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 THE GIFT OF 
 
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 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 ALEXANDER F MORRISON
 
 THE COLLECTED WRITINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 SAMUEL LOVER 
 
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 VOLUME I
 
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 The Collected Writings of Samuel Lover have been 
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 WME TROVE EI 
 
 VOLUME ONE
 
 T'he Collected IVritings of 
 SAMUEL £'0 r.E R 
 
 RORY O'MORE 
 
 A National Romance 
 
 /F/M a Biographical and Critical Introduction 
 ^^ JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE 
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 INTRODUCTION 
 
 SAMUEL LOVER was the oldest son of John 
 Lover, a Dublin stockbroker, and his wife, 
 Abigail, whose maiden name was Alaher. The pa- 
 ternal name would seem to be of English origin, 
 though no tradition exists to show whether it was 
 so or not. The custom which prevailed so long in 
 Ireland of compelling the natives to adopt English 
 surnames leaves the genealogy of the Lovers, in the 
 absence of anv family records, in a state of uncer- 
 tainty like that of thousands of other Irish families. 
 O We know only that the family were Protestant, and 
 5 thus safe from most of the annoyances and all of the 
 5 disabilities laid upon the large majority of theircountry- 
 men, at the troublous time when young Lover was 
 born, which was on the twentv-fourth of February, 
 
 1797- 
 
 It was the year before the outbreak known as the 
 Rebellion of '98. Even those of the dominant faith 
 and unquestioned loyaltv were not always safe from 
 the outrages perpetrated by a brutal soldier)- in the 
 hour of their insolence. One of Lover's earliest ex- 
 periences, which made a lasting impression on his 
 mind, is narrated by Bayle Bernard as follows : — 
 
 " Soldiers, in those days, were billeted on the citi- 
 
 432573
 
 vi Introduction 
 
 zens of Dublin, but the occupants of private houses 
 had the option of giving a trooper a shilling, in order 
 that he might get a bed elsewhere. On one occa- 
 sion, when Mr. Lover was absent at his office, a 
 soldier with a drummer-boy made his appearance at 
 his door, and on being tendered the two shillings, 
 refused to take them, and insisted on sleeping in the 
 house instead, coupling the demand with a remark 
 and look which were very offensive to Mrs. Lover. 
 Ordered to wait outside the dwelling while she sent 
 word to the ' Billet Office,' he boldly entered the hall 
 and tried to close the door, upon which Mrs. Lover 
 in her fright rushed to the steps, followed by her 
 child, where she was discovered by her husband, 
 when he at length returned from business, trembling, 
 pallid, and almost speechless. Enraged, of course, 
 at such an insult, he sprang into the house, when 
 the soldier attempted to draw his bayonet, but was 
 speedily knocked down and afterwards closed with 
 in a struggle, which lasted amidst the yells of Mas- 
 ter Samuel and the drummer-boy until an officer ar- 
 rived from the Billet Office to offer an apology and 
 remove the culprit." 
 
 It was the era in which " the Fine Old Irish Gentle- 
 man " flourished most luxuriantly ; the era of drinking, 
 duelling, and debts, celebrated in song and story. It 
 has been painted a hundred times in fiction. Shell 
 describes it in veracious prose, and Sir Jonah Bar- 
 rington in a happy blending of romance and truth 
 which he calls " Personal Sketches of His Own 
 Times." The riotous young members of the aris- 
 tocracy who had their counterparts in London also,
 
 Introduction vii 
 
 terrorised the peaceable town folk by running amok 
 at irregular intervals, with the ferocity and the sense 
 of humour of a drunken Kaffir. They called them- 
 selves by various titles, " Bucks," " Bloods," " Mo- 
 hawks," " Sweaters," " Chalkers," and other names 
 which we should supersede in these days with the 
 comprehensive synonym. Blackguards. They were 
 hard drinkers, and those who escaped death by the 
 sword or pistol generally achieved it by breaking 
 their necks in the steeple-chase, or by falling more 
 ingloriously in the lists of Bacchus. Of few of them 
 could it be said they died too soon. One wishes that 
 more of them had been beloved of other gods than 
 him of the wine-cup. 
 
 Such a society had no attractions for a youth of 
 gentle instincts whose tastes ran towards painting, 
 poetr)', music, and story-telling. Young Lover was 
 a delicate child physically, and his parents wisely sent 
 him, in his twelfth year, to spend a long vacation at 
 a farmhouse in the Wicklow Mountains. There, 
 in the health-giving free air, he made the acquaint- 
 ance of the best two friends that he could have 
 found. Nature in all her moods, and Man in his 
 best estate, that of the simple, honest tiller of the 
 soil. He loved them both forever after, and well 
 was his love returned. 
 
 In spite of Juliet, there is something in a name, 
 when name and nature go together, as thev did in 
 the case of Lover. Usually they do not. His name 
 meant what he was, and, because he was so, the 
 affection of all the world went out to him by prover- 
 bial prescription. He achieved a thing always dif-
 
 viii Introduction 
 
 iicuk, generally impossible : he wrote of a people, 
 of their virtues and their foibles, their manners and 
 customs, their likes and their dislikes ; and he did it 
 without awakening their indignation or wounding 
 their susceptibilities. For succeeding in that most 
 delicate task he had to thank the name and nature 
 which were his. He saw his people with sympa- 
 thetic eyes, and they, being a warm-hearted people 
 none too familiar with loving treatment of any sort, 
 returned the affection and laughed good-humouredly 
 because he laughed with and not at them. He was 
 *' one of themselves," moreover, and that means 
 much, as Dickens discovered when he ventured to 
 draw America as he saw it ; as Cable did when he 
 depicted Creole life, and Kipling when he offered 
 well-meant patronage to the fishermen of Gloucester. 
 The Englishman, less sensitive than the American, 
 the Irishman, or the Scot, is impervious to satire and, 
 after mature digestion and ultimate assimilation of it, 
 relishes a joke against himself almost as well as one 
 against his neighbours ; but the Irishman enjoys it all 
 the time. 
 
 Young Lover came back at the end of a year, 
 strengthened in mind and body, and spent the follow- 
 ing eighteen months in school, from which he was 
 taken into his father's office to learn the uncongenial 
 trade of a stockbroker. There he worked all day, 
 faithfully but without enthusiasm, and devoted his 
 evenings to the cultivation of the Muses. His was 
 already a catholic taste, modestly embracing painting, 
 music, poetry, and even play-writing, on a very small 
 scale.
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 It is doubtful if anybody ever undertook the study of 
 art under more discouraging circumstances. Whether 
 or not it is judicious from a worldly point of view for 
 a business-like parent to encourage a child's artistic 
 aspirations is a question about which painters and 
 Philistines will disagree to the end of the chapter. 
 It is true I have heard an artist, more successful 
 artistically than financially, say that he would not 
 refuse a child of his permission to play with a box 
 of paints, on the ground that it might either become 
 a painter or it might poison itself, the latter being a 
 happv alternative to the former. This painter was 
 a philosopher. Also he had no children. Lover's 
 father, with the very best intentions, employed the 
 most vigorous arguments to dissuade his son from the 
 pursuit of painting and kindred arts. He ridiculed 
 the bov's literary efforts, broke up his miniature stage 
 properties with a poker, and even sent him to Lon- 
 don, the commercial Babylon, to woo Fortune in the 
 temple of trade. 
 
 It was all in vain. At the age of seventeen the 
 boy returned to Dublin without a profession or any 
 training in art except that which he had taught him- 
 self, and undertook to earn his own living with pencil 
 and brush. " How Hibernian ! " exclaims his biogra- 
 pher ; and so it was. But his countryman. Gold- 
 smith, had taken even a wilder risk when he went 
 penniless to Holland, to teach English, without 
 knowing a word of Dutch ! 
 
 Nevertheless Lover was to become first and to 
 remain best known to his country-men by his literary 
 work. In his twenty-first year he wrote a song for a
 
 X Introduction 
 
 great banquet which was given to Thomas Moore. 
 All the literary celebrities were present and the young 
 bard sang his lay, which was called " The Poet's 
 Election," amid the applause of a very distinguished 
 audience. Moore was especially delighted and, after 
 the close of the banquet, sought out and complimented 
 the author. It was the beginning of a friendship 
 which lasted through life. 
 
 About the same time his first literary effusion, a 
 paper called " Ballads and Ballad Singers," appeared 
 in the Dublin Literary Ga-zette. It was followed by 
 "The King and the Bishop" and "The Story of the 
 Gridiron." The last named was copied all over the 
 English-speaking world and stamped the writer as a 
 humourist of a high order. 
 
 It was about this period also that he made his debut 
 as a miniature painter. As such he flourished in the 
 Irish capital for over fifteen years, at the same time 
 increasing his high popularity and keeping the wolf 
 far enough from the door to permit the admission 
 of more agreeable and profitable visitors. 
 
 Ireland, thanks to its poverty, is a poor patron of 
 the arts, but its children have always shown a remark- 
 able disposition to cultivate them. This is especially 
 true of the arts of sculpture and architecture, wherein 
 England and America owe so much to Irish genius. 
 Its poetry, too, since the days of the Bards, has been 
 great in quantity and not unworthy of comparison in 
 quality with that of the sister island, albeit the Irish 
 poet singing in English uses a foreign tongue. 
 
 It is interesting to know that the first subjects of 
 Lover's pencil and brush were marine studies, as were
 
 Introduction 
 
 XI 
 
 also his last ; but his great success was as a painter of" 
 portraits, especially miniatures. Among his sitters in 
 after vears were the Marquis of Wellesley, Lord 
 Brougham, the Duke of Leicester, and the great 
 Paganini. His portrait of the last named was dis- 
 tinctly his best and won him high honour in the 
 English capital. 
 
 It was not publicly known until after his death that 
 he had achieved success anonvmouslv as a caricaturist 
 in the pages of the Irish " Horn Book " published in 
 the year 1831. His connection with that satirical 
 publication was kept secret for political and personal 
 reasons. As Mr. D. J. O'Donoghue points out. 
 Lover's biographers fail to mention the fact that he 
 was deeply concerned in the efforts of the " Comet 
 Club," which brought out " The Parson's Horn 
 Book," to overthrow the infamous tithe system under 
 which the Catholics of Ireland were obliged to contri- 
 bute to the support of the Established Church. In 
 this righteous crusade he had as associates Thomas 
 Brown (" Jonathan Buckthorn "), Norreys Jephson, 
 John Sheehan, Robert Knox, John Cornelius O'Cal- 
 laghan, author of the "Green Book" and of the 
 " History of the Irish Brigades in the Service of 
 France," Joseph Sterling Coyne, one of the found- 
 ers of Punchy and many others. The Government at 
 last suppressed the publication and prosecuted and 
 punished the editors. The tithes were not abolished 
 until a generation afterwards. Lover's skill as an 
 etcher was shown in his " Horn Book " pictures and, 
 still better, in the numerous admirable drawings with 
 which he illustrated his own books and those of other
 
 xii Introduction 
 
 writers. The best of them are reproduced in the 
 present edition of his works. It was a severe blow 
 to the ambition which was his first love when his 
 failing eyesight compelled him to abandon both etching 
 and miniature painting in the very prime of life and 
 success. He had won distinction in other and wider 
 fields, in which also the rewards were larger, but he 
 loved that art best of all and felt its loss most sadly. 
 
 The year 1827 found him well established in life. 
 His first play — not counting the dramatic work 
 which his stern father, in the capacity of a domestic 
 Lord High Chancellor, had suppressed with a poker 
 — was brought out at the Theatre Royal. It was a 
 fairy spectacle called " Grania Uaile," and had a run 
 of several nights. Unfortunately, no trace of the 
 manuscript survives. 
 
 In this happy year he married Lucy Berrel, the 
 daughter of John Berrel, a Dublin architect, and his 
 wife Mary, nee Harney. In the following year he 
 was elected Secretary of the Royal Hibernian Acad- 
 emy of which he had long been a popular member. 
 
 His first volume, a collection of tales and legends 
 which had appeared in the Dublin magazines, was 
 published in 1832. His portrait of Paganini, exhib- 
 ited at the Royal Academy Exhibition, made the 
 painter better known than the poet or story-teller, in 
 the English capital. Thither he went accordingly in 
 the following year, not to repeat the disastrous failure 
 which he had made there so many years before in the 
 worthy field of commerce. 
 
 For a dozen happy, busy years he did the work 
 that he loved, and gained the rewards that he deserved.
 
 Introduction 
 
 Xlll 
 
 in the intellectual centre of Great Britain. He was 
 a prolific writer of exquisite little theatrical trifles, 
 many of which he did not take the trouble to preserve 
 even in manuscript. Thus, in 1835, he wrote for 
 Madam Vestris a Christmas drama called " The 
 Olvmpic Picnic," a classical burlesque, and for the 
 comedian Liston a Httle piece called " The Beau 
 Ideal," and in 1837, for the Haymarket Theatre, his 
 farce of "The Happy Man" (a subject which Sir 
 Walter Scott has also treated in verse). In the same 
 year Madam Vestris presented his operetta of " The 
 Greek Bov " at Covent Garden, and the composer 
 Balfe brought out his humorous " II Paddv Whack in 
 Italia," at the Lyceum. Two other short pieces, 
 "The Hall Porter" and " Alacarthy More," com- 
 pleted his work in that direction. Some years later 
 he wrote what his biographer calls " a musical piece " 
 for the Havmarket, entitled " The Sentinel of the 
 Alma." 
 
 Of his more enduring dramas " Ror\- O'More " 
 had a long run of one hundred and nine nights at the 
 Adelphi Theatre in 1837, with the brilliant actor, 
 Tyrone Power, as the hero, and was played through- 
 out the country and America. " The White Horse 
 of the Peppers " was another dramatic success. 
 
 He enjoved in London the society and friendship 
 of the brilliant group of authors and artists who 
 flourished in the early Victorian age : Sydney Smith, 
 Dickens, Douglas Jerrold, Barham, Moore, Lever, 
 William Carleton, " Father Prout," Maginn, Lady 
 Morgan, and a multitude of greater or lesser lights, 
 some long since extinguished, others still dimly glim-
 
 xiv Introduction 
 
 mering on the horizon, and a few translated among 
 the planetary gods, to shine forever — which means for 
 one, possibly two, perhaps even three centuries of glory. 
 
 When his failing eyesight debarred him from con- 
 tinued work with pen, pencil, or etching-tool, he 
 began presenting his public entertainments, consisting 
 of songs and readings from his own works. He 
 made his debut at the Princess Theatre, London, in 
 March, 1844, and achieved an immediate success 
 which followed him during seven years, in the prin- 
 cipal cities and towns of Great Britain and Ireland and 
 the United States. He was not the pioneer in this 
 form of entertainment but was one of the most pop- 
 ular of his own or later times. 
 
 His sweet voice was not strong enough to bear the 
 strain of all the vocal numbers ; so he employed two 
 young ladies as assistants for that duty, devoting him- 
 self solely to the prose features. Modern audiences 
 are familiar with this form of entertainment, which 
 has become so common that authors of distinction add 
 a new wreath to their laurels, and win much gratitude 
 besides, by refraining from public readings from their 
 own works. In Lover's time and for many years 
 afterwards, the entertainment was kept within the 
 bounds of modesty, and people came at least as much 
 to hear as to see the author. The custom has since 
 been changed, and not for the better. He also fol- 
 lowed the example of his contemporaries by paying a 
 visit to the United States, but apparently without any 
 ulterior thought of writing a book, and certainly with 
 no intention of taking the elder Mr. Weller's advice 
 and " blowing up the Yankees " therein.
 
 Introduction xv 
 
 He landed in Boston in September, 1846, and 
 gave his first entertainment in New York on the 28th 
 of the same month. He found his audiences there 
 cordially appreciative. In Boston and Salem, which 
 he visited later, the appreciation was equally present 
 but concealed behind a blanket of frigidity which sur- 
 prised the cheery entertainer. Of the Salemites he 
 wrote: "Frogs, snowballs, icicles — no name for 
 coldness can describe them." Other distinguished 
 visitors have been chilled by the same peculiar tem- 
 perature observed in the intellectual centres of New 
 England and have tried to understand the phenomenon, 
 some ascribing it to pride, some to provincialism, and 
 a few to bashfulness, though this last trait is not 
 characteristic of the inhabitants individually. Lover, 
 like the rest of the trans- Atlantic visitors, made many 
 warm friends in New England and wherever he went 
 in the country. 
 
 He travelled as far south as New Orleans, north to 
 the Canadian cities, and west to Lake Superior, 
 spending two years in giving entertainments or enjoy- 
 ing the novel life around him. 
 
 It was a sad blow to him to receive in a foreign 
 land the news of his wife's death, after a brief married 
 life of unalloyed happiness. Fresh grief awaited him 
 on his return home when his eldest daughter died of 
 consumption in her twentv-first year. His younger 
 daughter had married shortlv before. Tenderly de- 
 voted to home and familv he found himself practically 
 deprived of both. In January of 1852 he married 
 his second wife, Mary Jane Wandby, daughter of 
 William Wandby, of Coldham Hall, Cambridgeshire,
 
 xvi Introduction 
 
 England. Their married life was very happy, though 
 only two children lived to maturity. Two girls and 
 a boy died in early childhood. Another daughter, 
 Meta, died at the age of twenty-two. His only sur- 
 viving child, Fannie, married first a Dublin barrister, 
 Edward Herbert, and second a physician of Stuttgart, 
 Dr. Carl Schmid. The only living descendants of 
 Samuel Lover are this lady, her son, Victor Herbert, 
 the distinguished composer, and her son by the second 
 marriage, a German actor, whose stage name is Willie 
 Faber. 
 
 Lover brought home from America some material 
 for his entertainments and many art sketches, some 
 of which he reproduced in oil with more or less suc- 
 cess. His labours had entitled him to a season of rest 
 which the income from his works procured for him. 
 To this was added, in 1856, a government pension 
 of one hundred pounds. It was small, yet it may 
 not be sneered at in a republic which has totally for- 
 sworn its early virtue of giving some public reward to 
 literature, usually a foreign consulship which at least 
 kept the recipient and his poverty out of sight. 
 
 During the next few years Lover was engaged in 
 general literary work, compiling a volume of Irish 
 songs by different authors, and in writing for the 
 Burns Centennial Festival a little volume called 
 " Rival Rhymes," after the style of " Rejected Ad- 
 dresses." 
 
 In 1864 he was attacked with bleeding of the 
 lungs. It was the beginning of the end, though that 
 was not to come until after four years of lingering 
 illness, borne with fine fortitude. He removed in
 
 Introduction 
 
 XVI 1 
 
 search of a milder climate to the Isle of Wight and 
 thence to St. Helier's in the Island of Jersey, his last 
 abode. There he died on July 6, 1868, aged seventy- 
 one years. On July 15th his body was buried at 
 Kensal Green. A tablet was erected to his memory 
 in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. 
 
 How bravely after the long siege he at last faced 
 the end like his own Irish Soldier, " with the fire of 
 his gallant nation," smiling to the last, yet deeply sen- 
 sible of all the responsibilities of his earthly career ! 
 His eyesight had long been weak, and four months 
 before his death his hearing partially failed him. As 
 he wrote to a friend : — 
 
 " My hearing has suffered seriously ; just now I 
 am obliged to have the assistance of an ear trumpet. 
 Think of that, my beauty ! — There 's a state for your 
 old Lover to be in ! — No more tender whisperings ! 
 Imagine sweet confessions to be made through an ear 
 trumpet ! How many dear friends I have lost lately ! 
 Your own dear father among them. The shot is flying 
 thick and fast among the front companies; it makes 
 one think of that fine couplet of Longfellow's : — 
 
 " * Hearts, like muffled drums, are beating 
 Funeral marches to the grave.' 
 
 " Well, though I have written a few sad lines In the 
 end of this letter, you may see by the first part of it 
 that I am not down-hearted, and, though I am 
 amongst the ci-devants — that is, one of the front 
 company — still I march cheerfully and cry, 'Heads 
 up, soldiers ! ' " 
 
 After the poet's death Mrs. Lover sent his last writ- 
 
 VOL. l.—b
 
 XVI 11 
 
 Introduction 
 
 ino- to their friend Symington. It described a dream 
 which he had on the night of May 21, 1868, a few 
 weeks before his death : — 
 
 " I thought I had entered the Valley of the Shadow. 
 It was a deep gorge and narrow, and high cliffs on 
 either hand rendered it also dark and shadowy, and 
 as the valley lay before me, further in advance, still 
 deeper and darker it grew, till, in the extreme dis- 
 tance, all form was lost, and nothing but intense 
 darkness prevailed. 
 
 " Just then, relieved upon that background of 
 gloom, suddenly I saw Jesus Christ, in wondrous 
 radiance, surrounded by sheep. 
 
 " I woke the moment my senses were impressed 
 with this lovely, glorious, faith-inspiring vision ; and 
 oh ! what a comfort it was to me thus to wake ! 
 My hodily suffering, even, was relieved, when my poor 
 soul was thus strengthened. 
 
 " It seemed to me as if my prayer, made that night, 
 had been heard and granted by my merciful and gra- 
 cious God, and that I need not fear the Valley of the 
 Shadow of Death, where Christ Himself was waiting 
 to care for the sheep." 
 
 On his death-bed he wrote a thoughtful criticism 
 on the anonymous versifiers of the Psalms and writers 
 of hymns who are guilty of "filling up their lame 
 lines with vapid verbiage, so twaddly, indeed, as to be, 
 to me, disgusting, from the manifest disrespect such 
 writers must have for the sacredness of the subject." 
 
 A very interesting revelation of character is the 
 letter to his two daughters, dated March 8, 1848, 
 enclosing a copy of a poem to them entitled " The
 
 l7it7'oductio 
 
 71 xix 
 
 Voice from Afar." He presents it to them with a 
 modest introduction, and then discusses the failure of 
 another poem of his to impress them ver;' deeply. 
 But he adds : " You know it is my opinion, and an 
 opinion on which I have acted, that I do not think it 
 wise for parents to drive their children in the beaten 
 track of their own thoughts (the parents' thoughts, I 
 mean) ; and you will remember how I have placed 
 Mendelssohn and Schubert, and the prett}' vivacities 
 of France and Italy, before you, to the exclusion of 
 my own compositions, which I never forced upon you, 
 — but, at the same time, whenever I do write a song 
 which the world acknowledges to be not worthless, a 
 daughter can scarcely place herself in a more graceful 
 position than in singing a song of her father's compos- 
 ing. Sir Walter Scott's son did himself little honour 
 when he boasted of never having read his father's 
 works : — but do not suppose, mv dear girls, that I 
 am vain enough (presumptuous, I should rather sav) 
 to make anv comparison between mvself and the 
 great man to whom I have alluded, or so unhappy as 
 to believe that you are so cold and insensible to my 
 humbler merits." 
 
 No man was ever more generously appreciative of 
 his contemporaries than Lover. Symington, who set 
 him on a higher pedestal than Moore and wrote to 
 the former to tell him so, gives the reply, most credit- 
 able to the modesty and generosity of the writer : — 
 " For the ver}' favourable, not to say flattering opinion 
 you have given as to the comparative merits of Moore 
 and myself, I have reason to be pleased. ... I think 
 there is more of the ' touch of nature ' — that quality
 
 XX Introduction 
 
 to which Shakespeare attributes so much — in my 
 writings than in his. I think also there is more feel- 
 ing, and beyond all doubt I am much more Irhh : so 
 far I agree with you." After saying pleasantly that 
 Moore knew more about " the shady side of Pall 
 Mall " than of the morning breeze that stirs the 
 heather on the hills of Ireland or the nightly blast 
 that sweeps the Atlantic and often sings a death-song 
 over the fishermen, he continues : " Yet, with all 
 these drawbacks to the Irish Melodies^ what an exquisite 
 collection of lyrics exists in that work ! Moore was 
 keenly alive to the character of a melody — hence, 
 from those of his own land, which are so lovely, he 
 selected judiciously the air suited to the spirit of his 
 lay. Then, as the verses he wrote were meant to be 
 sung (not merely read), with what consummate skill 
 he has accommodated every word to be capable of 
 the ' linked sweetness long drawn out ! ' — in this 
 respect I think Moore matchless." 
 
 HIS PLACE AMONG IRISH NOVELISTS 
 
 Bayle Bernard devotes two thoughtful chapters in 
 his Life of Lover to the numerous and excellent 
 writers who had preceded his subject in the poorly 
 paid and tardily appreciated field of Irish fiction. It 
 is a list of which no country need be ashamed, in- 
 cluding such names as Banim, Griffin, Miss Edge- 
 worth, Lady Morgan, Carleton, Lever, — authors 
 widely differing in ability as they did in sentiment, 
 yet nearly all holding an honourable place in literature 
 after the lapse of sixty, seventy, or even a hundred
 
 Introduction xxi 
 
 years. It was the human quality that gave life to 
 their writings at a time when the vast majority of the 
 people were steeped in the direst poverty, when the 
 artificial night created by the penal laws still wrapped 
 the land in enforced illiteracy, and when it was 
 neither fashionable nor profitable to plead the cause 
 of the oppressed. In so far as those gifted Irish 
 men and women did plead for their less fortunate 
 countrymen, in so far did they compel a hearing from 
 a callous or hostile public. It was but natural that 
 the Catholic writers should champion their co- 
 religionists, and that they did it worthily and bril- 
 liantly, the enduring fame of Gerald Griffin and the 
 Banim brothers sufficiently attests. Lover, born and 
 living in the class and creed of ascendancy, generously 
 espoused the cause of the poor and misgoverned. 
 
 He was listened to, not because of the justice of 
 his plea, for far greater voices than his had cried in 
 vain for years on behalf of the down-trodden, but 
 because he invested his subjects with the charms of 
 humour, pathos, and sincerity. The world, which 
 turns a deaf ear to the cry of suffering, always stops 
 to be amused, sometimes becomes interested, and on 
 very rare occasions tries to right some fraction of a 
 wrong. I do not know that Irish tears or Irish 
 laughter ever obtained any valuable redress of Irish 
 grievances ; but they kept them before the world, and 
 thus were not without their value when stronger 
 arguments than smiles or tears could not be em- 
 ployed. Dives went to hell because he looked un- 
 moved upon the sores of Lazarus. It is not good for 
 a man or a nation to stifle elementary feelings.
 
 xxii Introduction 
 
 Before the rise of the school of Irish novelists, 
 early in the nineteenth century, the Irishman of 
 English fiction and the stage was an uncouth libel on 
 humanity, a witless baboon who excited nothing but 
 ridicule or aversion. He was somewhat in that 
 respect like the " Nigger " of stage and fiction, and 
 therefore outside the pale of human sympathy. It 
 mattered not that the Irishman of real life was pres- 
 ent in the scantily covered flesh ; that he was known 
 of all mankind to be witty, brave, chivalrous, and 
 God-fearing. Until Lover and kindred writers de- 
 picted him as such, the English-speaking world under- 
 stood him not nor the debt which its literature owed 
 to his countrymen, Burke, Sheridan, Swift, Steele, 
 Goldsmith, and half the bright names in contem- 
 porary letters. 
 
 Lover cannot be counted among the great creators 
 in the art of fiction. He developed no deep plots, 
 made no subtle analyses of character, solved no 
 social " problems," and, indeed, pictured life mostly 
 as it was to be seen on the surface. His characters 
 and their accessories hint of the stage, elemental, 
 largely drawn, devoid, for the most part, of mingled 
 or conflicting passions. Yet they are fixed in the 
 reader's mind, and each has an individuality not to be 
 ignored or forgotten. It is a remarkable fact that 
 Dickens has not introduced a single Irish character 
 in all of his voluminous novels ; yet those traits 
 which in an Irishman would be pronounced " so very 
 Irish" are the dominant inspiration of Mr. Micaw- 
 ber, Dick Swiveller, and a score of other immortal 
 creations of " Boz." " Handy Andy " is Lover's
 
 Introduction xxiii 
 
 own, yet he has all the fantastic features of a genuine 
 child of Dickens, with a remote cousinship to Sancho 
 Panza. He might have been born anywhere, but 
 Ireland alone of his own time could have supplied the 
 mhe en scene for his astounding performances. Lover 
 gives his authority for the original, but beyond ques- 
 tion he assisted nature in his development. Dr. R. 
 Shelton Mackenzie, who was a personal friend of 
 Lover, says that Handy Andy was the nickname of 
 a real personage whose proper name was Andrew 
 Sullivan. Fourteen years before Lover introduced 
 Andy to the public, the Knight of Glin told xMacken- 
 zie many stories about Andy, among others that nar- 
 rated in the novel, of the hero's being ordered to 
 throw a pitcher of water out of the window and obey- 
 ing literally by throwing out pitcher and all ; and of 
 how he iced the champagne by emptying two dozen 
 bottles into the tub of ice. 
 
 HIS NOVELS 
 
 Handy Andy is unique in literature, as a hero with 
 a matchless genius for blundering and a happy faculty 
 for escaping the worst consequences of his own mis- 
 takes ; which an Englishman would have accounted 
 for by the proverb, " Fools for luck ! " But the Irish 
 language has no exact equivalent for the harsh mono- 
 syllable ; for " omadhaun " is a mild, soft word sig- 
 nifying an " innocent " or a " natural." Call him 
 by whatever name we may, Andy is a triumph of 
 misdirected originality, even as dirt has been defined 
 as matter out of place. Andy's premises are always
 
 xxiv Introduction 
 
 right, as when he resolves to punish the postmaster 
 for his apparent extortion in charging double postage 
 on a letter, by stealing two others, so as to give his 
 master "the worth of his money." With similar 
 good motives he slips an additional bullet into the 
 duelling pistols before they are loaded, in order, again, 
 that " the Masther " may have the advantage over 
 his opponent. He is the very incarnation of good 
 intentions, which, as we all know, have their Maca- 
 damical uses in another world. His more com- 
 monplace blunders, such as the exchanging and 
 mis-sending of parcels, display no especial inspiration. 
 They are within the capacity of any mere fool ; 
 Andy alone is the diaholus ex machina who could do 
 it at the exact time and place calculated to produce 
 the greatest possible amount of mischief. No, Andy 
 is not a fool. That role belongs to the denationa- 
 lised Dublin puppy. Furlong, whose faux pas are 
 unrelieved by the slightest touch of originality. 
 
 Among the other strong characters in " Handy 
 Andy," old Squire O'Grady and his rival, Egan, 
 stand out boldly as representatives of their class, 
 though diametrically opposite to each other in char- 
 acter. Murtough Murphy, Dick the Devil, and Tom 
 Durfy play well their several parts, being ably sup- 
 ported by a corps of supernumeraries who cheerfully 
 and impartially assist at race, duel, election, or scrim- 
 mage. The Walking Gentleman of the story, Ed- 
 ward O'Connor, is like his prototype on the stage, 
 or the corresponding character in " Rory O'More," 
 chiefly useful to fill the part of the sentimental lover 
 of his affinity, the sentimental young lady. Needless
 
 Introduction xxv 
 
 to say that they seldom utter anything of interest 
 except to themselves, therein being even as their 
 models in real life. All the world loves a lover, but 
 it is not madly covetous of his society w^hile the fit is 
 on him. The droll or humorous remarks which our 
 author puts into the mouths of his characters are all so 
 naively delivered that one forgets that they are generally 
 coinage bright from the mint of imagination. For 
 example, there is the Widow Flanagan's exhortation 
 to the merry-makers : " Come, begin the dance ; 
 there 's the piper and the fiddler in the corner, as idle 
 as a milestone without a tiumber ; " and there is the 
 stinging phrase so casually dropped apparently, when, 
 speaking of the tottering Dublin tenements, each 
 marked with an official slab telling its exact dis- 
 tance from the Castle, he says : " The new stone 
 tablets seemed to mock their misery, and looked like 
 a fresh stab into their poor old sides ; — as if the 
 rapier of a king had killed a beggar." But the reader 
 will prefer to select his gems without impertinent 
 assistance. 
 
