns or battered by the hoofs of the stag, till
after each assault all seemed reluctant to attack again, and
well content to bay and clamor at safe distance.
Meanwhile the stag, recovering gradually from his exhaustion
as the fresh air blew full and inspiritingly into his wide-expanded
nostrils, and the cool waters laved his foam-embossed
flanks and panting breast refreshingly, wasted no efforts
upon enemies which evidently dared not charge him home,
but watched them with a wary eye, and lowered antlers only,
and seemed to be abiding his time when he should burst
through their clamorous circle, and trust once again to the
fleetness of his well-tried foot.
But at the very point of time when he seemed to be almost
in the act of bounding over their heads, and betaking himself
once again to the broad moorlands, the gallop of a horse at full
speed came charging up the rocky bank; and, almost simultaneously
with the sound, a gallant stood and a gay rider
emerged from the coppice, and stood out, drawn in clear
relief against the glowing sky, upon the verge of a tall crag
opposite.
The horse was sorely blown, however; and the declivity
from the crag on which he stood into the channel of the brook
was so steep and abrupt, that, had he been in the full vigor of
powers fearfully to try the descent over those slippery limestone
ledges.
But as his rider cleared the covert, and saw the tumultuous
and confused group almost beneath his feet, he pulled hard
upon the bridle, and rising erect in his stirrups, uttered a
long, clear whoop of joyous exultation; and then, without so
much as pausing to collect his breath, raised to his lips the
ivory-tipped bugle which hung at his right side, and blew the
well-known cadences of the “mort,” till wood and rock and
mountain rang, and a faint answering halloo, and a far distant
bugle-blast, responded to his note of triumph.
He was a tall and powerful young man, of some twenty-six
or twenty-seven years, with a singularly dark complexion, fine
black eyes, features of a keen, aquiline outline, and long,
curled love-locks of the same hue with his eyes and strongly-pencilled
brows, floating down over the collar of his doublet.
He wore no hair upon his face—although that was the day of
imperials and Vandyke beards, almost as much as it was of
silken scarfs, and gilded spurs, and belted swords on the hip of
every one claiming to be a gentleman by birth and lineage—
except a small, dark moustache on his short, well-formed upper
lip; but his dress, though evidently fashioned with especial
regard to the hunting-field, was both elaborate and costly. It
consisted of a rich, half-military coat of bullet-proof buff
leather, lined and slashed with tawney silk, and adorned with
silver loops and fringes. His falling collar was of fine cambric,
profusely frilled with the richest Flanders lace, as were
the cuffs of his sleeves, and the knees of his buff breeches,
though in the latter instance this costly decoration was concealed
by the large tops of his heavy riding boots. He had
shoulder-knots, and a scarf of rich, grass-green satin, and the
band of his broad-brimmed, steeple-crowned beaver was of
the same color and material, all tagged and fringed with silver.
A short buck-handled hunting-knife, or hanger, with a double-edged
weapon which he bore about his person, though the butts of a
pair of silver-mounted pistols peered from the holsters at his
saddle-bow; and the bugle, which he had just winded so
skilfully and well, was suspended from a silver chain crossing
the scarf and his left shoulder.
He made no pause, after the answer of his comrades
reached his ear, but, seeing the nature of the ground, and its
impracticable character for the surest-footed horse, sprang
from his saddle in hot haste, flung his bridle-rein over the
gnarled bough of an oak stump, and unsheathing his bright,
keen blade, sprang down the rocks with the light steady foot
of a practised cragsman. A minute, at the utmost, had not
passed between the first appearance of the young cavalier on
the scene of action and his springing, weapon in hand, down
the craggy pass. The hounds, animated by his halloo and his
bugle blast, had in the meantime rushed upon the hart with
greater fierceness than they had shown before—and two or
three had even fixed their faugs upon his muscular and glossy
limbs. But these were beaten off, trampled or maimed, in
less time than it has taken to describe it; and one, a superb
jet-black bloodhound, of the true Talbot breed, “crook-kneed
and dew-lipped, like Thessalian bulls,” which had fastened on
his neck, narrowly missing the jugular vein, was dashed down
by a single blow of the keen cloven hoof, and the next instant
transfixed and unseamed from the brisket to the shoulderblade,
by the brow antlers of the infuriate stag.
At the instant when the young man leaped from the last
step of the limestone ledges into the clear cold water, which
was so deep where he entered it that it took him to the mid-thing
and so swift, that, strong as he was and muscular, it
needed all his powers and agility to stem it, the fierce animal
had disembarrassed itself of all its four-footed assailants, and
now made at its human enemy with a front of resolute defiance,
and a countenance which, merely animal and brutish
agony, despair, and resolution.
