Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent Part 33

"Go home, now," said Poll; "go home all of yez. You've seen enough, and too much. Throth I'm sorry for the girl, and did all I could, to persuade her against the step she tuck; but it was no use--she was more like one that tuck love powdhers from him, than a raisonable bein'."

Harman's cousin had already departed, but in such a state of amazement, indignation, and disgust, that he felt himself incapable of continuing a conversation with any one, or of bestowing his attention upon any other topic whatsoever. He was thunderstruck--his very faculties were nearly paralyzed, and his whole mind literally clouded in one dark chaos of confusion and distress.

"Now," said Poll to the females who accompanied her--"go home every one of yez; but, for goodness sake don't be spakin' of what you seen this night. The poor girl's correcther's gone, sure enough; but for all that, let us have nothing to say to her or Mr. Phil. It'll all come out time enough, and more than time enough, without our help; so, as I said, hould a hard cheek about it. Indeed it's the safest way to do so--for the same M'Loughlins is a dangerous and bitther faction to make or meddle with. Go off now, in the name of goodness, and say nothin' to n.o.body--barring, indeed, to some one that won't carry it farther."

Whilst this dialogue, which did not occupy more than a couple of minutes, was proceeding, a scene of a different character took place in M'Loughlin's parlor, upon a topic which, at that period, was a very plausible pretext for much brutal outrage and violence on the part of the Orange yeomanry--we mean the possession, or the imputed possession, of fire-arms. Indeed the state of society in a great part of Ireland--shortly after the rebellion of ninety-eight--was then such as a modern conservative would blush for. An Orangeman, who may have happened to entertain a pique against a Roman Catholic, or sustained an injury from one, had nothing more to do than send abroad, or get some one to send abroad for him, a report that he had fire-arms in his possession.

No sooner had this rumor spread, than a party of these yeomanry a.s.sembled in their regimentals, and with loaded fire-arms, proceeded, generally in the middle of the night or about day-break, to the residence of the suspected person. The door, if not immediately opened, was broken in--the whole house ransacked--the men frequently beaten severely, and the ears of females insulted by the coa.r.s.est and most indecent language.

These scenes, which in nineteen cases out of twenty, the Orangemen got up to gratify private hatred and malignity, were very frequent, and may show us the danger of any government entrusting power, in whatever shape, or arms or ammunition, to irresponsible hands, or subjecting one party to the fierce pa.s.sions and bigoted impulses of another.

The noise of their horses' feet as they approached M'Loughlin's house in a gallop, alarmed that family, who knew at once that it was a domiciliary visit from M'Clutchy's cavalry.

"Raise the window," said M'Loughlin himself, "and ask them what they want--or stay, open the door," he added at the same time to another, "and do not let us give them an excuse for breaking it in. It's the blood-hounds, sure enough," observed he, "and here they are."

In a moment they were dismounted, and having found the hall door open, the parlor was crowded with armed men, who manifested all the overbearing insolence and wanton insult of those who know that they can do so with impunity.

"Come, M'Loughlin," said Cochrane, now their leader, "you ribelly Papish rascal, produce your arms--for we have been informed that you have arms consaled in the house."

"Pray who informed you, Mr. Cochrane?"

"That's not your business, my man," replied Cochrane, "out with them before we search."

"I'll tell you what, Cochrane," replied M'Loughlin, "whoever informed you that we have arms is a liar--we have no arms."

"And right well they know that," said his son, "it's not for arms they come, but it's a good excuse to insult the family."

His father (who, on looking more closely at them, now perceived that they were tipsy, and some of them quite drunk) though a man of singular intrepidity, deemed it the wisest and safest course to speak to them as civilly as possible.

"I did'nt think, Tom Cochrane," said he, "that either I or any of my family, deserved such a visit as this from, I may say, my own door neighbors. It's not over civil, I think, to come in this manner, disturbing a quiet and inoffensive family."

"What's the ribelly rascal sayin'?" asked a drunken fellow, who lurched across the floor, and would have fallen, had he not come in contact with a chest of drawers, "what, wha-at's he say-ayin? but I sa-ay here's to h.e.l.l with the Po-po-pope--hurra!"

