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Willy Reilly, a novel by William Carleton |
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Chapter 15. More Of Whitecraft's Plots And Pranks |
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_ CHAPTER XV. More of Whitecraft's Plots and Pranks On the Sunday following, Miss Folliard, as was her usual custom, attended divine service at her parish church, accompanied by the virtuous Miss Herbert, who scarcely ever let her for a moment out of her sight, and, in fact, added grievously to the misery of her life. After service had been concluded, she waited until Mr. Brown had descended from the pulpit, when she accosted him, and expressed a wish to have some private conversation with him in the vestry-room. To this room they were about to proceed, when Miss Herbert advanced with an evident intention of accompanying them. "Mr. Brown," said the Cooleen Bawn, looking at him significantly, "I wish that our interview should be private." "Certainly, my dear Miss Folliard, and so it shall be. Pray, who is this lady?" "I am forced, sir, to call her my maid." Mr. Brown was startled a good deal, not only at the words, but the tone in which they were uttered. "Madam," said he, "you will please to remain here until your mistress shall return to you, or, if you wish, you can amuse yourself by reading the inscriptions on the tombstones." "Oh, but I have been ordered," replied Miss Herbert, "by her father and another gentleman, not to let her out of my sight." Mr. Brown, understanding that something was wrong, now looked at her more closely, after which, with a withering frown, he said, "I think I know you, madam, and I am very sorry to hear that you are an attendant upon this amiable lady. Remain where you are, and don't attempt to intrude yourself as an ear-witness to any communication Miss Folliard may have to make to me." The profligate creature and unprincipled spy bridled, looked disdain and bitterness at the amiable clergyman, who, accompanied by our heroine, retired to the vestry. It is unnecessary to detail their conversation, which was sustained by the Cooleen Bawn with bitter tears. It is enough to say that the good and pious minister, though not aware until then that Miss Herbert had, by the scoundrel baronet, been intruded into Squire Folliard's family, was yet acquainted, from peculiar sources, with the nature of the immoral relation in which she stood to that hypocrite. He felt shocked beyond belief, and assured the weeping girl that he would call the next day and disclose the treacherous design to her father, who, he said, could not possibly have been aware of the wretch's character when he admitted her into his family. They then parted, and our heroine was obliged to take this vile creature into the carriage with her home. On their return, Miss Herbert began to display at once the malignity of her disposition, and the volubility of her tongue, in a fierce attack upon, what she termed, the ungentlemanly conduct of Mr. Brown. To all she said, however, Helen uttered not one syllable of reply. She neither looked at her nor noticed her, but sat in profound silence, not, however, without a distracted mind and breaking heart. On the next day the squire took a fancy to look at the state of his garden, and, having got his hat and cane, he sallied out to observe how matters were going on, now that Mr. Malcomson had got an assistant, whom, by the way, he had not yet seen. "Now, Malcomson," said he, "as you have found an assistant, I hope you will soon bring my garden into decent trim. What kind of a chap is he, and how did you come by him?" "Saul, your honor," replied Malcomson, "he's a divilish clever chiel, and vara weel acquent wi' our noble profession." "Confound yourself and your noble profession! I think every Scotch gardener of you believes himself a gentleman, simply because he can nail a few stripes of old blanket against a wall. How did you come by this fellow, I say?" "Ou, just through Lanigan, the cook, your honor." "Did Lanigan know him?" "Hout, no, your honor--it was an act o' charity like." "Ay, ay, Lanigan's a kind-hearted old fool, and that's just like him; but, in the meantime, let me see this chap." "There he is, your honor, trimming, and taking care of that bed of 'love-lies-bleeding.'" "Ay, ay; I dare say my daughter set him to that task." "Na, na, sir. The young leddy hasna seen him yet, nor hasna been in the gerden for the last week." "Why, confound it, Malcomson, that fellow's more like a beggarman than a gardener." "Saul, but he's a capital hand for a' that. Your honor's no' to tak the beuk by the cover. To be sure he's awfully vulgar, but, ma faith, he has a richt gude knowledgeable apprehension o' buttany and gerdening in generhal." The squire then approached our under-gardener, and accosted him, "Well, my good fellow, so you understand gardening?" "A little, your haner," replied the other, respectfully touching his hat, or caubeen rather. "Are you a native of this neighborhood?" "No, your haner. I'm fwaither up--from Westport, your haner." "Who were you engaged with last?" "I wasn't engaged, shir--it was only job-work I was able to do--the health wasn't gud wid me." "Have you no better clothes than these?" "You see all that I have on me, shir." "Well, come, I'll give you the price of a suit rather than see such a scarecrow in my garden." "I couldn't take it, shir." "The devil you couldn't! Why not, man?" "Bekaise, shir, I'm