But, nothing daunted or irresolute, the youth rushed on to
meet him, while the hounds, rallying again at the sight and
presence of their master, bayed fiercely round his flanks and
in his rear, although they dared not yet again to tackle him.
Just as they were closing in the mortal strife—for be it known
that a stag at bay is no easy or contemptible antagonist, and a
thrust from his antlers no child's play—the quick sharp clatter
of a horse's hoofs upon the rocky ground came up against the
wind from the south-eastward, in a direction exactly opposite
to the approach of the still distant hunters; and it might have
been at once conjectured by the eager youth that aid was at
hand, had he needed it, if the ears of his mind had not been
closed by the excitement of immediate peril to be met, and
the mad ardor of the chase.
But, though he saw it not, a fresh spectator, if not actor, was
brought upon the scene of strife, in the shape of a tall, gaunt,
thin-flanked man, with singularly broad shoulders, and wiry,
muscular limbs, mounted upon a lean, ewe-necked, spur-galled
garron, wretchedly accoutred with a rope bridle, and a tattered
saddle, the wooden tree and straw stuffing of which were
clearly visible through the worm-eaten canvass covering.
The countenance of the new comer was that of a man of
some fifty-five or sixty years, harsh, resolute, and seemingly indicative
of a character unchanged by time or hardship, and
singularly unprepossessing, while it was purely Irish in its aspect
and characteristics. The hair had been as black as the
raven's wing, but was now grizzled, and as similar in color as
in texture to the short bristly clothing of a badger's back—for
it was clipped close after the fashion of the Puritans, who,
though as yet they had gained little foothold on the west side
of St. George's Channel, were absolute masters in England—
having a few months before perpetrated the unjust and cruel
murder of one, almost the best of men, if he were also
broad, furrowed, and almost knotted by the corrugation of its
muscles; but, it receded villanously above the shaggy iron-grey
eyebrows, which overhung like pent-houses the deep cavernous
hollows from the depths of which twinkled with a quick,
malignant light a pair of small, dark, snake-like eyes, of which
the sharp intelligence was the only redeeming feature. The
nose was coarse, broad, and turned upward; and the wide, thin-lipped,
compressed mouth gave token of no quality of mind,
unless it were iron resolution; while the square massive jaws
and bull neck below were more than usually deceptive in their
prognostics, if they did not indicate the cruelty and fierceness
of the animal they most resembled—the base and brutal bulldog.
This odious-looking and repulsive personage was dressed in
a plain, close-fitting doublet of black serge, belted about his
middle by a broad strap of untanned calf-skin, from which swung
at his side a long steel-hilted and steel-scabbarded straight
blade, or tuck, as it was then termed, which was the favorite
weapon of the Parliamentarians—and that which, in the hard
hands of the Ironsides, had done such fatal execution on the
heights of Naseby, and the red moor of Marston. He wore
a steeple-crowned black hat, with neither band nor feather,
and his garb was completed by a pair of rusty leather breeches
and gigantic riding-boots with funnel-shaped tops extending
to the middle of his thigh. He had no pistols at his saddle-bow,
for it was evident at once that the beast on which he
was temporarily mounted was no more a soldier's charger
than the wretched pad which barely covered its galled back
was a soldier's demipique; but he had a long dudgeon dagger
thrust through his girdle at the left side, and a short, heavy
flint-locked musquetoon—at that time a scarce and much valued
weapon—slung across his shoulder from the left hand to
the right haunch.
As soon as the Puritan, for such he seemed to be, (though
came in sight of the animated group, composed of the man,
the deer, and the hounds, crowded together in the narrow
gorge of the stream between the steep and savage banks—fit
scene for so mad and desperate an encounter—he pulled his
wretched horse short up with an exertion of muscular force,
which almost threw him on his haunches, brought down the
muzzle of his piece under his right elbow, and with a quick
movement of the left hand released the buckle which confined
it on his breast, so that, within a second or two of his first appearance
on the stage, he had his weapon in his hand, posted
and cocked, and ready for prompt action.
And well it was for the young hunter that his promptitude
was both active and deliberate, for not a minute had elapsed
before that military promptitude saved him from instant death.
He had not seen or heard, as I have stated, the approach of
the stranger; and had he seen him, it is little likely he would
have deigned to honor him with more than a moment's notice—
for he was not only repulsive at first sight, even to a stranger's
eye, but was one who to—what the young hunter evidently was
—a noble and a royalist, was likely to be individually and peculiarly
odious. But, ignorant of the presence of any witness
to his fiery rashness, with a repeated whoop, he dashed at the
charging stag, which met him nothing loth or fearful. As the
maddened and desperate beast closed his eyes, and stooped his
head to strike with his terrible brow antlers, as is the habit of
his breed, the young man bounded lightly to one side, intending
to evade the charge, and raising his keen weapon as he
leaped, with the purpose of severing his hamstring as he passed
him. But, though he leaped actively, and struck with a
true hand, directed by a quick, sure eye, and steadied by a resolute
and fearless heart, he counted for the nonce without his
host. And yet, as it was clear to see, it was to him no new or
untried manœuvre, but one which had been put in practice
many times, and until now, ever found available.
