Jack Hinton: The Guardsman

In this strain did the good priest continue to develop his views concerning his country – the pivot of his argument being, that, to a people so essentially different in every respect, English institutions and English laws were inadequate and unsuitable. Sometimes I could not only but agree with him. At others I could but dimly perceive his meaning and dissent from the very little I could catch.

Enough of this, however. In a biography so flimsy as mine, politics would play but an unseemly part; and even were it otherwise, my opportunities were too few and my own incapacity too great to make my opinions of any value on a subject so complicated and so vast. Still, the topic served to shorten the road, and when towards evening we found ourselves in the comfortable parlour of the little inn at Ballyhocsousth,1 so far had we both regained our spirits that once more the priest’s jovial good-humour irradiated his happy countenance; and I myself, hourly improving in health and strength, felt already the bracing influence of the mountain air, and that strong sense of liberty never more thoroughly appreciated than when regaining vigour after the sufferings of a sick-bed.

We were seated by an open window, looking out upon the landscape. It was past sunset, and the tall shadows of the mountains were meeting across the lake, like spirits who waited for the night-hour to interchange their embraces. A thin pale crescent of a new moon marked the blue sky, but did not dim the lustre of the thousand stars that glittered round it. All was hushed and still, save the deep note of the rail, or the measured plash of oars heard from a long distance. The rich meadows that sloped down to the water sent up their delicious odours in the balmy air, and there stole over the senses a kind of calm and peaceful pleasure as such a scene at such an hour can alone impart.

‘This is beautiful – this is very beautiful, father,’ said I.

‘So it is, sir,’ said the priest. ‘Let no Irishman wander for scenery; he has as much right to go travel in search of wit and good fellowship. We don’t want for blessings; all we need is, to know how to enjoy them. And, believe me, there is a plentiful feast on the table if gentlemen would only pass down the dishes. And, now, that reminds me: what are you drinking – negus? I wouldn’t wish it to my greatest enemy. But, to be sure, I am always forgetting you are not one of ourselves. There, reach me over that square decanter. It wouldn’t have been so full now if we had had poor Bob here – poor fellow! But one thing is certain – wherever he is, he is happy. I believe I never told you how he got into his present scrape.’

‘No, father; and that’s precisely the very thing I wish to ask you.’

‘You shall hear it, and it isn’t a bad story in its way. But don’t you think the night-air is a little too much for you? Shall we close the window?’

‘If it depend on me, father, pray leave it open.’

‘Ha, ha! I was forgetting again,’ said the old fellow, laughing roguishly – ‘Stella sunt amantium oculi, as Pharis says. There now, don’t be blushing, but listen to me.

‘It was somewhere about last November that Bob got a quiet hint from some one at Daly’s that the sooner he got out of Dublin the more conducive it would be to his personal freedom, as various writs were flying about the capital after him. He took the hint, and set off the same night, and reached his beautiful château of Newgate without let or molestation – which having victualled for the winter, he could, if necessary, sustain in it a reasonable siege against any force the law was likely to bring up. The house had an abundant supply of arms. There were guns that figured in ‘41, pikes that had done good service a little later, swords of every shape, from the two-handed weapon of the twelfth century to a Roman pattern made out of a scythe by a smith in the neighbourhood; but the grand terror of the country was an old four-pounder of Cromwell’s time, that the Major had mounted on the roof, and whose effects, if only proportionately injurious to the enemy to the results nearer home, must indeed have been a formidable engine, for the only time it was fired – I believe to celebrate Bob’s birthday – it knocked down a chimney with the recoil, blew the gardener and another man about ten feet into the air, and hurled Bob himself through a skylight into the housekeeper’s room. No matter for that; it had a great effect in raising the confidence of the country-people, some of whom verily believed that the ball was rolling for a week after.

‘Bob, I say, victualled the fortress; but he did more, for he assembled all the tenants, and in a short but pithy speech told them the state of his affairs, explaining with considerable eloquence what a misfortune it would be for them if by any chance they were to lose him for a landlord.

‘“See, now, boys,” said he, “there’s no knowing what misfortune wouldn’t happen ye; they’d put a receiver on the property – a spalpeen with bailiffs and constables after him – that would be making you pay up the rent, and ‘faith I wouldn’t say but maybe he ‘d ask you for the arrears.”

