Chapter XIII: Part VI (2)

We must now beg our readers to accompany us to a scene of a different description from any we have yet drawn. The night of a November day had set in, or rather had advanced so far as nine o'clock, and towards the angle of a small three-cornered field, called by a peculiar coincidence of name, Oona's Handkerchief, in consequence of an old legend connected with it, might be seen moving a number of straggling figures, sometimes in groups of fours and fives; sometimes in twos or threes as the case might be, and not unfrequently did a single straggler advance, and, after a few private words, either join the others or proceed alone to a house situated in the angular corner of the field to which we allude. As the district was a remote one, and the night rather dark, several shots might be heard as they proceeded, and several flashes in the pan seen from the rusty arms of those who were probably anxious to pull a trigger for the first time. The country, at the period we write of, be it observed, was in a comparative state of tranquility, and no such thing as a police corps had been heard of or known in the neighborhood.

At the lower end of a long, level kind of moor called the Black Park, two figures approached a* kind of gate or pass that opened into it. One of them stood until the other advanced, and, in a significant tone, asked who comes there?

“A friend to the guard,” was the reply.

“Good morrow,” said the other.

“Good morrow mornin' to you.”

“What age are you in?”

“In the end of the Fifth.”

“All right; come on, boy; the true blood's in you, whoever you are.”

“An' is it possible you don't know me, Dandy?”

“Faix, it is; I forgot my spectacles tonight. Who the dickins are you at all?”

“I suppose you purtind to forget Ned M'Cormick?”

“Is it Nogher's son?”

“The divil a other; an', Dandy Duffy, how are you, man alive?”

“Why, you see, Ned, I've been so long out of the counthry, an' I'm now so short a time back, that, upon my sowl, I forget a great many of my ould acquaintances, especially them that wor only slips when I wint acrass. Faith, I'm purty well considherin, Ned, I thank you.”

“Bad luck to them that sint you acrass, Dandy; not but that you got off purty well on the whole, by all accounts. They say only that Rousin Redhead swore like a man you'd 'a' got a touch of the Shaggy Shoe.”

“To the divil wid it all now, Ned; let us have no more about it; I don't for my own part like to think of it. Have you any notion of what we're called upon for to--night?”

“Divil the laste; but I believe, Dandy, that Bartle's not the white-headed boy wid you no more nor wid some more of us.”

“Him! a double-distilled villain. Faith, there wor never good that had the white liver; an' he has it to the backbone. My brother Lachlin, that's now dead, God rest him, often tould me about the way he tricked him and Barney Bradly when they wor greenhorns about nineteen or twenty. He got them to join him in stealin' a sheep for their Christmas dinner, he said; so they all three stole it; an' the blaggard skinned and cut it up, sendin' my poor boacun of a brother home to hide the skin in the straw in our barn, and poor Barney, wid only the head an' trotters, to hide them in his father's tow-house. Very good; in a day or two the neighbors wor all called upon to clear themselves upon the holy Evangelisp; and the two first that he egg'd an' to do it was my brother an' Barney. Of coorse he switched the primmer himself that he was innocent; but whin it was all over some one sint Jarmy Campel, that lost the sheep, to the very spot where they hid the fleece an' trot--ters. Jarmy didn't wish to say much about it; so he tould them if they'd fairly acknowledge it an' pay him betune them for the sheep, he'd dhrop it. My father an' Andy Bradly did so, an' there it ended; but purshue the morsel of mutton ever they tasted in the mane time. As for Bartle, he managed the thing so well that at the time they never suspected him, although divil a other could betray them, for he was the only one knew it; an' he had the aiten o' the mutton, too, the blaggard! Faith, Ned, I know him well.”

“He has conthrived to get a strong back o' the boys, anyhow.”

“He has, an' 'tis that, and bekase he's a good hand to be undher for my revinge on Blennerhasset, that made me join him.”

“I dunna what could make him refuse to let Alick Nulty join him?”

“Is it my cousin from Annaloghan? an' did he?”

