The melancholy convoy started for Fort George. Women, children, and strong men crowded to the quay, and wept as the martyrs were wafted to their prison. Young Robert Emmett was seen to wave his hand from a window towards Tom, who stood at the ship's bows to take his last look at Erin. So soon as the vessel was out of sight, the young man kneeled down by the open casement with both arms aloft, and swore an oath there to repel the Sassenagh yet, or perish in the attempt. Many of those who were wearily plodding homeward recognised his figure and his action, and, kneeling too, registered their vows in concert. All the first leaders of the United Irishmen who were not dead were on board that transport; and Robert, left alone, set to work with a will (as Castlereagh graphically put it) to batter his head against a wall. He engaged mysterious premises, decayed warehouses in back slums, from out of which came by-and-by the hum of many voices, the clang of many anvils. The Battalion of Testimony peeped through the keyholes, and were mightily amused. This infantile echo of the preparations of '96 and '97 was diverting--a right jovial jest--a jolly jape! They related to Major Sirr and his crony, Cassidy, all they had seen and heard, and those worthies roared too, till tears of exhausted merriment ran down their cheeks.
The young enthusiast's guileless arrangements for driving the Englishry into the sea were ridiculous, no doubt. He kept the details of them to himself, never telling those who loved him of them. As they were not in the habit of looking through keyholes, they knew not that he was working in earnest; that he had determined in his own mind, should the union pass, to make the first shaking out of the united flag upon the Castle his signal for attack; when a handful of scatter-brains, as unpractical as himself, should storm the Castle, kill the Viceroy, proclaim Ireland free, and the Act of Union a valueless piece of dirty parchment. Jack Cade's rabblement was no whit more laughable an assemblage than the army which Robert proposed to lead to victory. The authorities consulted as to what should be done with him, and decided that it would be safer to allow him to stir up a little dust in the metropolis than to drive him into the provinces, where he really might give serious trouble. It would be better to let the affair come to a head at once, while the English militia and my Lord Cornwallis were still at hand. It was fortunate for Government that Robert kept his secret so well; for if his friends had been aware of his guileless plots, they would have applied at once to the Viceroy, who would have had no alternative but to lock up the firebrand and allow the coals to smoulder. Not even to Sara did he speak openly; though he certainly did let out vague hints which frightened the damsel not a little; not even to Terence did he speak at all--to Terence, who remained quietly in seclusion at the Abbey for months after the vessel sailed, wondering if he was forgotten, or whether he was set apart to head a second convoy.
As for Doreen, so soon as her amazement had abated (which resulted from the eavesdropping), it gave place to a feeling of uneasiness. Her aunt had spoken of the disposal of her hand as a matter of convenience, for the benefit of Shane; and she now deciphered all the riddle which had seemed so crabbed and contradictory. With apprehension she awaited a change in the young lord's demeanour, expected him to play the lover, and be miserable, as orthodox suitors are. He was undoubtedly most miserable, but he made no attempt to play the lover. Although she knew it not, her own manner was the maiden's safeguard. Cousin Shane, who had always been repelled by her cold ways, felt that he might as well try to make love to a dead body as to this full-blooded girl, who, like Terence, announced that her life was done. Have we not read somewhere of a certain prince who espoused an ice-maiden for the sake of her dowry? She clasped him in her arms, and froze him slowly. Just such a bride would Miss Wolfe be to Shane. And yet he saw that his mother was right. If Terence were somehow to learn the secret, and to claim his own, what would become of his illegitimate brother? His mother was right, as she always was. Lord Kilwarden's nest-egg would keep the wolf from the door. What a pity it could not be his without the burthen of the accompanying ice-maiden! As he looked round he decided reluctantly that there was no other rock to make for; that he must force his inclinations, give up