"Ah?" said young M'Loughlin, "you have the ball at your own foot now, but if we were man to man, with equal weapons, there would be none of this swagger."

"What's tha-at the young rible says," said 'the drunken fellow, deliberately covering him with his cavalry pistol--"another word, and I'll let day-light through you."

"Come, Burke," said a man named Irwin, throwing up the muzzle of the pistol, "none o' this work, you drunken brute. Don't be alarmed, M'Loughlin, you shan't be injured."

"Go go to h--l, George, I'll do what I--I li-like; sure 'all these ribels ha-hate King William that sa-saved us from bra.s.s money a-and wooden noggins--eh, stay, shoes it is; no matter, they ought to be brogues I think, for it--it's brogues--ay, brogues, the papish--it is, by h.e.l.l, 'brogues and broghans an' a' the Pa-papishes wear--that saved us from bra-bra.s.s money, an--and wooden brogues, that's it--for dam-damme if ever the Papishers was da-dacent enough to wear bra.s.s shoes, never, by jingo; so, boys, it's bra.s.s brogues--ay, do they ha-hate King William, that put us in the pil-pillory, the pillory in h.e.l.l, and the devils pel-peltin' us with priests,--hurra boys, recover arms--stand at aise--ha--ram down Catholics--hurra!"

"Mr. M'Loughlin--"

"Mislher M'Loughlin! ay, there's respect for a Pa-pish, an' from a purple man, too!"

"You had better be quiet, Burke," retorted Irwin, who was a determined and powerful man.

"For G.o.d's sake, gentlemen," said Mrs. M'Loughlin, "do not disturb or alarm our family--you are at liberty to search the house, but, as G.o.d is above us, we have no arms of any kind, and consequently there can be none in the house."

"Don't believe her," said Burke, "she's Papish--" He had not time to add the offensive epithet, what ever it might have been, for Irwin--who, in truth, accompanied the party with the special intention of repressing outrage against the M'Loughlins whom he very much respected--having caught him by the neck, shook the words back again, as it were, into his very throat. "You ill-tongued drunken ruffian," said he, "if you don't hold your scoundrell tongue, I'll pitch you head foremost out of the house. We must search, Mrs. M'Loughlin," said Irwin, "but it will be done as quietly as possible."

They then proceeded through all the rooms, into which, singular as it may appear, they scarcely looked, until they came into that in which we left Mary M'Loughlin and Phil. The moment this worthy gentleman heard their approach, he immediately shut the door, and, with all the seeming trepidation and anxiety of a man who feared discover bustled about, and made a show of preparing to resist their entrance. On coming to the door, therefore, they found it shut, and everything apparently silent within.

"Open the door," said Irwin, "we want to search for arms."

"Ah! boys," said Phil in a whisper through he key-hole, "pa.s.s on if you love me--I give you my word of honor that there's no arms here but a brace that is worth any money to be locked in."

"We must open, Mr. Phil," said Sharpe, "you know our ordhers. By j.a.purs," said he, in a side voice to the rest, "the fellow wasn't boastin' at all; it's true enough--I'll uould goold he was right, and that we'll find her inside with him."

"When I see it, I'll believe it," said Irwin, but not till then. Open, sir," said he, "open, if all's right."

"Oh, d--n it, boys," said Phil again, "this is too bad--honor bright:--surely you wouldn't expose us, especially the girl." At the same time he withdrew his shoulder from the door, which flew open, and discovered him striving to soothe and console Miss M'Loughlin, who had not yet recovered her alarm and agitation, so as to understand the circ.u.mstances which took place about her. In fact, she had been in that description of excitement which, without taking away animation, leaves the female (for it is peculiar to the s.e.x) utterly incapable of taking anything more than a vague cognizance of that which occurs before her eyes. The moment she and Phil were discovered together, not all Irwin's influence could prevent the party from indulging in a shout of triumph.

This startled her, and was, indeed, the means of restoring her to perfect consciousness, and a full perception of her situation.