 Andy's mother, though slightly sketched, is drawn 
 from the life, as witness her two memorable visits 
 to the Amazonian Mattie Dwyer and the results 
 thereof; while the mother of The O'Grady is a 
 lunatic of such majestic perfection that we know she 
 must have sat in proper person for the vivid portrait. 
 Mere imagination never invents such flights as hers. 
 Father Phil Blake is one of Lover's many attempts to 
 draw an Irish priest. If he sometimes fails in fidelity 
 to life, it is not through lack of the kindliest intent; for 
 no Irish Protestant writer ever felt or expressed more
 
 xxvi Introduction 
 
 mdignation towards the persecutions heaped upon 
 those faithful leaders of their flocks, standing alone, 
 as they did, between the forlorn serf and a master 
 whose cruelty was equalled only by his besotted folly. 
 But for the priest ministering, with a price on his 
 head, to his scattered people, rebellion or anarchy 
 would have deluged the land with blood. None knew 
 this better than Lover. It is not out of place to 
 recall the fact in any allusion to his life-work ; for 
 his life was indeed devoted to the championship of 
 his poor countrymen and especially of those who dif- 
 fered from him in creed and station. *' Rulers of 
 Ireland ! " he exclaims, " why have you not sooner 
 learned to lead that people by love whom all your 
 severity has not been able to drive ? " 
 
 This feeling of intense patriotism finds most fre- 
 quent and vigorous expression in his last novel, 
 " Treasure Trove," otherwise known as " L. S. D." 
 or " He Would Be A Gentleman," in which he deals 
 with some of the loyal Irish who followed the for- 
 tunes of Bonnie Prince Charlie, to their own misfor- 
 tune. The Irish, like the Scotch, paid dearly for 
 their fealty to a line of princes who exemplified the 
 divine right of monarchs in their contempt for every 
 common right and an ingratitude that was royally 
 superhuman. Captain Lynch is a typical Jacobite 
 soldier, loyal, brave, ready to make every honourable 
 sacrifice, even to that of life, for a prince who was 
 equally ready to accept, and forget it. It was such 
 men who cried out after the disaster of the Boyne 
 Water : " Change kings, and we '11 fight the battle 
 over again ! " and such men who saved the day for
 
 Introduction xxvii 
 
 France at Fontenoy and made King George exclaim 
 in bitterness : " Curse on the laws that deprive me of 
 such soldiers ! " Lover, who had nothing to gain, 
 and much to lose, in a worldly sense, by taking the 
 part of his oppressed fellow-countrj-men, hated tvrannv 
 of every kind and could not be silent when the 
 wrongs of his native land were his theme. Not alone 
 the wickedness of persecution, but the incredible folly 
 of it, were clear to his honest vision ; and he shows 
 the other side of the picture convincingly, — the 
 peace, loyalty, and contentment which followed so 
 surely on the least concession of justice under an 
 occasional just ruler like Chesterfield or Drummond. 
 When intolerable tyranny drove the nation into des- 
 perate revolt, he says, " England would not admit that 
 she had cause for discontent. The phrase of the 
 time was, that ' the discontent on the face of Ireland 
 was coloured by caprice and faction.' How capri- 
 cious! " The reader who wishes to form a just idea 
 of that capricious country will find some of the 
 impelling causes in " Treasure Trove." 
 
 For the rest, the story is full of life and adventure, 
 with well-drawn pictures of Marshal Saxe, Lord 
 Clare, Dillon, and other historical personages. Ned 
 Corkery, the hero of the tale, is a much more inter- 
 esting character than either De Lacv, of " Rory 
 O'More," or Edward O'Connor, of " Handy Andy." 
 His lady love, like theirs, is rather a lay figure. The 
 story abounds in sufficiently moving ad\'entures by 
 flood and field ; in the words of Phil Kearney, 
 " There 's beautiful fighting along the whole line." 
 For which, and better, reasons, Lover's novels should
 
 xxviii Introduction 
 
 find a new popularity in the present revival of 
 " strenuous " fiction, vi^hose heroes, to tell the truth, 
 are a trifle too solemn in making either love or u^ar, 
 and lack the sense of humour which tends to lighten 
 both of those rather over-rated diversions. 
 
 Lover's novels are all clean, wholesome works of 
 art, plain stories, with little or no attempt at analysis 
 of character or inculcation of any lesson other than 
 that to be deduced from a picture in black and white. 
 Their predominant quality is their humour, which is 
 seldom strained, always laughter-provoking, and never 
 cruel, except towards snobbishness, cant, and all man- 
 ner of false pretence. In that and in their keen love 
 of justice, they reflect the gentle manliness of their 
 author. 
 
 Lover is at his best and his worst in his very un- 
 equal short stories. In the former category stand the 
 inimitable " Barny O'Reirdon, the Navigator," " The 
 Gridiron," "The White Horse of the Peppers," 
 "Paddy the Piper" (of which he disclaims full credit 
 as the author), and several delicious sketches of Irish 
 coachmen, ballad-singers, waiters, and other original 
 characters. " Father Roach," whose story he tells 
 both in prose and verse, is an impossible character, as 
 the dramatic incident upon which the tale hinges, the 
 involuntary self-betrayal, outside of the confessional, 
 of a criminal who had already confessed his crime 
 under that inviolable seal could not have been used by 
 the priest who was his confidant in both cases. The 
 priest's supposed assertion that " the bishop of the 
 diocese forwarded a statement to a higher quarter, 
 which procured for me a dispensation as regarded the
 
 Introduction xxix 
 
 confessions of the criminal ; and I was handed this 
 instrument, absolving me from further secrecy, a few 
 days before the trial " — is contrary to all the laws 
 and traditions of the Catholic Church, and spoils an 
 otherwise good story. 
 
 However, the single tale of the " Gridiron, or 
 Paddy Alullowney's Travels in France," has humour 
 enough to redeem a whole volume of inferior stories. 
 It is his own entirely, in conception and execution. 
 The extremely simple motif is sustained throughout, 
 and Paddy insists upon it with such convincing sin- 
 cerity that the reader is compelled to agree with him 
 that the Frenchmen who failed to lend him a grid- 
 iron, on the strength of his three magic words, 
 " Parly voo Frongsay r " were not only ignorant of 
 their own language but shamefully inhospitable as 
 well. He and his compatriot, Barny O'Reirdon, are 
 worthy of Rabelais. 
 
 HIS SONGS AND POEMS 
 
 Simplicity was the dominant characteristic of 
 Lover's verse. He chose no complex themes, and 
 nobody will ever achieve fame or fortune by found- 
 ing " Lover Clubs " for the interpretation of his 
 poems. In his preface to a volume of his poetical 
 works, reproduced in this edition, he demonstrates 
 briefly and clearly his theor)' of song-writing and 
 explains some apparent literary defects in his own 
 work by showing that poetical had occasionally to 
 give way to musical expression when the first object 
 was to make a song ; and that, with him, was always 
 the first object.
 
 XXX Introduction 
 
 Among the songs, numbering nearly three hundred, 
 in that collection are lyrics of love, humour, and 
 pathos, together with a few political and " occa- 
 sional." The best belong to the first three classes. 
 Those of the others are fair of their kind, which 
 is not a very high kind, being, indeed, no better 
 than if they had been written to order by the 
 average Laureate. 
 
 Even the reader fairly familiar with Irish poetry 
 is surprised to find how many songs popular to this 
 day are from the prolific pen of Lover, such as " The 
 Low-Back'd Car," "Molly Bawn," "The Whis- 
 tling Thief," " "Barney O'Hea," "The Four- 
 Leaved Shamrock," and nearly a score of others. It 
 is not unreasonable to infer that their long life 
 proves their high merit. " Rory O'More," of 
 course, is known to all the world, and the beauti- 
 ful songs, " The Angel's Whisper " and " What 
 Will You Do, Love ? " bear an appeal to the 
 human affections that will find response in every 
 heart. 
 
 It is not every poet who can blend humour and 
 tenderness so exquisitely that neither shall suffer by 
 the union. The absolute delicacy of Lover's humor- 
 ous love poems is unparalleled in this or any other 
 language. Percy's " Reliques " reflect the coarseness 
 of their age. Burns smirched his pages with Rabe- 
 laisian grossness, and English bards, from Chaucer to 
 Byron, have done the same. Even Moore affected 
 the Anacreontic, happily with little success, in his 
 youthful flights. Irish writers of prose and verse 
 are almost always free from any uncleanness. Their
 
 Introduction xxxi 
 
 literature is as pure as that of America. Lover's 
 wooer, whether it be Rory O'More, or Barney, or 
 the Dying Soldier, or Lanty Leary, is gay as only 
 an Irish lover can be — the only one, it is said by 
 his rivals, who can meet a woman's wiles with a 
 wit as nimble as her own. Lover has drawn him 
 to the life, with his national heritage of good humour, 
 so much more precious than the belauded Hope in 
 Pandora's box, which must have lost a good deal of 
 its saving salt by association with gloomy company in 
 that ill-omened casket. 
 
 Lover's preface to the fifth edition of his poems 
 points out that " every song in this collection was 
 not only made for singing, but has been sung." He 
 himself, savs Symington, had a voice which " was 
 slight, but powerful in its effect, from being very 
 sweetly modulated, clearly articulated, expressive, and 
 true." The same author tells of how Lover was 
 moved by his own music, and that the tears trickled 
 down his cheek on one occasion in his own house 
 as he sang the " Angel's Whisper " — which recalls 
 a story showing how the ludicrous touches elbows 
 with the pathetic. Authors are accustomed to re- 
 ceiving compliments that are not always compli- 
 mentary ; so Lover must have keenly enjoyed the 
 admiration which Thalberg, the pianist, expressed 
 for him on their first meeting, as the author of " Ze 
 Angel's Whistle." 
 
 It can be truly said of Lover that he lisped in 
 numbers. When he was so small that he had to 
 stand upon tiptoe to reach the piano keys, he was 
 found trying to pick out the notes of a popular tune.
 
 xxxu 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Bernard, who tells the story, notes the coincidence 
 that the tune which attracted the infant musician 
 was Moore's " Will you come to the Bower ? " 
 Lover made his first public appearance singing one 
 of his own songs at a dinner in honour of Moore, 
 and his first success as an artist was gained by his 
 portrait of Moore's son, Russell. 
 
 Lover, unlike most writers, knew what was his 
 own best work, as did his readers. He chose the 
 name of its hero with doubly fine discrimination : 
 first, as that of a national idol, him of the battle-cry, 
 " For God and Our Lady and Rory O'More," and 
 secondly, as a name especially musical. The long 
 O, beloved of singers, with the liquid consonants, 
 R and M, all compact of melody, made " Rory 
 O'More " a title to charm at once the eye and the 
 ear. That it fascinated its author is evident from 
 the fact that he gave it first to a song, then to a 
 story, and finally to a play. In the song it will be 
 noticed that he uses the surname indifferently to 
 rhyme with "sure" and "before," and it is used 
 with either pronunciation in the native vernacular. 
 Note, on the other hand, how well the name " Lanty 
 Leary " fits the light-hearted roguish " divil " who 
 lilts his love vows to the willing but doubting ear 
 of his inamorata. He will follow her, an' she wish 
 it, over the hills and far away, and back again to 
 house and land at her bidding, just as an Irishman 
 should ; and when she puts the final love-test to 
 him, if he will follow her to the grave ? he answers, 
 just as an Irishman of his fun-loving nature would : 
 " ' Fait, I won't,' says Lanty Leary." In the su-
 
 Introduction xxxiii 
 
 preme moment Lanty would probably outdo the most 
 melancholy of your romantic lovers ; but so long 
 as it is only an imaginary case, he sees but the 
 fun of it, and so laughs and wins, where another 
 would si^h and lose. 
 
 Perhaps the happiest blending of those two Irish 
 characteristics is found in the sad, tender, humorous, 
 and wholly heart-stirring ballad of " The Soldier," 
 who — 
 
 " Thought of kings and roj-al quarrels, 
 
 And thought of glory, without a smile ; 
 For what had he to do with laurels ? 
 
 He was only one of the rank-and-file ! " 
 
 He drinks to his loved one and consoles himself 
 with the reflection, humorously sincere — and that 
 is very Irish — that she " won't be a widow — for 
 whv ? — Ah ! you would never have me, vourneen." 
 
 He drinks again, to his beloved native land from 
 which he dies far away. Then, at last, " the pride 
 that guarded his manly eye" breaks down with the 
 vision of " heaven and home and his true love 
 nigh," - 
 
 " So draining his little cruiskeen. 
 He drank to his cruel colleen ; 
 To the Emerald land of his birth — 
 Then lifeless he sank to the earth, 
 Brave a soldier as ever was seen! " 
 
 Ireland may have poets and story-tellers of higher 
 literary rank and more enduring fame, but she will 
 never have one more true and tender and loyal than 
 Samuel Lover. 
 
 VOL. I. — c
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 Introduction v 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Cottage of Rory O'More, with Scenery, Machinery, 
 
 Dresses and Decorations i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Showing how a Journey may be performed on a Grid- 
 iron without going as far as St. Laurence . . . . 15 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A Peep into Ireland Forty Years ago. — Hints for charg- 
 ing Juries. — Every Landlord his own Lawgiver. — 
 Pride of Birth. — A Jocular Prince on Foot, and a 
 Popular Peer on Horseback 34 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Journey continued. — Desultory Coach Conversation, in 
 which the Liberty of "The Press" is discussed, 
 and the Thistle declared to be not Indigenous to 
 Ireland. — Arguments and Coaches liable to break 
 down. — Hints for keeping Hounds, etc., etc. . . 48
 
 xxxvi Contents 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Page 
 
 Whisky versus Small-pox. — Ghibberish versus French. 
 
 — A Secret with Two Handles to it, which our 
 Hero and his Sister lay hold of 66 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 In which a Gentleman writes a Letter as long as a 
 
 Lady's 73 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 A Man of Law and Physic 84 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 " Britannia rules the Waves " 99 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Pretty Girl milking her Cow 1 1 1 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 In which Rory hears and sees more than he bargained 
 for, and finds in the Conclusion the Truth of 
 the Proverb, that Providence never shuts one Door 
 without opening another 123 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Showing that One Half of the World does not know 
 how the Other Half lives ; and also, that Soft 
 Words can bend Hard Iron, though they do not 
 butter Parsnips 146
 
 Contents xxxvii 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Page 
 "In the Dark, all Cats are Grey." — Rory becomes 
 
 possessed of an Important Secret, and discloses One 
 
 in Exchange 162 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 In which Rorj' remembers the Old Saying of " Put that 
 
 in your Pipe and smoke it" 175 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 In which it appears that One Man's Sin may prove An- 
 other Man' s Salvation 182 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 Being a Mixture of Romance and Reality 189 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 An "Irish" Fair with only "One" Fight in it. — De 
 Welskein's Metamorphoses. — Learned Pigs. — 
 Roasted Ducks. — Love and Murder, etc., etc. . 197 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 A Moonlight Meeting; with One too Many . . . . 225 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 Containing a Council of Love and a Council of War . 232 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Showing that Mothers in the Country contrive to marry 
 
 their Daughters, the same as Mothers in Town . . 238
 
 xxxviii C ontents 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Page 
 In which Rory O'More proves himself to be a Man of 
 
 Letters 243 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 In which Shan Regan and Soldering Solomon give a 
 Touch of their Quality, and Rory undergoes a 
 Trial of Temper 253
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 VOLUME ONE 
 
 " Oh! God be good to me," said the woman . Frontispiece 
 Pbotogra'vured from a draiving by H. L. Richardson 
 
 The Schoolmaster at Home Vignette on Title 
 
 Molly and the Priest's Dog Page 31 
 
 Home " 65 
 
 The Tinker " i57 
 
 Breaking it "^33 
 
 A New Cure for Popery " 250 
 
 Etched by W . H. W. Bicknell from drawings by Samuel Lo-ver
 
 RORY O'MORE 
 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE COTTAGE OF RORY o'mORE, WITH SCENERY, 
 MACHINERY, DRESSES AND DECORATIONS 
 
 IN a retired district of the South of Ireland, near 
 some wild hills and a romantic river, a small bv- 
 road led to a quiet spot, where, at the end of a little 
 lane, or boreen^ which was sheltered by some hazel- 
 hedges, stood a cottage which in England would have 
 been considered a poor habitation, but in Ireland was 
 absolutely comfortable, when contrasted with the 
 wretched hovels that most of her peasantry are 
 doomed to dwell in. The walls were only built of 
 mud — but then the door-way and such windows as 
 the cabin had were formed of cut stone, as was the 
 chimney, which last convenience is of rare occurrence 
 in Irish cabins, a hole in the roof generally serving 
 instead. The windows were not glazed, it is true, 
 but we must not expect too much gentility on this 
 point ; and though the light may not be let in as 
 much as it is the intention of such openings to do, yet 
 if the wind be kept out, the Irish peasant may be 
 thankful. A piece of board — or, as Pat says, a 
 wooden pane of glass — may occupy one square, 
 while its neighbour may be brown paper, ornamented 
 inside, perhaps, with a ballad setting forth how 
 vol.. I. — I
 
 2 Rory 0' More 
 
 " A sailor coorted a farmer's daughther 
 
 That lived convaynient to the Isle of Man," 
 
 or, may be, with a print of Saint Patrick banishing 
 the sarpents — or the Virgin Mary in flaring colours, 
 ,that one might take for 
 
 " The king''s daughther a come to town, 
 With a red petticoat and a green gownd." 
 
 But though the windows were not glazed, and 
 there was not a boarded floor in the house, yet it was 
 a snug cottage. Its earthen floors were clean and 
 dry, its thatched roof was sound : the dresser in the 
 principal room was well furnished with delf; there 
 were two or three chairs and a good many three- 
 legged stools — a spinning-wheel, that sure sign of 
 peace and good conduct — more than one iron pot — 
 more than one bed, and one of those four-posted, with 
 printed calico curtains of a most resplendent pattern : 
 there was a looking-glass, too, in the best bed-room, 
 with only one corner broken off, and only .three 
 cracks in the middle ; and that further damage might 
 not be done to this most valuable piece of furniture 
 — most valuable I say, for there was a pretty girl in 
 the house who wanted it every Sunday morning to see 
 that her bonnet was put on becomingly before she 
 went to chapel; — that no further damage might be 
 done, I say, this inimitable looking-glass was imbedded 
 in the wall, with a frame-work of mortar round it, 
 tastefully ornamented with cross-bars, done by the 
 adventurous hand of Rory O'More himself, who had 
 a genius for handling a trowel. This came to him by 
 inheritance, for his father had been a mason ; which 
 accounts for the cut-stone door-way, windows, and 
 chimney of the cottage, that Rory's father had built 
 for himself. But when I say Rory had a genius for 
 handling a trowel, I do not mean to say he followed
 
 Rory O'More 3 
 
 the trade of his father — he did not, — it was a gift 
 of nature which Rory left quite unencumbered by any 
 trammels of art ; for as for line and rule, these were 
 beneath Rory's consideration ; this the setting of the 
 o-lass proved — for there was no attempt at either the 
 perpendicular, the horizontal, or the plane ; and from 
 the last being wanting, the various portions of the 
 glass presented different angles, so that it reflected a 
 very distorted image of every object, and your face, 
 if you would believe the glass, was as crooked as a 
 ram's horn — which I take to be the best of all com- 
 parisons for crookedness. Mary O'More, however, 
 though as innocent a girl as any in the countr\', did 
 not believe that her face was very crooked : it was 
 poor Rorv who principally suffered, for he was con- 
 tinually giving himself most uncharitable gashes in 
 shaving, which Rory attributed to the razor, when in 
 fact it was the glass was in fault ; for when he fan- 
 cied he was going to smooth his upper lip, the 
 chances were that he was making an assault on his 
 nose, or cutting a slice off his chin. 
 
 But this glass has taken up a great deal too much 
 time — which, after all, is not uncommon: when 
 people get before a glass, they are very likely to lin- 
 ger there longer than they ought. 
 
 But I need not go on describing any more about 
 the cottage, — nobody wants an inventory of its fur- 
 niture, and I am neither an auctioneer nor a bailiff's 
 keeper. I have said Rory's father was a mason. 
 Now his mother was a widow — argal (as the grave- 
 digger hath it), his father was dead. Poor O'More, 
 after laying stones all his life, at last had a stone laid 
 over him ; and Rory, with filial piety, carved a cruci- 
 fix upon it, surmounted by the letters I. H. S. and 
 underneath this inscription: — 
 
 " Pray for the sowl of Rory O'More j Requiescat 
 in pace."
 
 4 
 
 Rory O'More 
 
 This inscription was Rory's first effort in sepulchral 
 sculpture, and, from his inexperience in the art, it 
 presented a ludicrous appearance : for, from the im- 
 portance Rory attached to his father's soul — or, as 
 he had it, sowl — he wished to make the word parti- 
 cularly conspicuous ; but, in doing this, he cut the 
 letters so large that he did not leave himself room to 
 finish the word, and it became divided — the word 
 7-equiescat became also divided : the inscription, there- 
 fore, stood as follows : — 
 
 
 You were thus called on to pray for the Sow in one 
 corner while the Cat was conspicuous in the other. 
 
 Such was Rory's first attempt in this way, and 
 though the work has often made others smile, poor 
 Rory's tears had moistened every letter of it, and 
 this humble tombstone was garlanded with as much 
 affection as the more costly ones of modern Pere La- 
 Chaise : and though there were none who could read 
 who did not laugh at the absurdity, yet they regarded
 
 Rory O'More 
 
 Rory's feelings too much to let him be a witness of 
 such mirth. Indeed Rory would have resented with 
 indignation the attempt to make the grave of his 
 father the subject of laughter ; for in no country is 
 the hallowed reverence for father and mother more 
 observed than in Ireland. 
 
 Besides, Rory was not a little proud of his name. 
 He was taught to believe there was good blood in his 
 veins, and that he was descended from the O 'Mores 
 of Leinster. Then, an old schoolmaster in the dis- 
 trict, whose pupil Rory had been, was constantly re- 
 counting to him, the glorious deeds of his progenitors 
 
 — or, as he called them, his " owld anshint anshisthers 
 in the owld anshint times," — and how he should never 
 disgrace himself by doing a dirty turn. " Not that I 
 ever seen the laste sign iv it in you, ma bouchal^ — 
 but there's no knowin'. And sure the divil 's busy 
 wid us sometimes, and dales in timtayshins, and lays 
 snares for us, all as one as you 'd snare a hare or 
 ketch sparrows in a thrap ; and who can tell the 
 minit that he might be layin' salt on your tail on- 
 knownst to you, if you wornt smart ? — and therefore 
 be always mindful of your anshisthers, that wor of 
 the highest blood in Ireland, and in one of the high- 
 est places in it too, Dunamaise — I mane the rock of 
 Dunamaise, and no less. And there is where Rory 
 O'More, king of Leinsther, lived in glory time out 
 o' mind ; and the Lords of the Pale darn't touch him 
 
 — and pale enough he made them often, I go bail; 
 
 — and there he was, — like an aigle on his rock, and 
 the dirty English afeard o' their lives to go within 
 miles iv him, and he shut up in his castle as stout as 
 
 a ram." 
 
 In such rhodomontade used Phelim O'Flanagan to 
 flourish away, and delight the ears of Rory and Mary, 
 and the widow's no less. Phelim was a great char-
 
 6 Rory O'More 
 
 acter : he wore a scratch wig that had been built 
 somewhere about the year One, and from its appear- 
 ance might justify the notion that Phelim's wig-box 
 was a dripping-pan. He had a pair of spectacles, 
 which held their place upon his nose by taking a 
 strong grip of it, producing thereby a snuffling pro- 
 nunciation, increased by his taking of snuff: indeed, 
 so closely was his proboscis embraced by this primi- 
 tive pair of spectacles, that he could not have his 
 pinch of snuff without taking them off, as they com- 
 pletely blockaded the passage. They were always 
 stuck low down on his nose, so that he could see 
 over them when he wished it, and this he did for all 
 distant objects ; while for reading he was obliged to 
 throw his head back to bring his eyes to bear through 
 the glasses ; and this, forcing the rear of his wig 
 downwards on the collar of his coat, shoved it for- 
 ward on his forehead, and stripped the back of his 
 pate : in the former case, his eyes were as round as 
 an owl's ; and in the other, closed nearly into the ex- 
 pression of disdain, or at least of great consequence. 
 His coat was of grey frieze, and his nether garment 
 of buckskin, equalling the polish of his wig, and sur- 
 passing that of his shoes, which indeed were not 
 polished, except on Sunday, or such occasions as the 
 priest of the parish was expected to pay his school a 
 visit, — and then the polish was produced by the 
 brogues being greased^ so that the resemblance to the 
 wig was more perfect. Stockings he had, after a 
 sort ; that is to say, he had woollen cases for his legs, 
 but there were not any feet to them ; they were 
 stuffed into the shoe to make believe, and the deceit 
 was tolerably well executed in front, where Phelim had 
 them under his eye ; but, like Achilles, he was vul- 
 nerable in the heel — indeed, worse off than that 
 renowned hero, for he had only one heel unprotected,
 
 Rory O'More 
 
 while poor Phelim had both. On Monday, Tuesday, 
 and Wednesday, Phelim had a shirt — you saw he 
 had ; but towards the latter end of the week, from 
 the closely-buttoned coat, and the ambuscade of a 
 spotted handkerchief round his neck, there was 
 ground for suspicion that the shirt was under the 
 process of washing, that it might be ready for service 
 on Sunday ; when, at mass, Phelim's shirt was always 
 at its freshest. 
 
 There was a paramount reason, to be sure, why 
 Phelim sported a clean shirt in chapel on Sunday: he 
 officiated as clerk during the service, — or, as it would 
 be said amongst the peasantry, he " sarved mass ; " and 
 in such a post of honour, personal decency is indis- 
 pensable. In this service he was assisted by a couple 
 of boys, who were the head of his school, and en- 
 joyed great immunities in consequence. In the first 
 place, they were supposed, from virtue of the dignity 
 to which they were advanced, to understand more 
 Latin than any of the rest of the boys ; and from the 
 necessity of their being decently clad, they were of 
 course the sons of the most comfortable farmers in 
 the district, who could afford the luxury of shoes and 
 stockings to their children, to enable them to act as 
 acolytes. The boys themselves seemed to like the 
 thing well enough, as their frequent passing and re- 
 passing behind the priest at the altar, with various 
 genuflexions, gave them a position of importance 
 before the neighbours that was gratifying ; and they 
 seemed to be equally pleased up to one point, and to 
 proceed in perfect harmony until the ringing of a 
 little bell, and that was the signal for a fight between 
 them : — when I say fight, I do not mean that they 
 boxed each other before (or rather behind) the priest, 
 but to all intents and purposes there was a struggle 
 who should get the bell, as that seemed the grand
 
 8 Rory O'More 
 
 triumph of the day ; and the little bell certainly had a 
 busy time of it, for the boy that had it seemed endued 
 with a prodigious accession of devotion ; and as he bent 
 himself to the very earth, he rattled the bell till it 
 seemed choking with its superabundant vibration ; 
 while the Christianity of his brother acolyte seemed to 
 suffer in proportion to the piety of his rival, for he 
 did not bow half so low, and was looking with a 
 sidelong eye and sulky mouth at his victorious 
 coadjutor. 
 
 As for Phelim, his post of honour was robing and 
 unrobing the priest before the altar; for in the 
 humble little chapel where all this was wont to occur 
 there was no vestry — the priest was habited in his 
 vestments in the presence of his congregation. But 
 Phelim's grand triumph seemed to be, his assisting 
 his clergy in sprinkling the flock with holy water. 
 This was done by means of a large sprinkling-brush, 
 which the priest dipped from time to time in a vessel 
 of holy water which Phelim held, and waving it to 
 the right and left, cast it over the multitude. For 
 this purpose, at a certain period, the little gate of a 
 small area railed round the altar was opened, and 
 forth stepped the priest, followed by Phelim bearing 
 the holy water. Now it happened that the vessel 
 which held it was no other than a bucket. I do not 
 mean this irreverently, for holy water would be as 
 holy in a bucket as in a golden urn ; but, God for- 
 give me ! I could not help thinking it rather queer to 
 see Phelim bearing this great bucket of water, with a 
 countenance indicative of the utmost pride and impor- 
 tance, following the priest, who advanced through the 
 crowd, that opened and bowed before him as his 
 reverence ever and anon turned round, popped his 
 sprinkling-brush into the water, and slashed it about 
 right and left over his flock, that courted the shower.
 
 Rory O'More 9 
 
 and were the happier the more they were wet. Poor 
 people ! if it made them happy, where was the harm 
 of it ? A man is not considered unworthy of the 
 blessings of the constitution of Great Britain by get- 
 ting wet to the skin in the pelting rain of the equinox ; 
 and I cannot, nor ever could, see, why a it-w drops 
 of holy water should exclude him. But hang philo- 
 sophy ! what has it to do with a novel ? 
 
 Phelim, like a great many other hedge-schoolmas- 
 ters, held his rank in the Church of Rome from his 
 being able to mumble some scraps of Latin, which 
 being the only language his Sable Majesty does not 
 understand, is therefore the one selected for the cele- 
 bration of the mass. How a prince of his importance 
 could be so deficient in his education, may well 
 create surprise, particularly as he is so constant an 
 inmate of our universities. 
 
 Phelim's Latin, to be sure, could scarcely " shame 
 the d — 1," though certainly it might have puzzled 
 him. It was a barbarous jargon, and but for knowing 
 the phrases he meant to say, no one could compre- 
 hend him. Spirit u tuo, was from his mouth, " Sper- 
 chew chew 6," and so on. Nevertheless, it was not 
 in chapel alone that Phelim sported his Latin — nor 
 in his school either, where, for an additional twopence 
 a-week, he inducted his scholars into the mysteries of 
 the classics (and mysteries might they well be called), 
 — but even in his social intercourse, he was fond of 
 playing the pedant and astonishing the vulgar ; and 
 as poaching piscators throw medicated crumbs into 
 the waters where they fish, so Phelim flung about his 
 morsels of Latin to catch his gudgeons. Derivations 
 were his fort ; and after elucidating something in that 
 line, he always said, " Derry wather," and took snuff 
 with an air of sublimity. Or, if he overcame an 
 antagonist in an argument, which was seldom the
 
 lo Rory O'More 
 
 case, because few dared to engage with him, — but, 
 when any individual was rash enough to encounter 
 Phelim, he always slaughtered him with big words, and 
 instead of addressing his opponent, he would turn to 
 the company present and say, " Now, I '11 make yiz 
 all sinsible to a demonstheration ; " and then, after he 
 had held them suspended in wonder for a few minutes 
 at the jumble of hard words which neither he nor they 
 understood, he would look round the circle with a 
 patronising air, saying, "You persaive — Q. E. D. 
 what was to be demonstherated ! " 
 
 This always finished the argument in the letter, 
 but not in the spirit ; for Phelim, though he secured 
 silence, did not produce persuasion : his adversary 
 often kept his own opinion, but kept it a secret too, 
 as long as Phelim was present ; " for how," as they 
 themselves said when his back was turned, " could it 
 be expected for them to argufy with him when he 
 took to discoorsin them out o' their common sense ? 
 
 — and the hoighth o' fine language it sartainly was 
 
 — but sure it xvouldnt stand to raisonJ" How many a 
 speech in higher places is worthy of the same 
 commentary ! 
 
 Perhaps I have lingered too long in detailing these 
 peculiarities of Phelim ; but he was such an original, 
 that a sketch of him was too great a temptation to be 
 resisted ; besides, as he is about to appear immedi- 
 ately, I wished the reader to have some idea of the 
 sort of person he was. 
 
 The evening was closing as Phelim O'Flanagan 
 strolled up the horeen leading to the widow O'JVlore's 
 cottage. On reaching the house he saw the widow 
 sitting at the door knitting. 
 
 " God save you, Mrs. O'More ! " said Phelim. 
 
 " God save you kindly ! " answered the widow. 
 
 " Faith, then, it 's yourself is the industherous
 
 Rory 0' More ii 
 
 woman, Airs. O'AIore, for it is working you are airlj 
 and late : and to think of your being at the needles 
 now, and the evenin' closin' in ! " 
 
 " Oh, I don't call this work," said the widow : " it 
 is only jist to have something to do, and not be lost 
 with idleness, that I 'm keepin' my hands goin'." 
 
 " And your eyes too, 'faith — and God spare them 
 to you." 
 
 " Amin, dear," said the widow. 
 
 " And where is ihccolleen^thzx. she isn't helpin'you?" 
 
 " Oh, she 's jist gone bevant the meadow there, to 
 cut nettles for the chickens — she '11 be in in a minit. 
 Won't you sit down, Mr. O'Flanagan? — you 'd bet- 
 ther dhraw a sate." 
 
 "I'm taller standin', Mrs. O'More, — thank you 
 all the same, ma'am. And where would Rory be ? " 
 
 " Whv, indeed, the Scholar wint out shootin', and 
 Ror)' wint wid him. — It 's fond of the sport he is, 
 Mr. O'Flanagan, as you know." 
 
 "Thrue for you, ma'am; it's hard if I wouldn't, 
 when I sot over him for five years and betther ; and 
 hard it was to keep him undher ! for he was always 
 fond o' sport." 
 