“Divil a lie in it; it's as thrue as you're standin' there; but do you know what is suspected?”

“No.”

“Why, that he has an eye on Bodagh Buie's daughter. Alick towld me that, for a long time afther Connor O'Donovan was thransported, the father an' son wor afeard of him. He hard it from his sister Biddy, an' it appears that the Bodagh's daughter tould her family that he used to stare her out of countenance at mass, an' several times struv to put the furraun on her in hopes to get acquainted.”

“He would do it; an' my hand to you, if he undhertakes it he'll not fail; an' I'll tell you another thing, if he suspected that I knew anything about the thraitherous thrick he put on my poor brother, the divil a toe he'd let me join him; but you see I--was only a mere gorsoon, a child I may say at the time.

“At all events let us keep an eye on him; an' in regard to Connor O'Donovan's business, let him not be too sure that it's over wid him yet. At any rate, by dad, my father has slipped out a name upon him an' us that will do him no good. The other boys now call us the Stags of Lisdhu, that bein' the place where his father lived, an' the nickname you see rises out of his thrachery to poor Connor O'Donovan.”

“Did he ever give any hint himself about carryin' away the Bodagh's pretty daughter?”

“Is it him'? Oh, oh! catch him at it; he's a damn sight too close to do any sich thing.”

After some further conversation upon that and other topics, they arrived at the place of appointment, which was a hedge school-house; one of those where the master, generally an unmarried man, merely wields his sceptre during school-hours, leaving it open and uninhabited for the rest of the twenty-four.

The appearance of those who were here assembled was indeed singularly striking. A large fire of the unconsumed peat brought by the scholars on that morning, was kindled in the middle of the floor--it's usual site. Around, upon stones, hobs, bosses, and seats of various descriptions, sat the “boys”--some smoking and others drinking; for upon nights of this kind, a shebeen-housekeeper, uniformly a member of such societies, generally attends for the sale of his liquor, if he cannot succeed in prevailing on them to hold their meetings in his own house--a circumstance which for many reasons may not be in every case advisable. As they had not all yet assembled, nor the business of the night commenced, they were, of course, divided into several groups and engaged in various amusements. In the lower end of the house was a knot, busy at the game of “spoiled five,” their ludicrous table being the crown of a hat, placed upon the floor in the centre. These all sat upon the ground, their legs stretched out, their torch-bearer holding a lit bunch of fir splinters, stuck for convenience sake into the muzzle of a horse-pistol. In the upper end, again, sat another clique, listening to a man who was reading a treasonable ballad. Such of them as could themselves read stretched over their necks in eagerness to peruse it along with him, and such as could not--indeed, the greater number--gave force to its principles by very significant gestures; some being those of melody, and others those of murder; that is to say, part of them were attempting to hum a tune in a low voice, suitable to the words, whilst others more ferocious brandished their weapons, as if those against whom the spirit of the ballad was directed had been then within the reach of their savage passions. Beside the fire, and near the middle of the house, sat a man, who, by his black stock and military appearance, together with a scar over his brow that gave him a most repulsive look, was evidently a pensioner or old soldier. This person was engaged in examining some rusty fire-arms that had been submitted to his inspection. His self-importance was amusing, as was also the deferential aspect of those who, with arms in their hands, hammering flints or turning screws, awaited patiently their turn for his opinion of their efficiency. But perhaps the most striking group of all was that in which a thick-necked, bull-headed young fellow, with blood-colored hair, a son of Rousin Redhead's--who, by the way, was himself present--and another beetle-browed slip were engaged in drawing for a wager, upon one of the school-boy's slates, the figure of a coffin and cross-bones. A hardened-looking old sinner, with murder legible in his face, held the few half-pence which they wagered in his open hand, whilst in the other he clutched a pole, surmounted by a bent bayonet that had evidently seen service. The last group worthy of remark was composed of a few persons who were writing threatening notices upon a leaf torn out of a school-boy's copy, which was laid upon what they formerly termed a copy-board, of plain deal, kept upon the knees, as a substitute for desks, while the boys were writing. This mode of amusement was called waiting for the Article-bearer, or the Captain, for such was Bartle Flanagan, who now entered the house, and saluted all present with great cordiality.

