Willy Reilly Part 52

"Oh, Lanigan, is Reilly safe?--is he set at large? Oh, I am sure he must be. Never was so n.o.ble, so pure, and so innocent a heart."

"Curse him, look at the eye of him," said her father, pointing his cane at Lanigan; "it's like the eye of a sharp-shooter. What are you grinning at; you old scoundrel?"

"Didn't you expect Sir Robert Whitecraft here to-day to marry Miss Folliard, sir?"

"I did, sirra, and I do; he'll be here immediately."

"Devil a foot he'll come to-day, I can tell you; and that's the way he treats your daughter!"

"What does this old idiot mean, Helen? Have you been drinking, sirra?"

"Not yet, sir, but plaise the Lord I'll soon be at it."

"Lanigan," said Helen, "will you state at once what you have to say?"

"I will, miss; but first and foremost, I must show you how to dance the 'Little House under the Hill,'" and as he spoke he commenced whistling that celebrated air and dancing to it with considerable alacrity and vigor, making allowances for his age.

The father and daughter looked at each other, and Helen, notwithstanding her broken spirits, could not avoid smiling. Lanigan continued the dance, kept wheeling about to all parts of the room, like an old madcap, cutting, capering, and knocking up his heels against his ham, with a vivacity that was a perfect mystery to his two spectators, as was his whole conduct.

"Now, you drunken old scoundrel," said his master, catching him by the collar and flouris.h.i.+ng the cane over his head, "if you don't give a direct answer I will cane you within an inch of your life. What do you mean when you say that Sir Robert Whitecraft won't come here to-day?"

"Becaise, sir, it isn't convanient to him."

"Why isn't it convenient, you scoundrel?"

"Bekaise, sir, he took it into his head to try a change of air for the benefit of his health before he starts upon his journey; and as he got a very friendly invitation to spend some time in Sligo jail he accepted it, and if you go there you will find him before you. It seems he started this morning in great state, with two nice men belonging to the law in the carriage with him, to see that he should want for nothing, and a party of cavalry surroundin' his honor's coach, as if he was one of the judges, or the Lord Lieutenant."

The figurative style of his narrative would unquestionably have caused him to catch the weight of the cane aforesaid had not Helen interfered and saved him for the nonce.

"Let me at him, Helen, let me at him--the drunken old rip; why does he dare to humbug us in this manner?"

"Well, then, sir, if you wish to hear the good news, and especially you, Miss Folliard, it will probably relieve your heart when I tell you that Sir Robert Whitecraft is, before this time, in the jail of Sligo, for a charge of murdher, and for burnin' Mr. Reilly's house and premises, which it now seems aren't Mr. Reilly's at all--nor ever were--but belong to Mr. Hastings."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed the squire, "this is dreadful: but is it true, sirra?"

"Why, sir, if you go to his house you'll find it so."

"Oh, papa," said Helen, "surely they wouldn't hang him?"

"Hang him, Helen; why, Helen, the tide's turned; they want to make him an example for the outrages that he and others have committed against the unfortunate Papists. Hang him!--as I live, he and the Red Rapparee will both swing from the same gallows; but there is one thing I say--if he hangs I shall take care that that obstinate scoundrel, Reilly, shall also swing along with him."

Helen became as pale as ashes, the flush had disappeared from her countenance, and she burst again into tears.

"Oh, papa," she exclaimed, "spare Reilly: he is innocent."

"I'll hang him," he replied, "if it should cost me ten thousand pounds.

Go you, sirra, and desire one of the grooms to saddle me Black Tom; he is the fastest horse in my stables; I cannot rest till I ascertain the truth of this."

On pa.s.sing the drawing-room he looked in, and found Mr. Strong and the two Misses Ashford waiting, the one to perform, and the others to attend, at the ceremony.

"Sir. Strong and ladies," said he, with looks of great distraction, "I fear there will be no marriage here to-day. An accident, I believe, has happened to Sir Robert Whitecraft that will prevent his being a party in the ceremony, for this day at least."

"An accident!" exclaimed the ladies and the clergyman. "Pray, Mr.

Folliard, what is it? how did it happen?"

"I am just going to ride over to Sir Robert's to learn everything about it," he replied; "I will be but a short time absent. But now!" he added, "here's his butler, and I will get everything from him. Oh, Thomas, is this you? follow me to my study, Thomas."

As the reader already knows all that Thomas could tell him, it is only necessary to say that he returned to the drawing-room with a sad and melancholy aspect.

"There is no use," said he, addressing them, "in concealing what will soon be known to the world. Sir Robert Whitecraft has been arrested on a charge of murder and arson, and is now a prisoner in the county jail."

This was startling intelligence to them all, especially to the parson, who found that the hangman was likely to cut him out of his fees.