 " But not the taste o' vice in him, Phelim dear," 
 said the mother. 
 
 "No, no, Mrs. O'More, bv no manes — nothing 
 but heart and fun in him ; but not the sign o' mis- 
 chief. And why would n't he like to go a start with 
 the young gintleman a-shootin' ? — the dog and the 
 gun is tempting to man ever since the davs o' Vargil 
 himself, who says with great beauty and discrimina- 
 tion, y/rwa virurnque cam: which manes, ' Arms, men, 
 and dogs,' which is three things that always goes 
 togither since the world began." 
 
 " Think o' that now ! " said the widow : " and so 
 Vargo used to go shootin' ! "
 
 12 Rory O'More 
 
 " Not exactly, Mrs. O'More, my dear : besides the 
 man's name was not Vargo, but Vargil. Vargo, 
 Mrs. O'More, manes the Vargin." 
 
 " God forgi' me ! " said the widow ; " is it the 
 blessed Vargin I said wint shootin' ? " and she 
 crossed herself. 
 
 "No, Mrs. O'More, my dear — by no manes. 
 Vargo manes only vargin ; which is not blessed, 
 without you join it with something else. But Vargil 
 was the man's name ; he was a great Roman pote." 
 
 " Oh, the darlin' ! " said the widow j " and was he 
 a Roman ? " 
 
 "Not as you mane it, Mrs. O'More, my dear; he 
 was not a good Catholic — and more 's the pity, and 
 a sore loss to him ! But he did n't know betther, for 
 they were lost in darkness in them days, and had not 
 the knowledge of uz. But whin I say he was a 
 Roman, I mane he was of that famous nation — (and 
 tarin' fellows they wor!) — Romani popuii^ as we 
 say, his nativity being cast in Mantua, which is a 
 famous port of that counthry, you persaive, Mrs. 
 O'More." 
 
 Here Mrs. O'More dropped her ball of worsted : 
 and Phelim, not wishing a word of his harangue to be 
 lost, waited till the widow was reseated and in a state 
 of attention again. 
 
 " Mantua, I say, Mrs. O'More, a famous port of 
 the Romani populi — the port of Mantua — which 
 retains to this day the honour of Vargil's nativity 
 bein' cast in that same place, you persaive, Mrs. 
 O'More." 
 
 " Yis, yis, Mr. O'Flanagan, I 'm mindin' you, sir. 
 Oh, what a power o' larnin' you have ! Well, 
 well, but it 's wondherful ! — and sure I never heerd 
 afore of any one bein' born in a portmantia." 
 
 " Oh ! ho, ho, ho ! Mrs. O'More ! No, my dear
 
 Rory O'More 13 
 
 ma'am," said Phelim, laughing, " I did n't sav he 
 was born in a portmantia : I said the port of Mantua, 
 which was a territorial possession, or domain, as I 
 may say, of the Romani populi^ where Vargil had his 
 nativity cast, — that is to say, was born." 
 
 " Dear, dear ! what knowledge you have. Air. 
 O'Flanagan ! — and no wondher vou 'd laugh at me ! 
 But sure, no wondher at the same time, when I 
 thought you wor talkin' of a portmantia, that I would 
 wondher at a child bein' sent into the world in that 
 manner." 
 
 "Quite nath'ral, Mrs. O'More, my dear — quite 
 nath'ral," said Phelim. 
 
 " But can vou tell me " 
 
 *' To be sure I can," said Phelim : " what is it ? " 
 
 " I mane, would you tell me, Mr. O'Flanagan, is 
 that the place portmantias comes from ? " 
 
 " Whv, indeed. Airs. O'AIore, it is likely, from the 
 derrywation, that it is : but, you see, these is small 
 thrifles o' history that is not worth the while o' great 
 min to notice ; and by raison of that same we are left 
 to our own conjunctures in sitch matthers." 
 
 "Dear, dear! Well — but, sir, did that gintle- 
 man you wor talkin' about go a shootin' — that Mr. 
 Varjuice ? " 
 
 "Vargil, Mrs. O'AIore — Var-gil," said Phelim, 
 with authority. 
 
 " I beg his pard'n and vours, sir." 
 
 " No offince. Airs. O'More. Why, ma'am, as for 
 goin shootin', he did not — and for various raisons : 
 guns was scarce in thim times, and gunpowdher was 
 not in vogue, but was, by all accounts, atthributed 
 to Friar Bacon posteriorly." 
 
 " Oh, the dirtv divils ! " said the widow, " to fry 
 their bacon with gunpowdher — that bates all I ever 
 heerd."
 
 14 Rory O'More 
 
 Phelim could not help laughing outright at the 
 widow's mistake, and was about to explain, but she 
 was a little annoyed at being laughed at, and Rory 
 O'More and the Scholar, as he was called, having re- 
 turned at the moment, she took the opportunity of 
 retiring into the house, and left Phelim and his expla- 
 nation and the sportsmen altogether.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 SHOWING HOW A JOURNEY MAY BE PERFORMED ON 
 A GRIDIRON WITHOUT GOING AS FAR AS ST. 
 LAURENCE 
 
 THE arrival of Rory O'More and the Scholar 
 having put an end to the colloquy of the widow 
 and Phelim O'Elana^an, the reader mav as well be 
 informed, during the pause, who the person is already 
 designated under the title of " the Scholar." 
 
 It was some weeks before the opening of our story 
 that Rory O'More had gone to Dublin, for the 
 transaction of some business connected with the 
 lease of the little farm of the widow — if the few 
 acres she held might be dignified with that name. 
 There was only some very subordinate person on the 
 spot to whom any communication on the subject 
 could be made, for the agent, following the example 
 of the lord of the soil, was an absentee from the 
 property as well as his employer ; — the landlord resid- 
 ing principally in London, though deriving most of 
 his income from Ireland, and the agent living in 
 Dublin, making half-yearly visits to the tenantry, 
 who never saw his face until he came to ask them 
 for their rents. As it happened that it was in the 
 six months' interregnum that the widow wished to 
 arrange about her lease, she sent her son to Dublin 
 for the purpose — "For what's the use," said she, 
 " of talking to that fellow that 's down here, who can
 
 i6 Rory O'More 
 
 never give you a straight answer, but goes on with his 
 gosther, and says he '11 write about it, and will have 
 word for you next time ; and so keeps you goin' 
 hither and thither, and all the time the thing is just 
 where it was before, and never comes to any thing ? 
 — So Rory, dear, in God's name go off yourself and 
 see the agint in Dublin, and get the rights o' the 
 thing out o' his own mouth." So Rory set out for 
 Dublin, not without plenty of cautions from his 
 mother to take care of himself in the town, for she 
 heard it was" the dickens' own place; and I 'm tovvld 
 they 're sich rogues there, that if you sleep with your 
 mouth open, they '11 stale the teeth out o' your 
 head." 
 
 " Faix, and maybe they 'd find me like a weasel 
 asleep ; " answered Rory — " asleep with my eyes 
 open : and if they have such a fancy for my teeth, 
 maybe, it 's in the shape of a bite they 'd get them." 
 For Rory had no small notion of his own sagacity. 
 
 The wonders of Dublin gave Rory, on his return, 
 wide field for descanting upon, and made his hearers 
 wonder in turn. But this is not the time nor place 
 to touch on such matters. Suffice it here to say, Rory 
 transacted his business in Dublin satisfactorily; and 
 having done so, he mounted his outside place on one 
 of the coaches from town, and found himself beside a 
 slight, pale, but rather handsome young gentleman, 
 perfectly free from any thing of that repulsive bearing 
 which sometimes too forcibly marks the distinction 
 between the ranks of parties that may chance to meet 
 in such promiscuous society as that which a public 
 conveyance huddles together. He was perfectly 
 accommodating to his fellow-travellers while they 
 were shaking themselves down into their places, and 
 on the journey he conversed freely with Rory on 
 such subjects as the passing occurrences of the road
 
 Rory O'More 17 
 
 suggested. This unaffected conduct won him ready 
 esteem and liking from his humble neighbour, as in 
 such cases it never fails to do : but its effect was 
 heightened by the contrast which another passenger 
 afforded, who seemed to consider it a great degrada- 
 tion to have a person in Rory's condition placed 
 beside him ; and he spoke in an offensive tone of 
 remark to the person seated at the other side, and 
 quite loud enough to be heard, of the assurance of 
 the lower orders, and how hard it was to make low 
 fellows understand how to keep their distance. To 
 all this, Rory, with a great deal of tact, never made 
 any reply, and to a casual observer would have 
 seemed not to notice it ; but to the searching eye of 
 his pale companion, there was the quick and momen- 
 tary quiver of indignation on the peasant's lip, and the 
 compression of brow that denotes pain and anger, the 
 more acute from their being; concealed. But an 
 occasion soon offered for this insolent and ill-bred 
 fellow to make an open aggression upon Rory, which 
 our hero returned with interest. After one of the 
 stoppages on the road for refreshment, the passengers 
 resumed their places, and the last to make his re- 
 appearance was this bashaw. On getting up to his 
 seat, he said, " Where 's my coat ? " 
 
 To this no one made any answer, and the question 
 was soon repeated in a louder tone : *' Where 's my 
 coat ? " 
 
 " Your coat, is it, sir? " said the coachman. 
 
 *' Yes — my coat ; do you know any thing of it ? " 
 
 "No, sir," said the coachman : " maybe you took 
 it into the house with you." 
 
 " No, I did not : I left it on the coach. — And by 
 the bye," said he, looking at Rory, "you were the 
 only person who did not quit the coach — did you 
 take it?" 
 
 VOL. I. — 2
 
 i8 Rory O'More 
 
 " Take what F " said Rory, with a peculiar em- 
 phasis and intonation on the what. 
 
 " My coat," said the other, with extreme effrontery. 
 
 " I 've a coat o' my own," said Rory, with great 
 composure. 
 
 " That 's not an answer to my question," said the 
 other. 
 
 " I think you ought to be glad to get so quiet an 
 answer," said Rory. 
 
 " I think so too," said the pale traveller. 
 
 " I did not address my conversation to you, sir," 
 said the swaggering gentleman. 
 
 " If you did, sir, you should have been lying in the 
 middle of the road, now," was the taunting rejoinder. 
 
 At this moment, a waiter made his appearance at 
 the door of the inn, bearing the missing coat on his 
 arm ; and handing it up to the owner, he said, " You 
 left this behind you in the parlour, sir." 
 
 The effect was what any one must anticipate : 
 indignant eves were turned on all sides upon the 
 person making so wanton an aggression, and he him- 
 self seemed to stagger under the evidence against 
 him. He scarcely knew what to do. After much 
 stammering, and hemming and hawing, he took the 
 coat from the waiter, and turning to Rory, said, " I 
 see — I forgot — I thought that I left it on the 
 coach ; — but — a I see 't was a mistake." 
 
 " Oh, make no apologies," said Ror)^ ; " we were 
 both undher a mistake." 
 
 " How both ? " said the Don. 
 
 " Why, sir," said Rory, " you mistuk me for a 
 thief, and I mistuk you for a gintleman." 
 
 The swaggerer could not rally against the laugh this 
 bitter repartee made against him, and he was effectu- 
 ally silenced for the rest of the journey. 
 
 Indeed, the conversation soon slackened on all
 
 Rory 0' More 19 
 
 sides, for it began to rain ; and it may be remarked, 
 that under such circumstances travellers wrap up 
 their minds and bodies at the same time ; and once 
 a man draws his nose inside the collar of his great- 
 coat, it miist be something much above the average 
 of stage-coach pleasantry which will make him poke 
 it out again — and spirits invariably fall as umbrellas 
 rise. 
 
 But neither great-coats nor umbrellas were long 
 proof against the torrents that soon fell, for these 
 were not the days of Macintosh and India rubber. 
 
 Have you ever remarked, that on a sudden dash of 
 rain the coachman immediately begins to whip his 
 horses ? So it was on the present occasion ; and the 
 more it rained, the faster he drove. Splash they went 
 through thick and thin, as if velocity could have done 
 them any good ; and the rain, one might have thought, 
 was vying with the coachman, — for the faster he 
 drove, the faster it seemed to rain. 
 
 At last the passengers seated on the top began to 
 feel their seats invaded by the flood that deluged the 
 roof of the coach, just as they entered a town where 
 there was change of horses to be made. The mo- 
 ment the coach stopped, Rory O'More jumped off, 
 and said to the coachman, " I '11 be back with you 
 before you go ; — but don't start before I come : " 
 and away he ran down the town. 
 
 " Faix, that 's a sure way of being back before I 
 go ! " said the driver : " but you 'd betther not delay, 
 my buck, or it 's behind I '11 lave you." 
 
 While change was being made, the passengers en- 
 deavoured to procure wads of straw to sit upon, for 
 the wet became more and more inconvenient ; and at 
 last all was ready for starting, and Rory had not yet 
 returned. The horn was blown, and the coachman's 
 patience was just worn out, when Rory hove in sight,
 
 20 Rory O'More 
 
 splashing his way through the middle of the street, 
 flourishing two gridirons over his head. 
 
 " Here I am," said he, panting and nearly ex- 
 hausted : " 'faith, I 'd a brave run for it ! " 
 
 " Why, thin, what the dickens do you want here 
 with o-ridirons ? " said the coachman. 
 
 "Oh, never mind," said Rory; "jist give me a 
 wisp o' sthraw, and God bless you," said he to one 
 of the helpers who was standing by ; and having got 
 it, he scrambled up the coach, and said to his pale 
 friend, " Now, sir, we '11 be comfortable." 
 
 " I don't see much likelihood of it," said his 
 fellow-traveller. 
 
 " Why, look what I 've got for you," said Rory. 
 
 " Oh, that straw will soon be sopped with rain, and 
 then we '11 be as badly off as before." 
 
 " But it 's not on sthraw I 'm depindin'," said Rory ; 
 " look at this ! " and he brandished one of the gridirons. 
 
 " I have heard of stopping the tide with a pitch- 
 fork," said the traveller, smiling, " but never of 
 keeping out rain with a gridiron." 
 
 " 'Faith, thin, I '11 show you how to do that same," 
 said Rory. "Here — sit up — clap this gridiron 
 undher you^ and you '11 be undher wather no longer. 
 Stop, sir, stay a minit — don't sit down on the bare 
 bars, and be makin' a beefstake o' yourself ; here 's 
 a wisp o' sthraw to put betune you and the cowld iron 
 — and not a dhryer sate in all Ireland than the same 
 gridiron." 
 
 The young traveller obeyed, and while he admired 
 the ingenuity, could not help laughing at the whimsi- 
 cality, of the contrivance. 
 
 " You see I 've another for myself," said Rory, 
 seating himself in a similar manner on his second 
 gridiron : " and now," added he, " as far as the sates 
 is consarned, it may rain till doomsday."
 
 Rory O'More 21 
 
 Away went the coach again ; and for some time 
 after resuming the journey, the young traveller was 
 revolving the oddity of the foregoing incident in his 
 mind, and led by his train of thought to the considera- 
 tion of national characteristics, he came to the con- 
 clusion that an Irishman was the only man under the 
 sun who could have hit upon so strange an expedient 
 for relieving them from their difficulty. He was 
 struck not only by the originality of the design and 
 the promptness of the execution, but also by the 
 good-nature of his companion in thinking of him 
 on the occasion. After these conclusions had passed 
 through his own mind, he turned to Rory, and said, 
 " What was it made you think of a gridiron ? " 
 " Why, thin, I '11 tell you," said Rory\ " I prom- 
 ised my mother to bring a present to the priest from 
 Dublin, and I could not make up my mind rightly 
 what to get all the time I was there. I thought of a 
 pair o' top-boots ; for indeed, his reverence's is none 
 of the best, and onlv you know them to be top-boots, 
 you would not take them to be top-boots, bekase the 
 bottoms has been put in so often that the tops is wore 
 out intirely, and is no more like top-boots than my 
 brogues. So I wint to a shop in Dublin, and picked 
 out the purtiest pair o' top-boots I could see; — whin 
 I say purty, I don't mane a flourishin' ' taarin' pair 
 but sitch as was fit for a priest, a respectable pair o' 
 boots; — and with that, I pulled out my good money 
 to pay for thim, whin jist at that minit, remembering 
 the thricks o' the town, I bethought o' mvself, and 
 says I, ' I suppose these are the right thing ? ' says I 
 to the man. 'You can thry them,' says he. — ' How 
 can I thry them ? ' says I. — ' Pull them on you,' says 
 he. — ' Throth, an' I'd be sorrv,' says I, 'to take 
 sitch a liberty with thim,' says I. — 'Why, aren't 
 you goin' to ware thim ? ' says he. — 'Is it me ? ' says
 
 22 Rory O'More 
 
 I. ' Me ware top-boots ? Do you think it 's takin' 
 lave of my sinses I am?' says I. — 'Then what do 
 you want to buy them for?' says he. — * For his 
 reverence, Father Kinshela,' says I. ' Are they the 
 right sort for him ? ' — ' How should I know ? ' says 
 he. — ' You 're a purty boot-maker,' says I, ' not to 
 know how to make a priest's boot ! ' — ' How do I 
 know his size ? ' says he. — ' Oh, don't be comin' ofF 
 that-a-way,' says I. ' There 's no sitch great differ 
 betune priests and other min! ' " 
 
 " I think you are very right there," said the pale 
 traveller. 
 
 " To be sure, sir," said Rory ; " and it was only jist 
 a come off for his own ignorance. — ' Tell me his size,' 
 says the fellow, ' and I'll fit him.' — 'He's betune 
 five and six fut,' says I. — 'Most men are,' says he, 
 laughin' at me. He was an impidint fellow. — ' It 's 
 not the five, nor six, but his two feet I want to know 
 the size of,' says he. So I perceived he was jeerin' 
 me, and says I, ' Why, thin, you disrespectful vaga- 
 bone o' the world, you Dublin jackeen ! do you mane 
 to insinivate that Father Kinshela ever wint barefutted 
 in his life, that I could know the size of his fut,' says 
 I ! and with that I threw the boots in his face. ' Take 
 that,' says I, ' you dirty thief o' the world ! you impi- 
 dint vagabone of the world ! you ignorant citizen o' 
 the world ! ' And with that I left the place." 
 
 The traveller laughed outright at the absurdity of 
 Rory's expectation that well-fitting boots for all per- 
 sons were to be made by intuition. 
 
 " 'Faith, I thought it would plaze you," said Rory. 
 " Don't you think I sarved him right ? " 
 
 " You astonished him, I dare say." 
 
 " I '11 engage I did. Wanting to humbug me that 
 way, taking me for a nath'ral bekase I come from the 
 counthry ! "
 
 Rory O'More 23 
 
 " Oh, I am not sure of that," said the traveller, 
 " It is their usual practice to take measure of their 
 customers." 
 
 " Is it, thin ? " 
 
 " It really is." 
 
 " See that, now ! " said Rory, with an air of tri- 
 umph. " You would think that they wor cleverer in 
 the town than in the counthiy ; and they ought to be 
 so, by all accounts ; — but in the regard of what I 
 towld you, vou see, we 're before them intirely." 
 
 " How so ? " said the traveller. 
 
 " Arrah ! bekase thev never throuble people in the 
 counthry at all with takin' their measure; butyou jist 
 go to a fair, and bring your fut along with you, and 
 somebody else dhrives a cartful o' brogues into the 
 place, and there you sarve yourself; and so the man 
 gets his money and you get your shoes, and every 
 one 's plazed. Now, is n't that betther than sitch 
 botches as thim in Dublin, that must have the meas- 
 ure, and keep you waitin' ? while in the counthry 
 there 's no delay in life, but it 's jist down with your 
 money and off with your brogues ! " 
 
 "On with your brogues, you mean?" said the 
 traveller. 
 
 " No, indeed, now ! " said Rory ; " you 're out 
 there. Sure we would n't be so wasteful as to put 
 on a bran new pair o' brogues to go lickin' the road 
 home ? no, in throth ; we keep them for the next 
 dance we 're goin' to, or maybe to go to chapel of a 
 Sunday." 
 
 "And if vou don't put them on, how can you tell 
 they fit vou ? " 
 
 " Oh^ they 're all alike ! " 
 
 " But what would you do, when you wanted to go 
 to vour dance, if you found your brogues were too 
 small ? "
 
 24 Rory O'More 
 
 *' Oh, that niver happens. They 're all fine alsy 
 shoes." 
 
 " Well, but if they prove too easy ? " 
 
 " That 's aisy cured," said Rory : " stuff a thrifle 
 o' hay into them, like the Mullingar heifers." 
 
 " Mullingar heifers ! " said the traveller, rather 
 surprised by the oddity of the expression. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Rory; "did you niver hear of the 
 Mullingar heifers ? " 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " Why, you see, sir, the women in Westmeath, 
 they say, is thick in the legs, God help them, the 
 craythurs ! and so there 's a saying again thim, 
 * You 're beef to the heels, like a Mullingar 
 heifer.' " 
 
 " Oh ! I perceive." 
 
 " Yes, sir, and it 's all on account of what I towld 
 you about the hay." 
 
 " How ? " said the traveller. 
 
 " Why, there 's an owld joke you may take a turn 
 out of, if you like, whin you see a girl that 's thick 
 in the fetlock — you call afther her and say, ' Young 
 woman ! ' She turns round, and then says you, ' I 
 beg your pardon, ma'am, but I think you 're used to 
 wear hay in your shoes.' Thin, if she 's innocent, 
 she '11 ask '- Why ? ' — and thin you '11 say, ' Bekase 
 the calves has run down your legs to get at it." 
 
 " I see," said the stranger ! " that is, if she 's in- 
 nocent." 
 
 " Yis, sir — simple I mane; but that seldom hap- 
 pens, for they 're commonly up to you, and 'cute 
 enough." 
 
 " Now, in case she 's not innocent, as you say ? " 
 said the traveller. 
 
 " 'Faith ! maybe it 's a sharp answer you '11 get 
 thin, or none. It 's as like as not she may say,
 
 Rory O'More zs 
 
 ' Thank 'ee, young man, ;wy calf does n't like hay, and 
 so your welkim to it yourself.'" 
 
 " But all this time," said the traveller, " you have 
 not told me of your reasons for getting the grid- 
 irons." 
 
 " Oh ! wait a bit," said Rory ; " sure it 's that 
 I 'm comin' to. Where 's this I was ? " 
 
 " You were running down the Alullingar girls' 
 legs," said the traveller. 
 
 " I see vou 're sharp at an answer yourself, sir," 
 said Ror\'. " But what I mane is, where did I lave 
 off tellin' you about the present for the priest ? — 
 was n't it at the bootmaker's shop ? — yes, that was 
 it. Well, sir, on laving the shop, as soon as I kem 
 to myself afther the fellow's impidince, I begun to 
 think what was the next best thing I could get for 
 his reverence ; and with that, while I was thinkin' 
 about it, I seen a very respectable owld gintleman 
 goin' by, with the most beautiful stick in his hand I 
 ever set mv eyes on, and a goolden head to it that 
 was worth its weight in goold ; and it gev him such 
 an ili^ant look altog-ether, that savs I to mvself, ' It 's 
 the very thing for Father Kinshela, if I could get 
 sitch another.' And so I wint lookin' about me 
 every shop I seen as I wint by, and at last, in a 
 sthreet thev cal Dame Sthreet — and, by the same 
 token, I did n't know why they called it Dame Sthreet 
 till I ax'd ; and I was towld they called it Dame 
 Sthreet bekase the ladies were so fond o' walkin' 
 there ; — and lovely craythurs they wor ! and I can't 
 b'lieve that the town is such an onwholesome place 
 to live in, for most o' the ladies I seen there had the 
 most beautiful rosy cheeks I ever clapt my eyes upon 
 — and the beautiful rowlin' eyes o' them ! Well, it 
 was in Dame Sthreet, as I was sayin', that I kem to 
 a shop where there was a power o' sticks, and so
 
 26 Rory O'More 
 
 I wint in and looked at thim ; and a man in the place 
 kem to me and ax'd me if I wanted a cane ? '■ No,' 
 says I, ' I don't want a cane ; it 's a stick I want,' 
 says I. ' A cane, you ynane^ says he. ' No,' says I, 
 ' it 's a stick ' — for I was detarmined to have no cane, 
 but to stick to the stick. ' Here 's a nate one,' says 
 he. ' I don't want a nate one,' says I, ' but a re- 
 sponsible one,' says I, ' 'Faith ! ' says he, ' if an Irish- 
 man's stick was responsible, it would have a great 
 dale to answer for' — and he laughed a power. I 
 did n't know myself what he meant, but that 's what 
 he said." 
 
 " It was because you asked for a responsible stick," 
 said the traveller. 
 
 " And why would n't I," said Rory, " when it was 
 for his reverence I wanted it ? Why would n't he 
 have a nice-lookin', respectable,^ responsible stick ? " 
 
 " Certainly," said the traveller. 
 
 " Well, I picked out one that looked to my likin' 
 — a good substantial stick, with an ivory top to it — 
 for I seen that the goold-headed ones was so dear 
 that I could n't come up to them ; and so says I, 
 ' Give me a howld o' that,' says I — and I tuk a grip 
 iv it. I never was so surprised in my life. I thought 
 to get a good, brave handful of a solid stick, but, my 
 dear, it was well it did n't fly out o' my hand a'most, it 
 was so light. ' Phew ! ' says I, ' what sort of a stick 
 is this ? ' 'I tell you it 's not a stick, but a cane,' says 
 he. ' 'Faith ! I b'lieve you,' says I. ' You see how 
 good and light it is,' says he. Think o' that, sir ! — 
 to call a stick good and light — as if there could be 
 any good in life in a stick that was n't heavy, and 
 could sthreck a good blow ! ' Is it jokin' you are ? ' 
 says I. 'Don't you feel it yourself?' says he. 
 
 1 Responsible is always applied by the Irish peasantry in the 
 sense of respectable.
 
 Rory O'More 27 
 
 ' Throth, I can hardly feel it at all,' says I. ' Sure 
 that 's the beauty of it,' says he. Think o' the igno- 
 rant vagabone ! — to call a stick a beauty that was as 
 as light a'most as a bulrush ! ' And so you can 
 hardly feel it!' says he, grinnin'. ' Yis, indeed,' 
 says I ; ' and what 's worse, I don't think I could 
 make any one else feel it either.' ' Oh ! you want a 
 stick to bate people with ! ' says he. ' To be sure,' 
 says I ; ' sure that 's the use of a stick,' '■ To knock 
 the sinses out o' people ! * says he, grinnin' again. 
 ' Sartinly,' says I, ' if they 're saucy ' — lookin hard 
 at him at the same time, ' Well, these is only walkin'- 
 sticks,' says he. * Throth, you may say runnin- 
 sticks,' says I, ' for you dare n't stand before any one 
 with sich a thraneen as that in your fist.' ' Well, 
 pick out the heaviest o' them you plaze,' says he ; 
 'take your choice.' Sol wint pokin' and rummagin' 
 among thim, and, if you believe me, there was n't a 
 stick in their whole shop worth a kick in the shins — 
 divil a one ! " 
 
 " But why did you require such a heavy stick for 
 the priest? " 
 
 " Bekase there is not a man in the parish wants it 
 more," said Rory. 
 
 " Is he so quarrelsome, then ? " asked the traveller. 
 
 "No, but the greatest o' pacemakers," said Rorv. 
 
 " Then what does he want the heavy stick for ? " 
 
 " For wallopin' his flock, to be sure," said Rory. 
 
 "Walloping!" said the traveller, choking with 
 laughter. 
 
 "Oh! you may laugh," said Rory; "but, 'pon 
 my sowl ! you would n't laugh if you wor undher his 
 hand, for he has a brave heavy one, God bless him 
 and spare him to us ! " 
 
 "And what is all this walloping for? " 
 
 " Why, sir, whin we have a bit of a fight, for fun,
 
 28 Rory 0' More 
 
 or the regular faction one, at the fair, his reverence 
 sometimes hears of it, and comes av coorse." 
 
 " Good God ! " said the traveller in real astonish- 
 ment, "does the priest join the battle? " 
 
 " No, no, no, sir ! I see you 're quite a sthranger 
 in the counthry. The priest join it ! — Oh ! by no 
 manes. But he comes and stops it ; and, av coorse, 
 the only way he can stop it is, to ride into thim, and 
 wallop thim all round before him, and disparse thim 
 — scatther thim like chaff before the wind ; and it 's 
 the best o' sticks he requires for that same." 
 
 " But might he not have his heavy stick on pur- 
 pose for that service, and make use of a lighter one 
 on other occasions ? " 
 
 " As for that matther, sir," said Rory, " there 's no 
 knowin' the minit he might want it, for he is often 
 necessiated to have recoorse to it. It might be, going 
 through the village, the public-house is too full, and 
 in he goes and dhrives them out. Oh ! it would de- 
 light your heart to see the style he clears a public- 
 house in, in no time ! " 
 
 " But would n't his speaking to them answer the 
 purpose as well ? " 
 
 "Oh no! he doesn't like to throw away his dis- 
 coorse on thim ; and why should he ? — he keeps that 
 for the blessed althar on Sunday, which is a fitter 
 place for it : besides, he does not like to be sevare 
 on us." 
 
 " Severe ! " said the traveller in surprise ; " why, 
 have n't you said that he thrashes you round on all 
 occasions ? " 
 
 " Yis, sir ; but what o' that ? — sure that 's nothin' 
 to his tongue — his words is like swoords or razhors, 
 I may say : we 're used to a lick of a stick every day, 
 but not to sich language as his reverence sometimes 
 murthers us with whin we displaze him. Oh ! it 's
 
 Rory 0' More 29 
 
 terrible, so it is, to have the weight of his tongue 
 on you ! Throth ! I 'd rather let him bate me from 
 this till to-morrow, than have one angry word from 
 him." 
 
 " I see, then, he must have a heavy stick," said the 
 traveller. 
 
 " To be sure he must, sir, at all times ; and that 
 was the raison I was so particular in the shop ; and 
 afther spendin' over an hour — would vou b'lieve it? 
 — divil a stick I could get in the place fit for a child, 
 much less a man — all poor contimptible things; and 
 so the man I was talkin' to says to me at last, ' It 's 
 odd that in all these sticks there is not one to plaze 
 vou.' ' You know nothin' about it,' savs I. 'You 'd 
 betther be otF, and take up no more o' mv time,' savs 
 he. ' As for your time,' says I, ' I 'd be sorr)' to idle 
 anybody ; but in the regard of knowin' a stick, I '11 
 give up to no man,' says I. ' Look at that ! ' says I, 
 howldin' up my own purty bit o' blackthorn I had in 
 my fist. ' Would you compare vour owld batther'd 
 stick,' says he, — (there was a. few chips out of it, for 
 it is an owld friend, as you may see), — 'would you 
 compare it,' says he, ' to this ? ' — howldin' up one of 
 his bulrushes. ' By gor,' says I, ' if you like to thry 
 a turn with me, I '11 let vou know which is the best ! ' 
 says I. ' You know nothin' about it,' savs he — 
 ' this is the best o' su2:ar canes,' ' Bv mv sowl, 
 
 C W.J 
 
 thin ! ' says I, ' you '11 get no sugar out o' this, I 
 promise you! — but at the '^ame time, the divil a 
 sweeter bit o' timber in the wide world than the same 
 blackthorn — and if you'd like to taste it you may 
 thry.' 'No,' says he; 'I'm no happy cure,' — (or 
 somethin' he said about cure). 'Thin if you're not 
 aisy to cure,' says I, ' you 'd betther not fight ; ' which 
 is thrue — and some men is unwholesome, and 
 mustn't fight by raison of it — and, indeed, it's a
 
 30 Rory O'More 
 
 great loss to a man who has n't flesh that 's aisy to 
 hale." 
 
 " I 'm sure of it," said the traveller. " But about 
 the gridiron ? " 
 
 '' Sure I 'm tellin' you about it," said Rory ; " only 
 I 'm not come to it yet. You see," continued he, " I 
 was so disgusted with them shopkeepers in Dublin, 
 that my heart was fairly broke with their ignorance, 
 and I seen they knew nothin' at all about what I 
 wanted, and so I came away without any thing for 
 his reverence, though it was on my mind all this day 
 on the road ; and comin' through the last town in the 
 middle o' the rain, I thought of a gridiron." 
 
 " A very natural thing to think of in a shower o' 
 rain," said the traveller. 
 