Norah, possess himself of Doreen; but the sight of her dreary face and listless demeanour was always enough to put to rout his most firm resolve--the while he cursed himself for his repulsion. My lady's ghost was his companion now as well as hers. It communed with him in the night; it whispered to him by day. The countess perceived the leaven of fear working within him, and her burthen became, if possible, more heavy on her back. Irresistible impulse had impelled her to confess. An indistinct dread of open rupture between the brothers had forced her to give Shane a reason for more considerate behaviour towards Terence. But the shot, she found, had entirely missed its mark. Shane was not a good man; he was gross, brutal, and endowed with none of the attributes of the serpent. He was not like Cassidy, for instance. If he hated a person, all the world might know it. By virtue of his bringing-up as Chief of Blasters and King of Cherokees, he was terribly handy with rapier and pistol; could send his closest friend to Hades without compunction; but then it must be done according to the rules set down by the Knights of Tara, and in open battle, with paces marked out and seconds looking on. Like many selfish men, he could be good-natured so long as affability was cheap. But how grievously had my lady been mistaken in supposing that fear would induce civility to Terence, in proportion to the wrong that he was doing him. On the contrary, by the light of my lady's confession, he saw Terence from such an aspect, that his hitherto colourless dislike was turned, at once to fiercest hate. Terence was his junior--one, too, who had brought himself, by his own acts, to shipwreck, and had done much besides to spoil his elder's prospects. And this fellow--six years younger than himself--was to take the bread out of his mouth, because, forsooth, their father and mother had postponed the mouthing of a few words!
From Shane's point of view it was monstrously unjust. By right of father and of mother he was Lord Glandore. He could not--would not--be commonly civil to this fellow, who might, some of these days, eject him from all that made life pleasant. Vainly his unhappy mother argued. The case, he persisted, stood thus, and no otherwise. She could not alter what was done, if she talked till Doomsday. Vainly she vowed that the secret lay between him and her and Mrs. Gillin. He must not be rude to Mrs. Gillin, or jilt her daughter, all at once. That amourette must be allowed to dwindle by slow degrees, till it should fade out from sheer lack of sustenance. Meanwhile he must make up to Doreen and be civil to Terence, trusting that events would shape themselves rightly after all. If the worst came to the worst, his mother would speak solemnly to Terence, reminding him of the oath he made by his father's death-bed that he would be loyal to the elder-born, and adjure him not to stain his soul by perjury. At mention of that circumstance Shane pished and pshawed, for at best it was an oath wrung wrongfully from a little lad; and he felt with dismay that if she was inclined to cling to such broken reeds as that, her hopes could not be so rosy as she pretended. Sometimes, in despair, he determined to throw up the game; to seek better fortune in some foreign service; to offer his sword and courage to Austria or Prussia; then, in reckless mood, he would veer round, swearing that he would hold by his coronet till it was torn out of his grasp; that the grave would be preferable to disgrace and beggary. This mood assumed after a while the upper hand; and under its influence he did things which capped his earlier fame as King of Cherokees, and bade fair to land him in a madhouse.
He gave way more and more to drink. His conduct became daily less trammelled by accepted rules. He took up a passion for hunting in the night. To his dogs, who followed their noses, it was all one whether they tracked their prey by rays of sun or moon. To carry out my Lord Glandore's conceit, however, it was necessary to provide flambeaux. A number of servants, well mounted, led the way with torches over drain and wall, and the shuddering cottiers, startled from sleep by a nocturnal 'Tallyho!' turned round again to resume their broken rest, muttering that it was not hell let loose, only mad Glandore.
Perhaps his uncertain future urged him to break his neck like a gentleman; perhaps he only sought in oddity a refuge from his muddled thoughts. At any rate, he soon became the talk of Dublin, and his mother grew daily more haggard and more wan.