under pinance." "Well, why don't you shave?" "I can't, shir, for de same raison." "Pooh, pooh! what the devil did you do that they put such a penance on you." "Why, I runned away wit' a young woman, shir." "Upon my soul you're a devilish likely fellow to run away with a young woman, and a capital taste she must have had to go with you; but perhaps you took her away by violence, eh?" "No, slur; she was willin' enough to come; but her fadher wouldn't consint, and so we made off wit' ourselves." This was a topic on which the squire, for obvious reasons, did not like to press him. It was in fact a sore subject, and, accordingly, he changed it. "I suppose you have been about the country a good deal?" "I have, indeed, your haner." "Did you ever happen to hear of, or to meet with, a person called Reilly?" "Often, shir; met many o' dem." "Oh, but I mean the scoundrel called Willy Reilly." "Is dat him dat left the country, shir?" "Why, how do you know that he has left the country?" "I don't know myself, shir; but dat de people does be sayhi' it. Dey say dat himself and wan of our bishops went to France togither" The squire seemed to breathe more freely as he said, in a low soliloquy, "I'm devilish glad of it; for, after all, it would go against my heart to hang the fellow." "Well," he said aloud, "so he's gone to France?" "So de people does be sayin, shir." "Well, tell me--do you know a gentleman called Sir Robert Whitecraft?" "Is dat him, shir, dat keeps de misses privately?" "How do you know that he keeps misses privately?" "Fwhy, shir, dey say his last one was a Miss Herbert, and dat she had a young one by him, and dat she was an Englishwoman. It isn't ginerally known, I believe, shir, but dey do be sayin' dat she was brought to bed in de cottage of some bad woman named Mary Mahon, dat does be on de lookout to get sweethearts for him." "There's five thirteens for you, and I wish to God, my good fellow, that you would allow yourself to be put in better feathers." "Oh, I expect my pinance will be out before a mont', shir; but, until den, I couldn't take any money." "Malcomson," said he to the gardener, "I think that fellow's a half fool. I offered him a crown, and also said. I would get him a suit of clothes, and he would not take either; but talked about some silly penance he was undergoing." "Saul, then, your honor, he may be a fule in ither things, but de'il a ane of him's a fule in the sceence o' buttany. As to that penance, it's just some Papistrical nonsense, he has gotten into his head--de'il hae't mair: but sure they're a' full o't--a' o' the same graft, an' a bad one I fear it is." "Well, I believe so, Malcomson, I believe so. However, if the unfortunate fool is clever, give him good wages." "Saul, your honor, I'll do him justice; only I think that, anent that penance he speaks o', the hail Papish population, bad as we think them, are suffering penance eneuch, one way or tither. It disna' beseem a Protestant--that is, a prelatic Government--to persecute ony portion o' Christian people on, account o' their religion. We have felt and kenned that in Scotland, sairly. I'm no freend to persecution, in ony shape. But, as to this chiel, I ken naething aboot him, but that he is a gude buttanist. Hout, your honor, to be sure I'll gi'e him a fair wage for his skeel and labor." Malcomson, who was what we have often met, a pedant gardener, saw, however, that the squire's mind was disturbed. In the short conversation which they had, he spoke abruptly, and with a flushed countenance; but he was too shrewd to ask him why he seemed so. It was not, he knew, his business to do so; and as the squire left the garden, to pass into the house, he looked after him, and exclaimed to himself, "my certie, there's a bee in that man's bonnet." On going to the drawing-room, the squire found Mr. Brown there, and Helen in tears. "How!" he exclaimed, "what is this? Helen crying! Why, what's the matter, my child? Brown, have you been scolding her, or reading her a homily to teach her repentance. Confound me, but I know it would teach her patience, at all events. What is the matter?" "My dear Miss Folliard," said the clergyman, "if you will have the goodness to withdraw, I will explain this shocking business to your father." "Shocking business! Why, in God's name, Brown, what has happened? And why is my daughter in tears, I ask again?" Helen now left the drawing-rooom, and Mr. Brown replied: "Sir, a circumstance which, for baseness and diabolical iniquity, is unparalleled in civilized society. I could not pollute your daughter's ears by reciting it in her presence, and besides she is already aware of it." "Ay, but what is it? Confound you, don't keep me on tenter hooks." "I shall not do so long, my dear friend. Who do you imagine your daughter's maid--I mean that female attendant upon your pure-minded and virtuous child--is?" "Faith, go ask Sir Robert Whitecraft. It was he who recommended her; for, on hearing that the maid she had, Ellen Connor, was a Papist, he said he felt uneasy lest she might prevail on my daughter to turn Catholic, and marry Reilly." "But do you not know who the young woman that is about your daughter's person is? You are, however, a father who loves your child, and I need not ask such a question. Then, sir, I will tell you who she is. Sir, she is one of Sir Robert Whitecraft's cast-off mistresses--a profligate wanton, who has had a child by him." The fiery old squire had been walking to and fro the room, in a state of considerable agitation before--his mind already charged with the same intelligence, as he had heard it from the gardener (Reilly). He now threw himself into a chair, and' putting his hands before his face, muttered out between his fingers--"D--n seize the villain! It is true, then. Well, never mind, I'll demand satisfaction for this insult; I am not too old to pull a trigger, or give a thrust yet; but then the cowardly hypocrite won't fight. When he has a set of military at his back, and a parcel of unarmed peasants before him, or an unfortunate priest or two, why, he's a dare devil--Hector was nothing to him; no, confound me, nor mad Tom Simpson, that wears a sword on each side, and a double case of pistols, to frighten the bailiffs. The scuundrel of hell!