 "No, 'twas n't the rain made me think of it — I 
 think it was God put a gridiron in my heart, seein' 
 that it was a present for the priest I intended; and 
 when I thought of it, it came into my head, afther, 
 that it would be a fine thing to sit on, for to keep one 
 out of the rain, that was ruinatin' my cordheroys on 
 the top o' the coach ; so I kept my eye out as we 
 dhrove along up the sthreet, and sure enough what 
 should I see at a shop half way down the town but 
 a gridiron hanging up at the door ! and so I went 
 back to get it." 
 
 " But is n't a gridiron an odd present ? — has n't 
 his reverence one already ? " 
 
 " He had, sir, before it was bruk, — but that 's 
 what I remembered, for I happened to be up at his 
 place one day, sittin' in the kitchen, when Molly was 
 brillin' some mate an it for his reverence; and while 
 she jist turned about to get a pinch o' salt to shake 
 over it, the dog that was in the place made a dart at 
 the gridiron on the fire, and threwn it down, and up 
 he whips the mate, before one of us could stop him.
 
 T 
 
 M'^^u/^ y^i<i '-Ja^^m^ -^//^a^^
 
 Rory O'More 31 
 
 With that Molly whips up the gridiron, and says she, 
 ' Bad luck to you, you disrespectful baste ! would 
 nothin' sarve you but the priest's dinner ? ' and she 
 made a crack o' the gridiron at him. 'As you have 
 the mate, you shall have the gridiron too,' says she ; 
 and with that she gave him such a rap on the head 
 with it that the bars flew out of it, and his head went 
 through it, and away he pulled it out of her hands, 
 and ran off with the gridiron hangin' round his neck 
 like a necklace — and he went mad a' most with it; 
 for though a kettle to a dog's tail is nath'ral, a grid- 
 iron round his neck is very surprisin' to him ; and 
 away he tatthered over the counthry, till there was n't 
 a taste o' the gridiron left together," 
 
 "So you thought of supplying its place ? " said the 
 traveller. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Rory. " I don't think I could do 
 betther." 
 
 " But what did you get two for ? " said the travel- 
 ler. 
 
 " Why, sir, when I thought of how good a sate it 
 would make, I thought of you at the same time." 
 
 " That was very kind of you," said the traveller, 
 " more particularly as I have done nothing to deserve 
 such attention." 
 
 " You '11 excuse me there, sir, if you plaze," said 
 Rory, "you behaved to me, sir, like a gintleman, and 
 the word of civility is never thrown away." 
 
 " Every gentleman, I hope," said the traveller, 
 "would do the same." 
 
 " Every rale gintleman, certainly," said Rory, — 
 " but there 's many o' them that calls themselves gin- 
 tlemen that does n't do the like, and it 's the stiff 
 word they have for us, and the hard word maybe — 
 and they think good clothes makes all the differ, jist 
 as if a man had n't a heart undher a frieze coat."
 
 32 Rory O'More 
 
 " I 'm sorry to hear it," said the traveller; "but I 
 hope such conduct is not common." 
 
 " Throth there 's more of it than there ought to 
 be," said Rory. " But thim that is the conthrairy is 
 never losers by it — and so by me and you, sir, — 
 and sure it 's a dirty dog I 'd be, to see the gintleman 
 beside me sittin' in wet, that gave me a share of his 
 paraplew, and the civil word, that is worth more — 
 for the hardest rain only wets the body, but the hard 
 word cuts the heart." 
 
 " I have reason to be obliged to you," said the 
 traveller, " and I assure you I am so ; but I should 
 like to know what vou '11 do with the second 
 gridiron." 
 
 " Oh, I '11 engage I 'II find use for it," said Rory. 
 
 " Why, indeed," said the traveller, " from the ex- 
 ample you have given of your readiness of invention, 
 I should not doubt that you will, — for certainly, you 
 have made, on the present occasion, a most original 
 application of the utensil." 
 
 " 'Faith, I daar say," said Rory, " we are the first 
 mortials wor ever on a gridiron." 
 
 "Since the days of Saint Laurence," said the 
 traveller. 
 
 " Whv, used Saint Larrance, God bless him ! sit 
 on a gridiron?" said Rory. 
 
 " No," said the traveller ; " but he was broiled 
 upon one." 
 
 " Oh the thieves o' the world to brile him ! — and 
 did they ate him afther, sir ? " 
 
 " No, no," said the traveller, — " they only broiled 
 him. But I thought you good Catholics all knew 
 about the martvrs ? " 
 
 " And so we do, sir, mostly ; — but I never heerd 
 of Saint Larrance afore ; or if I did, I 'm disremem- 
 bered of it."
 
 Rory O'More 33 
 
 " But you do know about most of them, you say ? " 
 
 " Oh ! sartinly, sir. Sure I often heerd how 
 Saint Stephen was hunted up and down ; which is 
 the raison we begin to hunt always on Saint Stephen's 
 Day." 
 
 " You forget there too," said the traveller : "• Saint 
 Stephen was stoned." 
 
 ''To be sure, sir, — sure I know he was: did n't 
 I say they run afther him throwin' stones at him, the 
 blackguards! till they killed him — huntin' him for 
 his life ? — Oh, thin but was n't it a cruel thing to be 
 a saint in thim haythen times, to be runnin' the 
 world over, the poor marchers, as they might well be 
 called ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the traveller ; " those were days of 
 trial to the saints." 
 
 " 'Faith, I go bail they never gave them any thrial 
 at all," said Rory, " but jist murthered them v/ithout 
 judge or jury, the vagabones ! — though, indeed, for 
 the matther o' that, neither judge nor jury will do a 
 man much good while there 's false witnesses to be 
 had to swear what they 're paid for, and maybe the 
 jury and the judge only too ready to b'lieve them ; 
 and maybe a boy is hanged in their own minds before 
 he 's put on his thrial at all, unless he has a good 
 friend in some great man who does n't choose to let 
 him die." 
 
 " Is it possible," asked the traveller, " that they 
 manage matters here in this way ? " 
 
 " To be sure they do, sir ; — and why would n't a 
 gintleman take care of his people if it was plazin' to 
 him ? " 
 
 " It is the laws and not the gentleman should be 
 held in respect," said the traveller : " the poor 
 man's life should never depend upon the rich man's 
 pleasure." 
 
 VOL. I. — 3
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A PEEP INTO IRELAND FORTY YEARS AGO. HINTS 
 
 FOR CHARGING JURIES. EVERY LANDLORD HIS 
 
 OWN LAWGIVER. PRIDE OF BIRTH. A JOCU- 
 LAR PRINCE ON FOOT, AND A POPULAR PEER 
 ON HORSEBACK 
 
 A TRAIN of musing, on the traveller's part, 
 rapidly succeeded his last remark ; and as he 
 went jolting along unconsciously over the wretched 
 road, he was mentally floundering through the deep 
 ruts of political speculation, and looking forward, 
 through the warm haze which a young imagination 
 flings round its objects, to that happier time when 
 Ireland should enjoy a loftier position than that im- 
 plied by what Rory O'More had said. But, alas ! 
 instead of this brilliant advent, blood and crime, and 
 all the fiercer passions that degrade human nature, 
 making man more like a demon than a human being, 
 were the futurity which Ireland was doomed to ex- 
 perience; and while the enthusiasm of the voung 
 traveller looked forward to the heights where his 
 imagination enthroned his country's fortunes, he 
 overlooked and saw not the valley of blood that lay 
 between. 
 
 And forty vears (almost half a century) have passed 
 away since the young enthusiast indulged in his 
 vision, and still is Ireland the theme of fierce 
 discussion.
 
 Rory 0' More 35 
 
 It was Rory O'More's remark upon the nature of 
 judicial trials in Ireland that had started the traveller 
 on his train of musing. An Irishman by birth, he 
 had long been absent from his native land, and was 
 not aware of its internal details ; and that such a 
 state of feudality as that implied by Rory's observa- 
 tion could exist in Ireland, while England enjoyed the 
 fullest measure of her constitution, might well surprise 
 him : — but so it was. 
 
 The period to which this relates was 1797, when 
 distrust, political prejudice, and religious rancour, 
 were the terrible triumvirate that assumed dominion 
 over men's minds. In such a state of things, the 
 temple of justice could scarcely be called a sanctuary, 
 and shelter was to be found rather beneath the mantle 
 of personal influence than under the ermine of the 
 judge. Even to this day, in Ireland, feudal influence 
 is in existence ; but forty years ago, it superseded the 
 laws of the land. 
 
 So much was this the case, that it is worth record- 
 ing an anecdote of the period which is fact : the 
 names it is unnecessary to give. 
 
 A certain instance of brutal assault, causing loss 
 of life, had occurred, so aggravated in its character, 
 that the case almost amounted to murder, and the 
 offender, who stood his trial for the off^ence, it was 
 expected, would be sentenced to transportation, should 
 he escape the forfeiture of his life to the law. The 
 evidence on his trial was clear and convincing, and 
 all attempts at defence had failed, and the persons 
 assembled in the court anticipated a verdict of guilty 
 on the heaviest counts in the indictment. The pros- 
 ecution and defence had closed, and the judge had 
 nearly summed up the evidence, and was charging 
 the jury directly against the prisoner, when a bustle 
 was perceived in the body of the court. The judge
 
 ^6 Rory O'More 
 
 ordered the crier to command silence, and that 
 officer obeyed his commands without producing any 
 effect. The judge was about to direct a second and 
 more peremptory command for silence, when a note 
 was handed up to the bench, and the judge himself, 
 instead of issuing his command for silence, became 
 silent himself, and perused the note with great atten- 
 tion. Pie pursued his charge to the jury no further, 
 but sent up a small slip of paper to the foreman, 
 who forthwith held some whispered counsel with his 
 brother jurors ; and when their heads, that had been 
 huddled together in consultation, separated, and they 
 resumed their former positions, the judge then con- 
 tinued his address to them thus, — 
 
 " I have endeavoured to point out to you, gentle- 
 men of the jury, the doubts of this case, but I do not 
 think it necessary to proceed any further ; — I have 
 such confidence in your discrimination and good 
 sense, that I now leave the case entirely in your 
 hands : — if you are of opinion that what you have 
 been put in possession of in the prisoner's favour coun- 
 terbalances the facts sworn to against him, you will 
 of course acquit him — and any doubts you have, I 
 need not tell you should be thrown into the scale of 
 mercy. It is the proud pre-eminence, gentlemen, of 
 our criminal laws — laws, gentlemen, which are part 
 and parcel of the glorious constitution that is the 
 wonder and the envy of surrounding nations, that a 
 prisoner is to have the benefit of every doubt ; and 
 therefore, if you think proper, of course you will find 
 the prisoner not guilty." 
 
 " Certainly, my lord," said the foreman of the jury, 
 " we are of your lordship's opinion, and we say not 
 
 GUILTY." 
 
 The fact was, the great man of the district where 
 the crime had been committed, whose serf the pris-
 
 Rory O'More 37 
 
 oner was, had sent up his compliments to the judge 
 and jury, stating the prisoner to be a most useful per- 
 son to him, and that he would feel extremely obliged if 
 they would acquit him. This ruffian was a sort of 
 bold, sporting, dare-devil character, whose services 
 in breaking-in dogs, and attending his master and his 
 parties on wild mountain-shooting and fishing excur- 
 sions, were invaluable to the squire, and human life, 
 which this fellow had sacrificed, was nothing in the 
 scale when weighed against the squire's diversion. 
 This will scarcely be credited in the present day, 
 nevertheless it is a fact. 
 
 Another occurrence of the time shows the same 
 disregard of the law ; though the case is by no 
 means so bad, inasmuch as the man was only taken 
 up for an off^ence, but was not tried — he was only 
 rescued to save him that trouble. He had committed 
 some off^ence which entitled him to a lodging in the 
 county gaol, and was accordingly taken into custody 
 by the proper authorities ; but, as the county town 
 was too distant to send him to at once, he was 
 handed over to the care of a military detachment 
 that occupied a small village in the neighbourhood. 
 To the little barrack-yard or guard-house of this out- 
 post he was committed ; but he did not remain there 
 long, for his mountain friends came down in great 
 numbers and carried him off in triumph, having 
 forced the barracks. The moment the colonel of 
 the regiment, a detachment of which occupied the 
 post, received intelligence of the circumstance, he 
 marched the greater part of his men to the place, 
 vowing he would drag the prisoner who had been 
 committed to the care of his troops from the very 
 heart of his mountains, and that neither man, woman, 
 nor child should be spared who dared to protect him 
 from capture. While the colonel, who was an 

 
 38 Rory 0' More 
 
 Englishman, was foaming with indignation at this 
 contempt of all order displayed by the Irish, Mr. 
 French waited upon him and asked him to dinner. 
 The English colonel said, he would be most happy 
 at any other time, but at present it was impossible ; 
 that if he could, he would neither eat, drink, nor 
 sleep, till he had vindicated the laws. 
 
 " Pooh, pooh ! my dear sir," said Mr. French, 
 " it is all very well to talk about the laws in Eng- 
 land, but they know nothing about them here." 
 
 " Then it 's time, sir, they should be taught," said 
 the colonel. 
 
 " Well, don't be in a hurry, at least, my dear sir," 
 said Mr. French. " I assure you the poor people 
 mean no disrespect to the laws ; it is in pure igno- 
 rance they have made this mistake." 
 
 " Mistake ! " said the colonel. 
 
 " 'Pon my soul ! nothing more," said Mr. French ; 
 " and if you think to make them wise at the point of 
 the bayonet, you '11 find yourself mistaken : you '11 
 have the whole country in an uproar, and do no good 
 after all; for once these fellows have given you the 
 slip, you might as well go hunt after mountain- 
 goats." 
 
 " But, consistently with my duty, sir " 
 
 " Your duty will keep till to-morrow, colonel 
 dear, and you '11 meet three or four other magistrates, 
 as well as me, at my house, who will tell you the 
 same that I have done. You '11 be wiser to-mor- 
 row, depend upon it : — so come home with me to 
 dinner." 
 
 The colonel, who was a man of deliberation, rode 
 home with Mr. French, who talked him over as they 
 went along : — " You see, my dear sir, how is it 
 possible you should know the people as well as we 
 do ? Believe me, every landlord knows his own
 
 Rory O'More 39 
 
 tenantry best, and we make it a point here never to 
 interfere with each other in that particular. Now, 
 the fellow they took away from your men " 
 
 " Curse them ! " said the colonel. 
 
 " Keep yourself cool, my dear colonel. That 
 fellow, for instance — now he is one of Blake's 
 men : and if Blake wants the fellow to be hanged, 
 he '11 send him in to you." 
 
 " Send him in ! — why, sir, if my regiment could 
 not keep the rascal, what chance has Mr. Blake of 
 making him prisoner ? " 
 
 " I said nothing, colonel, of making him prisoner : 
 I said, and still say, that if Blake wants him to be 
 hanged, he '11 send him in." 
 
 " Do you mean to say, my good sir, that he '11 
 desire him to come in and be hanged r " 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 " And will he come ? " 
 
 " Most undoubtedly, if Blake desires him." 
 
 The colonel dined with Mr. French that day : the 
 day following the regiment was marched back to 
 head quarters, — and Blake did not send in his man 
 to be hanged. So much for feudality ! 
 
 But the young traveller knew not these facts, and 
 he was awakened from the reverie in which he was 
 indulging by the blowing of a long tin horn, announc- 
 ing the arrival of the coach at a dirty little town, 
 where it was to stop for the night. It drove up to 
 what was called a hotel, round the door of which, 
 though still raining heavily, a crowd of beggars stood, 
 so thick, that the passengers could hardly press their 
 way through them into the house ; and while they 
 were thus struggling for admittance, obstreperous 
 prayers assailed their ears on all sides, in horrid dis- 
 cord and strange variety — for their complaints and 
 their blessings became so jumbled together as to pro-
 
 40 Rory O'More 
 
 duce a ludicrous effect. There were blind and lame, 
 broken bones, widows and orphans, &c. &c. 
 
 " Pity the blind ! and may you never see " 
 
 " To-morrow morning won't find me alive if you 
 don't relieve " 
 
 " The guard will give me something, your honour, 
 if you '11 only bid him " 
 
 " Be quiet, you divil ! and don't taze the gintle- 
 man ! Sure he has " 
 
 " Three fatherless childher " 
 
 " And broke his two legs " 
 
 « That is stone blind " 
 
 "And met a dhreadful accident ! —and sure the 
 house fell on him, and he 's lyin' undher it these 
 three weeks without a bit to ate, but " 
 
 " Three fatherless childher and a dissolute 
 widow " 
 
 " Lying on the broad of her back, with nothing on 
 her but " 
 
 " The small-pox, your honour ! " 
 
 " For Heaven's sake ! let me pass," said the 
 young traveller, who had a horror of the small-pox ; 
 and pressing through the crowd that environed him 
 into the house, he entered the first room he saw, and 
 suddenly closed the door behind him. 
 
 As soon, however, as he recovered his first alarm 
 at the mention of the terrible disease he so much 
 dreaded, he called for the waiter, and made inquiries 
 for Rory. Finding he was in the house, he sent him 
 a message to say he would be glad to see him ; and 
 on Rory making his appearance, he requested him 
 to be seated, and asked him would he have something 
 to drink ? 
 
 Rory declined it, until the traveller said that he 
 himself would join him in a potation after their 
 wetting ; and when Rory understood that the travel-
 
 Rory O'More 41 
 
 ler meant they should sit down together over their 
 glasses, he accepted the offer with modest thankful- 
 ness, and expressed his acknowledgment for the 
 honour done him by his travelling companion. 
 
 In the course of their conversation, the young 
 traveller found, that with all the apparent simplicity 
 of Rory, he was not deficient in intelligence ; and 
 that the oddity of the incidents in which he had 
 described himself as being an actor, arose more from 
 the novelty of his position in a large city, than in 
 any inherent stupidity. He became possessed of his 
 name also, and Rory could not help showing his 
 pride in having one so good ; for while he affected 
 to laugh at his proud descent, it was quite clear he 
 had a firm belief in it. 
 
 " I suppose, sir, you have heerd tell of one Rory 
 O'More in the owld times ? " 
 
 " Yes ; King of Leinster, you mean." 
 
 " So thev sav, sir, — that he and his people before 
 him wor kings time out o' mind, until bad fortune 
 came to thim, and they went to the bad entirely; 
 and the English dhruv thim out, bekaze they had 
 a way of puttin' between people ; and while they 
 were squabblin' one with the other, the English used 
 to come in and do them both out — like the owld 
 story of the lawyer and the oysthers. Well, when 
 once they were dhruv out, they went witherin' and 
 dwindlin' down by degrees ; and at last they had n't 
 a fut of land left thim, nor even a house over their 
 heads ; and so we wor reduced that way, sir." 
 
 " Then you consider yourself the descendant of 
 the O'More ? " said the traveller. 
 
 " Throth, sir, and they say that we are the owld 
 O'Mores, — but sure I laugh at it." 
 
 " But would n't you be angry if any one else 
 laughed at it? "
 
 42 Rory O'More 
 
 " I dunna but I might," said Rory, with much 
 ingenuousness. 
 
 " And why do you laugh at it then ? " 
 
 " Why, afther all, sir, sure it 's quare enough for a 
 man to be talking of his great relations that was 
 formerly, when at this present he is only a poor 
 workin' man ; and if I was ever so much the thrue 
 discindant of Rory O'More, sure I can't forget what 
 I am now." 
 
 " You may be the representative of the house for 
 all that," said the traveller. 
 
 " Oh ! as for the house," said Rory, " 'pon my 
 sowl ! there 's a cruel differ there betune us : the 
 right Rory O'More hved in Dunamaise — that was 
 something like a house ! and I have only a poor 
 cabin to live in." 
 
 " But still you may be the true descendant of the 
 right Rory, as you call him," said the traveller, who 
 wished to probe the feelings of the peasant on this 
 subject, and discover how far the pride of birth could 
 survive loss of station : and he was pleased to dis- 
 cover (for he was himself of high descent) that ages 
 of misfortune could not extinguish the fire of a proud 
 race ; and he more than ever felt the truth of the 
 observation, that it is only they who have no ancestry 
 to boast of who afFect to despise it. 
 
 To such as these, or those to whom ancestral power 
 as well as name has descended, — or to the many who 
 take no pleasure in tracing to their secret sources the 
 springs of action and feeling in the human mind and 
 heart, — it may seem incredible that a poor peasant 
 could retain the pride of birth when all its substantial 
 appendages were gone : yet so it was. But it was 
 a pride that was unobtrusive. Circumstances had 
 modified and moulded it to the necessities of the 
 peasant's station : he was respectful in his demeanour
 
 Rory O'More 43 
 
 to all whose position in society was better than his 
 own, conscious though he might be of their inferior 
 blood ; and while he took off his hat to some wealthy 
 plebeian, he never considered the blood of the 
 O'iVIores to be degraded. The fallen fortunes of 
 his house were not a subject of personal regret to him ; 
 it was in a national point of view they were lamented. 
 That Ireland had lost her King of Leinster he con- 
 sidered a misfortune ; but he never for a moment 
 regretted that he, his heir, as he believed himself to 
 be (and, perhaps, was), was obliged to eat potatoes 
 and salt. But of the fair fame of the O'More he 
 was as jealous as their founder; and insult, in the 
 remotest degree, roused the latent feelings of family 
 pride in his bosom. Not the great Rory himself, 
 perched on his castled crag of Dunamaise, could be 
 more jealous of the honour of his house than his 
 humble namesake in his thatched cabin. 
 
 The young traveller, it has been already said, took 
 pleasure in making manifest this feeling of our hero ; 
 and in doing so, he found that Rory had a provincial 
 as well as personal pride of ancestry. The south, 
 Rory protested, " bet all Ireland in the regard of high 
 blood." 
 
 " They have good blood in the north, too," said 
 the traveller. 
 
 " Oh, they may have a thrifle of it ; but it 's not 
 of the rale owld sort — nothing to compare with us." 
 
 " Do you forget the O'Neil ? " said the traveller. 
 
 "Oh, that's good, I don't deny," said Rory — 
 " but one swallow makes no summer." 
 
 " But I can count more than one," said the trav- 
 eller ; " here 's Talbot, De Lacy, Fitzgerald " 
 
 " Oh, murther ! murther ! sir, — sure thim is only 
 invadhers, and not the owld Irish at all. You 
 would never compare thim with the O'Mores, the
 
 44 Rory O'More 
 
 O'Dempsys, the O'Connells, the O'Donaghues, the 
 O'Shaughnessys " 
 
 " Stop, stop ! " said the traveller, who did not know 
 to what length this bead-roll of O's might extend ; 
 " you forget that the head of the Fitzgeralds is Duke 
 of Leinster." 
 
 " But O'More was King of Leinsther, sir, if you 
 plaze." 
 
 " Very true, Rory ; but still the Geraldines are a 
 noble race." 
 
 " Who are they^ sir ? " 
 
 " The Fitzgeralds." 
 
 " Oh, the Juke of Leinsther you mane, is it ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " 'Faith, thin, to show you, sir, how little we think 
 o' them down in the south, I '11 tell you something 
 that I know is a thruth, bekase I had it from 
 O'Dempsy himself, who played the thrick an the 
 juke, and said the thing to him, for he 's a comical 
 blade." 
 
 « Well, what is it ? " 
 
 "Why, you see, sir, O'Dempsy was comin' home 
 from Dublin, and the money was getting fine-dhrawn 
 with him, and he wanted to see if he had enough left 
 to pay for the coach home ; and, by dad, the change 
 was so scarce that he was obliged to hunt it up in his 
 pocket into the corner, like a contrairy cowlt, before 
 he could lay howld of it at all ; and when he did get 
 it into the pawm of his fist, it was a'most ashamed to 
 see the light, it looked so contimptible ; and my 
 bowld O'Dempsy seen the coach was out o' the 
 question, or even a lift in the canal-boat, and so he 
 put his thrust in Providence, and took a big dhrink 
 that night to sthrenthin him for the mornin' ; and the 
 next day off he set home, with a short stick in his 
 hand and a pair o' good legs undher him ; and he met
 
 Rory 0' More 45 
 
 nothin' remarkable antil he came to betune Kilcock 
 and Maynooth; and it was thin that he heerd the 
 thramp of horses gallopin' afther him, and he turned 
 round and seen three gintlemen comin' up in great 
 style : one o' them, a fine full handsome man, the ' 
 picthur of a gintleman, and a fine baste undher him, 
 and the gintlemin along with him very nice too ; one ' 
 in particular, a smart nate-made man, with a fine 
 bright eye and a smilin' face, and a green handkicher 
 round his neck, and a sportin' aisy sate on his horse; 
 and Dempsy heerd him say, as they dhrew up jist 
 behind him, ' Look what a fine step that fellow has ! ' 
 (manin' O'Dempsy ; and, indeed, a claner boy is n't 
 in all Ireland than himself, and can walk with any 
 man). So when they came up to him, the small 
 gintleman said, ' God save you ! ' ' God save you 
 kindly, sir ! ' says O'Dempsy. ' You don't let the 
 grass grow undher your feet, my man,' says the 
 gintleman. ' Nor corn neither, sir,' says Dempsy. 
 ' So I see by the free step you have,' says the gintle- 
 man, laughin' ; and the others laughed too, the full 
 gintleman in particular ; and says he, ' Well, Ned, 
 you got your answer.' 
 
 " Now the minit that O'Dempsy heerd the word 
 ' Ned,' and it bein' in the neighbourhood of Cartown, 
 which is the Juke o' Leinsther's place, the thought 
 jumped into his head that it was Lord Edward Fitz- 
 jaral' was in it ; for he always heerd he was small, 
 and handsome, and merry, and that the juke his 
 brother was a fine-lookin' man ; and so with that he 
 made cock-sure in his own mind that the full gintle- 
 man was the Juke o' Leinsther, and the little one 
 Lord Edward. So hearin' that Lord Edward liked a 
 joke, O'Dempsy never let on to suspect who they 
 wor, and they walked along beside him, and had a 
 great dale o' discoorse and jokin', and the answers
 
 46 Rory O'More 
 
 passin' betune them as fast as hops. At last says the 
 juke (for it was himself), ' You 're a very merry 
 fellow,' says he ; ' where do you come from ? ' ' From 
 Dublin, sir,' says O'Dempsy. ' Oh, I know that by 
 the road you're goin',' says the juke; 'but I mane, 
 where is your place ? ' * 'Faith and I have no place,' 
 says O'Dempsy: 'I wish I had.' 'That's a touch 
 at you^ says the juke to the third gintleman, whoever 
 he was. ' But where are you goin' to ? ' says the 
 juke. ' I 'm goin' home, sir,' says O'Dempsy. ' And 
 where are you when you 're at home t ' says the juke. 
 ''Faith, I 'm at home every where,' says O'Dempsy. 
 
 " Well, Lord Edward laughed at his brother, seein' 
 he could n't force a sthraigt answer out of O'Dempsy. 
 'Will you tell me thin,' says the juke, 'which are 
 you — Uisther, Leinsther, Munsther, or Connaught ? ' 
 ' Leinsther, sirs,' says O'Dempsy, though it was a 
 lie he was tellin' ; but it was on purpose to have a 
 laugh agin the juke, for he was layin' a thrap for him 
 all the time. ' You don't spake like a Leinsther 
 man,' says the juke. ' Oh, the tongue is very desait- 
 ful sometimes,' says O'Dempsy. 
 
 " Lord Edward laughed at his brother agin, and 
 said, he 'd make no hand of him. ' By gor,' says 
 Lord Edward, ' that fellow would bate Counsellor 
 Curran ! ' ' Well, I '11 thry him once more,' says the 
 juke J and with that, says he to O'Dempsy, ' What 's 
 your name ? ' Now that was all O'Dempsy wanted, 
 for to nick him ; and so says he, ' My name is 
 O'Shaughnessy, sir.' ' I 've cotch you now,' says 
 the juke : ' you can't be a Leinsther man, with that 
 name.' ''Faith, I see you're too able for me, 
 sir,' says O'Dempsy, laading him on. ' Well, Mr. 
 O'Shaughnessy,' says the juke, ' it 's somewhere out 
 of Munsther you come.' ' No, 'faith, sir,' says 
 O'Dempsy, ' I am a Leinsther man, in airnest ; but I
 
 Rory O'More 47 
 
 see you could n't be desaived about the name, and so 
 I '11 tell you the thruth, and nothin' but the thruth, 
 about it. I am a Leinsther man, but I wint to live 
 in Munsther, and I was obleeged to change my name, 
 bekaze they had no respect for me there with the one 
 I had.' ' And what was your name ? ' says the juke. 
 *• My name was Fitzjarl', sir,' says O'Dempsy ; * but 
 they thought me only an upstart down in Munsther, 
 so I changed it into O'Shaughnessy.' With that the 
 juke and Lord Edward laughed out hearty, and the 
 third gintleman says to the juke, 'I think you've got 
 your hit now.' Well, sir, the juke pulled a guinea 
 out of his pocket, and put it into O'Dempsy's hand, 
 and says to him, laughin', ' Take that, you merry 
 rascal, and dhrink my health ! ' ' Long life to your 
 grace ! ^ says O'Dempsy, taking off his hat, *■ you de- 
 sarve to be an O' Shaughnessy ! ' ' More power to 
 you, Paddy ! ' says Lord Edward as they put spurs to 
 their horses ; and away they powdhered down the 
 road, laughin' like mad." 
 
 The young traveller enjoyed Rory's anecdote ex- 
 cessively and scarcely knew which to admire most, — 
 the impudent waggery of Rory's friend, or the good 
 humour of the Duke of Leinster and Lord Edward 
 Fitzgerald. 
 
 After much praise of the latter, and some other 
 strange odds and ends from Rory, the travellers 
 separated for the night.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 JOURNEY CONTINUED. DESULTORY COACH CONVER- 
 SATION, IN WHICH THE LIBERTY OF " THE 
 press" IS DISCUSSED, AND THE THISTLE DE- 
 CLARED TO BE NOT INDIGENOUS TO IRELAND. 
 
 ARGUMENTS AND COACHES LIABLE TO BREAK 
 DOWN. — HINTS FOR KEEPING HOUNDS, ETC. ETC. 
 
 ON the following morning the coach resumed its 
 journey, and Rory and the stranger still con- 
 tinued fellow-travellers. 
 
 The insolent aggressor upon Rory, as well as the 
 passenger who sat beside him, did not appear ; but 
 their places were occupied by a person to whom 
 Rory touched his hat as he took his seat, and another 
 who seemed to be his companion. The latter was 
 decidedly a Scotchman ; what the other might be, 
 it was not so easy to decide — perhaps North of 
 England. 
 
 He addressed Rory and expressed surprise at see- 
 ing him. 
 
 " Throth, and it 's jist as little I expected to see 
 you, Mr. Scrubbs," said Rory. 
 
 " I was up here on a little business," said Scrubbs. 
 
 " That 's what you 're always up to, Mr. Scrubbs," 
 answered Rory. 
 
 " And you 're just as ready for fun, Rory. I sup- 
 pose it was that brought you here ? " 
 
 " No, indeed, sir, — it was the coach brought me 
 here yestherday."
 
 Rory O^More 49 
 
 " Ay, av, — there you are at your answers ! — I 
 suppose it was in Dublin, then, you would be ? " 
 
 " No, indeed, I would n't be if I could help it." 
 
 *' Well, but you were there ? " 
 
 " Yes, I was." 
 
 " And what business had you in Dublin ? " 
 
 "About the lease of the place below." 
 
 " Did n't I tell you I 'd see about that when the 
 agent came down ? " 
 
 " Why, you wor seein' about it so long that I 
 thought it might be out o' sight at last, and so I 
 wint mvself to the head agent, and settled it at wanst." 
 
 Scrubbs did not seem well pleased at this informa- 
 tion ; and silence having ensued in consequence, 
 Rory took from his pocket a newspaper and began to 
 read. For some time Scrubbs cast suspicious glances 
 at the paper, till at last, when Rory turned over its 
 front page and discovered the title of *' The Press," 
 Scrubbs could no longer remain silent. 
 
 " I wonder you 're not ashamed," said Scrubbs. 
 
 " Of what ? " said Rory. 
 
 " To read that paper." 
 
 " 'Faith, I 'd be more ashamed if I could n't read 
 it ! " said Rory. 
 
 " Why, it 's all sedition, and treason, and blas- 
 phemy." 
 
 " What 's blasphemy ? " said Rory. 
 
 " 'T is a word," said the young traveller, " that 
 some people always join to treason and sedition." 
 
