CHAPTER XII.
I remember to have heard, in some epilogue to a tragedy, that the tide of pity and of love, whilst it overwhelms, fertilizes the soul. That it may deposit the seeds of future fertilization, I believe; but some time must elapse before they germinate: on the first retiring of the tide, the prospect is barren and desolate. I was absolutely inert, and almost imbecile for a considerable time, after the extraordinary stimulus, by which I had been actuated, was withdrawn. I was in this state of apathy when the rebellion broke out in Ireland; nor was I roused in the least by the first news of the disturbances. The intelligence, however, so much alarmed my English servants, that, with one accord, they left me; nothing could persuade them to remain longer in Ireland. The parting with my English gentleman affected my lethargic selfishness a little. His loss would have been grievous to such a helpless being as I was, had not his place been immediately supplied by that half-witted Irishman, Joe Kelly, who had ingratiated himself with me by a mixture of drollery and simplicity, and by suffering himself to be continually my laughing-stock; for, in imitation of Lady Geraldine, I thought it necessary to have a butt. I remember he first caught my notice by a strange answer to a very simple question. I asked, “What noise is that I hear?” “My lard,” said he, “it is only the singing in my ears; I have had it these six months.” Another time, when I reproached him for having told me a lie, he answered, “Why, now indeed, and plase your honour, my lard, I tell as few lies as possibly I can.” This fellow, the son of a bricklayer, had originally been intended for a priest, and he went, as he told me, to the College of Maynooth to study his humanities; but, unluckily, the charms of some Irish Heloise came between him and the altar. He lived in a cabin of love, till he was weary of his smoke-dried Heloise, and then thought it convanient to turn sarving man, as he could play on the flute, and brush a coat remarkably well, which he larned at Maynooth, by brushing the coats of the superiors. Though he was willing to be laughed at, Joe Kelly could in his turn laugh; and he now ridiculed, without mercy, the pusillanimity of the English renegadoes, as he called the servants who had just left my service; He assured me that, to his knowledge, there was no manner of danger, excepted a man prefarred being afraid of his own shadow, which some did, rather than have nothing to talk of, or enter into resolutions about, with some of the spirited men in the chair.
Unwilling to be disturbed, I readily believed all that lulled me in my security. I would not be at the trouble of reading the public papers; and when they were read to me, I did not credit any paragraph that militated against my own opinion. Nothing could awaken me. I remember, one day, lying yawning on my sofa, repeating to Mr. M’Leod, who endeavoured to open my eyes to the situation of the country, “Pshaw, my dear sir; there is no danger, be assured—none at all—none at all. For mercy’s sake! talk to me of something more diverting, if you would keep me awake; time enough to think of these things when they come nearer to us.”
Evils that were not immediately near me had no power to affect my imagination. My tenantry had not yet been contaminated by the epidemic infection, which broke out soon after with such violence as to threaten the total destruction of all civil order. I had lived in England—I was unacquainted with the causes and the progress of the disease, and I had no notion of my danger; all I knew was, that some houses had been robbed of arms, and that there was a set of desperate wretches called defenders; but I was annoyed only by the rout that was now made about them. Having been used to the regular course of justice which prevailed in England, I was more shocked at the summary proceedings of my neighbours than alarmed at the symptoms of insurrection. Whilst my mind was in this mood, I was provoked by the conduct of some of the violent party, which wounded my personal pride, and infringed upon my imagined consequence. My foster-brother’s forge was searched for pikes, his house ransacked, his bed and bellows, as possible hiding places, were cut open; by accident, or from private malice, he received a shot in his arm; and, though not the slightest cause of suspicion could be found against him, the party left him with a broken arm, and the consolation of not being sent to jail as a defender. Without making any allowance for the peculiar circumstances of the country, my indignation was excited in the extreme, by the injury done to my foster-brother; his sufferings, the tears of his mother, the taunts of Mr. (now Captain) Hardcastle, and the opposition made by his party, called forth all the faculties of my mind and body. The poor fellow, who was the subject of this contest, showed the best disposition imaginable: he was excessively grateful to me for interesting myself to get him justice; but as soon as he found that parties ran high against me, he earnestly dissuaded me from persisting.
“Let it drop, and plase your honour; my lord, let it drop, and don’t be making of yourself inimies for the likes of me. Sure, what signifies my arm? and, before the next assizes, sha’n’t I be as well as ever, arm and all?” continued he, trying to appear to move the arm without pain. “And there’s the new bellows your honour has give me; it does my heart good to look at ‘em, and it won’t be long before I will be blowing them again as stout as ever; and so God bless your honour, my lord, and think no more about it—let it drop entirely, and don’t be bringing yourself into trouble.”