Among the men whom Shane met every day in the capital was Mr. Cassidy, who, by dint of haymaking during the brief time when the sun shone, had materially improved his position in life. Hand and glove with Major Sirr, who watched young Robert like a lynx, and whose private duties on behalf of union were no less important than they had been in preceding years, he managed to stuff his nest with comfortable wadding, manufactured chiefly from bank-notes. He took care that Government should know that but for him Tone would have escaped, and Terence possibly, and many others. He cultivated the powerful, bullied the timid, flattered the vain, duped the credulous, amused the convivial. He received a handsome pension (as depository of awkward secrets), which raised him for ever above the rank of a half-mounted to that of a gentleman to the backbone; received splendid presents from suspected persons who quaked before a vision of Fort George; laid money by; was altogether a prosperous individual, with a band of spies under his own orders--the flower and pride of the Staghouse garden. And prosperity sat well upon his jolly features. Impunity gave him aplomb. His clothes were handsome, his entertainments festive. He could sing a song or crack a bottle against any man alive. He was not puffed up by success. It was but natural that he should be elected by acclamation a Cherokee; a Blaster; that he should be welcomed among the set of drunken, swearing, fighting daredevils by Shane, their leader, who had always been his patron. The influence of so merry a blade was sure to become great amongst the rackety M.P.'s, who would shortly be called upon to vote. Promises of great things to come were freely made by the chancellor and his colleague Castlereagh, if those who inclined to backsliding were well kept to the sticking-point.
Now a very brilliant idea burst at the right moment from the brain of Mr. Cassidy--an idea which showed that he understood the foibles of his countrymen, and well knew how best to play on them. Watchful Europe decided some time before that the Irish senate was hopelessly disgraced, and branded its members with a verdict of moral cowardice. They could not with truth deny the soft impeachment, yet they attempted to justify themselves by showing that physically at least they were no cowards. Shane was but one example out of many. 'Fighting Fitzgerald' was even more wild than he. The palm of perfect Cherokeeism was awarded to Lord Glandore in some measure from consideration of his rank. The Lords and Commons made up for the moral cowardice, of which they were notoriously guilty, by an extra amount of blustering and ruffling. They were aristocratic bravoes. Their hands were always on their swords. What better opportunity for a little 'play' than diversity of political opinion? Mr. Cassidy (newly elected to Daly's, hard by the senate-house) proposed that covers should be laid there every day, at Government expense, for--say--thirty or forty guests at least, who could thus be counted upon, on an emergency, to swell the ranks of the Government party in either House; and who, inflamed with wine and enthusiasm, would be delighted to shoot down, or spit, on shortest notice, any unwise person who should disagree from the opinions of their amphitryon. This project was thought ingenious, and was acted on. The feasts were known as 'pistol-dinners,' and took place--either at Daly's or in a committee-room adjoining, until their raison d'être had ceased--under the superintendence of Mr. Cassidy, who, wise enough to assume for a purpose a lower seat, placed this or that lord en evidence, as circumstances seemed to dictate. It was only natural that he should push forward as much as possible his patron, Lord Glandore; and the latter, as he grew more reckless and more claret-stained, came to glory in the unenviable privilege, and to put trust in the cheery friend who once was proud to be his slave.
He told him his passing woes, asked his advice, and sometimes took it. If you are sorely troubled, and in your anxiety to conceal that you are losing your nerve, force yourself on to preposterous deeds of prowess, there is much comfort to be obtained from the sympathetic ring of a jolly voice, the warm clasp of a shoulder-of-mutton hand. Cassidy, too, was so open and so innocent--so easily seen through. Lord Glandore felt a sort of disdain for him, dubbing him, with patrician condescension, a big grown-up baby, and so forth--even whilst he clutched for support the giant's burly arm. And Cassidy was no whit offended, laughing more loudly than ever as his patron's jests waxed broader--till the windows shook again, and the sound-waves carried a shimmer of his braying from Daly's to the House of Peers.
Sometimes Lord Clare deigned to encourage his satellites by appearing in person, during an interval of debate, at a pistol-dinner, whilst Lord Castlereagh was entertaining on a grand scale at home. Then were toasts drunk with three times three--Government toasts, to which the chancellor responded in a voice broken by emotion, with a lowly visage and hand pressed on heart; toasts which were borne on the air out of open windows to the ears of passers-by, who, scowling, hurried away. Then, fired by his hints, the pot-valiant heroes would rush forth and run a-muck--a right jovial way of finishing an evening from the point of view of a Cherokee; and the chancellor, protesting that the boys really were too lively and amusing, would return to the House alone by the private covered way.