 Scrubbs gave a look askance at the last speaker; 
 but seeing he was a gentleman and rather better 
 dressed than himself, he made no observation to him, 
 but said in continuance to Rory, — "I always thought 
 you were of the peaceable and well-disposed class, 
 O'More, and I 'm sorry to see you read that des- 
 perate paper." 
 VOL. I. — 4
 
 50 Rory O'More 
 
 " 'Faith, it 's very desperate, sure enough, if it be 
 thrue what they say here, that bank-notes will be 
 soon worth nothin', and won't bring a penny a pound 
 in a snuff-shop." 
 
 " What 's that but treason, I 'd like to know ? " 
 said Scrubbs ; — " endeavouring to undermine the 
 government ? " 
 
 " Sairtainly," said the Scotchman, " it is varra bad 
 to destroy the cawnfidence in pooblic creydit." 
 
 " I dar say, sir," said Rory to the Scotchman, 
 '■'■you would rather have bank-notes than golden 
 guineas ? " 
 
 " I did na say that," said the Scotchman drily j 
 " but bank-notes are a suffeecient security." 
 
 " And they say here," said Rory, " that we ought n't 
 to dhrink tay nor coffee, nor take snuff, nor smoke 
 tabacky, nor dhrink whisky." 
 
 " And what do you think of that ? " said 
 Scrubbs. 
 
 " 'Faith, I think thim that has no money will fol- 
 low their advice," said Rory. 
 
 "Ay! but look at the villainous intention — to 
 injure the revenue, or produce a rebellion." 
 
 " You think, then," said the traveller, " that peo- 
 ple must either smell snuff or gunpowder, whether 
 they will or no ? " 
 
 " I know, sir, they '11 have gunpowder enough if 
 it goes to that. We have plenty of loyal men to put 
 down sedition, both militia and yeomanry." 
 
 *' Which you can't trust," said the traveller. 
 
 " Do you doubt their loyalty, sir ? " said Scrubbs, 
 waxing rather angry. 
 
 " It would seem the government does," said the 
 traveller, '•'• for whole regiments of yeomanry have 
 been disbanded this year," 
 
 This was a bitter truth to Scrubbs, who not being
 
 Rory O'More 51 
 
 able to deny the fact, returned to the charge upon 
 " The Press." 
 
 " As for that vile paper, they would do right to 
 serve it as * The Northern Star ' vi^as served the other 
 day, when the Donegal militia, God bless them ! 
 broke open their office, burnt their papers, and broke 
 their printing-presses." 
 
 " What noble and constitutional work for soldiers 
 to be employed upon ! " said the traveller. " I do 
 not wonder, when the cloth is so degraded, that high- 
 minded gentlemen, such as the Duke of Leinster, Lord 
 O'Neil, and Colonel ConoUy, resign their regiments." 
 
 This was another bitter fact to which Scrubbs was 
 unable to reply ; so, leaving the field in possession of 
 the enemy, he addressed his Scotch friend on some 
 fresh subject, and thus evaded the discussion. 
 
 The traveller with Rory, and Scrubbs with the 
 Scotchman, now kept themselves distinct, and the 
 day was passing away slowly enough, the monotony 
 of the road only broken by some occasional remark 
 between Scrubbs and his friend, or the young travel- 
 ler and Rorv : — seemino- to obsen^e each other with 
 mutual distrust, a restraint was put upon general con- 
 versation, and it was only some passing observation 
 on the surrounding scenery that either party would 
 venture to indulge in. 
 
 The day was more than half spent, when they 
 were driving through a fine tract of country, which 
 called forth the Scotchman's admiration, 
 
 *' A fine kintra, this, Mr. Scrubbs," said he. 
 
 "Yes," said Scrubbs," 't is a good sort of country, 
 but not fit to compare with England." 
 
 Rory looked indignantly at him, but said nothing. 
 
 "I dinna ken aboot England," said the Scotch- 
 man ; " but this kintra puts me varra much in mind 
 o' my ain."
 
 52 Rory O'More 
 
 <■<■ Your kinthry, do you say ? " said Rory with 
 what heroines call " ineffable contempt." 
 " Yes, my kintra." 
 
 " Oh, do you hear this ! ! " said Rory to the young 
 traveller. " He is comparin' this counthry to his ! ! 
 — Why, tare an' ouns ! sir," said Rory to the Scotch- 
 man ; *•' sure you would n't be comparin' this lovely 
 fine counthry to Scotland — or sayin' it was like it ? " 
 " Yes, but I would, though," said the Scotchman 
 pertinaciously. 
 
 "Why, by the seven blessed candles, you haven't 
 seen a thistle for the last tin miles ! " said Rory. 
 
 The young traveller laughed at Rory's illustration, 
 and the silence and disunion of the two parties in- 
 creased. 
 
 Thus the day wore on uncomfortably enough, and 
 the evening began to close, when a premature stop 
 was put to their journey by the breaking down of the 
 coach. 
 
 Fortunately for the passengers, the accident was 
 not one that placed them in any danger. Some of 
 them were nearly thrown off, and a lady passenger 
 who was inside screamed, of course; and the more 
 she was assured that there was no danger, the louder 
 she screamed. In the mean while, the passengers 
 jumped off; and the extreme amount of damage to 
 them was, that they could proceed no further by the 
 coach on their journey as one of the wheels was 
 broken. 
 
 Now, whenever an accident of this kind occurs 
 which is manifestly so had as to be beyond retrieving, 
 it may be remarked that every one looks at it in all 
 possible ways — under it, and over it, and round it, 
 just as if looking at it could do any good. So were 
 the passengers congregated round the wheel of the 
 coach, all making their remarks.
 
 Rory O'More 
 
 " It was the nave," said one. 
 
 " No, — the spokes," said another. 
 
 "Oh dear, no, — the tire," added a third. 
 
 " Most provoking ! " 
 
 " Scandalous ! " said Scrubbs ; " like every thing 
 else in this country ! The proprietors ought to be 
 prosecuted for having a coach in such a condition." 
 
 " Murther, murther ! " said the coachman, who 
 lost his temper at last when the honour of his coach 
 was concerned : " do you hear this ! just as if an 
 accident never happened to a coach before." 
 
 " When people pay their money," said Scrubbs, 
 " they have a right to complain." 
 
 " Sairtainly," said the Scotchman. " In fac, I 
 thenk the money should be refunded." 
 
 " Arrah ! listen to him ! " said Rory aside to the 
 
 stranger. 
 
 " How far is the coach from the end of the jour- 
 ney ? " said the lady. 
 
 " 'Pon my word, ma'am," said Rory, " the coach 
 is at the end of its journey for this day, anv how." 
 
 " And what are we to do ? " said the lady. 
 
 " I 'd adveyse," said the Scotchman, " that we 
 should get poost-chaises, and chorge them to the 
 coach propreytors." 
 
 " 'Faith, that 's a fine plan, if you could get them^" 
 said Rory. 
 
 " Then what are we to do ? " said the lady, again. 
 
 " If you 'd be quiet the laste taste, ma'am, if you 
 plaze," said the coachman, " we '11 conthrive some 
 conthrivance by-and-by." 
 
 " Why, the night is falling," said the lady. 
 
 " It 's time for it," said Rory, 
 
 " My God ! " said the lady, " what odd answers 
 these people give one ! " 
 
 The horses became restless, for the wheelers, pull-
 
 54 Rory O'More 
 
 ing, and finding so much resistance, began to kick, 
 and their example set the leaders going : the coach- 
 man and Rory ran to their heads. 
 
 " Bad luck to you, you fools ! " said Rory to the 
 horses ; " sure, it 's glad, and not sorry, you ought to 
 be, that the dhrag is ofF o' you ; be quite ! you gar- 
 rans, will you ! " and he forced them at last into some 
 obedience. " I tell you what you '11 do now," said 
 he to the coachman : " jist take off the horses, — they '11 
 be quite enough here, grazing by the side o' the gripe ; ^ 
 and you get on one o' them, and pelt away into the 
 town, and come out agin wid a fresh coach." 
 
 " Throth, and it 's the best plan, I b'lieve," said 
 the coachman, " afther all." 
 
 " And must we stay here ? " said the lady. 
 
 *' Barrin' you walk, ma'am." 
 
 " And how far might it be to walk .^ " 
 
 " 'Faith, I don't rightly know," said the coachman. 
 
 " You 're a feyne driver," said the Scotchman, 
 " not to know the distance on your ain road." 
 
 " I know it well enough whin I 'm dhriven," said 
 the coachman; "but how should I know how far it 
 is to walk ? " 
 
 " Why, you stupid rascal ! " said the Scotchman, 
 about to make an elaborate argument to show the 
 coachman the bull he had made, — but he was inter- 
 rupted by Rory. 
 
 " Arrah ! never mind his prate, Hoolaghan ; do 
 what I bid you, — away wid you into town ! " 
 
 " Indeed, I think 't is the best thing you can do," 
 said the young traveller. 
 
 " And must we stay here ? Why 't is growing 
 dark already, and we may be murdered while you are 
 away." 
 
 " Divil a one 'ill take the throuble to murder you — 
 
 1 The ditch.
 
 Rory O'More 55 
 
 don't be in the laste a'fear'd ! " said Ror)'. " Up 
 wid you now on the grey, Hoolaghan, your sowl, and 
 powdher away like shot ! " 
 
 " What 's that he 's saying, sir, about powder and 
 shot ? " said the lady in alarm. 
 
 "He's only giving directions to the coachman, 
 madam," said the young traveller. 
 
 " But he said powder and shot ! sir : — is there any 
 danger ? " 
 
 " None in the least, I assure you, madam." 
 
 " The horses 'ill stay quite enough while you 're 
 gone," said Rory ; " here, gi' me your fut — I '11 lift 
 you on the baste." And so saying, Hoolaghan placed 
 his left foot in Rory's right hand ; and thus aided, he 
 sprang astride of one of the coach-horses. 
 
 " There now," said Rory, " you 're up ! and away 
 wid you ! Jist be into the town in no time, and back 
 in less. ' That 's the cut ! says Cutty, when he cut 
 his mother's throat.' " 
 
 " What 's that he 's saying, sir, about cutting 
 throats ? " said the lady. 
 
 " Nothing, madam, I assure you, you need be 
 alarmed at," said the traveller. 
 
 " Indeed, you need not make yourself onaisy, 
 ma'am, in the laste," said Rory, after he had placed 
 Hoolaghan on horseback. " It will be all over with 
 you soon now." 
 
 The lady shuddered at the phrase, but spoke not. 
 
 " And now, sir," said Rory to his felllow-traveller, 
 *' it 's time we should be thinkin' of ourselves: 
 there 's no use you should be loitherin' here until the 
 other coach comes back ; for though it 's some miles 
 from the town, where, I suppose, you were goin' to, it 's 
 not far from this where I must turn off to my own 
 place, which lies acrass the counthry, about two miles 
 or thereaway ; and if you, sir, would n't think it be-
 
 56 Rory O'More 
 
 nathe you to come to a poor man's house, sure it 's 
 proud I 'd be to give your honour a bed ; and though 
 it may not be as good as you 're used to, still maybe 
 't will be betther than stoppin' here by the roadside." 
 
 The traveller expressed his thanks to Rory for the 
 kindness of his offer, but said that perhaps he could 
 as well walk to the town. To this Rory objected, 
 suggesting the probability of the traveller's losing his 
 way, as he could only be his guide as far as the point 
 where he had to turn towards his own home ; besides 
 many other arguments urged on Rory's part with so 
 much heart and cordiality, that he prevailed on his 
 fellow-traveller to accept his proffered hospitality. 
 Selecting a small portmanteau from the luggage, the 
 traveller was about to throw it over his shoulder, 
 when Rory laid hold of it, and insisted on carrying it 
 for him. 
 
 " You 've your own luggage to carry ! " said the 
 traveller. 
 
 " Sure, mine is nothin' more than a small bundle — 
 no weight in life." 
 
 " And your gridirons, Rory ? " 
 
 " By the powers ! I was near forgettin' thim" 
 said Rory ; " but sure, thim itself is no weight, and I 
 can carry thim all ! " 
 
 " Stay a moment," said the traveller, whose gal- 
 lantry forbade that he should leave the lady of the 
 party, alarmed as she was, in such a situation, and 
 apparently not regularly protected, without the offer 
 of his services. He approached the coach, into which 
 the ladv had retired to avoid the dew that was now 
 falling heavily, and made his offer with becoming 
 courtesy. 
 
 " I 'm much obliged to you, sir," said she, " but I 
 have my husband here." 
 
 " Thank you, sir," said a miserable-looking little
 
 Rory O'More 57 
 
 man, who had not uttered a word before ; " I am this 
 lady's husband." — He did not dare to say, " This 
 lady 's my wife." 
 
 The traveller made his bow, and he and his guide, 
 leaving the forlorn coach-passengers on the road, pro- 
 ceeded at a smart pace towards the cottage of Rory 
 O'More. 
 
 "Those people, I think, are likely to remain a 
 good while before assistance can reach them," said 
 the traveller. 
 
 "'Faith, I'm thinkin' myself they'll have a good 
 long wait of it," said Rory ; " and in throth I 'm not 
 sorry for some of thim." 
 
 " Don't you pity that unfortunate woman ? " 
 
 " Sorra much ! " said Rory ; " the screechin' fool, 
 with her shoutin' about her throat bein' cut ! — though, 
 indeed, if it was cut itself, it would n't be much 
 matther, for all the sinse I heard her spake. Throat 
 cut, indeed ! as if the whole counthry was murtherers 
 and moroders. In throth the counthry would be quite 
 (quiet) enough if they 'd let us be quite ; but it 's 
 gallin' and aggravatin us they are at every hand's 
 turn, and puttin' the martial law on us, and callin' us 
 bad names, and abusin' our blessed religion." 
 
 " And are the people much dissatisfied at this state 
 of things ? " 
 
 " Why, I don't see how they could be plazed, sir ! 
 And sure, my heart warmed to you whin you gave 
 that dirty Scrubbs his answer to-day : 'faith, he' got 
 his fairin' any how from you ! he had no chance at 
 all with you, sir. Oh, when you silenced him, sure 
 it was butther to my bones ! " 
 
 " By the by, who is that person ? " said the traveller. 
 
 " He is a fellow that lives not far from this, sir ; — 
 they call him the Collecthor." 
 
 " Collector of what ? "
 
 58 Rory O'More 
 
 " Of every thing, 'faith. He collects tithes for the 
 parson, and rints for the agint, and taxes and cess, 
 and all to that ; and so he goes by the name of the 
 Collecthor." 
 
 " He 's not an Irishman ? " 
 
 " No, thank God, he 's not ! Though, indeed, 
 there 's some of the Irish bad enough to their own or 
 worse than sthrangers maybe ; but I say, thank God, 
 bekaze there 's one blackguard the less belongs to us." 
 
 " Has he been long here ? " 
 
 " Not to say very long indeed, considherin' all he 
 has done for himself in the time. I remember, whin 
 he came among us first, it was with some horses — a 
 sort of low stable-helper, a kind of a hanger-on about 
 some officers that was in the town, and thin he was 
 badly off enough. He had n't as much clothes on him 
 as would scour a spit ; and his flesh, the little he had 
 of it, hangin' about him as if it did n't fit him. But 
 he wint to church the first Sunday he was here, and, 
 as Prodestants is scarce, he was welkim to the parson ; 
 and so that he might not disgrace the congregation, the 
 parson gev him some dacent clothes : and thin he got 
 him to do odd jobs for him, one way or another; and 
 so he made himself plazin' somehow to the parson, 
 and got on one step afther another. And the parson 
 noticed him to the squire, and thin this squire gave 
 him a lift, for he it was got him to be collecthor ; and 
 now he has a mighty snug house, and a nate farm 
 nigh hand to the parson, though the first place he 
 slep' in, not along ago, whin he came to the town 
 beyant, was in the hayloft of the inn, for they 
 would n't dirty the barrack-stables with him." 
 
 " Then the parson is his patron ? " 
 
 " Not only the parson, but the magisthrits about 
 the place as well, for they know that Squire Ransford 
 notices him."
 
 Rory O'More 59 
 
 " How did he get into the squire's good graces ? " 
 
 " There was a cast-ofF lady of the squire's that was 
 throublesome to him, and so he gev some soft dis- 
 course, and hard cash too, I b'lieve, to Scrubbs, to 
 make an honest woman of her, and take her off his 
 hands ; and so he did ; and now vou '11 see her goin' 
 in her jantin' car, if you plaze, along wid that mane- 
 spirited dog that tuk another man's lavings, marchin' 
 into church every Sunday as bowld as brass, and wid 
 as many ribands on her as would set up a thravellin' 
 pedlar." 
 
 " And what does the parson say to all this ? Does 
 he countenance the affair ? " 
 
 " Arrah, what can he do, sir ? " said Rory. " Sure, 
 he can't help if she was unproper ; and is n't it better 
 she 'd go to her duty than stay away, bad as she is ? 
 And sure, if she was a sinner, that 's the greater the 
 raison why he 'd be glad to help her in mendin' her 
 ways ; and sure, as she has n't the luck to be a 
 Roman, it 's well for her she 's even a Prodestant ! " 
 
 " That 's a very charitable view of the matter on 
 your part," said the traveller. 
 
 " Oh, by dad, sir ! you must n't be too hard on the 
 parson, for he 's a dacent man enough. If all the 
 Prodestants was as quite (quiet) as him, we 'd never 
 fall out wid thim, for he 's a nice aisy man, and is 
 good friends wid Father Kinshela, and both o' thim 
 dines together wid the squire whin he 's here. And 
 you know, sir, that 's hearty ! " 
 
 " Very, indeed," said the traveller. " I 'm glad to 
 hear it." 
 
 " Scrubbs himself is a nasty fellow ; and his lady is 
 a dab^ and nothin' else : but sure the parson can't help 
 that, and I would n't expect of him to be too particular 
 on thim, for sure he must be glad to get a Prodestant 
 at all in his church, where they are so scarce.
 
 6o Rory O'More 
 
 Throth, it must be cowld work there, in a big ramblin' 
 church in the winther, wid so few in it, to be sayin' 
 pKayers ! " 
 
 " You seem to like the parson, I think ? " said the 
 traveller. 
 
 " Oh, I don't mislike him, sir, for he 's civil- 
 spoken, and a hearty man, and he likes huntin' and 
 shootin', and divarshin of all sorts." 
 
 " But do you think that becoming in a clergyman ? " 
 
 " Oh, you 're too hard on the clargy, sir; — why 
 would n't they be merry ? — sure Father Kinshela 
 himself sometimes takes a dart afther the dogs, whin 
 the squire is down here, as well as the parson." 
 
 " Squire Ransford, then, lives here a good deal ? " 
 
 '•'■ Not a good dale, sir, — only by times whin he 
 comes down to take a start huntin' or shootin', and 
 thin he brings down a power o' company wid him ; 
 but unless at that time, the pl-ace is like a wildherness, 
 only an ould woman and a couple o' maids to mind 
 the house, and a stable-helper left, or somethin' that 
 way, to watch the place." 
 
 " A single stable-helper ! Did n't you tell me he 
 keeps a pack of hounds ? " 
 
 " Yis, sir ; but he does n't keep up the dogs unless 
 whin he 's here himself." 
 
 " How does he manage, then ? " 
 
 " Why, he gives one couple o' dogs to one tenant, 
 and another couple to another, and so on in that way, 
 while he is n't in the place ; and whin he comes back, 
 he gathers thim in again ; and so he is n't at the 
 expense of keepin' up the kennel while he 's away." 
 
 " What a shabby fellow," said the traveller. 
 
 " Oh ! not to say shabby, sir." 
 
 " Why, what else can you call quartering his dogs 
 on his poor tenantry ? " 
 
 " Oh, for all that he 's not shabby ; — for whin he
 
 Rory 0' More 6i 
 
 is down here, the company is never out of his house ; 
 and they say there 's lashings and lavings of every 
 thing in it, and the claret flyin' about the place as 
 common as beer, and no stint to any one, I 'm 
 towld." 
 
 " That 's mere wastefulness and rioting, and can- 
 not in my opinion redeem his shabbiness, for I cannot 
 call it any thing else. Can he not feel that when the 
 poor people feed his sporting-dogs, the fruit of their 
 labour is invaded to contribute to his pleasure ? " 
 
 " Why, if you go the rights o' the thing, what your 
 honour says is thrue enough ; but we would n't be too 
 sharp in looking at what a gintleman would do, — and, 
 indeed, I don't mislike it myself, as far as that goes, 
 for the couple o' dogs that is left with me I do have 
 a great deal of fun with." 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 " Huntin' rabbits, sir." 
 
 " They must be nice dogs after that ! " 
 
 *•• Divil a harm it does thim ! — sure it comes nath'- 
 ral to the craythurs, and would be cruel to stint them 
 of their divarshin." 
 
 " And do you all hunt rabbits with the dogs left to 
 your care ? " 
 
 *' Every one of us." 
 
 "Then the pack can't be worth a farthing." 
 
 " Why, indeed, I don't deny they run a little wild 
 now and thin j but sure what would be the use of a 
 whipper-in if the dogs worn't a little fractious? " 
 
 Rory continued his discourse with the stranger as 
 they proceeded on their road, giving him various in- 
 formation respecting the squire, and the collector, and 
 the parson, in all of which, though Rory did not so 
 intend it, his hearer found deep cause of disapproval 
 of their conduct. Their conversation was now inter- 
 rupted by the deep baying of dogs ; and Rory answered
 
 62 Rory 0' More 
 
 the sound by a cheering whoop, and the calling of the 
 dogs by their names. 
 
 " There they are, sir ! " said he j " you see we 're 
 jist at home." 
 
 As he spoke they turned into the little boreen already 
 noticed, and two hounds came rushing wildly up the 
 lane and jumped upon Rory with all the testimonials 
 of canine recognition. 
 
 "Down, Rattler, you divil, down! — you'll tear 
 the coat av my back. Murther ! Sweetlips, don't be 
 kissin' me — down, you brutes ! " And he drove the 
 animals from him, whose furious caresses were more 
 than agreeable. " Poor things ! " said he to the 
 stranger in a kindly tone, " sure, thin, it 's pleasant 
 even to have a dog to welkim one home." 
 
 " More than a dog, Rory dear," said a sweet voice 
 from amid the darkness ; and the next instant a girl 
 ran up to Rory, and throwing her arms round his 
 neck, kissed him over and over again. He returned 
 her embrace with affection, and said, " How is the 
 mother ? " 
 
 " Hearty, thank God," said the girl. 
 
 " And yourself, Mary dear ? " 
 
 " Oh, what would ail me ? — But tell me, what 
 sort of a place is Dublin ? — and how did you like 
 it ? — and did you get me the riband ? " 
 
 "It's my sisther, sir," said Rory to his guest, pay- 
 ing no attention to the numerous questions of Mary, 
 who now, for the first time observing the stranger, 
 dropped a short curtsy to him, and said in a subdued 
 voice, *' Your sarvant, sir." 
 
 " Run on, Mary dear, and tell the mother we 're 
 comin' j " said Rory, accompanying his words with a 
 significant pinch on Mary's elbow, which meant, 
 " Make the place look as dacent as possible." 
 
 Mary ran hastily forward, fully understanding
 
 Rory O'More 6 
 
 
 o 
 
 Rory's telegraphic communication ; and when the 
 travellers reached the cottage, they found the mother 
 and Mary in that peculiar state of action which in 
 the polite world is called " hurry-scurry ; " and the 
 dragging of chairs and stools, cramming of things into 
 corners, and slapping about with the ends of aprons, 
 testified their anxiety to receive so unusual a visitor 
 with proper honour. 
 
 When they entered, the widow first received her 
 son with the strongest evidence of a mother's affection, 
 kissing him tenderly ; and with the reverential appeal 
 to Heaven in which the Irish peasantry so much in- 
 dulge, she said, " God bless you, alanna, you 're wel- 
 kim home ! " She then turned to the stranger, and 
 in that soft accent of her country which so well ex- 
 presses the gentlest emotions of human nature, she 
 said, in tones that would have almost conveyed her 
 meaning without words, " You 're kindly welkim, 
 sir." 
 
 The stranger expressed his thanks ; but, notwith- 
 standing the manifest commotion which his arrival 
 occasioned, he was too polite to seem to notice it, 
 and did not, as a vulgar person always does, overload 
 the people with requests not to trouble themselves on 
 his account. 
 
 He quietly took a seat ; and Rory, with instinctive 
 good breeding, took another, and continued to dis- 
 course with his guest. Now and then, to be sure, he 
 could not help casting his eyes towards his mother, 
 who was busy in all sorts of preparation, and asking, 
 " Can I help you, mother dear ? " But the answer 
 always was, — 
 
 "No, alanna. Sure you 're tired afther your jour- 
 ney ; and Mary and myself will do every thing ; and 
 sure it 's glad we are to have you, and proud that the 
 gintleman is come with you, and only hopes he '11 put
 
 64 Rory O'More 
 
 up with what we can do: but sure, if the enthertain- 
 ment is poor, the welkim is hearty, any how." 
 
 The stranger assured her of his sense of her 
 icindness. 
 
 " If we knew of your comin', sir, sure we could 
 have had a couple of chickens ready ; and if the 
 gintleman would wait a bit, sure it is n't too late yet, 
 and can have a rashir and egg in the mane time." 
 
 " My dear ma'am," said the stranger, " pray don't 
 think of chickens to-night : the fact is, I 'm very 
 hungry, and I don't know a better thing than a dish 
 of rashers and eggs, which has the great advantage, 
 besides, of being got ready sooner." 
 
 Rashers and eggs were accordingly got ready im- 
 mediately ; and while the mother was engaged in the 
 culinary department, Mary spread a coarse but white 
 cloth upon the table, and taking down from a cleanly- 
 scoured dresser some plates of coarse delf, arranged 
 the table for the supper. This the hungry travellers 
 discussed with good appetite and much relish ; and 
 after many relays of the savoury viands had vanished 
 rapidly before them, a black bottle of whiskey was 
 produced, and some hot punch being made, Rory's 
 guest protested he had eaten one of the best suppers 
 he ever made in his life. 
 
 Rory and his mother and sister were lavish in their 
 compliments to the stranger on being so easily pleased, 
 and uttered a profusion of wishes that they had better 
 to offer. This by their guest was pronounced impos- 
 sible ; and when at last the stranger retired to bed, 
 they parted for the night with the highest opinion of 
 each other, — he in admiration of their hospitality, 
 and they of his condescension. 
 
 Rory then, with his mother and sister, drew round 
 the fire, and, relieved from the presence of a stranger, 
 indulged in that affectionate family gossip which
 
 %! 
 
 ^
 
 Rory O'More 65 
 
 always is the result when one of the circle has re- 
 turned from a temporary absence. Rory sat on a 
 chair in the middle, his sister on a low stool beside 
 him, with one hand resting on his knee, and her 
 pretty eyes raised to his, in open wonder, only to be 
 exceeded by the more open wonder of her mouth, as 
 Rory told something of what he had seen in Dublin. 
 The widow, on the other side, seated in a low easy 
 chair of platted straw, looked upon her son with 
 manifest pleasure ; and while she led Rory into a 
 digression, by asking him how he managed " the little 
 business " about the lease, Mary filled up the interval 
 ver\' agreeably by looking with ecstasy at the roll of 
 riband which her brother brought her. This was a 
 great delight to Mary : — it was no pedlar's trash, — 
 no common thing bought at a booth in a fair, — but 
 a real downright metropolitan riband, " brought all the 
 way from Dublin to herself." Was n't she happy ? 
 And maybe she did n't think how she 'd astonish 
 them next Sunday at chapel ! 
 
 Rory told them how he met the stranger he 
 brought home, and of the accident which led to it, 
 and praised him to the skies for his liberality and 
 gentlemanly conduct, — swore he was of the right 
 sort, and said, he was one for whom a poor man ought 
 to lay down his life. Such was Rory's opinion of 
 the stranger he had met, and who was introduced to 
 the reader in the first chapter under the title of the 
 " Scholar." How he acquired this title will be sub- 
 sequently seen. 
 
 The trio talked on until the embers on the hearth 
 were quite burnt out, and it was at an advanced hour 
 in the morning that they separated and retired to their 
 slumbers, which were sound, because their lives were 
 healthful and innocent. 
 
 VOL. I. —5
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WHISKY VERSUS SMALL-POX. GHIBBERISH VERSUS 
 
 FRENCH. A SECRET WITH TWO HANDLES TO 
 
 IT, WHICH OUR HERO AND HIS SISTER LAY 
 HOLD OF 
 
 THE next morning the Widow O'More and her 
 son and daughter arose refreshed and light- 
 hearted, but not SO their guest : he awoke with the 
 burning thirst, intense headache, and deadening sen- 
 sation of sickness, which are the precursors of fever. 
 It was early, and from the silence that reigned in the 
 cottage he concluded no one had yet risen. He 
 endeavoured to sleep, but the effort was vain : he fell 
 but into a confused dozing, filled with broken images, 
 confused recollections, and wild imaginings, from 
 which he started but with an increased sensation of 
 illness upon him ; and even when the inhabitants of 
 the cottage rose they came not near him, wishing to 
 leave him undisturbed after his fatigue. At length, 
 on his hearing Rory's voice, he exerted his so as to 
 make himself heard ; and when Rory entered, he per- 
 ceived, from the heavy eye and altered countenance 
 of the stranger, that he was unwell. 
 
 " God be good to us ! what 's the matther with 
 you, sir ? " said Rory. 
 
 " I 'm ill, very ill, O'More," said the stranger 
 languidly. 
 
 " Well, don' disturb yourself, sir, and you 'II be 
 betther by and by, plaze God ! "
 
 Rory O'More 67 
 
 *' I 'm afraid I 've caught the small-pox," said the 
 stranger. 
 
 " I hope not, sir : don't be thinkin' o' sich things. 
 Sure, how would you get the small-pox ? " 
 
 " From a beggar in the crowd here last night, when 
 we alighted at the inn. I remember shuddering at 
 the mention of the disease when she spoke of it ; and 
 I fear I am infected with what I dread more than 
 any thing under the sun." ^ 
 
 " I had betther bring my mother to you, sir," said 
 Rorv, *' for she is very knowledgeable in sickness, 
 and undherstands the arihs " (herbs) ; and with these 
 words he left the room, leaving the poor sick stranger 
 utterly at a loss to know what her knowledge of the 
 Arahs^ as he took Rory's word to be, could have to do 
 with his illness. 
 
 When Rory returned with his mother, she asked 
 the stranger (for so we shall yet continue to call him) 
 how he felt. He told in what manner he was suffer- 
 ing, and she replied by proposing to him to take a 
 glass of whisky. The very name of the thing pro- 
 duced nausea to the sick man, who refused the offer 
 with a shudder. 
 
 "See how vou thrimble, sir!" said she. "In- 
 deed, if you b'lieve me, a good big dhrop o' whiskey 
 is the best thing you could take." 
 
 "Don't mention it, I beg of you. I fear it is the 
 small-pox I have caught." 
 
 " Plaze God, I hope not ! " said the widow : " but 
 if it is, not a finer thing in the world than a dhrop of 
 whisky to dhrive it out from your heart." 
 
 Thus she continued to urge the taking of ardent 
 spirits, which, to this hour, in the commencement of 
 
 ^ He must have caught the disease earlier, as the infection of 
 small-pox does not exhibit itself so soon ; young gentlemen 
 are not expected to be too learned in such matters.
 
 68 Rory O'More 
 
 every sickness amongst the Irish peasantry, is con- 
 sidered the one thing needful, and for the reason the 
 widow assigned in this case, namely, to " dhrlve it out 
 from the heart." The heart is by them considered 
 the vulnerable point in sickness as well as in love ; so 
 much so indeed, that no matter what disease they 
 labour under, it is always called an " impression on 
 the heart." So well understood does this seem to be 
 amongst them, that even the part affected is not 
 necessary to be named, and the word " heart " is 
 omitted altogether ; and if you ask " What 's the 
 matter with such-a-one ? " the answer is sure to be, 
 " He 's got an impression." 
 
 " Mrs. O'More," said the stranger, " I am certain 
 it is the small-pox ; and while I may yet be moved, 
 pray let me be conveyed to the neighbouring town, to 
 the inn, and let not your house be visited with the 
 disease and the contagion." 
 
 " Oh, God forbid that I 'd do the like, sir, and 
 turn the sick sthranger outside my doors whin it 's 
 most he wanted the caring for — and in an inn too ! 
 Oh, what would become of you at all in sich a place, 
 where I would n't have a sick dog, much less a gintle- 
 man, behowldin' to ! Make yourself aisy, sir; and 
 if it 's as bad as you think, we 'U take care o' you, 
 niver fear." 
 
 " I don't fear," said the stranger, affected by the 
 v.'idow's kindness ; " but it is not right that you 
 should have this horrid disease under your roof, and 
 all for a stranger." 
 
