“Thou a soldier’s wife, and play the coward!” exclaimed my father. “Fear nothing, Emily; the old tower from roof to basement is secured—there is not a cranny that would admit the cat that I have not under a flanking fire—the lower windows save one are built up—I have retrenched the hall with a barricade, nailed up the back door, and the front one is enfiladed by that embrasure,”—and he pointed to a window in an angle of the room, at either side of which a blunderbuss was standing ready for instant use.
“Would that for one night thou and the baby were safe within the convent walls! then let the scoundrels come! By Heaven! next morning there should be more shirts * upon the lawn than were ever spread upon the bleaching ground, and the coroner should have occupation, not by single files, but by the cart-load.”
* The Defenders wore shirts over their clothes at night,
and hence were also called White-boys.
While my father spoke, the whole scene was passing in his “mind’s eye,” and Defenders were dropping by the dozen. His face lighted up, and springing from the chair he waved his solitary arm, strode across the chamber, and looked with conscious pride at all his military preparations. My mother grew pale as death, and turning her eyes up she fervently ejaculated, “God forbid!” and crossed herself devoutly. The priest performed a similar ceremony, and uttered a sincere “Amen!”
“Pshaw!” said my father, as he passed his arm round my mother’s waist and kissed her tenderly; “do not alarm yourself. This house is strong; nothing but treachery could force it.”
“Beware of that,” said the parson; “for that I feared and proved. I was betrayed by the villain who ate my bread, and saved providentially by the babbling folly of an idiot.”
“Indeed!” said my mother, with an inquiring glance, as she laid her knitting down.
“The tale is briefly told,” said Doctor Hamilton. “For some time past I suspected that my servants were disaffected. I watched them closely, and circumstances convinced me that my fears were true. I had business in the next town; my tithe agent dared not venture out of doors, and it was imperatively necessary that I should see him. By a lane, the distance between the glebe-house and the village was only four miles—all I wanted done would occupy but a few minutes—and I took, as I supposed, effectual means to enable me to accomplish the object I had in view, and return home even before my absence was known in my treacherous household. At dusk I despatched my servant with a letter to the curate, and when he was out of sight I saddled a fast horse, quitted the stable by a back door, and rode off at speed for the village. I was unexpectedly delayed—but as a precaution against danger, returned by another and longer road. Night had set in; I passed through the last hamlet at a sharp trot, and, but a mile from home, pulled up at a steep hill that leads directly to the bridge. A lad who was running in an opposite direction stopped when he observed me coming, and I recognised him at once to be an idiot boy who occasionally visited the glebe-house, where he always received meat or money by my orders. As I came closer he began dancing and gabbling in a sing-song tune, “Ha, ha! Hamilton, ha, ha! somebody will get his fairin. There’s Dick Brady and the smith behind the hedge, and Jack Coyne, and Patsy Gallagher, and twenty more besides, only I don’t know them with their white shirts and black faces. Ha, ha! ha, ha! somebody to-night will get his fairin!” He repeated this rhyme, and kept dancing for a few moments with idiot glee, and then, under a sudden impulse, ran off towards the hamlet which I had but just passed through.”
Again an angry growling was heard from the mastiff’s kennel, and the priest looked a second time through the shot-hole. The night was clear and star-lit, but nothing was visible from the window. Father Dominic resumed his seat, and Doctor Hamilton thus continued:
“My danger was imminent, and my resolution must be prompt. I dismounted, turned my horse loose, and as I had expected, he galloped off directly towards his stable. I sprang into the next field, and lay down under cover of the hedge, to consider what was the best direction that I should take to escape the blood-hounds, who doubtlessly would be soon upon my trail.