--to impose on me, and insult my child!" "Mr. Folliard," observed the clergyman calmly, "I can indeed scarcely blame your indignation; it is natural; but, at the same time, it is useless and unavailable. Be cool, and restrain your temper. Of course, you could not think of bestowing your daughter, in marriage, upon this man." "I tell you what, Brown--I tell you what, my dear friend---let the devil, Satan, Beelzebub, or whatever you call him from the pulpit--I say, let him come here any time he pleases, in his holiday hoofs and horns, tail and all, and he shall have her sooner than Whitecraft." Mr. Brown could not help smiling, whilst he said: "Of course, you will instantly dismiss this abandoned creature." He started up and exclaimed, "Cog's 'ounds, what am I about?" He instantly rang the bell, and a footman attended. "John, desire that wench Herbert to come here." "Do you mean Miss Herbert, sir?" "I do--Miss Herbert--egad, you've hit it; be quick, sirra." John bowed and withdrew, and in a few minutes Miss Herbert entered. "Miss Herbert," said the squire, "leave this house as fast as the devil can drive you; and he has driven you to some purpose before now; ay, and, I dare say, will again. I say, then, as fast as he can drive you, pack up your luggage, and begone about your business. Ill just give you ten minutes to disappear." "What's all this about, master?" "Master!--why, curse your brazen impudence, how dare you call me master? Begone, you jade of perdition." "No more a jade of perdition, sir, than you are; nor I shan't begone till I gets a quarter's wages--I tell you that." "You shall get whatever's coming to you; not another penny. The house-steward will pay you--begone, I say!" "No, sir, I shan't begone till I gets a, quarter's salary in full. You broke your agreement with me, wich is wat no man as is a gentleman would do; and you are puttin' me away, too, without no cause." "Cause, you vagabond! you'll find the cause squalling, I suppose, in Mary Mahon's cottage, somewhere near Sir Robert Whitecraft's; and when you see him, tell him I have a crow to pluck with him. Off, I say." "Oh, I suppose you mean the love-child I had by him--ha, ha! is that all? But I never had a hankerin' after a rebel and a Papist, which is far worser; and I now tell you you're no gentleman, you nasty old Hirish squire. You brought me here, and Sir Robert sent me here, to watch your daughter. Now, what kind of a young lady must she be as requires watching? I was never watched; because as how I was well conducted, and nothing could ever be laid to my charge but a love-child." "By the great Boyne," he exclaimed, running to the window and throwing up the sash--"yes, by the great Boyne, there is Tom Steeple, and if he doesn't bring you and the pump acquainted, I'm rather mistaken. Here, Tom, I have a job for you. Do you wish to earn a bully dinner, my boy?" Miss Herbert, on hearing Tom's name mentioned, disappeared like lightning, and set about packing her things immediately. The steward, by his master's desire, paid her exactly what was due to her, which she received without making a single observation. In truth, she entertained such a terror of Tom Steeple, who had been pointed out to her as a wild Irishman, not long caught in the mountains, that she stole out by the back way, and came, by making a circuit, out upon the road that led to Sir Robert Whitecraft's house, which she passed without entering, but went directly to Mary Malion's, who had provided a nurse for her illegitimate child in the neighborhood. She had not been there long when she sent her trusty friend, Mary, to acquaint Sir Robert with what had happened. He was from home, engaged in an expedition of which we feel called upon to give some account to the reader. At this period, when the persecution ran high against the Catholics, but with peculiar bitterness against their priesthood, it is but justice to a great number of the Protestant magistracy and gentry--nay, and many of the nobility besides--to state that their conduct was both liberal and generous to the unfortunate victims of those cruel laws. It is a well known fact that many Protestant justices of the peace were imprisoned for refusing to execute such oppressive edicts as had gone abroad through the country. Many of them resigned their commissions, and many more were deprived of them. Amongst the latter were several liberal noblemen--Protestants--who had sufficient courage to denounce the spirit in which the country was governed and depopulated at the same time. One of the latter--a nobleman of the highest rank and acquirements, and of the most amiable disposition, a warm friend to civil freedom, and