My Lords of Strogue. Volume 2 of 3. Wingfield Lewis

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СКАЧАТЬ are moments in most lives when so sharp a pang shoots through our hearts, that we feel there is nothing left but to seek a remote covert and wait for death. Such strokes age us suddenly and surely. To few is it given to become old by slow and imperceptible steps. We remain in the solitude of our covert without speech; almost without feeling. Presently we perceive that we were mistaken about death (for the White Pilgrim comes not for the bidding); and emerge into the world again, apparently the same as before-young outwardly, and smooth-browed, but really altogether different. Poets have sung much of broken hearts, at which cynics have scoffed, time out of mind. Hearts have broken under a sudden mental shock, but seldom. They are more usually turned inside out and changed.

      Doreen had just received such a shock as calls imperatively for solitude. Then the snake in the grass-the Judas-was Terence-her own cousin! Rapidly she walked through the rosary, and out by the wooden gate into the open-away-inland across the fields, for miles.

      She was surprised to find that she felt more grieved than was at all necessary, in that the snake was Terence. Only a few minutes ago she had been praying heaven to unmask the villain, with the laudable intention of pointing him out to the reprobation and contempt of the society. But Terence! The open-visaged, careless youth who exasperated her, as a woman, chiefly because he was prodigal of promise which was not likely to be fulfilled. He had been so importunate in blundering puppy fashion (really almost as ridiculous as Cassidy), heaving absurd sighs, carrying on his intermittent wooing in so ludicrously naïve a manner, as to provoke scorn in so high-spirited a mistress. Looking within herself, she discovered that behind her light estimate of his amatory ravings there was a genuine liking for the lad. Could she have been entirely mistaken in him? Could her judgment have been utterly at fault when she decided, that if feebly endowed by nature, he was at least honest and true? For the more she considered the subject as she trudged across country, the more she felt that it would be indeed grievous if that fine open face, which had looked so noble in its indignation on account of the martyr Orr, should turn out to be only a grinning mask.

      Terence the Judas-the betrayer of the innocent-the snarer of the unwary! Terence, her cousin, whose jocund visage she admitted to be rather dear to her. If he proved so base a scoundrel, in whom then might an earnest soul place trust? Was his perfidy a fall, or original sin? She remembered how she had read wise thoughts in books, wherein sages had explained that our nature is unstable, liable to trip-that none can resist temptation if clothed in the fittest garb. Is not the prayer which should be oftenest on our lips, 'Lead us not, O God, into temptation?' Women are perverse, choosing always the left one, when they ought to take the right turning; and with the perversity of women Doreen chose at once to accept the most distasteful phase of the situation. She took it for granted that Terence was in the wrong, instead of more prudently suspending her judgment till his return from France.

      The feet of her cousin were cloven. He wore a tail and smelt of brimstone. She stood still beside a paling as she thought of him, and shook it in a rage with both her hands, while a vague feeling of uneasiness came over her in that she should care so much that Terence should prove the Judas. Yet was she not quite justified in her dismay? Was it not natural that her faith in truth and goodness should be thrown out of gear by such low calculating turpitude? Clutching the gnarled paling, the unhappy lady bowed her face on it and burst into sobs which shook her to the centre.

      Five hundred guineas! That was the sharpest of the many thongs which smote her. She had declined to look at the sordid motive-it was so very mean and vile. But now it clamoured with open palms at the gates of her brain, and shouted deafeningly. Vulgar money troubles are at the bottom of everything that's base! What a pity that there should be such a thing as money! Five hundred guineas! How small-how miserable a sum! He was always in debt, she knew: to such easy-going creatures as he always seemed to be, debt was a state of nature. But could he have sunk so low as this? Was he capable, for five hundred guineas, of suddenly assuming a noble love of motherland, which was a farce-of laying a gin for the feet of persons who had never injured him-nay, whom he reckoned among his dearest friends? For the wretched price of five hundred guineas, could he look her-his cousin, almost his sister-in the face, and endeavour to steal her heart, that he might stick it on a pole for the amusement of fellow-traitors? Traitor! Arch-traitor-wretch! Tears having come to her relief, Doreen sat on the grass and wept, and felt like the wounded beast within the covert.