"What is this?" she inquired, "and why is it that a peaceable house is filled with armed men? and you, Mr. M'Clutchy, for what treacherous purpose did you intrude into my private room?"

M'Loughlin. himself, from a natural dread of collision between his sons and the licentious yeomanry, and trusting to the friends.h.i.+p and steadiness of Irwin, literally stood sentinel at the parlor door, and prevented them from accompanying the others in the search.

"My darling Mary," said Phil, "it's too late now, you see, to speak in this tone--we're caught, that's all, found out, and be cursed to these fellows. If they had found us anywhere else but in your bed-room, I didn't so much care; however, it can't be helped now."

As he spoke he raised his eye-brows from time to time at his companions, and winked with an expression of triumph so cowardly and diabolical, that it is quite beyond our ability to describe it. They, in the meantime, winked and nodded in return, laughed heartily, and poked one another in the ribs.

"Bravo, Mr. Phil!--success, Captain!--more power to you!"

"Come now, boys," said Phil, "let us go. Mary, my darling, I must leave you; but we'll meet again where they can't disturb us--stand around me, boys, for, upon my honor and soul, these hot-headed fellows of brothers of hers will knock my brain's out, if you don't guard me well; here, put me in the middle of you--good by, Mary, never mind this, we'll meet again."

However anxious M'Loughlin had been to prevent the possibility of angry words or blows between his sons and these men still the extraordinary yell which accompanied the discovery of young M'Clutchy in his daughter's bedroom, occasioned him to relax his vigilance, and rush to the spot, after having warned and urged them to remain where they were.

Notwithstanding his remonstrances, they followed his footsteps, and the whole family, in fact, reached her door as Phil uttered the last words.

"Great G.o.d, what is this," exclaimed her father, "how came M'Clutchy, Val the Vulture's son, into my daughter's sleeping-room? How came you here, sir?" he added sternly, "explain it."

Not even a posse of eighteen armed men, standing in a circle about him, each with a c.o.c.ked and loaded pistol in his hand, could prevent the cowardly and craven soul of him from quailing before the eye of her indignant father. His face became like a sheet of paper, perfectly bloodless, and his eye sank as if it were never again to look from the earth, or in the direction of the blessed light of heaven.

"Ah!" he proceeded, "you are, indeed, your treacherous, cowardly, and cruel father's son; you cannot raise your eye upon me, and neither could he. Mary," he proceeded, addressing his daughter, "how did this treacherous scoundrel get into your room? tell the truth--but that I need not add, for I know you will."

His daughter had been standing for some time in a posture that betrayed neither terror nor apprehension. Raised to her full height, she looked upon M'Clutchy and his men alternately, but princ.i.p.ally upon himself, with a smile which in truth was fearful. Her eyes brightened into clear and perfect fire, the roundness of her beautiful arm was distended by the coming forth of its muscles--her lips became firm--her cheek heightened in color--and her temples were little less than scarlet.

There she stood, a concentration of scorn, contempt, and hatred the most intense, pouring upon the dastardly villain an unbroken stream of withering fury, that was enough to drive back his cowardly soul into the deepest and blackest recesses of its own satanic baseness. Her father, in fact, was obliged to address her twice, before he could arrest her attention; for such was the measureless indignation which her eye poured upon him, that she could scarcely look upon any other object.

"My child, did you hear me?" said her father. "How did this heartless and down-looking scoundrel get into your apartment?"

She looked quickly upon her father's features--

"How?" said she; "how but by treachery, falsehood, and fraud! Is he not Val M'Clutchy's son, my dear father?"

Her brothers had not yet uttered a syllable, but stood like their sister with flushed cheeks and burning indignation in their eyes. On hearing what their sister had just said, however, as if they had all been moved by the same impulse, thought, or determination--as in truth they were--their countenances became pale as death--they looked at each other significantly--then at Phil--and they appeared very calm, as if relieved--satisfied; but the expression of the eye darkened into a meaning that was dreadful to look upon.

"That is enough, my child," replied her father; "I suppose, my friends, you are now satisfied--."

"Yes, by h--l," shouted Burke, "we are now satisfied."