XXXIII.
In strong contrast to O’Leary was another old Irish rebel whose acquaintance I made in Paris for the first time. He was a man whose name was familiar to me as a household word, but with whom I had never before been brought directly into contact. I speak of James Stephens, the leader with whose name it was at one time possible to conjure in Ireland, who had been the head and front of the Fenian Brotherhood in Ireland in 1865, whose word was law to its sworn thousands, and who, after making his escape from Richmond Bridewell in Dublin, ended his inglorious public career by an unromantic exit in petticoats. Curious being that he was, he inspired feelings of the sincerest affection on the part of his immediate followers; and there were few things that, in their regard for him, they would not seek to accomplish on his behalf.
His escape from Richmond Prison, attended with tremendous risk as it was for all concerned, was a case in point; and as it is a matter about which present-day folk remember little if anything, I feel tempted to give the story in the old man’s words, as he told it to me.
“The two brave men,” said he, “brave men and true, who were instrumental in releasing me were J. J. Breslin and Daniel Byrne. Breslin was a man of great expediency, or he never could have procured the impression of the key which opened my cell, and which was hung on a nail in the Governor’s safe. He had to distract the Governor’s attention; steal the key, putting another in its place; get the impression, and then return the key to its proper place again. The most singular circumstance connected with my escape was that while Kickham, who was deaf, occupied the cell on my right, M‘Leod, a thief, was in the cell on my left. A gong was placed in his cell communicating with the Governor’s office, in order to allow of his giving the alarm if necessary; and he could not have helped hearing me get out, when Breslin and Byrne, at one o’clock in the morning, stood beside my cell. He did hear me; but that thief, base as he was, was not base enough to sell me to the British Government. But then my trouble began. We had only a few minutes to do our work in. It was pitch dark, and the storm howled furiously. The ladder provided for my scaling the wall proved too short. Breslin, who was chief hospital warden, and Byrne, who was night-watchman and ‘lock up,’ were armed with two revolvers each. They had also provided for me. Our intention was to fight, if discovered, until killed.
“The short ladder nearly proved fatal. I could not reach the top of the wall, which was twenty feet high, so Byrne got a table out of the dining-room and placed the ladder upon it. Even then it was too short. I had to come down again. Breslin was fairly wild. Another table was procured, and again I tried. After a dreadful struggle, I succeeded in getting outside of the wall. It was no joke to jump twenty feet into the darkness. I had to do it, however, or be caught. Breslin gave me directions where to go if I did not break my neck in falling; and he and Byrne returned to their duty. I let go my hold, and down I went, fortunately falling on soft ground.
“My directions were to follow a gravel walk (for I was in a garden) until I came to another wall twenty feet high, where I was to throw a stone over as a signal to eleven men, all armed, who were waiting outside to receive me.
“I had some difficulty in finding the walk, and could get no stone of any size in the dark. At last I reached the garden wall, and threw over a handful of gravel. A rope with a weight attached was thrown over the wall. I climbed up by its aid, and soon found myself in the arms of my body-guard. We embraced with joy, and I soon made them disperse. I went to a house in sight of the jail, and remained there fourteen days. I afterwards went to a fashionable boarding-house in the finest part of Dublin and stayed two months. I left Dublin in the brigantine Concord, in company with Flood and Kelly, on the 12th of March, and landed in Ardrossan on the afternoon of the 15th.”
Poor Stephens now lives in his humble garret in Paris, an exile broken in fortune, health, and hope, smoking his short black pipe and brooding over these days that are no more.