‘“Oh, murther, murther! did any one ever hear the like!” the people cried on every side; and Bob, like a clever orator, continued to picture forth additional miseries and misfortunes to them if such a calamitous event were to happen, explaining at the same time the contemptible nature of the persecution practised against him.

‘“No, boys,” cried he, “there isn’t a man among them all that has the courage to come down and ask for his money, face to face; but they set up a pair of fellows they call John Doe and Richard Roe – there’s names for you! Did you ever hear of a gentleman in the country with names like that? But that’s not the worst of it, for you see even these two chaps can’t be found. It’s truth I’m telling you, and some people go so far as to say that there is no such people at all, and it’s only a way they have to worry and annoy country gentlemen with what they call a fiction of the law; and my own notion is, that the law is nothing but lies and fiction from beginning to end.”

‘A very loud cheer from Bob’s audience proclaimed how perfectly they coincided in his opinion; and a keg of whisky being brought into the lawn, each man drained a glass to his health, uttering at the same time a determination with respect to the law-officers of the crown that boded but little happiness to them when they made a tour in the neighbourhood.

‘In about a week after this there was a grand drawing-home: that’s, you understand, what we call in Ireland bringing in the harvest. And sure enough, the farmyard presented a very comely sight, with ricks of hay, and stacks of corn and oats and barley, and outhouses full of potatoes, and in fact everything the country produces, besides cows and horses, sheep, pigs, goats, and even turkeys; for most of the tenants paid their rents in kind, and as Bob was an easy landlord, very few came without a little present – a game-cock, a jackass, a ram, or some amusing beast or other. Well, the next day – it was a fine dry day with a light frost, and as the bog was hard, Bob sent them all away to bring in the turf. Why, then, but it is a beautiful sight, Captain, and I wish you saw it – maybe two or three hundred cars all going as fast as they can pelt, on a fine bright day, with a blue sky and a sharp air, the boys standing up in the kishes driving without rein or halter, always at a gallop – for all the world like Ajax, Ulysses, and the rest of them that we read of; and the girls, as pretty craytures as ever you threw an eye upon, with their short red petticoats, and their hair plaited and fastened up at the back of their heads: on my conscience the Trojan women was nothing to them!

‘But to come back. Bob Mahon was coming home from the bog about five o’clock in the evening, cantering along on a little dun pony he had, thinking of nothing at all, except maybe the elegant rick of turf that he ‘d be bringing home in the morning, when what did he see before him but a troop of dragoons, and at their head old Basset, the sub-sheriff, and another fellow whose face he had often seen in the Four Courts of Dublin. “By the mortial,” said Bob, “I am done for!” for he saw in a moment that Basset had waited until all the country-people were employed at a distance, to come over and take him. However, he was no ways discouraged, but brushing his way through the dragoons, he rode up beside Basset’s gig, and taking a long pistol out of the holster, he began to examine the priming as cool as may be.

“‘How are you, Nick Basset?” said Bob; “and where are you going this evening?”

‘“How are you, Major?” said Basset, with his eye all the while upon the pistol. “It is an unpleasant business, a mighty unpleasant business to me, Major Bob,” says he; “but the truth is, there is an execution against you, and my friend here, Mr. Hennessy – Mr. Hennessy, Major Mahon – asked me to come over with him, because as I knew you – ”

‘“Well, well,” said Bob, interrupting him. “Have you a writ against me? Is it me you want?”

‘“Nothing of the kind, Major Mahon. God forbid we ‘d touch a hair of your head. It’s just a kind of a capias, as I may say, nothing more.”

‘“And why did you bring the dragoons with you?” said Bob, looking at him mighty hard.

‘Basset looked very sheepish, and didn’t know what to say; but Mahon soon relieved him —

‘“Never mind, Nick, never mind; you can’t help your trade. But how would you look if I was to raise the country on ye?”

‘“You wouldn’t do the like, Major; but surely, if you did, the troops – ”

‘“The troops!” said Bob; “God help you! we’d be twenty, ay, thirty to one. See now, if I give a whistle, this minute – ”

‘“Don’t distress yourself, Major,” said Basset, “for the decent people are a good six miles off at the bog, and couldn’t hear you if you whistled ever so loud.”

