'You wear his Majesty's uniform, my lords and gentlemen,' he said. 'I presume you would not wish to be mere carpet-knights. The Irish always were good fighters. You will defend the King's rights if it comes to a brush with the rabble?' He gave the squireens to understand that they were fine jovial fellows, with a strong sense of humour and a subtle appreciation of a practical joke. 'Now that recent invention of yours,' he observed airily, 'of wringing confession from a man by hanging him, then cutting him down before his soul has had time to escape, is vastly droll!'
Thereupon the jolly boys, determined to win yet further commendation, and delighted to give vent unrestrained to the native brutality of uneducated man, set their wits to work and gave birth to other inventions. We know that a demand invariably creates a supply. The gentlemen of the yeomanry vied one with the other in cultivation of their inventive faculty and the result was an array of practical jokes, novel and splendid indeed! Even the great French reign of terror was thrown into the shade. The French, as we all know, are not inventive or witty. A guillotine--a constant flow of blood and falling heads; a boat with a trap-door to drown people by the dozen--amusing rather for a minute, then nauseously dull and monotonous. The jolly Irish boys were much wittier than this, and more ingenious; and yet, by one of the strange chances of history, people shudder still over Robespierre and Marat and their doings, and are absolutely careless and ignorant as to what was done at home not ninety years ago.
Lady Camden grew terrified at reports which reached her ears. Lord Camden shut himself up at the Viceregal Lodge, and promenaded the Phœnix Park, round which was a protecting military cordon. Lords and ladies left Dublin furtively. Some for England--some for their family acres in the far west; impelled--some by fear--some by the promptings of the chancellor--a few only by a sense of duty to their tenantry.
A certain earl set up a triangle in his barrack-yard, and was never weary of flaying the backs of the neighbouring peasants. To such lengths went he and his, that an English colonel, also quartered there, was forced to expostulate with his lordship, to the chagrin of the latter. My Lord Downshire retired to his hills, and kept his regiment within bounds. Indeed, he and my Lord Powerscourt were severely rebuked by the chancellor--the latter especially; for he dared to say that his tenants had been armed at his own expense for the protection of property, not for the commission of murders--upon which the chancellor groaned aloud; for this was a malignant example to others. My Lord Powerscourt, however, was not to be persuaded. He locked up his grand house in Dublin, and revisited it no more until the legislative struggle took place which concluded the century.
Nothing could be more dismal than the Irish capital now. There was a species of curfew at sunset, after which few ventured in the street. Major Sirr and his myrmidons glided hither and thither on their devilish errand of cajoling men to their destruction. It was the business of these miscreants to provide victims for the lash by any means. Bands of drunken yeomanry awoke the midnight echoes with their shouting as they returned from breaking into a dwelling, or from flogging victims in the riding-school. For Claudius Beresford's riding-school had been turned by one of the practical jokes into a torture-chamber, where men, kidnapped on mere suspicion, were dragged and tied up, and lacerated without mercy night and day; whilst scurrying passers-by fled onward with their fingers in their ears. Some died under the lash--some swooned, to wake up idiots afterwards--some recovered, to wear till death livid welts upon their backs and inextinguishable hatred in their hearts.
My Lady Camden, growing more and more apprehensive--for her lord's babble was incoherent--resolved to go down into the city and see for herself what passed there. She drove her four ponies along Ormond Quay, which was as deserted as if the town were plague-stricken; they swerved, and well-nigh upset her ladyship, for a single naked figure came tearing round a corner with wild yells and windmill arms, who, rushing past, flung himself over the parapet into the Liffey. Helter-skelter behind him came the hounds--in scarlet coats and pipe-clayed cross-belts--but the lady-lieutenant saw them not. The agonised victim of a joke wore a pitched cap upon his head, which was set ablaze and was grilling his living brains. This pleasantry was spoiled, for the wretch had presence of mind left to seek oblivion in the water. But another joke succeeded, which bade fair to end badly for the jokers. The Viceroy's lady lay back in a dead faint. Her ponies galloped along the street with her, their reins catching round their legs. The joke might have ended in the breaking of her excellency's precious neck. As soon as possible after this episode, she retired to England, and my Lord Clare made capital out of the circumstance. Were not the people behaving disreputably, when even the wife of the King's representative had thought it necessary to take refuge in flight? There had been, he averred, a new project to storm Kilmainham and set the criminals at liberty. To what a horrid nation was it his destiny to belong!
It is not surprising that at this juncture he should have found an annoying stumbling-block in Curran. That worthy could do nothing but protest; but people who protest can make themselves very disagreeable, especially if they chance to peer further than the mob, and choose to tell what they see. Cassandra was only a mad woman, but we all know how unpleasant she could make herself. Curran had a clear head, a sharp wit, a biting tongue, and he exercised all three in the House of Commons, much to Lord Clare's displeasure. Now we have all learned that as we mount the rungs of the social ladder, society bows more and more before conventionality. Such a thing is 'vulgar'--such another 'low;' why or wherefore nobody can tell, though it probably arises from the fact that the more rarified the atmosphere, the more artificial become those who breathe it, the less liable to think for themselves, the more ready to lean on others' crutches, the more likely to be shocked at the enunciation of new problems, which they are too idle or too prejudiced or too stupid or too sluggish to trouble about sifting for themselves. It might be taken for granted that the senators of both Houses were aware--down in their soul-caves--how base was their line of conduct. But for the sake of their own interest, they had agreed to fence themselves about with a quickset of make-belief, for the concealment of their shame and the protection of their phantom-honour. It was a very vexatious thing, then, for a man who was gifted with an epigrammatic way of crystallising truths to make a snuffy little Solomon Eagle of himself--to persist in uncovering cancers which were decorously sheeted over, to unveil sores which were neatly trimmed about with sham roses.
Lord Clare, in his wrath, resolved to make another attempt to crush the viper. He set a specially rowdy band of jokers at free quarters at the Priory. They rollicked about, frightened Sara out of her wits, drank the lawyer's best whisky; but that vexed him not, for he was incorrigibly hospitable. He locked himself into his bedroom with his child, and droned out, to soothe her, a fantasia on the violoncello. It may possibly have soothed Sara (though she was in awful trepidation lest young Robert should ride up and perceive how she was insulted), but it most certainly succeeded in irritating the jovial sons of Mars in the dining-parlour below. They yelled to Curran to come forth. He came. They took his violoncello and smashed it into bits. Sara quailed lest her father's choler should outstrip his reason; but he only murmured:
'They are actors, playing parts which are set down for them;' and addressing them, said, with scorching contempt: 'Sirs, you are sent here to insult, under his own roof, a man old enough to be your parent, and a young lady whose health is delicate. I sorrow to think that you are Irish, and that the fine cloth you wear should not exclusively be used by gentlemen.' Then, passing through their midst, he saddled his nag, and, trotting into town, related his story to his friend Arthur Wolfe.
The attorney-general was terribly distressed. This stream, on whose bosom he had elected to sail, was taking him--whither? He flew to Ely Place, scolded the chancellor in terms which made the autocrat stare--in such terms of burning reproach that the latter saw he had made a blunder; that he had outstripped prudence, and sulkily signed the order to remove the obnoxious soldiery.