I wanted but the compa.s.sionate tone in which these few words were spoken to decide me in a resolution that I had been for some time pondering over. I knew that ere many hours Ba.s.set would come in search of me; I felt that, once in his power, I had nothing to expect but the long-promised payment of his old debt of hatred to me. In a few seconds I ran over with myself the prospect of misery before me, and determined at once, at every hazard, to make my escape. Darby seemed to afford me the best possible opportunity for this purpose; and I dressed myself, therefore, in the greatest haste, and throwing whatever I could find of my wardrobe into my carpet-bag, I pocketed my little purse, with all my worldly wealth,--some twelve or thirteen shillings,--and noiselessly slipped downstairs to the room beneath. I reached the door at the very moment Darby opened it to issue forth. He started back with fear, and crossed himself twice.
"Don"t be afraid. Darby," said I, uneasy lest he should make any noise that would alarm the others; "I want to know which road you are travelling this morning."
"The saints be about us, but you frightened me. Master Tommy; though, intermediately, I may obsarve, I "m by no ways timorous. I "m going within two miles of Athlone."
"That"s exactly where I want to go. Darby; will you take me with you?"
for at the instant Captain Bubbleton"s address flashed on my mind, and I resolved to seek him out and ask his advice in my difficulties.
"I see it all," replied Darby, as he placed the tip of his finger on his nose. "I conceive your embarra.s.sments,--you"re afraid of Ba.s.set; and small blame to you. But don"t do it. Master Tommy,--don"t do it, alannah! that "s the hardest life at all."
"What?" said I, in amazement.
"To "list! Sure I know what you"re after. Faix, it would sarve you better to larn the pipes."
I hastened to a.s.sure Darby of his error; and in a few words informed him of what I had overheard of Ba.s.set"s intentions respecting me.
"Make you an attorney!" said Darby, interrupting me abruptly; "an attorney! There"s nothing so mean as an attorney. The police is gentlemen compared to them,--they fight it out fair like men; but the other chaps sit in a house planning and contriving mischief all day long, inventing every kind of wickedness, and then getting people to do it. See, now, I believe in my conscience the devil was the first attorney, and it was just to serve his own ends that he bred a ruction between Adam and Eve. But whisht! there"s somebody stirring. Are you for the road?"
"Yes, Darby; my mind"s made up."
Indeed, his own elegant eulogium on legal pursuits a.s.sisted my resolution, and filled my heart with renewed disgust at the thought of such a guardian as Tony Ba.s.set.
We walked stealthily along the gloomy pa.s.sages, traversed the old hall, and noiselessly withdrew the heavy bolts and the great chain that fastened the door. The rain was sweeping along the ground in torrents, and the wind dashed it against the window panes in fitful gusts. It needed all our strength to close the door after us against the storm, and it was only after several trials that we succeeded in doing so. The hollow sound of the oak door smote upon my heart as it closed behind me; in an instant the sense of banishment, of utter dest.i.tution, was present to my mind. I turned my eyes to gaze upon the old house,--to take my last farewell of it forever! Gloomy as my prospect was, my sorrow was less for the sad future than for the misery of the moment.
"No, Master Tom! no, you must go back," said Darby, who watched with a tender interest the sickly paleness of my cheek, and the tottering uncertainty of my walk.
"No, Darby," said I, with an effort at firmness; "I"ll not look round any more." And bending my head against the storm, I stepped out boldly beside my companion. We walked on without speaking, and soon left the neglected avenue and ruined gate lodge behind us, as we reached the highroad that led to Athlone.
Darby, who only waited to let my first burst of sorrow find its natural vent, no sooner perceived from my step and the renewed color of my cheek that I had rallied my courage once more, than he opened all his stores of agreeability, which, to my inexperience in such matters, were by no means inconsiderable. Abandoning at once all high-flown phraseology,--which Mr. M"Keown, I afterwards remarked, only retained as a kind of gala suit for great occasions,--he spoke freely and naturally.