‘The moment he said this Bob saw that the old rogue was up to him, and he began to wonder within himself what was best to be done.

‘“See now, Nick,” said he, “it isn’t like a friend to bring up all these red-coats here upon me, before my tenantry, disgracing me in the face of my people. Send them back to the town, and go up yourself with Mr. Hennessy there, and do whatever you have to do.”

‘“No, no!” screamed Hennessy, “I’ll never part with the soldiers!”

‘“Very well,” said Bob, “take your own way, and see what will come of it.”

‘He put spurs to his pony as he said this, and was just striking into the gallop when Nick called out —

‘“Wait a bit, Major! wait a bit! If we leave the dragoons where we are now, will you give us your word of honour not to hurt or molest us in the discharge of our duty, nor let any one else do so?”

‘“I will,” said Bob, “now that you talk reasonably; I’ll treat you well.”

‘After a little parley it was settled that part of the dragoons were to wait on the road, and the rest of them in the lawn before the house, while Nick and his friend were to go through the ceremony of seizing Bob’s effects, and make an inventory of everything they could find.

‘“A mere matter of form, Major Mahon,” said he. “We ‘ll make it as short as possible, and leave a couple of men in possession; and as I know the affair will be arranged in a few days – ”

‘“Of course,” says Bob, laughing; “nothing easier. So come along now and let me show you the way.”

‘When they reached the house, Bob ordered up dinner at once, and behaved as politely as possible, telling them it was early, and they would have plenty of time for everything in the evening. But whether it was that they had no appetite just then, or that they were not over-easy in their minds about Bob himself, they declined everything, and began to set about their work. To it they went with pen and ink, putting down all the chairs and tables, the cracked china, the fire-irons, and at last Bob left them counting over about twenty pairs of old top-boots that stood along the wall of his dressing-room.

‘“Ned,” said Bob to his own man, “get two big padlocks and put them on the door of the hayloft as fast as you can.”

‘“Sure it is empty, sir,” said Ned. “Barrin’ the rats, there’s nothing in it.”

‘“Don’t I know that as well as you?” said Bob; “but can’t you do as you are bid? And when you’ve done it, take the pony and gallop over to the bog, and tell the people to throw the turf out of their carts and gallop up here as fast as they can.”

‘He’d scarcely said it when Nick called out, “Now, Major, for the farmyard, if you please.” And so taking Hennessy’s arm, Bob walked out, followed by the two big bailiffs, that never left them for a moment. To be sure it was a great sight when they got outside, and saw all the ricks and stacks as thick as they could stand; and so they began counting and putting them down on paper, and the devil a thing they forgot, not even the boneens and the bantams; and at last Nick fixed his eye upon the little door into the loft, upon which now two great big padlocks were hanging.

‘“I suppose it ‘s oats you have up there, Major?” said he.

‘“No, indeed,” said Bob, looking a little confused.

‘“Maybe seed-potatoes?” said Hennessy.

‘“Nor it neither,” said he.

‘“Barley, it’s likely?” cried Nick; “it is a fine dry loft.”

‘“No,” said Bob, “it is empty.”

‘And with that he endeavoured to turn them away and get them back into the house; but old Basset turned back, and fixing his eye upon the door, shook his head for a couple of minutes.

‘“Well,” said he, “for an empty loft it has the finest pair of padlocks I ever looked at. Would there be any objection, Major, to our taking a peep into it?”

‘“None,” said Bob; “but I haven’t a ladder that long in the place.”

‘“I think this might reach,” said Hennessy, as he touched one with his foot that lay close along the wall, partly covered with straw.

‘“Just the thing,” said Nick; while poor Bob hung down his head and said nothing. With that they raised the ladder and placed it against the door.

‘“Might I trouble you for the key, Major Mahon?” said Hennessy.

‘“I believe it is mislaid,” said Bob, in a kind of sulky way, at which they both grinned at each other, as much as to say, “We have him now.”

‘“You ‘‘ll not take it amiss then, Major, if we break the door?” said Nick.

‘“You may break it and be hanged!” said Bob, as he stuck his hands into his pockets and walked away.

‘“This will do,” cried one of the bailiffs, taking up a big stone as he mounted the ladder, followed by Nick, Hennessy, and the other.