a firm antagonist to persecution and oppression of every hue--this nobleman, we say, married a French lady of rank and fortune, who was a Catholic, and with whom he lived in the tenderest love, and the utmost domestic felicity. The lady being a Catholic, as we said, brought over with her, from France, a learned, pious, and venerable ecclesiastic, as her domestic chaplain and confessor. This man had been professor of divinity for several years in the college of Louvain; but having lost his health, he accepted a small living near the chateau of ----, the residence of Marquis De------, in whose establishment he was domesticated as chaplain. In short, he accompanied Lord ------ and his lady to Ireland, where he acted in the same capacity, but so far only as the lady was concerned; for, as we have already said, her husband, though a liberal man, was a firm but not a bigoted Protestant. This harmless old man, as was very natural, kept up a correspondence with several Irish and French clergymen, his friends, who, as he had done, held professorships in the same college. Many of the Irish clergymen, knowing the dearth of religious instruction which, in consequence of the severe state of the laws, then existed in Ireland, were naturally anxious to know the condition of the country, and whether or not any relaxation in their severity had taken place, with a hope that they might be able with safety to return to the mission here, and bestow spiritual aid and consolation to the suffering and necessarily neglected folds of their own persuasion. On this harmless and pious old man the eye of Hennessy rested. In point of fact he set him for Sir Robert Whitecraft, to whom he represented him as a spy from France, and an active agent of the Catholic priesthood, both here and on the Continent; in fact, an incendiary, who, feeling himself sheltered by the protection of the nobleman in question and his countess, was looked upon as a safe man with whom to hold correspondence. The Abbe, as they termed him, was in the! habit, by his lordship's desire, and that of his lady, of attending the Catholic sick of his large estates, administering to them religious instruction, and the ordinance of their Church, at a time when they could obtain them from no other source. He also acted as their almoner, and distributed relief to the sick, the poor, and the distressed, and thus passed his pious, harmless, and inoffensive, but useful life. Now all these circumstances were noted by Hennessy, who had been on the lookout, to make a present of this good old man to his new patron, Sir Robert. At length having discovered--by; what means it is impossible to conjecture--that the Abbe was to go on the day in question to relieve a poor sick family, at about a distance of two miles from Castle ------, the intelligence was communicated by Hennessy to Sir Robert, who immediately set out for the place, attended by a party of his myrmidons, conducted to it by the Red Rapparee, who, as we have said, was now one of Whitecraft's band. There is often a stupid infatuation in villany which amounts to what they call in Scotland fey--that is, when a man goes on doggedly to commit some act of wickedness, or rush upon some impracticable enterprise, the danger and folly of which must be evident to every person but himself, and that it will end in the loss of his life. Sir Robert, however, had run a long and prosperous career of persecution--a career by which he enriched himself by the spoils he had torn, and the property he had wrested from his victims, generally under the sanction of Government, but very frequently under no other sanction than his own. At all events the party, consisting of about thirty men, remained in a deep and narrow lane, surrounded by high whitethorn hedges, which prevented the horsemen--for they were all dragoons--from being noticed by the country people. Alas, for the poor Abbe! they had not remained there more than twenty minutes when he was seen approaching them, reading his breviary as he came along. They did not move, however, nor seem to notice him, until he had got into the midst of them, when they formed a circle round him, and the loud voice of Whitecraft commanded him to stand. The poor old priest closed his breviary, and looked around him; but he felt no alarm, because he was conscious of no offence, and imagined himself safe under the protection of a distinguished Protestant nobleman. "Gentlemen," said he, calmly and meekly, but without fear, "what is the cause of this conduct towards an inoffensive old man? It is true I am a Catholic priest, but I am under the protection of the Marquis of------. He is a Protestant nobleman, and I am sure the very mention of his name will satisfy you, that I cannot be the object either of your suspicion or your enmity." "But, my dear sir," replied Sir Robert, "the nobleman you mention is a suspected man himself, and I have reported him as such to the Government. He is married to a Popish wife, and you are a seminary priest and harbored by her and her husband." "But what is your object in stopping and surrounding me," asked the priest, "as if I were some public delinquent who had violated the laws? Allow me, sir, to pass, and prevent me at your peril; and permit me, before I proceed, to ask your name?" and the old man's eyes flashed with an indignant sense of the treatment he was receiving. "Did you ever hear of Sir Robert Whitecraft?" "The priest-hunter, the persecutor, the robber, the