 " Keep your mind aisy, dear, do ! " said the widow, 
 — " sure we 're all poor craythers, God help us ! — 
 and if we did not help one another in our want and 
 throuble, it 's the dark and blake world it would be ! 
 
 and what would we be Chrishthans for at all, if we 
 
 had n't charity in our hearts ? I beg your pardon, sir,
 
 Rory O'More 69 
 
 for sayin' charity to a gintleman — but sure it 's 
 not charity I mane at all, only tindherness and 
 compassion. And as for the sickness being undher 
 our roof, my childher, God be praised ! is over the 
 small-pox — iv it be it — and had it light, — as well 
 as myself: so make your mind aisy, dear, and dhrive 
 t out from your heart with the whiskey. Well, well ! 
 don't shake your poor head that way ; I won't ax you 
 to take it till you like it yourself: but whin there is 
 an impression, there 's nothin' like dhrivin' it out. 
 So I '11 lave you, sir, for a while — and see if you can 
 sleep ; and I '11 come in again bv and by ; and if you 
 want any thing in the mane time, you can jist thump 
 on the flure with the chair — I have put it convay- 
 nient to your hand : — and the sooner you can bring 
 yourself to take the sper'ts, the betther. Well, well ! 
 I '11 say no more — only it 's the finest thing in the 
 world, with a clove o' garlic, for worms or fayver, to 
 throw out the venom." And so, muttering praises 
 on her favourite panacea, she left the room. 
 
 The illness of the stranger increased during the 
 day, and in the evening he began to speak incohe- 
 rently. The Widow O'lMore now thought it probably 
 was the small-pox with which her guest was visited, 
 and began to take the most approved measures that 
 were in those days established for the cure of that 
 terrible disease ; — that is to say, she stopped every 
 crevice of the room whereby air could be admitted, 
 opened the door as seldom as possible, and heaped all 
 the clothes she could on the patient, and gave him 
 hot drinks to allay the raging thirst that consumed 
 him. Not content with heaping bed-clothes over the 
 unhappy sufferer, she got a red cloth cloak and 
 wrapped it tightly round his body; it being in those 
 days considered that a wrapper of red cloth was of 
 great virtue.
 
 70 Rory 0' More 
 
 Let the reader, then, imagine the wretched plight 
 the poor stranger was reduced to, and what chance 
 of recovery he had from such treatment. The fever 
 increased fearfully, and he soon became quite delirious. 
 During his ravings he imagined the bed in which he 
 lav to be a tent j for, with national hospitality, he had 
 been placed in the best bed in the house, with the 
 flaring calico curtains before mentioned. 
 
 " Why is this tent square ? " said he. 
 
 " Whisht, whisht, dear," said the widow soothingly. 
 
 " But why is it square ? — And look here," said he, 
 seizing the curtain, — " why is not this white ? why 
 is my tent red ? — or is it the blood of the enemy 
 upon it ? " 
 
 " God help the crayther ! " said the widow. 
 
 Rory now entered the room j and the stranger 
 started up in the bed and said, " ^i vive F " 
 
 " Sir ? " said Rory, rather astonished. 
 
 " j^h ! c'est ?non caporal" pursued the sick man. 
 " Caporal^ nous avons va'incu les Ayiglais ! — voila leur 
 sang ; " and he shook the curtains fiercely. 
 
 " Humour him, dear," said the widow to Rory ; 
 ''the crayther 's ravin': purtend you know all about it 
 — that's the best way to soother him." 
 
 " Sure I dunna what he 's sayin' — he 's muttherin' 
 ghibberish there." 
 
 " Well, do you mutther ghibberish too," said the 
 widow, and left the room. 
 
 " Reponde-z. vite^ caporal" said the invalid. 
 
 "Hullabaloo !" shouted Rory. 
 
 " ^t'est-ce que c'est ? " 
 
 " Hullabaloo ! " cried Rory again. 
 
 " Vous etes etranger" said the poor sufferer ; 
 " tremblez ! esclave^ tremblex ! rendez-vous ! " and he 
 jumped up in bed — " rendez au drapeau tricolor I " 
 
 " A dhrop o' what ? " said Rory.
 
 Rory 0' More 71 
 
 " Vive le drapeau tricolor ! " cried De Lacy. 
 
 Rory left the room, and told his mother he believed 
 " the poor gintleman was callin' for a dhrop o' some- 
 thino-," She entered with more hot drink, and asked 
 the sick man to swallow ; " It 'ill do you good, 
 dear," said she. 
 
 " Is there any thing you 'd like betther, sir ? " said 
 Rory ; " and if it 's to be had I '11 get it for you." 
 
 The stranger seemed to be recalled from his 
 raving a moment by the sounds of another language 
 upon his ears; and looking wildly again at Rory and 
 his mother, and the bed, he said, " This is not my 
 tent — who are you ? — where am I ? " — and he 
 flung the bed-clothes down from him; — then seeing 
 the red cloak wrapped round him, he said fiercely, 
 " Take this accursed cloth from off me, — I'm no 
 slave of the English tyrants ; — where 's my blue 
 uniform ? " 
 
 " Lie down, dear, lie down," said the widow. 
 
 " Never ! " said the sick man, — " we '11 never lie 
 down under tyranny ! " and he attempted to jump 
 from the bed. 
 
 " Rory dear, howld him," said the widow, — 
 "howld him, or he'll be out; and if he catches 
 cowld, he's lost." 
 
 Rory now by force held down the sufferer, who 
 struggled violently for a while, but, becoming ex- 
 hausted, sank back on the bed and groaned aloud. 
 " Ah ! I see what my fate is, — I 'm a prisoner in the 
 hands of the accursed English ! " 
 
 For some time he now lay quieter, and Mary was 
 left to watch in his chamber while Rory was absent 
 for some drugs his mother sent him for to the neigh- 
 bouring village. During her sojourn in the room, 
 Mary often heard the stranger lamenting his fate in 
 a plaintive tone, and calling on a female name in
 
 72 Rory O'More 
 
 passionate accents. In this state for some days the 
 patient continued ; his paroxysms of raving being 
 but varieties of lamenting his fate as a prisoner, call- 
 ing for his blue uniform, and invoking a female name. 
 From the nature of all this raving, Rory and Mary 
 drew each their own conclusions. -Rory, from his 
 knowledge of the stranger's bearing and opinions 
 before he fell sick, and from the tone of his subse- 
 quent delirium, suspected he was an officer in the 
 French army ; and Mary, from his frequent calling 
 on a female name, had no doubt he was in love. 
 Now, to the end of time, Mary could never have 
 guessed at the stranger's profession, nor Rory at the 
 state of his heart : but these are the delicate shades 
 of difference that exist between the mind of man and 
 woman. The sympathies of the former are alive to 
 turmoil and strife ; those of the latter, to the gentle 
 workings of our nature : the finer feelings of a wo- 
 man vibrate with magic quickness to the smallest 
 indications of affection ; while man, like the v/ar-horse 
 of the Psalmist, " smelleth the battle afar off." 
 
 Both Rory and Mary were right in their conclu- 
 sions : the sick stranger was an officer in the French 
 service, and also was in love. 
 
 With respect to the love affair, the tangled busi- 
 ness may go tangling on, as the more tangled such 
 affairs become the better ; but of the stranger's name 
 and purposes it is time the reader should be informed.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 IN WHICH A GENTLEMAN WRITES A LETTER AS 
 LONG AS A lady's 
 
 HORACE DE LACY was the stranger's name. 
 Descended from the noble race of De Lacy, 
 one of the original conquerors of Ireland, he inherited 
 all the fire and courage of his ancestors ; but now, 
 the descendant of the enslaver became the champion 
 of liberty, and panted with as burning a zeal for the 
 regeneration of his country as his ancestors had done 
 for her subjugation, for Ireland was now his native 
 land, and the remark so often made in the chronicles 
 of England, that the descendants of English settlers 
 in Ireland became more fierce in their rebellion than 
 the natives themselves, was about to be once more 
 verified in the person of Horace De Lacy. 
 
 Though an Irishman by birth, he had for some 
 years been resident in France. There he imbibed 
 all the fierce enthusiasm to which the epoch of the 
 French revolution gave birth, and the aspirations for 
 universal liberty which fired his young heart were 
 first directed to his native land. As early as 1794, 
 communications were carried forward between the 
 disaffected in Ireland and the French executive : and 
 Doctor Jackson, one of the agents at that period, 
 was discovered, and would have been hanged, but 
 that he escaped the ignominious death by swallowing 
 poison in the dock, where he died in the face of his
 
 74 Rory O'More 
 
 accusers and his judges. The death of Jackson pro- 
 duced a great sensation in Ireland. It made the 
 rapacious and intolerant faction that then ruled the 
 country, more insolent ; and those who cursed their 
 rule and endeavoured to overthrow it, more cautious. 
 
 The result was fearful. Wrong was heaped upon 
 wrong by the oppressor ; — suffered in hopelessness, 
 but remembered^ by the oppressed. Each new aggres- 
 sion on the one side produced a debt of hatred on the 
 other, and the account was carried on with compound 
 interest. 
 
 In 1797, another communication was opened be- 
 tween the disaffected in Ireland and the executive of 
 the French government, and De Lacy was one of 
 the agents. He was an officer in the French army, 
 and volunteered to undertake the dangerous duty of 
 visiting Ireland and England, with a view of ascer- 
 taining the probable likelihood of success in a revolu- 
 tionary movement in the one country, and the state 
 of feeling as regarded a desire of revolution in the other. 
 
 In France, at that period, it is singular the total 
 ignorance that existed with relation to the state of the 
 united dominions of Great Britain. Repeatedly as 
 they had been assured of the certainty of co-operation 
 in a descent upon Ireland, and the futility of any such 
 attempt upon England, nevertheless the absurd scheme 
 was entertained of letting loose some French despera- 
 does in England, and carrying on a system of Chouan- 
 Jierie in that country. 
 
 The most active and intelligent of the Irish emis- 
 saries, Theobald Wolfe Tone, then resident at Paris, 
 had repeatedly assured the French executive that such 
 a plan was worse than hopeless, but still they were 
 not convinced; and General Clarke, then minister of 
 war, because he bore an Irish name, and was of Irish 
 descent, thinking he must know something of the
 
 Rory O'More 75 
 
 matter, though he never had set foot in the country, 
 helped to strengthen them in this belief, and notwith- 
 standing all the assurances and arguments of Tone, 
 Clarke would not be satisfied of the truth of such 
 statements without having an emissary of his own to 
 visit the country and report upon it. 
 
 De Lacy was the person who volunteered this ser- 
 vice ; and, crossing the Channel in the boat of a 
 smu^crler who knew the coast well, and was in con- 
 stant habit of communication with both England and 
 Ireland, — but particularly the latter, — he had been 
 for some time in London and through the English 
 provinces before he visited Ireland. There he had 
 but recently arrived when Rory O'More met him 
 as a travelling companion ; and of the events of his 
 journey since, the reader is in possession. 
 
 What impressions his observations in England pro- 
 duced may be seen by the following letter, which vas 
 forwarded to France by a sailor on board a vessel 
 which traded between Dublin and France, under 
 Swedish colours, and under the particular patronage of 
 
 Lord , then high in the government of Ireland, 
 
 and the most vindictive enemy of the liberal party. 
 
 It may be asked, why did Lord permit, much 
 
 less patronise, this proceeding ? It was because the 
 vessel was chartered by a certain merchant to whom 
 he was indebted in large loans of money ; and the 
 accommodation thus afforded was partly paid by the 
 exclusive permission of trading with France thus 
 
 granted by Lord , whose influence in Ireland 
 
 was then so paramount, that a word from him was 
 sufficient to guarantee the safety of his friend's ship, 
 by the willing blindness of the commissioners of 
 customs, who always treated this make-believe 
 Swedish vessel with the most exemplary indulgence. 
 Certain intelligence from France, too, was procured
 
 76 Rory O'More 
 
 in this way : but while the noble lord and his party 
 thus obtained information, they little dreamed that 
 the same channel was used for the transmission of 
 intelligence between their enemies. 
 
 In the packet of information that follows, the 
 reader must not be startled at its high-sounding style : 
 the tone of the period was extravagant, particularly 
 in France ; and De Lacy was of that age and of that 
 profession which delights in flourishes whether of 
 trumpets or words. The packet was addressed to a 
 certain " Citizen Madgett " at Paris, well known in 
 those days to the Irish republican party, and to whom 
 General Clarke had desired De Lacy's communica- 
 tions to be made. Its contents ran thus : — 
 
 " You know with what feelings I left France. I 
 rejoiced there, in common with my fellows, in the 
 triumph that right had achieved over wrong ; in the 
 majesty of human nature overcoming the kings that 
 would have enslaved her ; in the brilliant era of 
 retribution and resuscitation that more than redeemed 
 the tyranny and suffering that gave it birth. You 
 know how I hoped, in the warmth of my head and 
 heart, that the rest of mankind should share in the 
 blessings we had so dearly purchased with our blood, 
 and that man, freed from the thraldom of ages, should 
 form but one family ; that the prejudices and distinc- 
 tions of countries should be forgotten, and regenerated 
 mankind, as one nation, kneel, Peruvian-like, to the 
 newly-risen sun of their freedom. 
 
 " But this glorious dream has been disturbed since 
 I left you. I visited England with the view of 
 kindling on a thousand altars the fire of liberty that I 
 bore with me from liberty's own temple : but the 
 moral as well as the natural atmosphere of England is 
 damp and chilly, compared with the country of the
 
 Rory O'More 'jj 
 
 vine, and I found myself a disappointed enthusiast, 
 with few or none to share in my raptures. Aly 
 hymn of liberty was not half so cheering to me as 
 the clank of John Bull's chains to his own ears (and 
 long enough they are) ; and a priest of liberty, like 
 any other priest, cuts a very contemptible figure with- 
 out a cono-regation. 
 
 " So, after some little time, seeing the state of 
 affairs stand thus, I began to look about me with 
 more observation. ' Perhaps,' said I to myself, ' John 
 Bull is like his own flint-stones, with fire enough in 
 him, only you must strike him hard ; ' and so I laid 
 mvself out for observation, and was on the alert for 
 every grievance. 
 
 " I was baffled in making any great advances 
 towards my object, and after some time fruitlessly 
 spent, it struck me that the capital city of a kingdom 
 is not the place to judge of the real state of a country, 
 or measure the feelings of the people. ' Here,' said 
 I, ' in London, where peers have their palaces, and 
 merchants their mansions : where wasteful wealth 
 and lavish luxury deprave the whole community, and 
 blinding the citizen to the real state of things, make 
 him believe, because he is a sharer in the plunder they 
 are wasting, that he is a gainer by their extravagance ; 
 — here is not the place to hope for the altar of free- 
 dom, and the rights of regenerated man to be respected. 
 The Londoner will endure the abuses of his time be- 
 cause he enjoys from them a temporary benefit, and 
 even upholds the very tyranny of which he himself 
 will be the last to suffer. But to be the last in suf- 
 fering is considered a wondrous gain in our contempt- 
 ible natures. How like men are to children in such 
 matters ! I remember, at school, how the timid 
 boys hung back from a cup of medicine, or the cold- 
 bath, or punishment, and the wretch who was last
 
 78 Rory O'More 
 
 drenched with rhubarb, shoved into the river, or 
 flogged, thought himself a clever fellow, and enjoyed 
 a sort of per centage on the suffering that had gone 
 before him. So is it,' thought I, ' with the Londoner : 
 but I will go into the country, and there, in the in- 
 terior of England, observe the canker that is at her 
 heart ; and while I observe the disease, I will incul- 
 cate the remedy.' 
 
 *' With this view I quitted the capital and visited 
 a village. The lord of the soil (one of the magnifi- 
 cent English baronets) I knew was in the capital at 
 the time, and from his neglected and forsaken tenantry 
 I might hope to hear the murmurs of dissatisfaction 
 and the desire of redress. But in this I was dis- 
 appointed. I wished to see what extent of domain 
 the aristocrat appropriated to his own enjoyment 
 (when he was at home), and walked towards ' the 
 Honor,' as it is called, in expectation of seeing the 
 shutters closed, and grass growing through the ave- 
 nues. I leaped a fence, and proceeded through a rich 
 field and a piece of beautiful plantation, until I was 
 accosted by a well-dressed peasant, who asked me, 
 somewhat sturdily, what brought me there, I told 
 him I was going to look over the grounds and see the 
 house. He asked me, had I got leave, and how did 
 I get in ? On telling him how, he said th.at crossing 
 the fence was not permitted, and suggested my going 
 back. I said, if the family were at home, I would 
 not have taken the liberty to intrude; but in their 
 absence there could be no offence. ' Sir Richard is 
 quite as particular when he is away,' was the answer. 
 'Is he so very churlish,' said I, ' as to object to a 
 gentleman crossing his domain when he is away, and 
 when his privacy cannot be invaded ? ' ' Oh, whether 
 he 's here or not, is no odds,' replied the man ; ' for 
 strangers running in and out of the park would spoil
 
 Rory O'More 79 
 
 it just as much, whether Sir Richard be here or no.' 
 ' Then he keeps up his park at all times ? ' said I. 
 * To be sure, sir, he do,' said the man, looking at me 
 as if he did not know whether I was a rogue or a 
 simpleton. 'And may I not be permitted to walk 
 through the park ? ' ' Why, sir, if you get leave of 
 Mr. Lowndes, or Mr. Banks, or the steward, or the 
 
 agent, or ' And on he went, telling me how 
 
 many people could give me leave, till I interrupted 
 him by saying, ' Why, you have a large establishment 
 here.' 'Oh, yes, sir,' said he; 'it's all the same, 
 like, whether Sir Richard be here or no — except that 
 there 's not the company at the house.' ' And who 
 may you be ? ' I inquired. ' One of the keepers, sir.' 
 ' Well,' said I, ' as I have not time to ask any of the 
 * people you have named, perhaps you would be so 
 obliging,' — and all the time I kept a telegraphic 
 fumbling of my right hand in my waistcoat pocket, 
 
 — 'you would be so obliging as to show me up to 
 the house,' and as I finished my query, I slided a 
 half-crown backwards and forwards between my fore- 
 finger and thumb. ' Why, sir,' said the keeper, ' as I 
 sees you 're a gen'lman,' — and he looked, not at me, 
 but at the half-crown, — 'I cawn't see no objections;' 
 and a transfer of my money and his civility at once 
 was effected. 
 
 " My guide led me through a splendid park towards 
 the house : no grass growing through the walks, as I 
 anticipated, — but beautifully kept, as if the lord of 
 the soil were present. We reached the house : no 
 closed shutters, but half-open windows, and the cur- 
 tains from within, caught by the breeze, peeping out 
 to visit the roses that were peeping in to meet them 
 
 — a sort of flirtation between the elegancies of the 
 interior and exterior. 
 
 " On entering the house, I found myself in a
 
 8o Rory O'More 
 
 square nail, lined throughout with oak. The ceiling 
 was low and divided by richly-carved octagonal frame- 
 work into compartments ; the polished floor was also 
 inlaid after the same pattern, and the wainscot elab- 
 orately panelled and covered with curious carving. 
 Old suits of armour, cross-bows, bills, partisans, two- 
 handed swords, and other weapons, were distributed 
 around the apartment; and an enormous blood-hound 
 lay stretched upon the floor, basking in the sun, and 
 seemed a suitable tenant of this domestic armoury. 
 I strolled through room after room, and an air of 
 habitual wealth prevailed throughout. 
 
 " There was an old library, with pieces of buhl 
 furniture, and old ebony seats and chairs, with large 
 down cushions, where one might luxuriate in learn- 
 ing. And this delightful old room looked out on an 
 antique-looking garden, whose closely-cut grass-plots 
 were like velvets, and divided by high hedge-rows of 
 yew, cropt as smooth as a wall. Then a large cedar 
 spread his dusky branches so close to the windows 
 as to exclude some portion of the light, and produce 
 that demi-jour so suitable to a place of study. There 
 were pictures throughout the house, principally por- 
 traits, of which the English are so fond — some of 
 them very good, sufficiently so to be valuable as 
 works of art. Holbein and Vandyke had immortal- 
 ised some of the former owners of the Honor ; and 
 there they hung in goodly succession, holding a place 
 on the walls of the chateau they had successively 
 been masters of. The seal of Time was on all this 
 evidence; — here from sire to son had plenty been 
 transmitted, and wealth and comfort were hereditary. 
 There was, withal, such an air of peace and tranquil- 
 lity about the old place, that it was quite soothing : 
 you could hear through the open casements the rust- 
 ling of the flowers in the garden, as the warm breeze
 
 Rory O'More 8i 
 
 whispered through them and wafted their fragrance 
 into the library. Could one, at such a moment, 
 think hopefully of revolution ? — where so much 
 comfort existed, there also would exist the love of 
 repose. I confess I was overcome by the influence 
 of all I had seen, and convinced that Tone is quite 
 right. On quitting the Honor, however, I con- 
 sidered that though the aristocracy might revel in 
 such enjoyments as these, the great mass of the 
 people would be willing to invade a repose that was 
 purchased at the price of their labour and taxation, 
 and a system where the many were sacrificed to the 
 few. ' It is not in Allenby Honor I must look,' 
 thought I, ' but in the village.' 
 
 " Here, after davs of observation, I confess I 
 think the hope of revolutionising England quite ab- 
 surd. The comforts of the people are generally 
 such, that men with less caution than the English 
 would not risk the loss of them in the hope of specu- 
 lative blessings. Their houses are well built, and so 
 beautifully clean! — but not merely clean — a love 
 of embellishment is to be seen : trailing plants perhaps 
 festoon their windows round a bit of trellis, a white 
 curtain peeping from within ; there is a neat paling 
 round the house, and flowers within this fence ; — 
 the cultivation of flowers in the little gardens of the 
 lower orders, bespeaks a country in contentment. 
 Then the better class of dwelling, with its paved 
 walk leading up from the outer gate through ever- 
 greens, and its bright brass knocker and bell-pull, 
 and white steps, that seem as if they had been 
 washed the minute before ; the windows so clean, 
 with their Venetian blinds inside and fresh paint 
 without : in short, I could not enumerate a twen- 
 tieth part of these trifling evidences that go to prove 
 the ease and prosperity of these people. 
 
 VOL. I. — 6
 
 82 Rory O'More 
 
 " Their domestic arrangements keep pace with 
 this outward show. They are universally well found 
 in the essential comforts of life ; — they have good 
 beds, are well clothed and well fed. I saw an old 
 fellow yesterday evening driving his water-cart to the 
 river, and he was as fat and rosy as an alderman : the 
 cart and the water-barrel upon it were nicely painted, 
 and as the little donkey drew it along, the old fellow 
 trudged beside it, comforting himself with the sup- 
 port of a stick. Fancy a peasant with a walking- 
 stick ! — do you think that fellow would turn rebel ? 
 
 — never ! 
 
 " On a little green beside the village, some boys 
 were playing at cricket : they had their bats and 
 ball — poverty cannot be here when peasants can 
 buy the materials of play for their children. Then 
 the children seemed so careful ! — the coats and hats 
 they had taken off during their exercise were piled in 
 a heap at a distance, and when their game was fin- 
 ished, they dressed themselves with such regularity ! 
 
 — and with what good clothes they were provided ! 
 "This is not the country for revolution! — such 
 
 is my firm conviction. There are some in England 
 who hail with rapture the dawn of liberty, and wish 
 that its splendour may lighten all nations ; but that 
 number is comparatively small, and I cannot wonder 
 at it, after all I have seen. Believe me, there are 
 few men in England like Home Tooke. By the by, 
 I must tell you a capital thing he said the other day. 
 The conversation ran upon definitions, and some one 
 said it would be very hard to define what was treason. 
 ' Not at all,' said Home Tooke : ' it is nothing but 
 reason with a / to it.' — Was n't it capital ? 
 
 " To conclude, — Tone is right. I repeat it, no 
 hopes can be entertained of revolutionising England. 
 
 "I go to Ireland next week; and from all I can
 
 Rory 0' More 83 
 
 learn here, matters promise better for us there. I 
 carry this letter with me to Dublin, whence I shall 
 transmit it to you by our Swedish friend. You shall 
 hear from me again, immediately that I have made 
 my observations. 
 
 " H. D. L." 
 
 Now, bating the flourishes about freedom and 
 regenerated mankind, there is much good sense and 
 shrewd observation in this letter. It will be per- 
 ceived, that however great his revolutionary enthu- 
 siasm, it did not carry him away into the folly of 
 believing in impossibilities : he saw, and said, that 
 England could not be revolutionised, for her people 
 enjoyed too many comforts to throw them away 
 in a civil war. This temperate tone is noticed to 
 the reader, to show that De Lacy was a trusty agent 
 in the cause he undertook; that, uninfluenced by 
 his preconceived notions, and in the very teeth of ^ 
 
 his wishes, he saw England was beyond the reach ^ 
 
 of revolutionary influence, and pointed out the rea- '■ 
 
 sons why. Let the reader mark the calm and judi- 
 cious observation of the man, for in due time another 
 letter of his will appear, describing the state of Ire- 
 land ; and the influence of that letter will be the 
 greater by remembering the foregoing one, and bear- 
 ing in mind that the same man, exercising the same 
 observation, and with the same desire to ascertain the 
 real probability of success in a revolutionary move- 
 ment, is the writer. The wishes and hopes of the 
 republican were utterly overthrown by the security 
 and prosperity of England, but he found in the 
 misery and misrule of Ireland the ready materials 
 for a country's convulsion.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A MAN OF LAW AND PHYSIC 
 
 " He was a man to all the country dear ! " 
 
 DE LACY'S fever continued to rage, and his 
 raving to proceed in their usual course. Two 
 things were in his favour, his fury at the red cloth 
 obliged the Widow O'More to give up that hope of 
 recovering her patient ; and all her ingenuity could 
 not induce him to take whisky, even in the most 
 diluted form. Sometimes, when the poor sufferer 
 had been calling for drink for some time, the cunning 
 prescriber would enter with a vessel of liquid con- 
 taining a portion of the favourite medicine, and hop- 
 ing that the anxiety for any alleviation of thirst would 
 make him swallow it without examination, she would 
 say — " Now, dear, here 't is for you. Dhrink it up 
 at once, — dhrink it up big ! " 
 
 Poor De Lacy would seize the vessel with avidity, 
 and make a rush with open mouth upon it ; but the 
 moment the presence of whisky was apparent, he 
 would refuse it. In mere charity, at last, though 
 without any hope of doing him good, the widow 
 made him some plain two-milk whey, and this he 
 swallowed with that fierce desire for drink that the 
 thirst of fever or the Desert only knows. 
 
 Rory procured the drugs his mother ordered at the 
 village, and brought them back to her with all the 
 speed that might be. What they were it is needless
 
 Rory O'More 85 
 
 to know, and perhaps the Faculty might or might 
 not be benefited by the knowledge ; but as vaccina- 
 tion has triumphed over the terrible plague that then 
 scourged mankind, it is unnecessary to seek what 
 were the nostrums the widow employed in her medi- 
 cal capacity. 
 
 " Who do you think did I meet at M'Garry's 
 to-day, whin I wint there for the physic ? " said 
 Rory on his return. 
 
 " Arrah, who thin ? " said his mother. 
 
 "Sweeny ! " 
 
 " Is it Sweeny ? " 
 
 " Divil a less ! " 
 
 " I wondher he is n't ashamed to go the place, the 
 dirty scut ! His father was a 'pottekerry, and he 
 must turn atturney ; and instead of follyin' his dacent 
 father's business before him, and attindin' to the 
 'pottekerryin', it 's the 'turneyin' he must be afther — 
 bad luck to him ! — and instead of doin' people 
 good, and curin' them of any thing might come over 
 thim, he 's doin' thim all the harm he can, and laving 
 them without any thing over them, — not as much as 
 a blanket, much less a house. His father used to 
 cure 'ructions,^ but he 's risin' them : and, as I said 
 before, I wondher he 's not ashamed to go into the 
 owld shop, for it ought to remind him that he might 
 be a dacent 'pottekerry, instead of a skreivging 'turney, 
 as he is : and more betoken, the dirty little 'turney 
 to set up to be a gintleman, and for that same to 
 change his blessed and holy religion, and turn 
 prod'stant ! Oh, the little vagabone ! " 
 
 Now it will be seen the widow wound up her 
 philippic against Sweeny by placing the heaviest 
 offence the last ; — " He turned prod'stant ; " — this 
 was the great crime in the widow's eyes, and indeed 
 
 ^ Ruction signifies a breaking out, a disturbance.
 
 86 Rory O'More 
 
 in those of most of the people of her class. Sweeny 
 might have robbed all Ireland, and suffered less in 
 their opinion than by the fact of his going to church. 
 Poor Ireland ! — the great question of a man's vice 
 or virtue, fitness or unfitness, talent or stupidity, 
 wisdom or folly, treason or loyalty, was answered 
 in those days by the fact of whether he went to 
 a protestant church or a catholic chapel. The two 
 sects disliked each other equally ; but the protestant 
 born and bred was not half so much loathed as the 
 apostate who renounced the faith of his fathers for 
 " the flesh-pots of Egypt ; " and the Roman catholics 
 were the more jealous of this defection, because they 
 never had any converts from the protestants in return, 
 and for the best reason in the world, — there was 
 nothing to he made by it. 
 
 Now it was by a process of consecutive reasoning 
 that Sweeny had renounced physic and popery, and 
 assumed the attorney and ascendency. He gave up 
 the healing art because he saw his father could make 
 nothing of it. How could he ? When a population 
 is so poor as not to be able to afford the necessaries 
 of life, they cannot be expected to command the 
 remedies against death : if they cannot buy bread, 
 they will hardly buy physic. So Sweeny the younger 
 turned his attention towards the law, which is an 
 amusement that those who have something to lose 
 deal in, and therefore belongs more to the richer 
 classes, — or, as they call themselves, the better 
 classes. 
 
 Now as these better {alias richer) classes in Ireland 
 were on the side of the protestants. Sweeny thought 
 that conforming to the church as by law established 
 would be a move in his favour, and accordingly he 
 (to use the words of a paragraph in one of the 
 government papers of the day) " renounced the
 
 Rory O^More 87 
 
 errors of the church of Rome, and embraced those 
 of the church of England." 
 
 He had lived long enough with his father to pick 
 up a few words of apothecary Latin, and these he 
 mixed with a vile jargon of his own, which he im- 
 posed on people for medical knowledge ; and although 
 as ignorant as a horse in every way, he had the im- 
 pudence to enact the amateur doctor, and gave advice 
 gratis in physic to his clients in law. This dabbling 
 in doctoring permitted him to indulge in a ruling 
 propensity of his nature, which was, curiosity : while 
 he played the doctor, he could play the inquisitor ; 
 and by his joint possession of cunning and impudence, 
 it is surprising how he used to ferret out intelligence. 
 He seldom ventured on giving prescriptions of his 
 own, and to avoid this, he always recommended some 
 patent medicine, a supply of which he kept by him 
 to furnish to his friends, and he charged them a 
 handsome profit on the same. He would say, — 
 
 " My dear ma'am, don't be going to that dreadful 
 M'Garry ! You '11 ruin your health — your precious 
 health ! you can't depend upon his drugs at all : he 
 has n't them pure — how could he, poor creature ! 
 I would give you a recipe if his drugs could be de- 
 pended upon ; but they positively cannot. Suppose 
 now, my dear ma'am, — suppose your little nerves 
 got out of order, and I wished to give you something 
 of an alluv'iating nature, I might wish to exhibit a 
 small dose of hippopotamus^ and most likely he, not 
 having the article in his cornucopia^ might give you 
 vox populi. Now only fancy your swallowing vox 
 populi instead of hippopotamus ! There's no knowing 
 what the consequence might be ; perhaps utter prosti- 
 tution — prostitution of strength I mean : — only 
 fancy ! I tell you, M'Garry is dangerous ; besides, 
 M'Garry keeps the Post-office, — and how can a
 
 88 Rory 0' More 
 
 man mind the post and his profession? — or, as the 
 Squire most fassyetiously said the other day, ' How 
 can he be at his two posts at once ? ' Ha, ha ! 
 Very good — was n't it ? Capital, / think. But, to 
 be serious, M'Garry 's dangerous ; he'd better throw 
 his physic to the dogs, as the Bard of Devon says, for 
 't is fit for no one else. You had better let me send 
 you a little box of pills, and a bottle of that thing I 
 sent you before ; they are patent medicines, and must 
 be good. You liked the last — did n't you ? Tastes 
 rather strongs you say ; so much the better — make you 
 strong : very nice though. It is an expensive medi- 
 cine, rather ; but what o' that in comparison to your 
 precious health ? Better than being poisoned with 
 vox popuU" 
 
 Thus would this impudent and ignorant vagabond 
 talk his vile rubbish to the fools who would let him 
 send them his patent medicines, and charge them in 
 his bill. 
 