‘It took some time to smash the locks, for they were both strong ones, and all the while Nick and his friend were talking together in great glee; but poor Bob stood by himself against a hayrick, looking as melancholy as might be. At last the locks gave way, and down went the door with a bang. The bailiffs stepped in, and then Nick and the other followed. It took them a couple of minutes to satisfy themselves that the loft was quite empty; but when they came back again to the door, what was their surprise to discover that Bob was carrying away the ladder upon his shoulders to a distant part of the yard.

‘“Holloa, Major!” cried Basset, “don’t forget us up here!”

‘“Devil a fear of that,” said Bob; “few that know you ever forget you.”

‘“We are quite satisfied, sir,” said Hennessy; “what you said was perfectly correct.”

‘“And why didn’t you believe it before, Mr. Hennessy? You see what you have brought upon yourself.”

‘“You are not going to leave us up here, sir,” cried Hennessy; “will you venture upon false imprisonment?”

“‘I’d venture on more than that, if it were needful; but see now, when you get back, don’t be pretending that I didn’t offer to treat you well, little as you deserved it, I asked you to dinner, and would have given you your skinful of wine afterwards; but you preferred your own dirty calling, and so take the consequences.”

‘While he was speaking a great cheer was heard, and all the country-people came galloping into the yard with their turf cars.

‘“Be alive now, my boys!” cried Bob. “How many cars have you?”

‘“Seventy, sir, here; but there is more coming.”

‘“That’ll do,” said he; “so now set to work and carry away all the oats and the wheat, the hay, barley, and potatoes. Let some of you take the calves and the pigs, and drive the bullocks over the mountain to Mr. Bodkin’s. Don’t leave a turkey behind you, boys, and make haste; for these gentlemen have so many engagements I can scarcely prevail on them to pass more than a day or two amongst us.”

‘Bob pointed as he spoke to the four figures that stood trembling at the hayloft door. A loud cheer, and a roar of laughter to the full as loud, answered his speech; and at the same moment to it they went, loading their cars with the harvest or the live-stock as fast as they could. To be sure, such a scene was never witnessed – the sheep bleating, pigs grunting, fowls cackling, men and women all running here and there laughing like mad, and Nick Basset himself swearing like a trooper the whole time that he’d have them all hanged at the next assizes. Would you believe, the harvest it took nearly three weeks to bring home was carried away that night and scattered all over the country at different farms, where it never could be traced; all the cattle too were taken away, and before sunrise there wasn’t as much as a sheep or a lamb left to bleat on the lawn.

‘The next day Bob set out on a visit to a friend at some distance, leaving directions with his people to liberate the gentlemen in the hayloft in the course of the afternoon. The story made a great noise in the country; but before people were tired laughing at it an action was entered against Bob for false imprisonment, and heavy damages awarded against him. So that you may see there was a kind of poetic justice in the manner of his capture, for after all it was only trick for trick.’

The worthy priest now paused to mix another tumbler, which, when he had stirred and tasted and stirred again, he pushed gently before him on the table, and seemed lost in reverie.

‘Yes,’ said he half aloud, ‘it is a droll country we live in; and there’s not one of us doesn’t waste more ingenuity and display more cunning in getting rid of his fortune than the cleverest fellows elsewhere evince in accumulating theirs. But you are looking a little pale, I think; these late hours won’t suit you, so I ‘ll just send you to bed.’

I felt the whole force of my kind friend’s advice, and yielding obedience at once, I shook him by the hand and wished him good-night.

CHAPTER XXXVI. MURRANAKILTY

If my kind reader is not already tired of the mountain-road and the wild west, may I ask him – dare I say her? – to accompany me a little farther, while I present another picture of its life?

You see that bold mountain, jagged and rugged in outline, like the spine of some gigantic beast, that runs far out into the Atlantic, and ends in a bold, abrupt headland, against which the waves, from the very coast of Labrador, are beating without one intervening rock to break their force? Carry your eye along its base, to where you can mark a little clump of alder and beech, with here and there a taper poplar interspersed, and see if you cannot detect the gable of a long, low, thatched house, that lies almost buried in the foliage. Before the door a little patch of green stretches down to the shore, where a sandy beach, glowing in all the richness of a morning sun, glitters with many a shell and brilliant pebble. That, then, is Murranakilty.

