It was our custom to separate directly after dinner, each desirous to shorten a period of restraint, and pursue individual occupation or device. When the weather was fine, we were generally out of doors, and contrived to avoid the tea-table, family prayers, and "good night;" a parting wish now reduced to lifeless form by the absence of that affection which, where it grows, imparts and receives a new spring at each recurring assurance of its existence. Our evenings were sometimes employed in secretly furthering the United Irish Correspondence; at others in galloping over moorland and mountain, according to appointment with our fellow conspirators, with whom we had clandestine meetings almost every day.
Every hour was big with rumour; and suspicion of treasonable designs began to fall on many of the higher classes. Informations poured continually into the castle of Dublin. The lower ranks were universally disaffected, while numbers of the gentry were paralyzed by vague and painful terrors of the coming explosion. The co-operation of the French was hoped for by one party, as it was dreaded by the other; and all believed that the first successful landing which was effected on our coasts, would prove the signal for a simultaneous rising of the people. Many were secretly departing from their homes to wait the issue in a place of safety. Others, unable to quit their local property, or desert their duty, were employed in using precautionary means to meet the threatened danger. Revolt and massacre were talked of. Servants were unfaithful to their masters. Tenants conspired against their landlords. The kind "good morrow" of the passing rustic was converted into a sullen scowl; and all the friendly courtesy of intercourse between high and low was exchanged, at this awful juncture, for distrust on one side, and hatred on the other. Our moral condition resembled that in the physical world which precedes the horrible visitation of an earthquake—darkness and the silence of death pervaded the scene of former life and occupation; and imagination fabricated a thousand spectres still more terrific than those perils by which the loyal part of the community were really surrounded.
It was the evening of the 10th of February, 1798, when the weather, which had been unusually mild for the time of year, became suddenly tremendous. The sky lowered; and torrents of rain broke loose from the clouds, as if a water-spout had that moment burst over Glendruid. Such was the unremitting violence of this deluge that no one could quit the shelter of a roof, and the whole family found themselves in the unusual situation of being imprisoned for several hours together beneath its protection.
The consciousness of having done wrong is as powerful a separatist in morals, as the principle of caloric in physics; and though confined within a space of not very wide dimensions, we contrived to keep aloof from each other. Sensible of the deep wounds which we had inflicted, my brothers and I had no inclination to encounter the reproach which we justly deserved, and therefore avoided giving an opportunity for accusation. Not as yet visited by remorse, we had no desire to make reparation, and therefore sought to escape the scrutiny which we resolved should not be satisfied.
The unceasing drench, however, which I have mentioned, prevented us from leaving the house, and we were at last obliged to assemble, not having any excuse to allege for resisting a summons to that effect. Tea being finished, and night closing fast upon the dejected circle, they drew their chairs involuntarily round a sullen fire, which none of the party appeared inclined to stir, lest a cheerful blaze might seem too strongly contrasted with the gloomy features on which it played. The wind began to rise, howling at first a piteous wail and moaning through every crevice which gave it vent. After a solemn pause, it would then burst at intervals into gusts which threatened to sweep the earth and its inhabitants away.
What a being is man! This tempest, heightened at length to fury, was the first occurrence which roused within my breast the long unawakened sense of our deplorable state. There is something in a violent strife of elements which forces itself upon the most obdurate spirit, and strikes conviction of human weakness on the mind. As I glanced from time to time on the pale and agitated countenances around me, I felt oppressed by a sensation which was not easy to define. It was neither fear nor affection, but it was a mixture of repentance, with that desire of communion natural to most mortals under the influence of extraordinary excitement. The billows roared tremendously, and every dash of the sea against the dark and frowning cliffs which beetled over the flood, came rolling on like thunder. The convulsions of the country rendered the storm awfully impressive; the ear was held in fearful tension, while uncertain sounds mingled in the blast like shouts of human voices, approaching and receding, rising and dying away again.
It was a dreadful night; but as no enemy advanced, and imagination seemed more busy than reality, in threatening danger, the family retired a little later than usual to their several apartments. When I reached mine, overcome by the struggle of feelings which too often slumbered, I threw myself into an old arm-chair near the head of my bed, and would have given more than I possessed, that tears such as I once could shed, had come to my relief, but tears would not flow.
"Good God," I exclaimed, "can this hardening of the heart—this stifling of natural sympathies—this close, secretive, frigid philosophy—be the road to happiness? Are those who have thrown off the ties of religion, and learned to contemn the commandments of their Creator, in the path of peace and virtue?"
These and other self-directed questions were put to my heart in the stillness of solitary examination, and the answer of conscience appalled me. I prostrated myself on my knees, and I, who would not give my parents the satisfaction of thinking that I ever sent up a petition to heaven, now fell instinctively into the language of supplication, and broke into an agony of prayer. A few minutes more, and I firmly believe that I should have been found weeping on my mother's neck. How she would have clasped the penitent to her bosom! But in the very instant when I was rising from the ground, the door of my room was gently opened, and she who had little reason to love or care for me, urged by all that powerful impulse of maternal solicitude which never sleeps, put in her head to assure herself that her ungracious child was safely protected by the shelter of his chamber from the hurricane which denied her repose.
This unexpected apparition worked a sudden revolution in my feelings. Ashamed and mortified at having been caught in a posture of humiliation, my wretched pride regained its empire, and I rudely inquired of my mother what she wanted.