But such a feat of agility is one thing to practise with the
good solid greensward under the booted foot, and no denser
medium through which to spring than the elastic and intrindant
air, and with the slippery limestone boulders of the river's
bed from which to spring, and on which to descend—and the
rushing volume of a stream running ten miles an hour, boiling
and whirling round the limbs.
He sprang lightly, it is true, and alighted surely; but glass itself,
or ice, were not more slippery than the water-worn and
polished pebbles on which he landed from his quick bound;
his feet flew from under him, and he fell headlong backward
directly across the track of the charging stag.
Well was it for him then that he were a garment surer
proof than the ordinary Lincoln green of the hunter's frock;
for the full thrust of the brow antler caught his right shoulder
as he fell, and though the tough elk-skin of his stont buff coat
turned it aside, that it pierced him, not as surely as it would
otherwise, from side to side, the force of the blow was so great
that it fairly raised him into the air, and hurled him a yard
farther forward than the spot where he would have fallen.
Then with a fiend-like burst of yells, the savage hounds
rushed in, and seizing the infuriate deer by the ears, the
throat, the fore-shoulder,—tore him down bodily into the brook,
full on top of the young huntsman, biting, goring, trampling,
and bleeding,—now below, now above the surface of the flashing
and tortured water—and for a minute all was horrible and
blind confusion.
But, once again the royal hart shook of his savage foos,
and with a wild strange cry—half bray, half bellow, reared
himself erect on his hind legs, rampant in glorious triumph,
and tossed “his horned frontlet to the skies,” preparatory,
as he deemed, doubtless, to swift and sure escape.
No escape was there for him, however. For, whether wisely,
friendly, or no, who shall say?—since at that moment the
peril seemed at least to be over; but certainly with swift, instinctive
his musquetoon—and ere he could perceive the result
of his quick aim, cast the piece from his hand, leaped down
from the saddle, and drawing his long tuck, dashed to the
river's edge.
But the instinctive aim had proved deadly, and the heavy
fall had taken effect precisely where the matador directs the
deadly thrust of his fine blade in the Spanish bull-ring—right
at the juncture of the skull and spine—producing instantaneous
death, and hurling the great stag, lifeless, upon the
body of the stunned and half-drowned cavalier.
The stranger rested not content with the good or evil which
he had done already; but plunged into the water, and dragged
out the young gentleman in less time than it has taken to describe,
and while the dogs tore and mangled the carcass of the
dead hart unheeded, applied himself actively and skilfully to
restore the suspended animation of the cavalier—though there
was a strange expression in his face, which seemed to portend
no good or kindly feeling to the sufferer.
Be that, however, as it may, his efforts were ere long successful,
and the cavalier opened his eyes, at first with a vague
and bewildered expression, which brightened in an instant, as
they fell upon those hard, repulsive features, into a glance of
mingled enmity and horror.
He started half up, and strove to regain his feet, while his
right hand was moved with an instinctive impulse to the place
where his sword should have hung—while he exclaimed, in accents
of fierce energy:
“You here! you! you!—Hugh O'Neil!”
“Even I, Dermot!” replied the other, quite unmoved, and
apparently unconscious of the feelings which possessed the
other. “And, whatsoever ill I have done else in my day, the
Lord be thanked, I have this good deed to boast, that I have
saved the great O'Brien!”
“Ha!” answered the other, as he staggered feebly to his
yet what had befallen him. “Ha! would that you had slain
me rather! True! true!—you have saved me!”
The gloomy tone and yet gloomier expression of his fine
features, as he spoke, showed that his words came straight
from his heart, and were true to the very letter. But if he
did indeed regret the obligation under which he was placed
to one who seemed so hateful to him as the stranger, he was
soon in a position in some sort to requite, if not efface it;
for at this moment, the earth was shaken by the clang and clatter
of a dozen horses at full gallop—and with a wild, fierce
shout the retainers of the great O'Brien, as his rescuer had
called him, came tearing over stock and stone to the spot, and
in an instant's time, five or six brandished blades were glittering
above the stranger's head, and as many pistols were cocked
and levelled within a hand's-breadth of his resolute, unaltered
features.
But with a strange, wan, bitter smile, the O'Brien waved his
hand on high, and exclaimed:
“Hold! hold! Evil betide! He has saved my life, and must
not lose his own, were he fiend himself, as he is blacker and
more hideous!”
| CHAPTER I. Dermot O'Brien; or, The taking of Tredagh | |