My Lords of Strogue, Vol. 3 (of 3) / A Chronicle of Ireland, from the Convention to the Union

by Lewis Wingfield

There is a fortress on the extremity of a tongue of land which juts into the Moray Firth, the country round about which is destitute of houses or of trees--a dreary, forsaken desert devoid of vegetation. The very place! The obdurate ruffians should be transported to Fort George, as soon as it could be made strong enough to keep them safe.

Meanwhile the Viceroy was guilty of an act of politic clemency which would have put the King in a bad temper if he had known of it. He determined that, as several months must elapse before the fortress would be ready, it would be well to permit the arch-villain Terence to go home--on parole--provided he would give his word to plot no more. The circumstances of his reprieve were producing a profound impression in society. The romantic devotion of the servant--the imminent danger of the master--were so dramatic, that high-born dames regretted their absence from the moving spectacle. They professed to be vastly interested in a young man who could call forth such a proof of affection from another, and vowed that it was a shame he should be sacrificed. Sure, Moiley ought to be content with a nice hecatomb selected from the lower classes. Lord Cornwallis perceived that here was a good opportunity of paying the nobles a compliment. They were so important a factor in the matter of the union, that it was well to conciliate them as a body; and what better way was there of doing so than by treating one of their order with indulgence? He therefore intimated to Lord Clare that he was inclined to do what he might to please him--that he saw the mistake he had made in allowing Lord Glandore's brother to be tried--that he, Lord Clare, might, if he wished it, inform the dowager countess of a special favour that was in store for one of her known loyalty--namely, that she might expect to have the custody of her erring child until the time of his vanishing from Ireland.

Lord Clare was charmed, and hurried to Strogue with the good news. My lady was a riddle, whose behaviour was always different from what might be expected. He knew that Terence's danger had placed her on a gridiron where she was consuming slowly, and naturally concluded that her joy at his reprieve would culminate when she was told that she might keep him near her for a while. This extraordinary young man, for whom a servant would sacrifice his life, must needs be tenderly beloved by the mother to whom he owed his birth. If she was in raptures she had a queer method of displaying her feelings. Her cheek turned a shade more pale than usual. Bowing her head as under a new blow, she murmured, 'It is well.'

Though he knew and esteemed the countess, Lord Clare's acquaintance with my lady was not so intimate as ours. He had not seen her at Glas-aitch-é, when every chair and table was babbling of what had happened there. He did not look on her when with a spasm of self-reproach she discovered that the undoing of her second son would not be so heartrending as it ought to be. He did not know that in face of Terence's doom she was torn by two distinctly opposite emotions; that while his fate crushed her as a judgment for past sin, it also brought a sense of relief. He was not aware that with his death a burthen of long-endured apprehension would have been lightened, whereby her tortured soul might attain a semblance of rest at last.

We soon make up our minds to the inevitable. My lady had made up her mind that Terence was to die. Her pangs of conscience were bitter, but the dreadful thing was settled; no influence of hers could affect the youth's fate now, whatever it might have done in the past. So low was she fallen that she found some poor relief in that. But this new, unexpected freak of Fortune brought all the bitterness of her trouble back again; and with a sigh she roused her distempered faculties from lethargy and bestirred herself--for the dreary battle was, as it seemed, not over yet. The implacable phantom kept whispering in her ear that it was not too late even now to set right the wrong; that there still was time if she would force those stubborn knees to bend and abase her pride.

My lady loathed herself for the thoughts which held possession of her mind. When the chancellor brought his news, she concealed the sudden turbulence within. Strangely enough, the mother's sympathies, even at that moment, were not for Terence--the son who had escaped the halter--but for Shane; and a great fear for him leaped up in her heart, to the crushing out of natural feeling. Terence was snatched from the grave as by a miracle. A foreboding took strong hold of my lady's mind that this was for a purpose--that Heaven, not satisfied with the penance of a lifetime, was determined that she should blab out to the world the secret which, lying on her bosom, had seared her life. Oh! why did she not accept her punishment all those years ago, when the task would not have been so hard? The earth had been no pleasant place of sojourn to my lady. When she thought of all she had borne since the old lord's death--of the utter futility of the penance--she became rebellious, and gnashed her teeth at the simpering portrait of him who had got off so easily. She rebelled against the iron sternness of Heaven. She was to bend her proud knees, was she--and confess? Her whitened hair and ashen cheeks were not to be taken into account? Very well, then. She defied Heaven; religion was a delusion and a snare; the Lord of Heaven unduly just. Tossing her favourite tracts into the fire, she swore she would not be driven to speak, though the ruin of her soul should be the penalty. At the time when it was decided that Terence was to die, she spent the long hours in reverie over the past--in poignant regret that he should have to be thus sacrificed. She reflected that if she had spoken all those years ago he would never have joined the popular side--would never have risked his neck--of that she felt assured; and so she felt in some sort as though she had herself handed him over to the scrag-boy. It was an awful thought, and it had weighed down her intellect. But now came a revulsion. It was not to be so. He was to live as a reproach. Heaven was hounding her down, so she stood at bay. If Heaven had accepted the penance of a life without requiring that the original transgression should be cancelled by confessing it she would gladly have borne the penance to the end of a long weary existence. But that the penance should not be accepted in any way as an equivalent, was maddening to her sense of justice. She bestirred herself; sat no longer dreaming the days away. The household whispered that my lady was herself again, that the joy of her son's reprieve was accountable for the happy change. All thought this save Gillin, who knew her secret. That excellent person scratched her untidy head with a comb and pondered. What did the wicked old woman mean to do? There was more mischief brewing--of that she felt quite sure. Well, Terence was saved from the gallows by direct interposition from above. He was not intended to be made a sacrifice, any more than Isaac was when his father's faith was tried. A few months remained to him before he was to be taken to his Scottish prison. If my lady should allow him to go there, without making an effort to prevent it--why then she, Madam Gillin, would open her mouth and speak. Her lips had been closed over-long. Had she not sworn an oath beside that deathbed? It would become her bounden duty to interfere, if the countess lacked courage so to do.