Lightening the way with many a story,--now grave, now gay,--he seemed to care little for the inclemency of the weather, and looked pleasantly forward to a happy evening as an ample reward for the present hardship.
"And the captain, Master Tom; you say he"s an agreeable man?" said Darby, alluding to my late companion on the coach, whose merits I was never tired of recapitulating.
"Oh, delightful! He has travelled everywhere, and seems to know everybody and everything. He "s very rich, too; I forget how many houses he has in England, and elephants without number in India."
"Faix, you were in luck to fall in with him!" observed Darby.
"Yes, that I was I I "m sure he "ll do something for me; and for you too, Darby, when he knows you have been so kind to me."
"Me! What did I do, darling? and what could I do, a poor piper like me?
Wouldn"t it be honor enough for me if a gentleman"s son would travel the road with me? Darby M"Keown"s a proud man this day to have you beside him."
A ruined cabin in the road, whose blackened walls and charred timbers denoted its fate, here attracted my companion"s attention. He stopped for a second or two to look on it; and then, kneeling down, he muttered a short prayer for the eternal rest of some one departed, and taking up a stone, he threw it on a heap of similar ones which lay near the doorside.
"What happened there, Darby?" said I, as he resumed his way.
"They wor out in the thrubles!" was his only reply, as he cast a glance behind, to perceive if any one had remarked him.
Though he made no further allusion to the fate of those who once inhabited the cabin, he spoke freely of his own share in the eventful year of "Ninety-eight" justifying, as it then seemed to me, every step of the patriotic party, and explaining the causes of their unsuccess so naturally and so clearly that I could not help following with interest every detail of his narrative, and joining in his regrets for the unexpected and adverse strokes fortune dealt upon them. As he warmed with his subject, he spoke of France with an enthusiasm that I soon found contagious. He told me of the glorious career of the French armies in Italy and Austria; and of that wonderful man, of whom I then heard for the first time, as spreading a halo of victory over his nation,--contrasting, as he went on, the rewards which awaited heroism and bravery in that service with the purchased promotion in ours, artfully ill.u.s.trating his position by a reference to myself, and what my fortunes would have been if born under that happier sky. "No elder brother there," said he, "to live in affluence, while the younger ones are turned out to wander on the wide world, houseless and penniless. And all these things we might have done, had we been but true to ourselves."
I drank in all he said with avidity. The bearing of his arguments on my own fortunes gave them an interest and an apparent truth my young mind eagerly devoured; and when he ceased to speak, I pondered over all he told me in a spirit that left its impress on my whole future life.
It was a new notion to me to connect my own fortunes with anything in the political condition of the country; and while it gave my young heart a kind of martyred courage, it set my brain a-thinking on a cla.s.s of subjects which never before possessed any interest for me. There was a flattery, too, in the thought that I owed my straitened circ.u.mstances less to any demerits of my own, than to political disabilities. The time was well chosen by my companion to instil his doctrines into my heart.
I was young, ardent, enthusiastic; my own wrongs had taught me to hate injustice and oppression; my condition had made me feel, and feel bitterly, the humiliation of dependence; and if I listened with eager curiosity to every story and every incident of the bygone Rebellion, it was because the contest was represented to me as one between tyranny on one side and struggling liberty on the other. I heard the names of those who sided with the insurgent party extolled as the great and good men of their country; their ancient families and hereditary claims furnishing a contrast to many of the opposite party, whose recent settlement in the island and new-born aristocracy were held up in scoff and derision. In a word, I learned to believe that the one side was characterized by cruelty, oppression, and injustice; the other, conspicuous only for endurance, courage, patriotism, and truth. What a picture was this to a mind like mine! and at a moment, too, when I seemed to realize in my own desolation an example of the very sufferings I heard of!