“Ay, don’t be bringing yourself into trouble, dear,” added Ellinor, who seemed half distracted between her feelings for her son and her fears for me; “it’s a shame to think of the way they’ve treated Christy—but there’s no help now, and it’s best not to be making bad worse; and so, as Christy says, let the thing drop, jewel, and don’t be bringing yourself into trouble; you don’t know the natur of them people, dear—you are too innocent for them entirely, and myself does not know the mischief they might do yees.”
“True for ye,” pursued Christy; “I wouldn’t for the best cow ever I see that your honour ever larnt a sentence about me or my arm; and it is not for such as we to be minding every little accident—so God lend you long life, and don’t be plaguing yourself to death! Let it drop, and I’ll sleep well the night, which I did not do the week, for thinking of all the trouble you got, and would get, God presarve ye!”
This generous fellow’s eloquence produced an effect directly contrary to what was intended; both my feelings and my pride were now more warmly interested in his cause. I insisted upon his swearing examinations before Mr. M’Leod, who was a justice of the peace. Mr. M’Leod behaved with the utmost steadiness and impartiality; and in this trying moment, when “it was infamy to seem my friend,” he defended my conduct calmly, but resolutely, in private and in public, and gave his unequivocal testimony, in few but decided words, in favour of my injured tenant. I should have respected Mr. M’Leod more, if I had not attributed this conduct to his desire of being returned for one of my boroughs at the approaching election. He endeavoured, with persevering goodness, to convince me of the reality of the danger in the country. My eyes were with much difficulty forced open so far as to perceive that it was necessary to take an active part in public affairs to vindicate my loyalty, and to do away the prejudices that were entertained against me; nor did my incredulity, as to the magnitude of the peril, prevent me from making exertions essential to the defence of my own character, if not to that of the nation. How few act from purely patriotic and rational motives! At all events I acted, and acted with energy; and certainly at this period of my life I felt no ennui. Party spirit is an effectual cure for ennui; and perhaps it is for this reason that so many are addicted to its intemperance. All my passions were roused, and my mind and body kept in continual activity. I was either galloping, or haranguing, or fearing, or hoping, or fighting; and so long as it was said that I could not sleep in my bed, I slept remarkably well, and never had so good an appetite as when I was in hourly danger of having nothing to eat. The rebels were up, and the rebels were down—and Lord Glenthorn’s spirited conduct in the chair, and indefatigable exertions in the field, were the theme of daily eulogium amongst my convivial companions and immediate dependants. But, unfortunately, my sudden activity gained me no credit amongst the violent party of my neighbours, who persisted in their suspicions; and my reputation was now still more injured, by the alternate charge of being a trimmer or a traitor. Nay, I was further exposed to another danger, of which, from my ignorance of the country, I could not possibly be aware. The disaffected themselves, as I afterwards found, really believed, that, as I had not begun by persecuting the poor, I must be a favourer of the rebels; and all that I did to bring the guilty to justice, they thought was only to give a colour to the thing, till the proper moment should come for my declaring myself. Of this absurd and perverse mode of judging I had not the slightest conception; and I only laughed when it was hinted to me. My treating the matter so lightly confirmed suspicion on both sides. At this time all objects were so magnified and distorted by the mist of prejudice, that no inexperienced eye could judge of their real proportions. Neither party could believe the simple truth, that my tardiness to act arose from the habitual inertia of my mind and body.
Whilst prepossessions were thus strong, the time, the important time, in Ireland the most important season of the year, the assizes, arrived. My foster-brother’s cause, or, as it was now generally called, Lord Glenthorn’s cause, came on to be tried. I spared no expense, I spared no exertions; I fee’d the ablest counsel; and not content with leaving them to be instructed by my attorney, I explained the affair to them myself with indefatigable zeal. One of the lawyers, whom I had seen, or by whom I had been seen, in my former inert state of existence, at some watering-place in England, could not refrain from expressing his astonishment at my change of character; he could scarcely believe that I was the same Lord Glenthorn, of whose indolence and ennui he had formerly heard and seen so much.
Alas! all my activity, all my energy, on the present occasion, proved ineffectual. After a dreadful quantity of false swearing, the jury professed themselves satisfied; and, without retiring from the box, acquitted the persons who had assaulted my foster-brother. The mortification of this legal defeat was not all that I had to endure; the victorious party mobbed me, as I passed some time afterwards through a neighbouring town, where Captain Hardcastle and his friends had been carousing. I was hooted, and pelted, and narrowly escaped with my life—I who, but a few months ago, had imagined myself possessed of nearly despotic power: but opinions had changed; and on opinion almost all power is founded. No individual, unless he possess uncommon eloquence, joined to personal intrepidity, can withstand the combination of numbers, and the force of prejudice.
Such was the result of my first public exertions! Yet I was now happier and better satisfied with myself than I had ever been before. I was not only conscious of having acted in a manly and generous manner, but the alarms of the rebels, and of the French, and of the loyalists, and the parading, and the galloping, and the quarrelling, and the continual agitation in which I was kept, whilst my character and life were at stake, relieved me effectually from the intolerable burden of ennui.