The Fortunes of Hector O'Halloran, and His Man, Mark Antony O'Toole

CONTENTS

“Although you open force disdain.
Of secret guile beware!”
John Leyden.
It was a cold frosty evening in December, seventeen hundred and ninety-five, and the whole of the month had been unusually tempestuous. Throughout wide Britain, there are no shores on which the wind rages with wilder fury than upon those naked promontories which abut into the Atlantic, along the iron-bound coast of Donegal. Harbours are few and far between—the peasantry are a hardy and adventurous race—and the fishing grounds distant from the land. In the winter, snowstorms come suddenly on, and the sea rises with fearful rapidity. The boatmen are caught in the gale, and too frequently courage and skill struggle in vain,
“Contending with the fretful elements;”
and a calamitous loss of life robs many a family of its protectors, making the humble roof-tree desolate.
During the continuation of these fearful storms, this wild coast had not escaped its customary visitations. An island smack had foundered with all its crew; and farther to the northward, a transport, homeward-bound from Holland with sick and wounded soldiers, having been dismasted in the gale, was driven a wreck upon the coast. By the fearless intrepidity of some fishermen, the sinking vessel was carried through a fissure in the rocks into a sandy bay; and, by what appeared miraculous interposition, the lives of all on board were saved, even when hope was over.
On the second evening after this fortunate deliverance our story opens. Indeed, the epoch was memorable. That disastrous campaign which brought disgrace upon the British arms, had just terminated in the evacuation of the Low Countries, and the withdrawal to its own shores of the débris of a splendid force, which, under luckless auspices, had left England buoyant with the assurance of success. Nor was a foreign failure the only circumstance which at this eventful period gave cause for apprehension. In England, the public mind was agitated, monetary confidence deeply shaken, and revolutionary principles were gaining ground; while in Ireland the peasantry united in lawless associations, and murder, with robbery of arms, intimated that some insurrectionary movement was at hand. In a word, everything was gloomy and discouraging abroad, and at home life and property had no security. With few exceptions the resident gentry had repaired for protection to garrisoned towns. Some however, with more spirit than discretion, determined to remain within their houses, and my father was of that number.