If the portrait McKeown drew of Ireland was sad and gloomy, he painted France in colors the brightest and most seductive. Dwelling less on the political advantages which the Revolution had won for the popular party, he directed my entire attention to the brilliant career of glory the French army had followed; the triumphant success of the Italian campaign; the war in Germany; and the splendor of Paris, which he represented as a very paradise on earth; but above all, he dwelt on the character and achievements of the First Consul, recounting many anecdotes of his early life, from the period when he was a schoolboy at Brienne to the hour when he dictated the conditions of peace to the oldest monarchies of Europe, and proclaimed war with the voice of one who came as an avenger.
I drank in every word he spoke with avidity. The very enthusiasm of his manner was contagious; I felt my heart bound with rapturous delight at some hardy deed of soldierlike daring, and conceived a kind of wild idolatry for the man who seemed to have infused his own glorious temperament into the mighty thousands around him, and converted a whole nation into heroes.
Darby"s information on all these matters--which seemed to me something miraculous--had been obtained at different periods from French emissaries who were scattered through Ireland; many of them old soldiers who had served in the campaigns of Egypt and Italy.
"But sure, if you "d come with me, Master Tom, I could bring you where you"ll see them yourself; and you could talk to them of the battles and skirmishes, for I suppose you spake French."
"Very little. Darby. How sorry I am now that I don"t know it well."
"No matter; they"ll soon teach you, and many a thing besides. There "s a captain I know of, not far from where we are this minute, could learn you the small sword,--in style, he could. I wish you saw him in his green uniform with white facings, and three elegant crosses upon it that General Bonaparte gave him with his own hands; he had them on one Sunday, and I never see"d anything equal to it."
"And are there many French officers hereabouts?"
"Not now; no, they"re almost all gone. After the rising they went back to France, except a few. Well, there"ll be call for them again, please G.o.d."
"Will there be another Rebellion, then, Darby?"
As I put this question fearlessly, and in a voice loud enough to be heard at some distance, a horseman, wrapped up in a loose cloth cloak, was pa.s.sing. He suddenly pulled up short, and turning his horse round, stood exactly opposite to the piper. Darby saluted the stranger respectfully, and seemed desirous to pa.s.s on; but the other, turning round in his saddle, fixed a stern look on him, and he cried out,--
"What! at the old trade, M"Keown. Is there no curing you, eh?"
"Just so, major," said Darby, a.s.suming a tone of voice he had not made use of the entire morning; "I "m conveying a little instrumental recreation."
"None of your d.a.m.ned gibberish with me. Who "s that with you?"
"He "s the son of a neighbor of mine, your honor," said Darby, with an imploring look at me not to betray him. "His father "s a schoolmaster,--a philomath, as one might say."
I was about to contradict this statement bluntly, when the stranger called out to me,--
"Mark me, young sir, you "re not in the best of company this morning, and I recommend you to part with your friend as soon as may be. And you," said he, turning to Darby, "let me see you in Athlone at ten o"clock to-morrow. D" ye hear me?"
The piper grew pale as death as he heard this command, to which he only responded by touching his hat in silence; while the horseman, drawing his cloak around, dashed his spurs into his beast"s flanks, and was soon out of sight. Darby stood for a moment or two looking down the road, where the stranger had disappeared; a livid hue colored his cheek, and a tremulous quivering of his under-lip gave him the appearance of one in ague.
"I"ll be even with ye yet," muttered he between his clenched teeth; "and when the hour comes--"
Here he repeated some words in Irish with a vehemence of manner that actually made my blood tingle; then suddenly recovering himself, he a.s.sumed a kind of sickly smile. "That"s a hard man, the major."
"I"m thinking," said Darby, after a pause of some minutes,--"I "m thinking it "s better for you not to go into Athlone with me; for if Ba.s.set wishes to track you out, that "ll be the first place he "ll try.
Besides, now that the major has seen you, he"ll never forget you."
Having pledged myself to adopt any course my companion recommended, he resumed,--
"Ay, that "s the best way. I "ll lave you at Ned Malone"s in the Glen; and when I "ve done with the major in the morning, I "ll look after your friend the captain, and tell him where you are."