“Begad, boys,” he said, “our four guards widout is worth any money. I had to pass the sign-word afore 'I could pass myself, and that's the way it ought to be. But, boys, before we go further, an' for fraid of thraitors, I must call the rowl. You'll stand in a row roun' the walls, an' thin we can make sure that there's no spies among us.”

He then called out a roll of those who were members of his lodge and, having ascertained that all was right, he proceeded immediately to business.

“Rousin Redhead, what's the raisin you didn't take the arms from Captain St. Ledger's stewart? Sixteen men armed was enough to do it, an' yees failed.”

“Ay, an' if you had been wid us, and sixteen more to the back o' that, you'd failed too. Begarra, captain dear, it seems that good people is scarce. Look at Mickey Mulvather there, you see his head tied up; but aldo he can play cards well enough, be me sowl, he's short of wan ear any how, an' if you could meet wan o' the same Stewart's bullets, goin' abroad at night like ourselves for its divarsion, it might tell how he lost it. Bartle, I tell you a number of us isn't satisfied wid you. You sends us out to meet danger, an' you won't come yourself.”

“Don't you know, Rouser, that I always do go whenever I can? But I'm caged now; faix I don't sleep in a barn, and can't budge as I used to do.”

“An' who's tyin' you to your place, thin?”

“Rouser,” replied Bartle, “I wish I had a thousand like you, not but I have fine fellows. Boys, the thruth is this, you must all meet here to-morrow night, for the short an' long of it is, that I'm goin' to run away wid a wife.”

“Well,” replied Redhead, “sure you can do that widout our assistance, if she's willin' to come.”

“Willin'! why,” replied Bartle, “it's by her own appointment we're goin'.”

“An' if it is, then,” said the Rouser, who, in truth, was the leader of the suspicious and disaffected party in Flanagan's lodge, “what the blazes use have you for us?”

“Rouser Redhead,” said Bartle, casting a suspicious and malignant glance at him, “might I take the liberty of axin' what you mane by spakin' of me in that disparagin' manner? Do you renumber your oath? or do you forget that you're bound by it to meet at twelve hours' notice, or less, whinever you're called upon? Dar Chriestha! man, if I hear another word of the kind out of your lips, down you go on the black list. Boys,” he proceeded, with a wheedling look of good-humor to the rest, “we'll have neither Spies nor Stags here, come or go what may.”

“Stags!” replied Rouser Redhead, whose face had already become scarlet with indignation. “Stags, you say, Bartle Flanagan! Arrah, boys, I wondher where is poor Connor O'Donovan by this time?”

“I suppose bushin' it afore now,” said our friend of the preceding part of the night. “I bushed it myself for a year and a half, but be Japurs I got sick of it. But any how, Bartle, you oughn't to spake of Stags, for although Connor refused to join us, damn your blood, you had no right to go to inform upon him. Sure, only for the intherest that was made for him, you'd have his blood on your sowl.”

“An' if he had itself,” observed one of Flanagan's friends, “'twould signify very little. The Bodagh desarved what he got, and more if he had got it. What right has he, one of our own purswadjion as he is to hould out against us the way he does? Sure he's as rich as a Sassenach, an' may hell resave the farden he'll subscribe towards our gettin' arms or ammunition, or towards defindin' us when we're brought to thrial. So hell's delight wid the dirty Bodagh, says myself for wan.”

“An' is that by way of defince of Captain Bartle Flanagan?” inquired Rouser Redhead, indignantly. “An' so our worthy captain sint the man across that punished our inimy, even accordian to your own provin', an' that by staggin' aginst him. Of coorse, had the miser's son been one of huz, Bartle's brains would be scattered to the four quarthers of heaven long agone.”

“An' how did I know but he'd stag aginst me?” said Bartle, very calmly.

