Sara struck the bell to summon the servants, and said that Doreen had started an hour since for Dublin--with her father.
Shane and Cassidy exchanged glances, and both looked put out. 'Gone to Dublin! where--what for?' stammered Shane, disconcerted. 'I told my uncle this very day that I intended to bring some friends to help to defend the house, that his anxiety on her account might be at rest. How imprudent--how silly--how provoking--when the Croppies are mustering along the quays!'
Cassidy frowned him to silence. Where did her father take her? Sure, he would bring her back again? How was it they had not met his carriage on the road?
'They were gone to the Castle,' responded Sara, beginning to be frightened, 'where they would doubtless be quite safe. What was this about Croppies along the quays? Oh! would they please tell her something? People seemed all agreed to keep things back, as if she were a child. Croppies, did he say? Were not Croppies put down long since? Who was their leader?'
'Croppies 'tis,' grunted Cassidy. 'They'll be at it by this time, the fools! Who's their leader? That young donkey Emmett, who'll swing for it--the idiot!'
Sara clung to a heavy piece of furniture. Like cold steel the certainty cut through her brain that her edifice of cards, erected in simple faith, would fall--had tumbled ere this perhaps; that the tender intercourse of years was not to be; that she was destined to bear her portion of the common cross. She was all at once convinced that Robert and she would never meet upon this globe again. She essayed to speak, but her head whirled; lights danced with shifting colours before her eyes; the floor seemed to heave and rise in billows--yet she did not faint. The servants had brought candles which burned blue and dim and danced up and down, changing to red and green and violet a long way off. She was aware somehow that after a brief consultation Shane had countermanded the claret--that his obsequious friends had received new orders--that the party, donning cloaks again, had mounted and gone clattering away by the unused by-road. The hall-door--wide open--admitted a chill gust which set the candles guttering, but revived her perturbed faculties. Staggering against the doorpost, the girl watched the beacons on the hills, as, fed with furze, they flared up and glowed awhile, then dwindled and died out one by one. She looked across the bay towards Dublin, which was like an anthill possessed by glow-worms, beyond a black abyss. With straining eyes she looked. What would she not have given to know what was passing there? Was Cassidy merely playing off an untimely jest on her by saying what he did? No. Her sick heart whispered that it was all true. Robert's mysterious parable of good things in store clung cold about her heart like a dead hand. Perhaps at this very instant he was being slain--better even that than that he should be taken and undergo the mockery of justice, and pass as others passed--upon the scaffold. Oh! that ardent face--transfigured and inspired by his pure enthusiasm--was she indeed no more to look on it? Was she--see! what was that! A rocket soared into the air from the glow-worms' hill, turning the deep blue to sable, and bursting, vanished in a shower of sparks. What could that mean? It must be a signal. What did it portend? Sara swung-to the heavy door, and, drooping on a sofa, sat down and waited.
CHAPTER XI.
[ATÉ.]
Robert (or Mr. Hewitt, for so was he enrolled among the chalked-up inmates of the lodging where he dwelt) betrayed no less emotion than the rest of Dublin citizens when the word flew from mouth to mouth that as an independent nation Ireland was extinguished. He and a few trusty followers were waiting for the official announcement of Ireland's disgrace in their depot--a shambling set of outhouses situated near Merchant's Quay. Sirr's raid, whereby he captured so much material, was annoying no doubt; but Robert was full of his star and the mantle that Theobald had thrown to him.
Of course when the Castle was captured, Dublin would surrender without a blow. He had his scheme prepared, which was instilled into the minds of the Wicklow banditti. They were to creep to their posts at nightfall and await his signal--a rocket; then to rush from different points upon the Castle, choosing the narrowest streets in order that if attacked their peculiar style of warfare might prove effective. In a narrow passage, he argued, the pike--a weapon nine feet long--is more telling than a musket with its bayonet. The people in the houses might of course be expected to take part against the military, and give them a warm reception from the housetops with a galling fire of bricks and coping-stones. If necessary they might be employed in dragging up the pavement in the rear of the King's troops, to expose the new-made drains as pitfalls. In any case the regulars, thrown into confusion, would roll over each other, and, helpless in a choked thoroughfare, might be piked and stoned to a man. At prearranged turnings, barriers were to be thrown up, constructed of carts, doors, hogsheads. This would be done in a few seconds by the willing help of surrounding inhabitants. In all cases the pikemen were bidden to advance at a brisk trot that weight might counterbalance defective discipline; intrepid men being stationed at the ends of every rank to keep the masses compact and prevent wavering.