 When Sweeny saw Rory O'More getting drugs at 
 M'Garry's, he asked him who was ill. Rory, not 
 liking him, and aware of his prying nature, wished 
 for reasons of his own that he should not know for 
 whom they were intended, as he thought it possible 
 the animal might pay a visit to the cottage on the 
 plea of giving advice, and see the stranger, and what 
 would be worse, hear him raving too; and Rory's 
 surmises as to the profession of his guest made him 
 anxious that this should not be. He accordingly 
 evaded all the questions of the medical attorney as 
 well as he could, and left him without giving him 
 any information on the subject. But this was quite 
 enough to excite Sweeny's suspicion, and set his 
 curiosity craving ; and so he rode out the next day to 
 pay Rory's home a visit, and ferret out the mystery. 
 On arriving at the house, he hung his horse's bridle-
 
 Ro7y O'More 89 
 
 reins over a hook near the door, and bolted into the 
 cottage at once. Rory, his mother, and sister, were 
 all there ; therefore, it was a plain case that none of 
 the family were ill. 
 
 " Good morrow, widow," said Sweeny in his 
 politest manner, — " glad to see you well, ma'am, — 
 and you, Mary O'More — well and hearty ; — all 
 well, I see, — glad of it. I was afraid some one was 
 sick — saw Rory getting drugs yesterday — just dropt 
 in as I was coming by, to see could I offer any 
 advice : who 's sick ? " 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Sweeny, I 'm obleeged," said 
 the widow coldly ; " I just wanted a thrifle o' physic, 
 and so Rory wint for it : " and she bustled about, 
 evidently having no inclination to enter into conver- 
 sation with him, and letting him see that such luas 
 her intention : but Sweeny was not to be put off so. 
 
 " Can I do any thing in the way of advice, Mrs. 
 O'More ? " 
 
 " Yis, indeed, Mr. Sweeny, you can ; and I think 
 I '11 be going over to you, to ask about a little bit o' 
 law soon, for I 'm having an alteration made in my 
 lase." 
 
 " Yes, yes, — certainly — law business — certainly 
 — alwavs readv, Mrs. O'More : but I mean in the 
 medical way, — you know I 'm skilful in that way, 
 Mrs. O'More, — and as there's some one sick here, 
 if I can be of any use, I '11 be most happy — most 
 happy, Mrs. O'More." 
 
 The widow saw there was no evading the attorney, 
 and so she said a traveller had been going the road, 
 and was taken ill, and they took him in and put him 
 to bed ; but " it would n't signify, plase God ! and 
 he'd be well enough in a day or two." 
 
 " If I can be of any use, I '11 see him with pleasure." 
 
 " Thank you, sir, but I gave him something my-
 
 90 Rory O'More 
 
 self that I know will do him good — obleeged to you 
 all the same." 
 
 " Is he poor ? " said Sweeny. 
 
 " I never asked him that," said the widow re- 
 proachfully. 
 
 " Of course — of course ; — but then I mean, you 
 might guess." 
 
 " Guess ! " said Rory, who had been eyeing Sweeny 
 all this time with a sidelong glance of contempt, — 
 " Guess ! — why, thin tare an ouns ! do you think 
 the man 's a riddle or a conundherum^ that we 'd be 
 guessin' at him ? " 
 
 All the time this conversation was going on, 
 Sweeny kept rolling his little grey eyes about him ; 
 and at last he spied De Lacy's portmanteau, and 
 approaching it directly, and laying hold of it, he said, 
 " This is the traveller's portmanteau, I suppose ? " 
 
 "Well, and what if it is ?" said Rory. 
 
 "Oh, nothing — nothing," said Sweeny, who had 
 turned it over and over to look for a name or initials; 
 but there were none : " no harm in my asking, I 
 hope ? " 
 
 " Nor no good, either," said Rory. 
 
 " Only, by this portmanteau, the traveller is a 
 gentleman, I perceive." 
 
 " Well, he 's not the worse of that," said Rory. 
 
 " Any thing I can do for the gentleman, I '11 be 
 most happy," said Sweeny, who always laid a gentle- 
 man under obligation if he could. 
 
 " Thank you, sir, but he 's very comfortable here, 
 I can tell you, and sha'n't want for any thing," said 
 the widow. 
 
 " 1 've no doubt of that, Mrs. O'More ; but if I 
 could see him, perhaps I might be able to give some 
 little advice. Is he in that room ? " said Sweeny, 
 pointing as he spoke.
 
 Rory O'More 91 
 
 " He 's asleep, and must n't be disturbed," said 
 
 Rory. 
 
 Just at that moment De Lacy's raving took a noisy 
 turn, and he became audible to Sweeny. 
 
 " There," said Sweeny, " he 's awake, — now you 
 can let me go in ; " and he was advancing to the door, 
 when Ron' stepped between, and said the patient 
 should n't be disturbed, at the same time he turned 
 towards his mother, and made a grimace, as much as 
 to say, " Sweeny must not be admitted." The 
 widow grinned, and blinked her eyes, as much as to 
 say, " He shall not." — " You see, Mr. Sweeny," 
 said she, " the poor gintleman 's ravin', and does n't 
 like sthrangers." 
 
 " Raving ! — ho, ho ! — fever — dangerous, Mrs. 
 O'iMore, — take care, take care." 
 
 "• I 've taken every care, sir." 
 
 " But fever, Mrs. O'lMore; — have you given him 
 feverescing drinks ? " 
 
 " He has all he wants." 
 
 " You should write to his friends, and tell them ; 
 — may die, you know ; — I '11 write to them, if you 
 like." 
 
 " And charge six-and-eightpence for it," said Rory 
 
 aside. 
 
 " Do vou know his name ? " 
 
 " No," said Rory very short; '-^we didn't ax him 
 any impid'nt questions." 
 
 " Rory, my man, don't be unreasonable, — don't 
 be in a passion -, — maybe a person of consequence — 
 his friends in a state of suspense. He 's raving : now 
 all you have to do is to open his valise and examine 
 his papers, and find out who he is. I '11 do it for 
 you, if you like." 
 
 Rory's rage now burst its bounds. The prying 
 impertinence of Sweeny he bore so long as it merely
 
 92 Rory 0' More 
 
 amounted to his personal annoyance ; but when he 
 made the last proposition, Rory opened upon him 
 
 furiously. 
 
 " Why, thin, do you take me for such a mane- 
 sperited dog, that while a sick man v/as on his back, 
 I 'd turn spy and thief, and brake open his portmantle 
 and hunt for his saycrets ? " 
 
 " My dear Rory ! " 
 
 "Don't dear me! — Dear^ indeed, — 'faith! it's 
 chape you howld me, if you think I 'd do sitch a dirty 
 turn, — to bethray the man undher my roof j — you 
 ought to be ashamed of yourself!" 
 
 " But it 's a common practice ! " 
 
 "A common 'turney's practice maybe, — or a 
 common thiePs practice." 
 
 « Hillo, Rory ! " 
 
 " Oh, to the divil I pitch you and your hillo ! — I 
 say, a common thiePs practice, again, — to break 
 locks or cut open bags, and pimp and spy; — faugh 
 on the man would do the like ! Throth, if I thought 
 there was one dhrop o' blood in my body would con- 
 sent to it, I'd open my veins till it wms out. Oh, 
 murther, murther, — to hear of sitch a scheming 
 turn ! If I done such a rogue's thrick, I 'd howld 
 myself disgraced to the end of my days, and think 
 myself only fit company for Judas." 
 
 Sweeny was dumb-foundered before the torrent of 
 Rory's honest indignation, and was about to make 
 some shuffling reply, when Mar)' O'iMore entered 
 the cottage, she having left it a moment before, and 
 said, " Run, run, Mr. Sweeny ! there 's your horse 
 has got his head out of the bridle, and is run into the 
 field." 
 
 Now it was Mary herself who had loosened the 
 bridle from the beast, and let him escape, for the 
 purpose of getting rid of their troublesome visitor.
 
 Rory O'More 93 
 
 Sweeny cut short his discourse, and darted from the 
 house, pursuing his horse into the field, where he ar- 
 rived in time lo see him rolling over in great glee, 
 much to the benefit of a new saddle. 
 
 Sweeny shouted, " murder ! " and it was some 
 time before the horse could be caught, even with 
 the assistance of Ror)\ When he was secured, the 
 saddle was discovered to have been split by the 
 horse's tumbles ; and when Sweeny got into his seat 
 and turned homewards, he saw Mary O'More show- 
 ing her white teeth in a most undisguised laugh at 
 the result of her trick, which Rory rejoiced in 
 equally. 
 
 After De Lacy had suffered under dangerous fever 
 for some time, the eruption made its appearance, and 
 he was soon out of danger. He had no other aid in 
 his illness than that of the widow's simple remedies, 
 which, backed by a good constitution, carried him 
 through, and now quiet and patience were all that he 
 required. 
 
 As soon as he recovered his senses, it was some 
 time before he could perfectly understand how he 
 came to be in Rory O'More's cottage ; but a few 
 words from his kind host gradually gave the key to 
 memory, and he was enabled to recall the circum- 
 stances that preceded his illness. After this he was 
 for some time silent, and then he asked what was the 
 day of the month. On being told, he knit his brow, 
 and seemed to undergo some feelings of disappoint- 
 ment, to which an expression of great anxiety suc- 
 ceeded. 
 
 " O'More," said he at last, " shut the door. 
 Come close to me ; I want to ask you a question, 
 and I charge you, as you hope for salvation, to 
 answer me truly. I know I have been out of my 
 senses, and I suppose I talked a great deal while I
 
 94 Rory O'More 
 
 was so. Now tell me honestly, did any thing remark- 
 able strike you in my raving ? " 
 
 " Yes, there did, sir," said Rory, smiling at De 
 Lacy, and looking straight into his eyes with that 
 honest look that honesty alone can give. 
 
 There was a soothing influence to De Lacy in the 
 expression of that smile and look, and a peculiar in- 
 telligence in them, that showed him Rory knew the 
 drift of his question, by having fathomed the circum- 
 stances of his situation. 
 
 " I 'm sure you guess what I am," said De Lacy. 
 
 " Shouldher arms, — whoo ! " said Rory, laughing. 
 
 De Lacy smiled faintly at Rory's mode of illustrat- 
 ing his knowledge. 
 
 " You are right," said De Lacy, " and you know 
 I 'm not a soldier of King George." 
 
 Rory sang in a low tone, — 
 
 "Viva la, the French is coming — 
 Viva la, our friends is thrue ; 
 Viva la, the French is coming — 
 What will the poor yeomen do ? " 
 
 De Lacy nodded assent, and smiled, and, after a 
 short pause, said, " You 're a sharp fellow, O'More." 
 
 " I 've been blunt enough with you, sir." 
 
 " Honest as the sun," said De Lacy. " Now tell 
 me, do the women know any thing about this ? " 
 
 " Not a taste ; they suspect you no more nor the 
 child unborn : only, xMary says " 
 
 '*• What ? " said De Lacv, rather alarmed. 
 
 " That you 're in love, sir, — beggin' your pardon." 
 
 " Oh ! that 's all. Well, she 's right too. Why, 
 you 're a sharp family altogether." 
 
 " Divil a much sharpness in that," says Rory : 
 " sure whin there 's the laste taste o' love goin', the 
 wind o' the word is enough for a woman. Oh ! let
 
 Rory O'More 95 
 
 them alone for findin' out the soft side of a man's 
 heart ! — the greatest fool o' them all is wise enough 
 in such matthers." 
 
 " O'More," said De Lacy, after another pause, 
 "you're a United Irishman." 
 
 Rory smiled. " Now it 's your turn to be sharp," 
 said he. 
 
 "You are a United man, then ? " said De Lacy. 
 
 "To the core of my heart," replied Rory with 
 energy. 
 
 " Then my mind 's at ease," said De Lacy ; and 
 he held out his hand to O'More, who gave his in re- 
 turn, and De Lacy shook it warmly. 
 
 " God be praised, sir ! " said Rory : " but how does 
 that set your mind at aise ? " 
 
 " Because you can fulfil a mission for me, Rory, 
 that otherwise must have failed ; — that is, if you '11 
 undertake it." 
 
 " Undhertake it ! — I 'd go to the four corners of 
 the earth in a good cause." 
 
 " You 're a brave fellow ! " said De Lacy. 
 
 " But will you tell me, sir," said Rory, " is the 
 French comin' in airnest to help us ? " 
 
 " No doubt of it, Rory, — and you shall be the joy- 
 ful messenger of their coming, by doing the errand I 
 wish for." 
 
 " Oh ! but that '11 be the proud day for me, your 
 honour ! " 
 
 " Well, then, there 's no time to lose. I asked you 
 the day of the month a few minutes ago, and my heart 
 sank within me when you told me the date ; to-mor- 
 row I am bound by promise to be in the town of 
 
 , where an agent from France is waiting, who 
 
 bears intelligence to Ireland. It is impossible for 
 me to go ; — now will you undertake the duty, 
 Rory ? "
 
 96 Rory O'More 
 
 " With all the veins o' my heart ! " said Rory, 
 " and be proud into the bargain." 
 
 " Go, then," said De Lacy, " to the town of , 
 
 and there on the quay there 's a public-house." 
 
 "'Faith, there is, — and more," said Rory. 
 
 " The public-house I mean bears a very odd sign." 
 
 " I '11 be bound I know it," said Rory, whose 
 national impatience would not wait for De Lacy's 
 directions ; " I '11 engage it 's the Cow and the 
 Wheelbarrow." 
 
 " No," said De Lacy, who could not help smiling 
 at the oddness of the combination in Rory's antici- 
 pated sign, " it is not ; but one quite as queer : the 
 Cat and Bagpipes." 
 
 " Oh, that 's a common sign," said Rory. 
 
 " There are a great many very queer things com- 
 mon in Ireland," said De Lacy, who even in his 
 present weakened state could not resist his habitual 
 love of remark. " You are well acquainted, I see, 
 with the town," he continued. 
 
 " Indeed, and I 'm not," said Rory j " I never was 
 there but wanst, and that happened to be on the quay, 
 by the same token, where I remarked the Cow and 
 the Wheelbarrow, for it 's a sign I never seen afore, 
 and is mighty noticeable." 
 
 " But that is not the sign of the house you are to 
 go to, remember." 
 
 "Oh, by no manes, sir; the Cat and Bagpipes is 
 my mark." 
 
 " Yes ! and there about the hour of six in the even- 
 ing you will see a party of three men." 
 
 " But if there 's two parties of three ? " said Rory. 
 
 " You can distinguish our friends by contriving, in 
 the most natural way you can, — I mean, so as not to 
 excite observation from any one but those who will 
 understand and answer your signal, — to say, One^
 
 Rory O'More 97 
 
 two^ three^ in their hearing ; and if those whom I ex- 
 pect you to meet should be there, you will be spoken 
 to by them, and then you must introduce into what- 
 ever you say to them these words, They were very fine 
 ducks. They will then leave the public-house, and 
 you may trust yourself to follow wherever they lead." 
 
 " Now, how am I to make sure that they are 
 right ? " said Rory. 
 
 "You have my word for their being trusty," said 
 De Lacy. 
 
 " Oh, sir, sure it 's not your word I 'd be doubting ; 
 but I mane, how am I to make sure that it h the 
 right men / spake to ? " 
 
 " Their noticing your remark will be sufficient ; 
 but, as a further assurance, they can return you the 
 United man's signal and grip. Give me your hand," 
 said De Lacy, and he clasped the extended palm of 
 Rory. 
 
 "That's the grip," said Rory, "sure enough. 
 Why, thin, how did you come by that, sir ? " said 
 Rory ; " tare alive ! are the French United Irishmen ? " 
 
 "Not exactly," said De Lacy, smiling; "but the 
 chosen know your signs. Now I 've told you all 
 that 's requisite for your mission : when you give these 
 signs, they whom you '11 meet will tell you what is 
 requisite for me to know, and you can bring me back 
 the intelligence." 
 
 " I 've no time to lose," said Rory ; " I must be off 
 to-morrow by the dawn." 
 
 " Will your mother or sister suspect any thing from 
 your absence ? " 
 
 " Why, sir, the thruth is, neither mother nor sisther 
 ever questioned me about my incomin's or outgoin's -, 
 though they have, av course, observed I was not 
 always reg'lar, and women is sharp enough in sitch 
 matthers ; but they suspect something is going on in 
 
 VOL. I.— 7
 
 98 Rory O'More 
 
 the counthry; how could they help it? but they know 
 it is in a good cause, and that they have no business 
 to meddle with it, and so the fewer questions they ask, 
 they think it is the betther. They know men must 
 do what becomes men ; and though the mother and 
 sisther loves me as well as ever a son or a brother 
 was loved in this wide world, they would rather see 
 me do what a man ought to do, and die, than skulk 
 and live undher disgrace." 
 
 De Lacy was touched by this simple expression of 
 the chivalrous feeling which existed throughout this 
 humble family, and, after Rory assuring him he would 
 do his mission, and telling him to " keep never mind- 
 ing " to the mother, he took his instructions once 
 more, and recommended De Lacy to go to sleep. 
 
 It was evening ; so Rory bade his guest good-night. 
 *' You won't see me again till afther I come back ; 
 make yourself aisy, sir. The thing will be done, 
 depend upon that : above all, say nothing to the 
 mother ; she '11 ask me no questions, and I '11 tell her 
 no lies." With this wise saying, Rory left De Lacy, 
 who soon slept, from the fatigue which the excite- 
 ment he had just gone through produced.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 "BRITANNIA RULES THE WAVES " 
 
 IT was in the grey of a fine autumnal morning, 
 about a fortnight previously to the scene and 
 time just recorded, that a swift lugger was seen dash- 
 ing the spray from her beautiful bows as she sailed 
 through a fleet of stately men-of-war that lay in the 
 Texel. The lugger made for the shore, and when 
 close in, dropped her anchor ; and her small boat 
 being lowered from her stern, three men entered it, 
 and it was pulled swiftly to the beach. To one who 
 knew not that a craft like the lugger required a nu- 
 merous crew, it might have been supposed, when those 
 three men left her side, that every living thing had 
 departed from her ; for the stillness which prevailed 
 within her was profound. There she lay on the placid 
 water, quiet as the element she floated on, without a 
 sign or a sound to indicate that she was the den of 
 many a daring ruffian. 
 
 About noon, the boat reapproached the lugger, with 
 two additional persons, and after hailing her, and re- 
 maining a few minutes under her quarter, again pushed 
 oflF, and made for the centre of the fleet, where the 
 flag of Admiral De Winter floated from the mast of 
 the Vryheid, — a splendid seventy-four. 
 
 Three persons from the boat went up the side of 
 the admiral's ship, two of whom were admitted to the 
 admiral's cabin; the third, the commander of the lug- 
 ger, waited on the deck until those he brought from
 
 loo Rory O'More 
 
 the shore should command his presence below. And 
 these two were persons whose names are well known in 
 the eventful history of the period, and on their heads 
 was the price of blood, — Theobald Wolfe Tone, and 
 Lewines : the former, an exile for some time from 
 his country ; and the other, more recently an envoy 
 from the executive of the disaffected party in Ireland. 
 Tone had obtained rank in the French army, and was 
 at this moment on the etat major of the armament 
 destined for the invasion of the kingdom of Great 
 Britain ; though at what point that invasion might 
 take place was not as yet decided ; — it being matter 
 of dispute whether the expedition should land on the 
 English coast, or in Ireland ; whether it should strike 
 at the vitals of Great Britain, or assail her from the 
 extremities. 
 
 General Hoche, who was only second in fame to 
 Bonaparte, was anxious to do something brilliant, while 
 the fame of his rival's Italian campaigns made Europe 
 ring with wonder; and as the prevalence of contrary 
 winds had prevented the expedition sailing for some 
 weeks for Ireland, he made the daring proposal of 
 landing in Lincolnshire, and marching direct on Lon- 
 don. A year before, his expedition, v/hich sailed from 
 Brest for Ireland, was utterly defeated by contrary 
 winds ; and as the same element seemed, as usual, to 
 interpose a providential barrier between England and 
 her foes, he, with that impatient thought so char- 
 acteristic of genius, suggested the idea that as the 
 wind did not blow in favour of the course they wanted 
 to steer, they should make it subservient to another 
 purpose, descend on the most open quarter, and trust 
 to the fortune of war ; for he burned that some great 
 achievement of his should prevent his name being 
 overshadowed by the freshly-springing laurels of 
 Napoleon Bonaparte.
 
 Rory O'More '^:\^^i\ 
 
 Against this preposterous notion of carrying Eng- 
 land by a coup de main^ Tone had always argued stren- 
 uously ; but he found such a singular ignorance of 
 the state of England, as well as Ireland, to exist 
 amongst the French, that it was with great difficulty 
 he could make General Hoche listen to a word against 
 his newly-conceived expedition. It was, therefore, 
 with great pleasure he had the letter of De Lacy, 
 bearing so strongly on this point, put into his hands 
 that morning by the commander of the lugger, and he 
 lost no time in laying it before the authorities in com- 
 mand of the expedition, to dissuade them from a 
 course that he knew could be no other than ruinous. 
 
 When he and Lewines entered the cabin of the 
 admiral, General Hoche and Daendells were looking 
 over a map of England ; and Admiral De Winter, 
 with his second in command. Admiral Storey, were 
 examining charts of the British Channel and the 
 North Sea. 
 
 " You see I 've not given it up yet," said Hoche 
 vivaciously to Tone. 
 
 " I perceive you have not, general," said the latter ; 
 " but I think thh will decide you : " and he presented 
 to him the letter of De Lacy. 
 
 Hoche pounced upon it, and began to devour its 
 contents. He passed rapidly on, till, stopping sud- 
 denly, he asked, " Who is this from ? " 
 
 Tone informed him it was from an agent of Gen- 
 eral Clarke, who had been commissioned to inquire 
 into the truth of all the statements Tone had made 
 to the Directory. 
 
 " I remember," said Hoche ; and he resumed his 
 reading. 
 
 A conversation ensued in the mean time between 
 the admirals and the Irish emissaries, until it was 
 interrupted by Hoche exclaiming impatiently, " ^le
 
 ;i.65C R.ory ' Mo r e 
 
 d'lable ! What have carved ceilings and handsome 
 apartments to do with the matter ? His oak ceiling 
 is only good for burning ! What nonsense ! " And 
 he threw down the letter contemptuously. 
 
 " Pray, go on, general," said Tone. " There is a 
 good deal of detail, certainly, in the communication ; 
 but if the writer has been careful and elaborate in his 
 observations, it is only fair to read them all to arrive 
 at a just estimate of his judgment." 
 
 Hoche continued the reading of the letter, and as 
 he proceeded, his face became more thoughtful, he 
 read with deeper attention ; and when he had finished 
 the perusal, he laid down the letter in silence, as if he 
 had not the heart to say, " I must give up my expe- 
 dition," although he felt it was hopeless. 
 
 " You see, general," said Tone, " the expedition to 
 Ireland is the only thing." 
 
 " Whenever it can sail there," said Hoche. 
 
 " That may be a month," said Daendells. 
 
 " Or to-morrow," said Tone. 
 
 "This south-westerly wind is blowing as if it had 
 set in for it," said the admiral, shaking his head, as 
 if he doubted Tone's hopeful anticipation. 
 
 " The troops have been now embarked nearly a 
 month," said General Daendells, "and though amply 
 provisioned for the probable necessities of the expe- 
 dition, it is impossible their stores can last much 
 longer ; and whenever they become exhausted, I 
 doubt how far our government would deem it pru- 
 dent to advance further supplies." 
 
 " General Daendells," said Hoche, " it has ap- 
 peared to me, lately, that the Batavian republic seems 
 to have a jealousy that her army should be led by a 
 general of France in an affair that promises so much 
 glory, and I should not wonder that much further 
 delay in the sailing of the expedition might prevent
 
 Rory O'More 103 
 
 this noble undertaking altogether. Now, I would 
 not for the glory of Caesar that my personal fame 
 should interfere with the great cause of universal 
 freedom ; and if you think that your legislative as- 
 sembly would be more willing to pursue this enter- 
 prise if it were under the command of one of its 
 own generals, I will withdraw my pretensions to the 
 command, and give all the chance of the glory to 
 you." 
 
 " You are a noble fellow," said Daendells, extend- 
 ing his hand to Hoche ; " there may be some truth 
 in what you say, and I shall never forget this act of 
 generosity on your part, for none can deny that you, 
 from your efforts made, and disappointments endured, 
 in this cause, deserve to reap all the laurels that may 
 be mine in the result. This is the greatest of your 
 conquests, — you have triumphed over your ambition ! " 
 
 Tone was affected almost to tears — he could 
 scarcely speak ; but, struggling with his emotion, he 
 said, " General, my country will never forget this 
 noble conduct on vour part. We knew how brave 
 you are, but we did not know how generous ! " 
 
 " Who brought this letter ? " said Hoche, wishing 
 to turn the conversation. 
 
 " De Welskein, the smuggler," said Tone ; " and 
 he wishes to know whether he may promise speedy 
 aid to the sufferers in Ireland, for they are beginning 
 to be impatient of it." 
 
 " The moment the wind permits, they shall have 
 succour," said Daendells. " Is it not so, admiral ? " 
 said he to De Winter, 
 
 " Certainly," answered the admiral. " Is the 
 smuggler on board ? " added he, addressing Tone. 
 
 " Yes, admiral." 
 
 " Then I wish to speak to him ; " and the smug- 
 gler was ordered into the admiral's presence.
 
 I04 Rory O'More 
 
 De Welskein was a Frenchman, though bearing a 
 Dutch name : he was one of the many desperate 
 characters that the French revolution produced. A 
 fellow of loose habits and desperate fortunes, he took 
 to smuggling, as the readiest mode of indulging the 
 one and repairing the other : he had also a love of 
 finesse^ and a spirit of intrigue, that this sort of life 
 enabled him to indulge in ; and he was the most 
 active of the agents in carrying on intelligence be- 
 tween France and Ireland at that period; — not that 
 he cared for the Irish, not that he had a moral sensi- 
 bility within him to desire the liberation of the veriest 
 slave, — but that it gave him an opportunity to smug- 
 gle and intrigue. Many a turbulent spirit in Ireland 
 who longed for an outbreak of rebellion, and who 
 looked to France for aid, courted Monsieur De 
 Welskein as emissary from the land of promise, and 
 he made them, through this hold upon them, more 
 ready instruments in his smuggling speculations. 
 
 Deficient though De Welskein was in any moral 
 appreciation of the beauty of freedom, he babbled in 
 the jargon of his time about it, and shouted " Vive la 
 liberie!" because his liberie meant the absence of all 
 restraint, human or divine ; and he had a sort of con- 
 fused notion that a revolution was glorious, and that 
 it was the business of the grande nation to revolu- 
 tionise the world in general, but Ireland in particular, 
 because it gave him a good opportunity for smuggling 
 brandy and tobacco. 
 
 There was a species of melodramatic fancy about 
 the fellow too — a propensity for romance and ad- 
 venture, that his connection with Ireland gratified. 
 Besides, it indulged his vanity, as, in his present 
 situation, Monsieur Eugene St. Foix De Welskein 
 was no small personage in his own opinion : he 
 rhodomontaded about the fate of empires and the
 
 Rory O'More 105 
 
 destinies of nations^ as if he were a sucking Jupiter, 
 or one of the French Directory. 
 
 His names too were a source of rejoicing to him : 
 Eugene St. Foix. The former he inheritv-d from his 
 father; the latter was the maiden name of his mother, 
 who was a washerwoman. De Welskein he did not 
 much like ; so that his companions, when they wished 
 to vex him, called him by his surname, while in 
 moments of friendship they addressed him as Eugene ; 
 but when they courted him, the heroic title of St. 
 Foix was the one thev preferred. To be sure, they 
 sometimes called him, behind his back Sans Foi ; but 
 in his presence he was fond of having his courage 
 celebrated under the name of Sans Peur : so that St. 
 Foix sans peur was a flattering address sometimes made 
 to him : — but though St. Foix was certainly sans peur ^ 
 he was not sans reproche. 
 
 When De Welskein entered the cabin, Admiral De 
 Winter asked him, had he seen the English fleet ? 
 
 He answered, that he had passed them in the night. 
 
 " Then you could not count the number of their 
 ships ? " said the admiral. 
 
 " I was sufficiently near in the morning to see 
 them," said the smuggler, " and I think they are 
 eighteen sail." 
 
 " Eighteen ! — are you sure ? " 
 
 " I think, eighteen ; I 'm almost sure." 
 
 " Frigates, or line-of-battle ? " 
 
 " Most line-of-battle." 
 
 " I see he has observed them," said the admiral, 
 '' for I could perceive, even from the harbour, with a 
 glass, that they were all line-of-battle : — but I could 
 only make out fifteen ; they must have been rein- 
 forced. Some of their ships were in mutiny at the 
 Nore ; perhaps the mutiny has been suppressed, and 
 that accounts for the increase of numbers."
 
 io6 Rory O'More 
 
 " That 's unlucky," said Tone. 
 
 " How unlucky, sir ? " said Storey. 
 
 " As long as our fleet had a superiority, there was a 
 chance we could force our passage ; but " 
 
 " Sir," said Storey, "you mistake very much if you 
 think we would shrink from contending with an equal, 
 or even superior number of the enemy. I wish for 
 nothing better than to be broadside to broadside with 
 them." 
 
 This was the bravado of the man who, in about a 
 month after, deserted De Winter in his engagement 
 with that identical fleet, and literally ran away with 
 his division of the Dutch force from the enemy he 
 vaunted himself so eager to engage. — So much for 
 braggarts ! 
 
 " Pardon me, admiral," said Tone ; " I hope neither 
 you nor Admiral De Winter " — and he bowed defer- 
 entially to that gallant officer, as if it were to him 
 rather than to Storey he apologised — "I hope you 
 do not suppose me so unworthy as to undervalue the 
 bravery of the Dutch navy, at the same time that I 
 consider it a matter of importance we should reach 
 Ireland without an engagement, as by that means our 
 force will be undiminished ; and I wish that the army 
 landed should be as large as possible, for the affair will 
 be the sooner decided, and thus an effusion of blood 
 will be spared, — and I wish from my heart that in my 
 poor country as little blood as possible may be shed." 
 
 " Bah ! " said Hoche ; ^^ you can't make omelettes 
 without breaking of eggs" 
 
 " Adjutant-general," said De Winter to Tone, " I 
 do not misapprehend you : there is no denying that 
 the English are a brave enemy, and Admiral Duncan 
 is a gallant and able officer. I shall not seek an 
 encounter with him until I land your expedition, — 
 but I shall certainly not shun it."
 
 Rory O'More 107 
 
 Thus spoke the man of true courage, who fought 
 his ships gallantly in the subsequent action, even after 
 the defection of the braggart who deserted him. 
 
 Tone tapped General Hoche on the shoulder, and 
 led him apart for a few words in private, the door 
 being open that led to the stern gallery, they walked 
 forth, and Tone began an energetic address, request- 
 ing the general to dissuade the admiral as much as 
 possible from an engagement with the English fleet. 
 " Let the troops be landed in Ireland," said he : " on 
 the land you are invincible, as the English are on the 
 seas. Fate seems to have given to them the dominion 
 of the ocean. Mark me — my words are prophetic 
 — so sure as this fleet shall engage the English, so 
 surely shall it be beaten ! " 
 
 " De Winter is an able officer," said Hoche. 
 
 *' He is," said Tone, " and a brave man, I am cer- 
 tain, from his moderate manner; while I doubt very 
 much the courage of that flourishing gentleman. But 
 have we not the example of repeated engagements to 
 show us that Great Britain is an overmatch for every 
 nation on the seas ? and it makes my blood boil to 
 think that while her fleets are freely manned by Irish- 
 men, the land that gives them birth groans beneath 
 her oppression. Ireland helps to gather laurels for 
 Britain's brows, but not a leaf of the chaplet is given 
 to her; she shares in winning the victories that enrich 
 and aggrandise the Queen of the Ocean, but is allowed 
 no portion of the fame or the prosperity." 
 
 " Be not thus agitated," said Hoche soothingly, 
 touched by the fierce enthusiasm with which Tone 
 uttered the latter part of his address : " when once 
 this armament lands in Ireland, there is an end of 
 Great Britain's domination." 
 