“Damn well you knew he would not,” observed Ned M'Cormick, now encouraged by the bold and decided manner of Rouser Redhead. “Before ever you went into Fardorougha's sarvice you sed to more than one that you'd make him sup sorrow for his harshness to your father and family.”

“An' didn't he desarve it, Ned? Didn't he ruin us?”

“He might desarve it, an' I suppose he did; but what right had you to punish the innocent for the guilty? You knew very well that both his son and his wife always set their faces against his doin's.'”

“Boys,” said Flanagan, “I don't understand this, and I tell you more I won't bear it. This night let any of you that doesn't like to be undher me say so. Rouser Redhead, you'll never meet in a Ribbon Lodge agin. You're scratched out of wan book, but by way of comfort you're down in another”

“What other, Bartle?”

“The black list. An' now I have nothin' more to say except that if there's anything on your mind that wants absolution, look to it.”

We must now pause for a moment to observe upon that which we suppose the sagacity of the reader has already discovered--that is, the connection between what has occurred in Flanagan's lodge, and the last dialogue which took place between Nogher and Connor O'Donovan. It is evident that Nogher had spirits at work for the purpose both of watching and contravening all Flanagan's plans, and, if possible, of drawing him into some position which might justify the “few friends,” as he termed them, first in disgracing him, and afterwards of settling their account ultimately with a man whom they wished to blacken, as dangerous to the society of which they were members. The curse, however, of these secret confederacies, and indeed of ribbonism in general, is, that the savage principle of personal vengeance is transferred from the nocturnal assault, or the midday assassination, which may be directed against religious or political enemies, to the private bickerings and petty jealousies that must necessarily occur in a combination of ignorant and bigoted men, whose passions are guided by no principle but one of practical cruelty. This explains, as we have just put it, and justly put it, the incredible number of murders which are committed in this unhappy country, under the name of way-layings and midnight attacks, where the offence that caused them cannot be traced by society at large, although it is an incontrovertible fact, that to all those who are connected with ribbonism, in its varied phases, it often happens that the projection of such murders is known for weeks before they are perpetrated. The wretched assassin who murders a man that has never offended him personally, and who suffers himself to become the instrument of executing the hatred which originates from a principle of general enmity again a class, will not be likely, once his hands are stained with blood, to spare any one who may, by direct personal injury, incur his resentment. Every such offence, where secret societies are concerned, is made a matter of personal feeling and trial of strength between factions, and of course a similar spirit is superinduced among persons of the same creed and principles to that which actuates them against those who differ from them in politics and religion. It is true that the occurrence of murders of this character has been referred to as a proof that secret societies are not founded or conducted upon a spirit of religious rancor; but such an assertion is, in some cases, the result of gross ignorance, and, in many more, of far grosser dishonesty. Their murdering each other is not at all a proof of any such thing, but it, is a proof, as we have said, that their habit of taking away human life, and shedding human blood upon slight grounds or political feelings, follows them from their conventional principles to their private resentments, and is, therefore, such a consequence as might naturally be expected to result from a combination of men who, in one sense, consider murder no crime. Thus does this secret tyranny fall back upon society, as well as upon those who are concerned in it, as a double curse; and, indeed, we believe that even the greater number of these unhappy wretches whom it keeps within its toils, would be glad if the principle were rooted out of the country forever.

“An' so you're goin' to put my father down on the black list,” said the beetle-browed son of the Rouser. “Very well, Bartle, do so; but do you see that?” he added, pointing to the sign of the coffin and the cross-bones, which he had previously drawn upon the slate; “dhav a sphirit Neev, if you do, you'll waken some mornin' in a warmer counthry than Ireland.”

“Very well,” said Bartle, quietly, but evidently shrinking from a threat nearly as fearful, and far more daring than his own. “You know I have nothin' to do except my duty. Yez are goin' aginst the cause, an' I must report yez; afther whatever happens, won't come from me, nor from any one here. It is from thim that's in higher quarters you'll get your doom, an' not from me, or, as I said afore, from any one here. Mark that; but indeed you know it as well as I do, an' I believe, Rouser, a good deal bether.”

