“No, my lord; he was alive. But Mr. Crofts is not to blame, for he believed he was dead; and, more than that, he thought he took the sure way to make him so.”
These words produced the greatest excitement throughout the court; and an animated discussion ensued, how far the testimony could go to inculpate a party not accused. It was ruled, at last, the evidence should be heard, as touching the case on trial, and not immediately as regarded Crofts. And then Darby began a recital, of which I had never heard a syllable before, nor had I conceived the slightest suspicion.
The story, partly told in narrative form, partly elicited by questioning, was briefly this.
Daniel Fortescue was the son of a Roscommon gentleman of large fortune, of whom also Crofts was the illegitimate child. The father, a man of high Tory politics, had taken a most determined part against the patriotic party in Ireland, to which his son Daniel had shown himself, on more than one occasion, favorable. The consequence was, a breach of affection between them; widened into an actual rupture, by the old man, who was a widower, taking home to his house the illegitimate son, and announcing to his household that he would leave him everything he could in the world.
To Daniel, the blow was all that he needed to precipitate his ruin. He abandoned the university, where already he had distinguished himself, and threw himself heart and soul into the movement of the “United Irish” party. At first, high hopes of an independent nation,—a separate kingdom, with its own train of interests, and its own sphere of power and influence,—was the dream of those with whom he associated. But as events rolled on it was found, that to mature their plans it was necessary to connect themselves with the masses, by whose agency the insurrectionary movement was to be effected; and in doing so, they discovered, that although theories of liberty and independence, high notions of pure government, may have charms for men of intellect and intelligence, to the mob the price of a rebellion must be paid down in the sterling coin of pillage and plunder,—or even, worse, the triumphant dominion of the depraved and the base over the educated and the worthy.
Many who favored the patriotic cause, as it was called, became so disgusted at the low associates and base intercourse the game of party required, that they abandoned the field at once, leaving to others, less scrupulous or more ardent, the path they could not stoop to follow. It was probable that young Fortescue might have been among these, had he been left to the guidance of his own judgment and inclination; for, as a man of honor and intelligence, he could not help feeling shocked at the demands made by those who were the spokesmen of the people. But this course he was not permitted to take, owing to the influence of a man who had succeeded in obtaining the most absolute power over him.
This was a certain Maurice Mulcahy, a well-known member of the various illegal clubs of the day, and originally a country schoolmaster. Mulcahy it was who first infected Fortescue's mind with the poison of this party,—now lending him volumes of the incendiary trash with which the press teemed; now newspapers, whose articles were headed, “Orange outrage on a harmless and unresisting peasantry!” or, “Another sacrifice of the people to the bloody vengeance of the Saxon!” By these, his youthful mind became interested in the fate of those he believed to be treated with reckless cruelty and oppression; while, as he advanced in years, his reason was appealed to by those great and spirit-stirring addresses which Grattan and Curran were continually delivering, either in the senate or at the bar, and wherein the most noble aspirations after liberty were united with sentiments breathing love of country and devoted patriotism. To connect the garbled and lying statements of a debased newspaper press with the honorable hopes and noble conceptions of men of mind and genius, was the fatal process of his political education; and never was there a time when such a delusion was more easy.
Mulcahy, now stimulating the boyish ardor of a high-spirited youth, now flattering his vanity by promises of the position one of his ancient name and honored lineage must assume in the great national movement, gradually became his directing genius, swaying every resolution and ruling every determination of his mind. He never left his victim for a moment; and while thus insuring the unbounded influence he exercised, he gave proof of a seeming attachment, which Fortescue confidently believed in. Mulcahy, too, never wanted for money; alleging that the leaders of the plot knew the value of Fortescue's alliance, and were willing to advance him any sums he needed, he supplied the means of every extravagance a wild and careless youth indulged in, and thus riveted the chain of his bondage to him.
When the rebellion broke out, Fortescue, like many more, was horror-struck at the conduct of his party. He witnessed hourly scenes of cruelty and bloodshed at which his heart revolted, but to avow his compassion for which would have cost him his life on the spot. He was in the stream, however, and must go with the torrent; and what will not stern necessity compel? Daily intimacy with the base-hearted and the low, hourly association with crime, and perhaps more than either, despair of success, broke him down completely, and with the blind fatuity of one predestined to evil, he became careless what happened to him, and indifferent to whatever fate was before him.
Still, between him and his associates there lay a wide gulf. The tree, withered and blighted as it was, still preserved some semblance of its once beauty; and among that mass of bigotry and bloodshed, his nature shone forth conspicuously as something of a different order of being. To none was this superiority more insulting than to the parties themselves. So long as the period of devising and planning the movement of an insurrection lasts, the presence of a gentleman, or a man of birth or rank, will be hailed with acclamation and delight. Let the hour of acting arrive, however, and the scruples of an honorable mind, or the repugnance of a high-spirited nature, will be treated as cowardice by those who only recognized bravery in deeds of blood, and know no heroism save when allied to cruelty.