The ladies screamed, and said, "it was a shocking thing to have that delightful man hanged;" and then asked if the bride-elect had heard it.

"She has heard it," replied her father, "and I have just left her in tears; but upon my soul, I don't think there is one of them shed for him. Well, Mr. Strong, I believe, after all, there is likely to be no marriage, but that is not your fault; you came here to do your duty, and I think it only just--a word with you in the next apartment," he added, and then led the way to the dining-room. "I was about to say, Mr.

Strong, that it would be neither just nor reasonable to deprive you of your fees; here is a ten-pound note, and it would have been twenty had the marriage taken place. I must go to Sligo to see the unfortunate baronet, and say what can be done for him--that is, if anything can, which I greatly doubt."

The parson protested, against the receipt of the ten-pound note very much in the style of a bashful schoolboy, who pretends to refuse an apple from a strange relation when he comes to pay a visit, whilst, at the same time, the young monkey's chops are watering for it. With some faint show of reluctance he at length received it, and need we say that it soon disappeared in one of his sanctified pockets.

"Strong, my dear fellow," proceeded the squire, "you will take a seat with these ladies in their carriage and see them home."

"I would, with pleasure, my dear friend, but that I am called upon to console poor Mrs. Smellpriest for the loss of the captain."

"The captain! why, what has happened him?"

"Alas! sir, an unexpected and unhappy fate. He went out last night a priest-hunting, like a G.o.dly sportsman of the Church, as he was, and on his return from an unsuccessful chase fell off his horse while in the act of singing that far-famed melody called 'Lillibullero,'

and sustained such severe injuries that he died on that very night, expressing a very unG.o.dly penitence for his loyalty in persecuting so many treasonable Popish priests."

The squire seemed amazed, and, after a pause, said:

"He repented, you say; upon my soul, then, I am glad to hear it, for it is more than I expected from him, and, between you and me, Strong, I fear it must have taken a devilish large extent of repentance to clear him from the crimes he committed against both priests and Popery."

"Ah," replied Strong, with a groan of deep despondency, "but, unfortunately, my dear sir, he did not repent of his sins--that is the worst of it--Satan must have tempted him to transfer his repentance to those very acts of his life upon which, as Christian champion, he should have depended for justification above--I mean, devoting his great energies so zealously to the extermination of idolatry and error. What was it but repenting for his chief virtues, instead of relying, like a brave and dauntless soldier of our Establishment, upon his praiseworthy exertions to rid it of its insidious and relentless enemies?"

The squire looked at him.

"I'll tell you what, Strong---by the great Boyne, I'd give a trifle to, see you get a smart touch of persecution in your own person; it might teach you a little more charity towards those who differ with you; but, upon my honor, if any change in our national parties should soon take place, and that the Papists should get the upper hand, I tell you to your teeth that if ever your fat libs should be tickled by the whip of persecution, they would render you great injustice who should do it for the sake of religion--a commodity with which I see, from the spirit of your present sentiments, you are not over-burdened. However, in the meantime, I daresay that whatever portion you possess of it, you will charitably expend in consoling his widow, as you say. Good-morning!"

We must return, however, to the close of Smellpriest's very sudden and premature departure from the scene of his cruel and merciless labors.

Having reached the strip already described to him by Mr. Strong, and to which he was guided by his men, he himself having been too far advanced in liquor to make out his way with any kind of certainty, he proceeded, still under their direction, to the cottage adjoining, which was immediately surrounded by the troopers. After knocking at the door with violence, and demanding instant admittance, under the threat of smas.h.i.+ng it in, and burning the house as a harbor for rebellious priests, the door was immediately opened by a gray-headed old man, feeble and decrepit in appearance, but yet without any manifestation of terror either in his voice or features. He held a candle in his hand, and asked them, in a calm, composed voice, what it was they wanted, and why they thus came to disturb him and his family at such an unseasonable hour.

"Why, you treasonable old scoundrel," shouted Smellpriest, "haven't you got a rebel and recusant Popish priest in the house? I say, you gray-headed old villain, turn him out on the instant, or, if you hesitate but half a minute, well make a bonfire of you, him, the house, and all that's in it. Zounds, I don't see why I shouldn't burn a house as well as Whitecraft. That cursed baronet is getting ahead of me, but I think I am ent.i.tled to a bonfire as well as he is. Shall we burn the house?" he added, addressing his men.

"I think you had better not, captain," replied the princ.i.p.al of them; "recollect there are new regulations now. It wouldn't be safe, and might only end in hanging every man of us--yourself among the rest."

"But why doesn't the old rebel produce the priest?" asked their leader.

"Come here, sirra--hear me--produce that lurking priest immediately."

"I don't exactly understand you, captain," replied the old man, who appeared to know Smellpriest right well. "I don't think it's to my house you should come to look for a priest."