'Of whom does it consist?' Robert kept asking himself. 'Of whom? The friends of our hearts--the wives of our bosoms. It is awful to think how, when a country is well stirred up, the mud will rise to the surface!' Then, ruminating as he went, he thought of Terence, and murmured mournfully, 'Could it be he? I pray not, for I love him as a brother!'
A shadow lay stretched before him. With a shudder he turned aside to avoid the effigy of a good man, who by a singular caprice of history has been elected high-priest of a mean purblindness, which he above all others would himself have most abhorred. William III.'s effigy, in its incongruous classical costume, is no whit more contemptible than some of his admirers have tried to make his character. But such is the way of the world. We set up a pole, and drape it with our own sentiments, then kneel down to worship, crying, 'How perfect is our idol!' Of course it is; for the drapery is woven, as a spider's web is, from out of our own bowels; what can be so perfect as that we have ourselves created, however loosely it may hang on the support we have selected to bear it?
Turning away from the Juggernaut of Orangeism, Robert beheld the subject of his thoughts, and the man of whom he was in search. Mr. Curran and his ex-junior were standing in earnest talk under the colonnade of the senate-house. The rush of events had changed both men even in their externals. The older one seemed shrunken and grey-skinned. His unkempt elf-locks were more wild, his uncleanly linen more disordered, his eye more bright and restless, than of yore.
Those who knew him well perceived that he was torn in sunder by two antagonistic selves. He yearned in secret for the success of the popular movement; he peered out anxiously for the first glimmering white sail in the offing; his soul bled for his country's misery; he longed to know precisely the patriot leaders' plan, that his keen brain might advise upon it--yet he railed at and derided those very leaders to their faces, spoke scoffingly of France, declared that all was hopeless; snapped up any incautious delegate who spoke to him too openly of the society.
The reason for his odd conduct is obvious. His judicial mind--expert in weighing evidence--had seen long ago that the combatants were ill-matched--that it was Honesty fighting against Guile. It was possible--just possible--that Heaven for once would change its usual tactics, and permit Honesty to come off the conqueror. It was possible--but oh, how improbable! Curran saw that so soon as Honesty had tumbled into the Slough of Despond, the firm grasp of a friend who was a paradox would be needed to pull him out; of one who should be protected by the glamour of his own virtue against the dagger of the murderer, even as medieval saints are mythically supposed to have been protected against the torments of the caldron and the wheel. Such a peculiar and delicate position Curran actually occupied.
As we have seen, he remained in close friendship with Emmett and the rest, and also with such important people in the opposite camp as the Glandores, without the faintest suspicion of treachery falling on him. He fearlessly rose and poured forth such denunciations against the executive in parliament, as would have brought any other man to Kilmainham and its minuet. But for all that, the informer dared not point his finger at him; even Lord Clare was convinced that he must be endured or bought--not browbeaten.
Once or twice he had been hustled in the street, but had curbed his peppery nature by a sublime effort. His life was of more value to his country than that of many drunken rufflers. He quietly refused to fight now with any such paltry ruffians.
Councillor Crosbie was more altered than his chief; the expression of his face was changed. As Robert surveyed it he endured the compunction of remorse, in that for an instant he had doubted him. If Doreen had not been perversely haughty, she could not have accepted her aunt's garbled tale so readily. But then her spirit was wrung awry by long-continued crooning over wrongs; and being unhealthily sensitive, was predisposed to look out for evil. She had seen so much trouble that she had come to believe there could be nothing else in store.
Terence's face had lost the open laugh of careless bonhomie which had vexed her--which was so well suited to its Irish cast of features--by which I do not mean the confined forehead and coarsely gaping mouth, which make many of our countrymen so uncomely--but the highly-coloured, cheery face, with ruddy lips, which when they are parted display a row of dazzling teeth. His eye, whose unruly dancing defied fate, was strangely at variance now with the moody brow, till lately so unwrinkled; while a reckless swagger, which was a new characteristic, spoke of a bitterness and chafing defiance which a green tabinet necktie, with bows ostentatively displayed, served but further to accentuate. He stood in earnest converse with Mr. Curran, who sourly shook his head. Just out of earshot faithful Phil leaned against the wall, firing-iron in hand, watching his master in his dog-like fashion--sporting also, in humble imitation, a rag of green about his neck.
Rapidly Robert unfolded his budget. The visitation at Trinity was mere child's play; not so this wholesale arrest. Even Curran forgot his customary caution, and put quick sharp questions as his face grew greyer. Emmett, Russell, Bond, were in prison, then. They would be tried--how? The law courts were closed and silent. By court-martial? Hardly. Lord Clare was too clever for that. Given the heads of a conspiracy who had grievously compromised themselves, he would of course get up a pompous series of mock state trials, with 'juries of the right sort' to bring the pageant to a predetermined end, and so justify and whitewash his arbitrary acts in the world's eyes. This was what he would do.