      Piecing scraps together, with the key which my lady had furnished, many cloudy matters became clear. My lady was proud and prejudiced, but her pride revolted against treachery. If not, why had she suddenly warned her niece to see that her correspondence was not tampered with? Who should tamper with it? Not Jug, or Biddy, or Phil. They were children of the soil, who knew not treachery. How could my lady know of any tampering of theirs? No! It was against Terence-the son whom my lady loved not-whose unworthy proceedings filled her aristocratic soul with repugnance-that she had warned her niece. Lord Clare knew the very wording of Theobald's last letter-through whom? Through Terence, of course-for five hundred guineas-alas! alas!

      All of a sudden a new idea struck Doreen, and she sat up, her cheeks blanched and tear-stained. The traitor had worked well for the degrading pittance. He had succeeded in hoodwinking the society as well as herself. He was now at Brest, with every secret in his possession-every detail-every aspiration-cut and dried-in cold black and white-and she it was who had despatched him. The Emmetts, Russell, Bond, were doomed men. Their young lives were unconsciously sacrificed by her. There was no end to the blood for which she would be answerable. The cycle of her frenzied thoughts came back to the point at which she started. She had been trifling like some innocent child with burning brands which had scorched her. Not herself alone. Her life was her own, for better or for worse. When she should be called to appear before the throne to account for her deeds, she would be asked, 'Why broke you your father's heart for a chimera? why did you lead Emmett, Russell, Bond, by your wiles to the scaffold? Who were you to set yourself up as a teacher? To lure honest men, like a siren, to destruction? What could her faltering answer be? I meant well. I acted for the best. I was presumptuous. I am sorry… Can regret undo the injuries which are due to our presumption? No. The wretched Doreen was crushed by an overwhelming sense of her own littleness and failure. There was nothing for it but to kneel down and cry, 'I have sinned;' to clasp her sorrow and take it to the north, there to hold vigils of unfruitful repentance, whilst praying humbly to be released from earth. The wilds of Glas-aitch-é should be her covert. Into it she would creep like a stricken doe. If the White Pilgrim would obey her summons, with what gratitude she would cling to his filmy raiment! If he refused to hearken to her pleading-why then she must, kneeling on the stones, endure unto the end with such meekness as a vengeful heaven might vouchsafe to her.

      The wild paroxysm past, she got up and returned with trailing feet towards the Abbey. Her limbs were aching from contact with dank herbage: her brogues and stockings soiled with clinging mud. A drizzling veil was settling on the earth, which looked, as far as ken might reach, dun-toned and colourless. Raising dazed eyes, she beheld a slim figure moving with rapid strides, and recognised young Robert from afar.

      What could he be doing? Was he also crushed in spirit, as weary of the world as she; wandering in search of peace? or on one of his many missions of private charity?

      He had been to the Abbey in quest of her; was told by a garden-lad that she had passed through the wooden postern, and had tracked her wanderings from hut to hut.

      'They are going too far!' he said abruptly, with bent brows, as he turned to walk back with her. 'Already the squireens are abroad, imitating their fellows in the north. Dublin's in a ferment. It needs but the coming of the French to settle the affair at a blow. Every magistrate has received orders to raise twenty men to preserve the peace in place of the militia, should these be ordered to the coast. But they overreach themselves. Decent people are so furious at the tactics of Lord Clare, that even the militia are dying to turn against the Government. Cassidy says so, who should know, seeing that he keeps up a friendship with the Castle. I speak to-night at the Debating Club. Look at these notes,' he added, smiling. '"Recipe to make a Rebel! Take one loyal subject uninfluenced by pension; burn his house over his head; murder his wife and СКАЧАТЬ