murderer? I did, with disgust, with horror, with execration. If you are he, I say to you that I am, as you see, an old man, and a priest, and have but one life; take it, you will anticipate my death only by a short period; but I look by the light of an innocent conscience into the future, and I now tell you that a woful and a terrible retribution is hanging over your head." "In the meantime," said Sir Robert, very calmly, as he dismounted from his horse, which he desired one of the men to hold. "I have a warrant from Government to arrest you, and send you back again to your own country without delay. You are here as a spy, an incendiary, and must go on your travels forthwith. In this, I am acting as your friend and protector, and so is Government, who do not wish to be severe upon you, as you are not a natural subject. See sir, here is another warrant for your arrest and imprisonment. The fact is, it was left to my own discretion, either to imprison you, or send you out of the country. Now, sir, from a principle of lenity, I am determined on the latter course." "But," replied the priest, after casting his eye over both documents, "as I am conscious of no offence, either against your laws or your Government, I decline to fly like a criminal, and I will not; put me in prison, if you wish, but I certainly shall not criminate myself, knowing as I do that I am innocent. In the meantime, I request that you will accompany me to the castle of my patron, that I may acquaint him with the charges against me, and the cause of my being forced to leave his family for a time." "No, sir," replied Whitecraft, "I cannot do so, unless I betray the trust which Government reposes in me. I cannot permit you to hold any intercourse whatever with your patron, as you call him, who is justly suspected of being a Papist at heart. Sir, you have been going abroad through the country, under pretence of administering consolation to the sick, and bestowing alms upon the poor; but the fact is, you have been stirring them up to sedition, if not to open rebellion. You must, therefore, come along with us, this instant. You proceed with us to Sligo, from whence we shall ship you off in a vessel bound for France, which vessel is commanded by a friend of mine, who will treat you kindly, for my sake. What shall we do for a horse for him?" he asked, looking at his men for information on that point. "That, your honor,we'll provide in a crack," replied the Red Rapparee, looking up the road; "here comes Sterling, the gauger, very well mounted, and, by all the stills he ever seized, he must walk home upon shank's mare, if it was only to give him exercise and improve his appetite." We need not detail this open robbery on the king's officer, and on the king's highway besides. It is enough to say that the Rapparee, confident of protection and impunity, with the connivance, although not by the express orders of the baronet, deprived the man of his horse, and, in a few minutes, the poor old priest was placed upon the saddle, and the whole cavalcade proceeded on their way to Sligo, the priest in the centre of them. Fortunately for Sir Robert's project, they reached the quay just as the vessel alluded to was about to sail; and as there was, at that period, no novelty in seeing a priest shipped out of the country, the loungers about the place, whatever they might have thought in their hearts, seemed to take no particular notice of the transaction. "Your honor," said the Red Rapparee, approaching and giving a military salute to his patron, "will you allow me to remain in town for an hour or two? I have a scheme in my head that may come to something. I will tell your honor what it is when I get home." "Very well, O'Donnel," replied Sir Robert; "but I'd advise you not to ride late, if you can avoid it. You know that every man in your uniform is a mark for the vindictive resentment of these Popish rebels." "Ah! maybe I don't know that, your honor; but you may take my word for it that I will lose little time." He then rode down a by-street, very coolly, taking the gauger's horse along with him. The reader may remember the fable of the cat that had been transformed into a lady, and the unfortunate mouse. The Rapparee, whose original propensities were strong as ever, could not, for the soul of him, resist the temptation of selling the horse and pocketing the amount. He did so, and very deliberately proceeded home to his barracks, but took care to avoid any private communication with his patron for some days, lest he might question him as to what he had done with the animal. In the meantime, this monstrous outrage upon an unoffending priest, who was a natural subject of France, perpetrated, as it was, in the open face of day, and witnessed by so many, could not, as the reader may expect, be long concealed. It soon reached the ears of the Marquis of ------and his lady, who were deeply distressed at the disappearance of their aged and revered friend. The Marquis, on satisfying himself of the truth of the report, did not, as might have been expected, wait upon Sir Robert Whitecraft; but without loss of time set sail for London, to wait upon the French Ambassador, to whom he detailed the whole circumstances of the outrage. And here we shall not further proceed with an account of those circumstances, as they will necessarily intermingle with that portion of the narrative which is to follow. _ |
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