Flanagan's argument, to men who understood its dreadful import, was one before which almost every description of personal courage must quail. Persons were then present, Rouser Redhead among the rest, who had been sent upon some of those midnight missions, which contumacy against the system, when operating in its cruelty, had dictated. Persons of humane disposition, declining to act on these sanguinary occasions, are generally the first to be sacrificed, for individual life is nothing when obstructing the propagation of general principle.

This truth, coming from Flanagan's lips, they themselves, some of whom had executed its spirit, knew but too well. The difference, however, between their apprehension, so far as they were individually concerned, was not much; Flanagan had the person to fear, and his opponents the principle.

Redhead, however, who knew that whatever he had executed upon delinquents like himself, might also upon himself be visited in his turn, saw that his safest plan for the present was to submit; for indeed the meshes of the White-boys' system leave no man's life safe, if he express hostile opinions to it.

“Bartle,” said he, “you know I'm no coward; an' I grant that you've a long head at plannin' anything you set about. I don't see, in the mane time, why, afther all, we should quarrel. You know me, Bartle; an' if anything happens me, it won't be for nothin. I say no more; but I say still that you throw the danger upon uz, and don't--”

“Rouser Redhead,” said Bartle, “give me jour hand. I say now, what I didn't wish to say to-night afore, by Japurs, you're worth five men; an' I'll tell you all, boys, you must meet the Rouser here to-morrow night, an' we'll have a dhrink at my cost; an', boys--Rouser, hear me--you all know your oaths; we'll do something to-morrow night--an' I say again, Rouser, I'll be wid yez an' among yez; an' to prove my opinion of the Rouser, I'll allow him to head us.”

“An', by the cross o' Moses, I'll do it in style,” rejoined the hot-headed but unthinking fellow, who did not see that the adroit captain was placing him in the post of danger. “I don't care a damn what it is--we'll meet here to-morrow night, boys, an' I'll show you that I can lead as well as folly.

“Whatever happens,” said Bartle, “we oughtn't to have any words or bickerin's among ourselves at any rate. I undherstand that two among yez sthruck one another. Sure yez know that there's not a blow ye giv to a brother but's a perjury--an' there's no use in that, barin an' to help forid the thruth. I'll say no more about it now; but I hope there'll never be another blow given among yez. Now, get a hat, some o' yez, till we draw cuts for six that I want to beat Tom Lynchagan, of Lisdhu; he's worken for St. Ledger, afther gettin' two notices. He's a quiet, civil man, no doubt; but that's not the thing. Obadience, or where's the use of our meetin's at all? Give him a good sound batin', but no further--break no bones.”

He then marked slips of paper, equal in number to those who were present, with the numbers 1, 2, 3, &c, to correspond, after which he determined that the three first numbers and the three last should go--all of which was agreed to without remonstrance, or any apparent show of reluctance whatever. “Now, boys,” he continued, “don't forget to attend to-morrow night; an' I say to every man of you, as Darby Spaight said to the divil, when he promised to join the rebellion, _'phe dha phecka laght,'_ (bring your pike with you,) bring the weapon.”

“An who's the purty girl that's goin' to wet you, Captain Bartle?” inquired Dandy Duffy.

“The purtiest girl in this parish, anyhow,” replied Flanagan, unawares. The words, however, were scarcely out of his lips, when he felt that he had been indiscreet. He immediately added--“that is, if she is of this parish; but I didn't say she is. Maybe We'll have to thravel a bit to find her out, but come what come may, don't neglect to be all here about half-past nine o'clock, wid your arms an' ammunition.”

Duffy, who had sat beside Ned M'Cormiek during the night, gave him a significant look, which the other, who had, in truth, joined himself to Flanagan's lodge only to watch his movements, as significantly returned.

When the men deputed to beat Lynchaghan had blackened their faces, the lodge dispersed for the night, Dandy Duffy and Ned M'Cormick taking their way home together, in order to consider of matters, with which the reader, in due time, shall be made acquainted.