But approach, I beg you, a little nearer. Let me suppose that you have traced the winding of that little bay, crossing the wooden bridge over the bright trout stream, as it hastens on to mingle its waters with the ocean; you have climbed over the rude stile, and stopped for an instant to look into the holy well, in whose glassy surface the little wooden crucifix above is dimly shadowed, and at length you stand upon the lawn before the cottage. What a glorious scene is now before you! On the opposite side of the bay, the mountain, whose summit is lost among the clouds, seems as it were cleft by some earthquake force; and through its narrow gorge you can trace the blue water of the sea passing in, while each side of the valley is clothed with wood. The oak of a hundred years, here sheltered from the rude wind of the Atlantic, spreads its luxuriant arms, while the frothy waves are breaking at its feet. High, however, above their tops you may mark the irregular outline of a large building, with battlements and towers and massive walls, and one tall and loopholed turret, that rises high into the air, and around whose summit the noisy rooks are circling in their flight. That is Kilmorran Castle, the residence of Sir Simon Bellew. There, for centuries past, his ancestors were born and died; there, in the midst of that wild and desolate grandeur, the haughty descendants of an ancient house lived on from youth to age, surrounded by all the observances of feudal state, and lording it far and near, for many a mile, with a sway and power that would seem to have long since passed away.

You carry your eye seaward, and I perceive your attention is fixed upon the small schooner that lies anchored in the offing; her topsail is in the clews, and flaps lazily against the mast, as she rolls and pitches in the breaking surge. The rake of her low masts and the long boom that stretches out far beyond her taffrail have, you deem it, a somewhat suspicious look; and you are right. She is La Belle Louise, a smuggling craft from Dieppe, whose crew, half French, half Irish, would fight her to the gunwale, and sink with but never surrender her. You hear the plash of oars, and there now you can mark the eight-oared gig springing to the stroke, as it shoots from the shore and heads out to sea. Sir Simon loves claret, and like a true old Irish gentleman he drinks it from the wood; there may, therefore, be some reason why those wild-looking red-caps have pulled in shore.

But now I’ll ask you to turn to an humbler scene, and look within that room where the window, opened to the ground, is bordered by blossoming honeysuckle. It is the priest’s parlour. At a little breakfast-table, whose spotless cloth and neat but simple equipage has a look of propriety and comfort, is seated one whose gorgeous dressing-gown and lounging attitude seem strangely at variance with the humble objects around him. He seems endeavouring to read a newspaper, which ever and anon he lays down beside him, and turns his eyes in the direction of the fire; for although it is July, yet a keen freshness of the morning air makes the blazing turf by no means objectionable. He looks towards the fire, perhaps you would say, lost in his own thoughts and musings; but no, truth must out, and his attention is occupied in a very different way. Kneeling before the fire is a young and lovely country-girl, engaged in toasting a muffin for the priest’s breakfast. Her features are flushed, partly with shame, partly with heat; and as now and then she throws back her long hair from her face with an impatient toss of her head, she steals a glance at the stranger from a pair of eyes so deeply blue that at first you were unjust enough to think them black.

Her dress is a low bodice, and a short skirt of that brilliant dye the Irish peasant of the west seems to possess the secret for. The jupe is short, I say; and so much the better for you, as it displays a pair of legs which, bare of shoe or stocking, are perfect in their symmetry – the rounded instep and the swelling ankle chiselled as cleanly as a statue of Canova.

And now, my good reader, having shown you all this, let me proceed with my narrative.

‘And sure now, sir, wouldn’t it be better for you, and you sickly, to be eating your breakfast, and not be waiting for Father Tom? Maybe he wouldn’t come in this hour yet.’

‘No, thank you, Mary; I had rather wait. I hope you are not so tired of my company that you want an excuse to get away?’

‘Ah, be aisy now, if you plaze, sir! It’s myself that’s proud to be talking to you.’ And as she spoke she turned a pair of blue eyes upon me with such a look that I could not help thinking if the gentlemen of the west be exposed to such, their blood is not as hot as is reputed. I suppose I looked as much; for she blushed deeply, and calling out, ‘Here’s Father Tom!’ sprang to her legs and hurried from the room.

‘Where are you scampering that way?’ cried the good priest, as he passed her in the hall. ‘Ah, Captain, Captain! behave yourself!’