It was touching that in moments of severest trial my lady should always have been engrossed by the interests of her black sheep. She always thought of Shane rather than of herself; and he gave her little satisfaction in return for this great love. Never very white, he was daily growing darker. One evil thought engenders another; one evil deed makes a second necessary: we were all taught that in earliest infancy, and Shane's condition was in accordance with the rule. His prowess in the past as King of Cherokees had brought him little blame in public estimation, for the Glandores had been fire-eaters time out of mind, and the Irish love a spark with mettle in him. But his conduct since he departed for Glas-aitch-é was on many sides disapproved as shady. The Viceroy openly showed his mean opinion of him. His tenants had protested by injuring his cattle and destroying his crops. He was proud, was Shane, as well as naturally reckless, and was fond of notoriety. He resented the Viceroy's treatment, and was furious with the tenants; and became more wrathful still with Terence, to whose ill-advised conduct he imputed his own growing unpopularity. What was the use of having mixed himself up in the odium of Tone's capture if his brother was to cut the ground from under his feet? It was but too probable that he might whistle both for an English peerage and comforting bits in the way of sinecures; and all because of Terence. Was it not enough to provoke a saint--much more an Irish earl, who considered himself a pauper? Lord Cornwallis was unkind and rude. My Lord Glandore complained of his uncivil treatment to Lord Clare. The chancellor, with an eye to business, soothed his amour-propre, and roundly told the Viceroy in private that he must constrain himself to be civil to the peers. Then he broke ground to Shane with reference to the union, explaining that he might put himself quite right if he would work with the executive in this matter. He must promise his vote in the House of Lords and all his influence in the Commons, and then his gracious Majesty would doubtless give substantial proofs of his approval. Shane promised that he would follow this worldly-wise advice. As my Lord Clare so cogently observed, the union was arranged--was to all intents and purposes a fait accompli. Lord Glandore's influence could not prevent the end, even if that peer should elect to be disinterested. What a lack of common prudence would he show then, if for a crotchet he should bar himself out of Tom Tiddler's ground! His brother's ruin showed the result of crotchets. There would be fine pickings. The Chancellor gave his word as to that, adding at the same time that the man is a fool who strains at gnats. Shane therefore was as easily talked over as many another of his order. Lord Clare was quite certain about the success of his project, but thought that it would perhaps be well to sound my lady in order that she might not through inadvertence undo his work.

Now, as we know, she had lived the life of a recluse, looking at political events, in most cases, through the chancellor's spectacles, half-awakened now and then by the diatribes of Mr. Curran. But she thought his web was a wicked piece of work when now he displayed its woof to her; and objected strongly to his design of mixing her firstborn in his scheming. It was grievous to her that the dear dark wool of the dusky sheep should be further blackened. My lady got rid of her importunate old friend by saying she would speak to Shane as to the using of his influence; and, left alone, sat wondering what she ought to do. It was a bitter thing to think of the proud name being held up to obloquy. Yet there were reasons why valuable titbits must not be refused idly by the idol of her heart. If only that old abortive project could be carried out! If only Shane was safely married to his cousin! Was it too late to make another effort? My lady perceived dimly that Shane was repelled by the damsel--and no wonder. The passions of this earth seemed gone, burnt away, consumed, by the action on her mind of past events. Doreen sat on a heap of ashes, enclosed in a rarified atmosphere of her own. But, for all that, another trial must be made; matters were becoming desperate; my lady began to fear that she was not strong enough to fight against Heaven. She would see Shane, and speak very seriously to him forthwith.

It was no easy matter now to get hold of Shane. Since his return to Dublin he had plunged deeper and deeper into excess--partly from having been mewed up so long, partly to drown the voice of the inner monitor, partly because of the forbidding chilliness of his own fireside and the presence there of his gloomy brother. The Blasters, who during the reign of terror had been busy with the triangles; the Cherokees, who had been dispersed about the country with their regiments, returned now to the capital, to sit for the last time in the Irish Parliament, by order of the chancellor; and glorious were the nights they passed together whilst awaiting the decisive moment. The hounds of Strogue were brought again into requisition. My lord and his boon companions amused themselves with cub-hunting--careering with wild shrieks across the land--past cabins, the shoulders of whose occupants were disfigured with livid weals--past huts whose inmates cursed the cavalcade as it swept by. They rode all day. They drank and fought all night. My lady had to bide her time in order to lay hands upon her son. Verily, it seemed little probable that his infatuated lordship could be induced, even by her entreaties, to pull up in full career for the sake of wooing the cousin who frightened him!

As though in furtherance of the unrelenting measures of Heaven, both sons were received now as guests at the Little House, and equally insulted their parent by making no secret of going there. The scraping of their feet was visible on the wall which divided the two properties. My lady could not but admit that Fate took pleasure in deliberately thwarting her arrangements. Why, when so many Catholics came to ruin in the Hurry, was this horrible woman allowed to escape scot-free? After she had been caught in the act, too, of harbouring traitors! Was it that through her (the only one on earth who had power to do so) the secret she kept so hungrily should be blabbed forth upon the housetops? Sure, a mark of Fate's finger could be detected here. But my lady was all the more determined to be obstinate. She would go on scheming, and wrestle with all her puny strength, shaking her broken spear-haft till finally put out of misery. If Fate was resolved to kill her, she would die hard, fighting to the very last.