 " Ay, when it lands," said Tone, with a voice in 
 which impatience and hopelessness were strangely
 
 io8 Rory O'More 
 
 blended. " Oh ! " said he, stretching out his hands 
 to the expanse of sea and sky before him — " Oh ! 
 ye elements — ye mysterious agents of Heaven ! why 
 do ye interpose your potent shield of air and foam 
 between England and her foes ? You blasted the 
 Armada of Spain ; I saw you scatter the ships of 
 France at Bantry; and now this gallant fleet, with 
 fifteen thousand chosen men, who burn for the 
 liberation of my country, is chained here by an 
 adverse wind for a whole month ! Ireland, my 
 country, I fear you are doomed ! " 
 
 His hands dropped to his side, his head sank on his 
 chest, and he stood with his eyes fixed on the ground. 
 
 "Rally, man — rally! " said Hoche, slapping him 
 on the shoulder : " why, adjutant-general, I have 
 never seen you thus before ! " 
 
 " Whenever I think of the fate of that unhappy 
 country, it breaks my heart ! But I 've done : — 
 only, for God's sake. General Hoche, dissuade them 
 from a sea-fight ; we are ruined if they attempt it." 
 
 Hoche and Tone now re-entered the cabin. They 
 found De Winter and Daendells giving instructions 
 to the smuggler. De Winter desired him to put 
 himself in the way of the English fleet, and give 
 them some false information. It was planned that 
 De Welskein should pass the English squadron in the 
 night, and towards morning sail back again, as if he 
 came up Channel, and tell the English admiral that 
 he saw a French fleet at the Channel's mouth ; this 
 might give him an idea that the Brest fleet had got 
 out to sea, which would serve to divide his attention, 
 and possibly draw him farther off the coast, and leave 
 a passage from the Texel more open, in case the wind 
 should change so as to favour such a movement. 
 
 General Daendells told him to assure the Irish of 
 speedy succour, for that fifteen thousand men were
 
 Rory O'More 109 
 
 embarked for that service, and only waited a fair 
 wind to sail. A few lines to De Lacv, from Hoche, 
 was all the writing the smuggler bore, and he left the 
 ship on his mission. 
 
 Such were the plans that were proposed ; such 
 were the promises made. What was the result ? 
 
 The wind continued foul a fortnight longer ; in all, 
 six weeks. The provisions for so large a number of 
 troops, as well as seamen, became exhausted ; the 
 troops were relanded ; the expedition to Ireland was 
 given up, — and England again was spared the danger 
 of a formidable invasion into a disaffected portion of 
 her kingdom. 
 
 The night the troops were disembarked. Tone 
 went to his tent with a heavy heart : the next morn- 
 ing he saw the pennants of the fleet turned towards 
 England. 
 
 The breeze which the day before would have made 
 his blood dance, had he felt it on the deck of the 
 Vryheid, now only made his heart sick ; he stood 
 on the beach like one possessed. After remaining 
 motionless for some minutes, he stamped fiercely, 
 clenched his teeth, struck his forehead with his hand, 
 and walked rapidly away ; but ere he descended a 
 slight declivity that shut out the bay, he turned round 
 and cast a look of despair towards his country. 
 
 Thus ended the second expedition undertaken for 
 the invasion of Ireland : and the gallant Hoche, 
 within a month after, was no more — cut off in his 
 prime of manhood and career of glory by the hand of 
 the assassin ! ^ 
 
 And what was the fate of the fleet ? 
 
 Admiral De Winter, the October following, sailed 
 from the Texel, met the English squadron under 
 
 1 Hoche' s life was attempted more than once. His death 
 was attributed to slow poison.
 
 no Rory O'More 
 
 Admiral Duncan, and fought like a hero; — but 
 Storey deserted him. De Winter, nevertheless, main- 
 tained a fierce engagement against superior numbers : 
 but the prophecy of Tone was fulfilled; after a well- 
 contested fight, the Dutch struck their colours, and 
 the flag of England again floated triumphantly over 
 the seas.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PRETTY GIRL MILKING HER COW 
 
 < ' I saw a young damsel, — 't was Noreen j — 
 Her ringlets did carelessly flow. 
 Oh ! how I adore you, ma <vourneen. 
 Ma colleen dhas crutheen na mbho.'''' 
 
 RORY O'MORE left his cottage at an early 
 hour the morning after his conversation with 
 De Lacy. For a few miles he followed the by-road 
 that led from his house, and then struck into a path 
 through some fields, for the purpose of making the 
 high-road which was the direct way to the place of 
 his destination. 
 
 As he was walking briskly on, looking neither to 
 the right nor the left, but quite absorbed in the con- 
 templation of the business he had undertaken, his 
 attention was suddenly arrested by hearing one of 
 those quaint and sportive melodies of his country, 
 sung by a sweet voice. Rory paused ; — he recog- 
 nised the tones that had so often made his heart thrill 
 with pleasure, — and running up the gentle hill before 
 him, he beheld, as he topped the summit on the other 
 side of the hillock, seated under the shade of a haw- 
 thorn hedge, a beautiful peasant girl, whose song pro- 
 ceeded merrily, while she was milking her cows. 
 
 Kathleen Regan was sitting with her back towards 
 the point whence Rory approached ; so that he was 
 enabled, unperceived by her, to gaze with pleasure on 
 her sweet figure, and listen to her sportive song.
 
 112 Rory O'More 
 
 There 's a lad that I know ; and I know that he 
 
 Speaks softly to me. 
 
 The cushla-ma-chree ! 
 He 's the pride of my heart, and he loves me well ; 
 But who the lad is, I 'm not going to tell. 
 
 He 's as straight as a rush, and as bright as the stream 
 
 That around it doth gleam, — 
 
 Oh ! of him how I dream ! 
 I 'm as high as his shoulder — the way that I know 
 Is, he caught me one day, just my measure to show. 
 
 He whisper' d a question one day in my ear : 
 
 When he breathed it, oh dear ! 
 
 How I trembled with fear ! 
 What the question he ask'd was, I need not confess : 
 But the answer I gave to the question was, " Yes."' 
 
 His eyes they are bright, and they looked so kind 
 
 when I was inclined 
 
 To speak my mind ! 
 And his breath is so sweet —oh, the rose's is less ! 
 And how I found it out, — why I leave you to guess. 
 
 The scene was one to excite the imagination and 
 charm the senses of one less keen to such pleasures 
 than Rory. He could catch the soft scent of the 
 morning breath of the cows, vying in fragrance with 
 the woodbine that was peeping through the hedge ; at 
 the same time that he could hear the sweet voice of 
 the girl he loved, and see her bright ringlets curl 
 down her graceful neck and beautifully-rounded 
 shoulders. 
 
 He v/atched her for some moments in silent admi- 
 ration, and then stealing softly behind her and suddenly 
 uttering " Wow ! " the girl started, and in her 
 moment of surprise Rory caught her in his arms and 
 snatched a kiss. A hearty box on his ear followed 
 the salute, with the exclamation of, — 
 
 " You divil ! how dar you ! "
 
 Rory O'More 113 
 
 *' I lave you to guess" said Rory, laughing. 
 
 *' You 're mighty impident, so you are, Rory." 
 
 " Arrah ! how could I help it, Kathleen darlin' ? " 
 said Rorv with a look of admiration that would have 
 softened the anger of even a more cruel beauty than 
 Kathleen ; — a look that appealed more strongly to 
 the self-love of the woman than the liberty taken had 
 startled her modesty. 
 
 " You 're very impident, so you are," said Kath- 
 leen, settling her hair, that had been tossed into 
 a most becoming confusion over her face in the 
 struggle. 
 
 " You often towld me that before," said Rorv. 
 
 " It does not do you much good, thin," said Kath- 
 leen. " You hear me, but you don't heed me." 
 
 " Why, if you go to that, how can I help myself? 
 Sure you might as well keep the ducks from the 
 wather, or the bees from the flowers, as my heart 
 from you, Kathleen." 
 
 "Now, Ror)', lave off!" 
 
 " By this light, Kathleen ! " 
 
 " Now don't be goin' on, Rory ! " 
 
 " There 's not a girl " 
 
 " Now, don't be makin' a fool o' yourself and me 
 too," said Kathleen. 
 
 " If makin' you my own would be to make a fool 
 of you, thin it 's a fool I 'd make you, sure enough," 
 said Rorv. 
 
 " Rory," said Kathleen rather sadlv, " don't be 
 talkin' this way to me, — it's good for neither of 
 
 us." 
 
 " Kathleen darling ! " said Rory, " what 's the 
 matther with you ? " and he approached her, and 
 gently took her hand. 
 
 " Nothing," said she, " nothing, — only it 's fool- 
 ishness." 
 
 VOL. I. —8
 
 114 Rory O'More 
 
 " Don't call honest love, foolishness, Kathleen 
 dear. Sure, why would we have hearts in our bodies 
 if we did n't love ? Sure, our hearts would be no 
 use at all without we wor fond of one another. 
 Arrah ! what 's the matther with you, Kathleen ? " 
 
 " I must go home, Rory ; — let me go, Rory dear," 
 said she with a touching tone of sadness on the dear^ 
 as she strove to disengage from her waist, the hand 
 that Rory had stolen round it. 
 
 " No, I won't let you go, Kathleen, ma vourneen" 
 said Rory, with passion and pathos, as he held her 
 closer in his embrace. " Now or never, Kathleen, I 
 must have your answer. You are the girl that is, 
 and ever was, in the very core of my heart, and I '11 
 never love another but yourself. Don't be afraid that 
 I '11 change ; I 'm young, but I 'm thrue : the blessed 
 sun that sees us both this minit is not thruer; and 
 he 's a witness to what I say to you now, Kathleen 
 asthore^ that you are the pulse o' my heart, and I '11 
 never rest aisy till you 're my wife." 
 
 Kathleen could not speak. She trembled while 
 Rory made his last address to her ; her lip quivered 
 as he proceeded ; two big tear-drops sprang to her 
 eyes, and hung on their long dark lashes, when he 
 called her " pulse of his heart ; " but when he named 
 the holy name of wife, she fell upon his neck and 
 burst into a violent flood of tears. 
 
 Rory felt this was a proof of his being beloved; but 
 't was not the way in which, from Kathleen's spor- 
 tive nature, he thought it likely she would accept a 
 husband to whom there was no objection ; and while 
 he soothed the sobbing of the agitated girl, he won- 
 dered what could be the cause of her violent emotion. 
 When she became calm, he said, " Kathleen dear, 
 don't be vexed with me if I took you too sudden : — 
 you know I 'm none of the coolest, and so forgive me,
 
 Rory O'More 115 
 
 jewel! I'll say no more to you now; — only give 
 me an answer at your own good time, my darling." 
 
 Kathleen wiped the tears from her eyes, and said, 
 " No, Rory dear : you 've been plain with me, and 
 
 I '11 be plain with you. As for myself " she 
 
 looked up in his eyes, and their soft and confiding 
 expression, and the gentle pressure of the hand that 
 accompanied the look, told more than the words 
 could have done which her maiden modesty forbade 
 her utter. 
 
 " You love me, then ? " said Rory with delighted 
 energy ; and he pressed her to his heart while she 
 yielded her lips to the pressure of a kiss which the 
 fire of pure love had refined from the dross of 
 passion. 
 
 " Oh, Rory, — but my brother Shan ? " 
 
 " Well, what o' that ? " said Rory. 
 
 *'Oh, you know, — you know," said Kathleen 
 mournfully. 
 
 " Yis, Mary did n't take to him ; but sure that 's 
 no rayson." 
 
 " Oh ! you don't know him ! " 
 
 " We 've been rather cool, to be sure, since, but I 
 never put coolness between me and him ; and if my 
 sisther could n't like him, sure that 's no rayson to 
 put between you and me." 
 
 " Oh, Rory, Shan is very dark ; and I 'm afeard." 
 
 "But why should he prevent our comin' together ? 
 Sure is n't there your mother ? " 
 
 " Oh, but she 's afeard of him, and " 
 
 " But how do you know he would make objec- 
 tions ? " 
 
 The poor girl blushed scarlet as she said, "Why, to 
 tell you the thruth, Rory, and it 's no matther now that 
 you know it, afthcr what 's passed between us this 
 morning ; but Shan suspected I liked you, and he
 
 ii6 Rory O'More 
 
 warned me agen it, and swore a bitter oath, that if 
 ever I 'd think of you, he 'd " 
 
 " What ? " said Rory. 
 
 " Curse me," said Kathleen ; and she shuddered as 
 she said it. 
 
 *' God forgive him ! " said Rory solemnly. " But 
 never mind, Kathleen ; I '11 meet him, and I '11 spake 
 him fair, and tell him the thruth. And when I spake 
 to him like a man, he can't be less of a man, and he 
 would n't be of so dark a heart to keep spite agen me 
 because my sisther did n't love him." 
 
 " It 's the kind and generous heart you have, Rory ; 
 but I 'm afeard it would be no use : at all events, 
 don't be in a hurry about it ; wait a bit, and maybe 
 when he comes across some other girl that will wane 
 his heart from the owld love, he may be aisier about 
 it ; but at this present, Rory dear, don't purtend that 
 you love me, nor let on what you said to me this 
 
 mornmg." 
 
 " It 's hard to hide what 's in the heart," said 
 Rory ; " for even if the tongue does n't bethray you, 
 it may peep out of your eyes." 
 
 " But we sha'n't meet often," said Kathleen ; " so 
 there will be the less danger of that." 
 
 "That 's hard too," said Rory. " But, Kathleen, 
 
 will you " he could not finish the sentence, but 
 
 Kathleen caught his meaning, and said, — 
 
 " You could n't say the words, Rory, — you were 
 going to say, will I be thrue to you .'' Oh, Rory 
 dear ! I have given you my heart, because I could n't 
 help it, and I trust to you that you have given me 
 yours ; and, oh ! don't take it away from me ! I 
 must hide my love for a time. I '11 hide it as a miser 
 would hide his gold ; and oh, Rory ! don't let me 
 find the treasure gone when I may venture to show it 
 to the day."
 
 Rory O'More 117 
 
 « Kathleen darling ! while there 's life in my heart, 
 it is you are the queen of it." 
 
 "Go, now," said Kathleen; "go, — don't stay 
 lono-er here ; I would n't have you seen for the 
 king's ransom." 
 
 " May the heavens bless and keep you ! " said Ror\^ ; 
 " one more kiss, my own — own girl ; " and clasp- 
 ing her in his arms, they bade each other farewell. 
 
 Rory hurried on with a rapid step that accorded 
 with the tumult of his feelings, and was soon lost to 
 Kathleen's sight. She looked after him v/hile he re- 
 mained within view, and then resumed her occupa- 
 tion ; but it was in silence. The sportive song had 
 ceased — the light-heartedness of the girl had passed 
 away even with the consciousness of a deeper pleasure. 
 Her task ended, she took up her pail, and went her 
 way homewards, but not v/ith the elastic step with which 
 she had trodden the wild flowers on her outgoing. 
 
 When Rory gained the high road, he pursued his 
 way mechanically towards the place of his destination, 
 without a thought of the immediate business he had in 
 hand. His brain was in a whirl, and his heart in a 
 blaze ; and love and Kathleen Regan were the objects 
 of his thoughts, and not conspiracies and his mysteri- 
 ous guest. 
 
 His approach to the town, however, reminded him 
 of the object of his mission, and he proceeded at the 
 appointed hour to the public-house indicated by De 
 Lacy. It was market-day in the town, so that the 
 public-house was more crowded than on ordinary oc- 
 casions ; and Rory, when he entered, saw many per- 
 sons engaged in drinking porter and whiskey, but 
 mostly the latter. He cast his eyes about to see if 
 such a group as he was instructed to look for was 
 there, and more than one party of three was present ; 
 he therefore had to exercise his sagacity in selecting
 
 ii8 Rory O'More 
 
 which of the groups was the one to test by his signal, 
 — and he was not long in deciding. It was at the 
 further end of the room, where a small square window 
 admitted as much light as could find its way through 
 some panes of greenish glass, with bulls' eyes in the 
 middle of them, covered with dust, that three men 
 were seated at a dirty table where a congregation of 
 flies were finishing a pot of porter. The aspect of one 
 of the men struck Rory to be "outlandish," as he 
 would have said himself, and the quick and restless 
 twinkle of his dark eye spoke of a more southern 
 climate. To this group Rory approached, and look- 
 ing round, as it were to see where he should sit, he 
 asked permission of *he party to take share of their 
 box — for the room was divided into such compart- 
 ments. They made room for him ; and he, taking 
 up the empty quart-pot on whose dregs the flies were 
 regaling, knocked loudly with it on the table and 
 started the buzzing nuisances from their banquet, and 
 being driven from their pewter palace, they alighted 
 on the various little pools and meandering streams of 
 various liquids that stood upon the filthy table, which 
 seemed to be left to them as a sort of patrimony, as the 
 fallen dates are to the wanderers in the East. The 
 tender-hearted sthreel who was the Hebe of the house 
 would not have robbed the poor flies of their feast for the 
 world, by wiping the table. Charity is a great virtue ! 
 This dirty handmaiden came in answer to Rory's 
 thumping of the quart-pot on the board. 
 
 " Loose were her tresses seen. 
 Her zone unbound." 
 
 Her foot was unsandalled, too ; in short, she was, 
 as Rory remarked to his neighbour beside him, " loose 
 and careless, like the leg of a pot." 
 
 " What do yizz want ? " says Hebe.
 
 Rory O'More 119 
 
 " Something to dhrink," says Rory. 
 
 " Is it a pot, a pint, or a crapper ? " says Hebe. 
 
 " I '11 jist take the cobwebs out o' my throat with 
 a pint first," says Rory. 
 
 " I '11 sarve you immadiently," says Hebe, who 
 took up the quart, and to save time she threw out 
 the dregs of the liquor it had contained on the floor, 
 and then held it up inverted in a most graceful manner, 
 that it might drain itself clean for the next customer ; 
 so that her course might be tracked up and down the 
 room by the drippings of the various vessels, and thus 
 she, " did her spiriting gently, dropping odours, drop- 
 ping wine," ale, and sper'ts. 
 
 She returned soon with a pint of porter to Rory, 
 who took out a shilling to pay for it. " I '11 throuble 
 you for the change, my dear," said he. 
 
 Off she went again to get the change, and, after 
 some time, again returned, bearing two quarts of 
 porter in one hand, and a jug of punch hanging be- 
 tween the fore-finger and thumb of the other, while a 
 small roll of tobacco and a parcel of halfpence were 
 clutched in the remaining fingers. The liquids and 
 the tobacco she deposited before a party that sat in a 
 box opposite to Rory, and then, advancing to him, 
 she flopped the halfpence down on the table before 
 him, and putting her hand to her mouth, pulled out 
 of it a piece of tin which she was pleased to call six- 
 pence, and sticking it on the top of the halfpence, she 
 said, " There 's your change, sir." 
 
 *' It 's a tinker you have to make change for you, 
 I b'iieve," said Rory. 
 
 " How is it a tinker ? " said the damsel. 
 
 " Oh, I would n't take that piece of tin from you 
 for the world," said Rory; "you might want it to 
 stop a hole in a saucepan, and maybe it 's coming 
 afther me you 'd be for it."
 
 I20 Rory O^More 
 
 " I 'd be long sorry to folly you," said the damsel, 
 saucily, and turning away. 
 
 "See, young woman," said Rory — "don't be in 
 sitch a hurry if you plaze — I gave you a good hog,^ 
 and I 'II throuble you for a good taisther." 
 
 "I haven't a betther to give you, sir — barrin' 
 halfpence." 
 
 " Well I 'm noways proud, so the halfpence will 
 do for me ; good copper is betther than bad silver, 
 any day." 
 
 The state of the silver currency in Ireland at this 
 period was disgraceful — so bad, that it left the public 
 almost at the mercy of the coiners. When the War- 
 wickshire militia went to Ireland, many of the privates, 
 having been workmen in Birmingham, were very smart 
 hands at the practice, and many stories are current 
 of their doings in this line. Amongst others, it is 
 stated that a party of these men in a public-house 
 offered some bad money for what they had drunk ; 
 but the publican being on his guard, as their habits in 
 this way were becoming notorious, refused several shil- 
 lings one after another. The soldier who offered them 
 said the dealer in liquor was over-particular ; but he 
 retorted, that they were so well known for their tricks, 
 it was necessary to be cautious. " Well," said the 
 soldier at last, "here then, since nothing else will 
 do ; " and he threv/ down another coin, and a very 
 good-looking one it was. The landlord examined it 
 for a while, but at last it was rejected. " What ! " 
 said the soldier, " nor not that noither ! " " No," 
 said the landlord. So a good shilling was obliged to 
 be produced at last, and as the party left the house, 
 the discomfited hero was heard to say, " Well, I never 
 know'd one o' TorrCs make to miss before." 
 
 ^ The shilling and sixpence were called by the lower orders 
 "hog" and "tester."
 
 Rory O^More 121 
 
 The girl brought back Rory the value of the six- 
 pence in copper — or rather, much more than its 
 value ; and then Rory commenced reciconing his 
 change, which was the means he had decided on for 
 throwing out his signal. So, spreading the halfpence 
 before him, he began, — 
 
 "One, two, three — there's some sense in good 
 halfpence; one, two, three — jist as if I was to rob 
 you of your tin, my good girl ; one, two, three — 
 phoo ! murdher! I'm mixin' them all." 
 
 " Arrah will you never be done reckonin' them ! " 
 said Hebe impatiently ; " one ud think 't was a hun- 
 dher poun' you wor countin', let alone change of a 
 hog. I 'm thinkin', it 's no great credit to your 
 schoolmasther you are." 
 
 " Fair and aisy goes far in a day," said Rory, again 
 commencing to count his change. 
 
 " One, two, three ; " and while he spoke, he looked 
 at the dark-eyed man, in whose face he fancied he 
 caught something of an expression of the intelligence 
 of his meaning, and the/i he proceeded with his reckon- 
 ing and dismissed the girl. 
 
 One of the men now addressed him and said, 
 " You are particular in counting your change." 
 
 " Yes, indeed I am," said Rory, " and I '11 tell you 
 the reason why : because I lost some money the other 
 day by not being particular in that same, when I was 
 buving some ducks." 
 
 The dark-eyed man looked very sharply on Rory 
 as he proceeded. 
 
 " To be sure, I did n't mind the loss much, for 
 the ducks was worth the money. They zvor very fine 
 ducks." 
 
 A still keener glance from the dark-eyed man 
 followed Rory's last words, and he rose immediately, 
 and left the public-house; his two companions did so
 
 122 Rory 0' More 
 
 likewise, and Rory lost no time in following them. 
 On reaching the door, he saw them standing together 
 a few paces removed from the house, and on seeing 
 him appear they walked down the quay until they 
 arrived at a corner, where looking back to see that 
 he followed, they turned up the street. Rory tracked 
 them, and at another turn the same practice was ob- 
 served by his conductors, whom he continued to 
 follow, dodging them through many an intricate 
 winding, until arriving at a very narrow alley, they 
 turned for the last time, and when Rory reached the 
 spot, he perceived them about half-way up the passage 
 standing at the mouth of a cellar ; and the moment 
 he appeared, they all suddenly descended. He fol- 
 lowed fast upon them, and going down a steep and 
 broken stair, entered a low door which was closed the 
 moment he had passed it, and he found himself in 
 total darkness.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 IN WHICH RORY HEARS AND SEES MORE THAN HE 
 BARGAINED FOR, AND FINDS IN THE CONCLUSION 
 THE TRUTH OF THE PROVERB, THAT PROVIDENCE 
 NEVER SHUTS ONE DOOR WITHOUT OPENING 
 ANOTHER 
 
 WHILE spots of red and green were dancing be- 
 fore Rory's eyes by his sudden immersion 
 from light into darkness, a voice close beside him 
 said, — 
 
 " Ver glaad to see you." 
 
 " God spare you your eyesight ! " said Rory ; " I 
 wish I could return the compliment to you." 
 
 Rory heard a low laugh in another tone, and then 
 the former voice spoke again : — 
 
 " Whaat ! you no glaad to see me ? " 
 
 " 'Faith, I would be very glad to see you ; but how 
 can I see you in the dark ? " 
 
 " Ho ! ho ! I see, you fonee feylow — ha ha ! " 
 
 " Strek a light," said another voice. 
 
 "Wait a minit — I'm gettin' the tendher-box," 
 was the answer. 
 
 The foreign voice again said, addressing Rory, 
 
 "You air wailcome." 
 
 " Thank you kindly," said Rory ; " give us your 
 fist." 
 
 " Vaut you say ? " 
 
 " Give us your fist."
 
 124 Rory O'More 
 
 *•' He 's biddin' you shake hands wid him," said 
 a voice that had not yet spoken ; and Rory thought 
 it was one he should know, though where he had 
 heard it he could not remember. 
 
 " Oh ! " said the foreigner, " donnez-moi la main" 
 
 "No, I dunna any man," said Rory. 
 
 " Bah ! shek han' wis me ! " said the voice. 
 
 Rory now stretched out his hand, and encountered 
 an extended palm which grasped his and exchanged 
 with him the grip of the United Irishman. 
 
 This satisfied Rory all was right, and he now 
 waited with patience for the light. The sound of 
 a flint and steel, followed by a shower of sparks, 
 showed that the process of illumination was going 
 forward ; the tinder soon became ignited, and the 
 sharp sound of blowing was soon followed by the 
 lighting of a match — and the first face that its lurid 
 glare fell upon was that of Shan Regan. 
 
 Rory started : he was the last person he expected 
 to meet, and certainly the last he could have wished 
 to see in that place. A coolness for some time had 
 existed between them, as the reader already knows ; 
 and though Rory fully intended to do all in his power 
 to remove it, and to meet Regan for that purpose as 
 often as he could, yet on such an occasion as the 
 present he could have wished him absent. His pres- 
 ence there, it is true, showed him to be engaged in 
 the same cause as Ron^, and one at the first glance 
 might suppose that this would have facilitated a 
 reconciliation between them ; but on closer examina- 
 tion we shall find this not to be the case. In all 
 conspiracies where men are linked together in a cause 
 whose penalty is death, private friendship is desirable 
 amongst its members, at least in its early stages, 
 where fidelity is essential to its existence. Personal 
 foes may fight side by side in the same cause when
 
 Rory O'More 125 
 
 once a conspiracy arrives at its outbreak ; but in its 
 secret preparatory councils, a man recoils from the 
 contact of any but a friend. 
 
 It was the consciousness of this fact, perhaps, that 
 led to the ingenious construction of the plan by which 
 the heads of the Society of United Irishmen contrived 
 to organise a great portion of Ireland. The system 
 was this : There was a Chief Committee of twelve ; 
 each of these twelve was the head of another twelve, 
 but between each knot of twelve there was no ac- 
 quaintance — they were totally distinct from each 
 other; so that an extensive ramification of union 
 existed in parties of twelve, each obeying its own 
 superior, through whom, alone, all commands and 
 plans were conveyed. Each knot was thus a little 
 band of friends, and from their distinctness, the secret 
 was the more likely to be kept. It will be seen that 
 by this means the Head Committee organised one 
 hundred and forty-four members, whose knots of 
 twelve each being multiplied, gives a force of twenty 
 thousand seven hundred and odd men, and their mul- 
 tiplied dozens would produce nearly two hundred and 
 forty-nine thousand ; thus, at three removes from the 
 focus of the system, a powerful force was at a mo- 
 ment's command, within whose several knots private 
 friendship as well as the common cause was a source 
 of union and fidelity. It was only in the higher 
 grades of the confederation that private signals existed. 
 In the inferior classes, each dozen only knew their 
 own circle ; so that to whatever extent the system 
 might be spread, each of the subordinate actors was 
 intimate with no more than twelve persons, which 
 tended at once to give greater personal security, 
 and to prevent also a premature explosion of the 
 conspiracy. 
 
 This brief sketch of the system is given, to account
 
 126 Rory O'More 
 
 for Rory not knowing Regan to be a United man, 
 although living in the same district. Regan belonged 
 to another circle ; and it was from very different 
 desires that he was of the association, and with a 
 very different set that he was leagued. Rory became 
 a United Irishman from other and better motives 
 than Regan. However erroneous those motives might 
 have been, they had their origin in a generous nature ; 
 wild notions of the independence of his country were 
 uppermost in the mind of Rory, while the mere love 
 of licence was the incentive to Regan. During that 
 terrible period of Ireland's history, some of the in- 
 surgents were pure, however mistaken enthusiasts ; 
 while there were others whose love of turbulence was 
 their only motive. Of the latter class was Regan : 
 he had inherited from his father a comfortable farm, 
 but his love of debasing amusements — such as cock- 
 fighting, &c., the frequency of his visits to public- 
 houses, and his attachment to disorderly company, 
 had led him from the wholesome pursuits that would 
 have made him good and prosperous, to become im- 
 provident and embarrassed. 
 
 It is strange that whenever this takes place, a man 
 mostly becomes an idler : the very fact which should 
 warn him of his danger, and make him exert himself 
 the more, generally operates in the contrary way. He 
 gives himself up as it were to ruin, and seeks in dissi- 
 pation forgetfulness of the past and disregard of the 
 future. This state of things lasts as long as there is 
 any thing left to support him ; and when all is lost, 
 he is then fit for every sort of violence or meanness j 
 — he must be either a beggar or a desperado. 
 
 It was in the middle stage that Regan fell in with 
 De Welskein. They were just the men for each 
 other : — Regan was the head of a disorderly set of 
 fellows, who were ready and active agents in assisting
 
 Rory O'More 127 
 
 the Frenchman in his smuggling ; and, in return, the 
 brandy, and tobacco, and merry-makings of the smug- 
 gler were ample temptations and regards for Regan. 
 The debauched orgies of the cellar, where Rory now 
 found himself for the first time, were familiar to the 
 unfortunate victim of idleness, bad company, and 
 lawless desires. 
 
 Though he was often absent from home and ne- 
 glected his husbandry, he still retained his farm ; but 
 his payments of rent became irregular, his farming 
 stock grew less by degrees ; a cow, a sheep, a pig, 
 was obliged now and then to be sacrificed to supply 
 his riotous propensities, and his poor mother and 
 sister saw with sorrow their comforts lessening around 
 them : but they complained not, for they dreaded the 
 fierce temper of Shan Dhu, or Black John, as he was 
 called. It was not only the diminution of his worldly 
 substance they lamented, but they felt that the most 
 respectable of their neighbours, one by one, dropped 
 off from their acquaintance with them ; and this, to 
 the sensitive nature of the Irish peasant, cuts deeper 
 than even want. Want, they are familiar with ; they 
 see it on every side, and they can bear it with patience : 
 but the social virtues flourish amongst them in the 
 midst of barrenness, like the palms in the desert. 
 
 Amongst the friendships which had decayed was that 
 of the O'Mores. The widow loved her daughter too 
 well to give her to a disorderly, though a compara- 
 tively wealthy peasant, as Shan Regan was when he 
 asked Mary O'More for his wife ; and Mary herself 
 had an intuitive dislike for all that was gross, which 
 revolted from Regan's brutal nature. Rory, though 
 he knew him not as a friend at any period, — for the 
 men were too unlike each other ever to have associated 
 closely, — yet always had recognised him as an old 
 acquaintance whenever they met ; but he never
 
 128 Ro?y O'More 
 
 sought his company — for Rory, though as full of 
 fun, as fond of mirth, and loving his glass, his joke, 
 and a pretty girl, as much as every Irishman ought to 
 do^ yet he reverenced the decencies of life too much 
 to be a drunkard, a buffoon, or a debauchee. His 
 acquaintanceship vi'ith Regan might have gone on, as 
 far as Rory was concerned, just the same, quite unin- 
 fluenced by his sister's refusal ; but not so vi^ith the 
 rejected one. He considered the part Mary had taken 
 as a family affront : his pride (such as it u^as) was 
 wounded more than his heart ; or rather, it was his 
 love for himself, and not for the girl, that suffered 
 most. So he made a feud of the business, and in- 
 cluded Rory amongst his foes. To this he was the 
 more inclined, as he suspected Conolly, who was a 
 sworn friend of O'More's, to be his rival. 
 
 From all these circumstances, it is no wonder that 
 Rory was startled at seeing Regan at such a time : 
 but as he could not help himself, he determined to 
 affect composure, which he was the better able to 
 accomplish, as he had time to recover from his sur- 
 prise before his presence was manifest to Regan. 
 The scene that had occurred in the morning, too, 
 rendered him the more anxious to conciliate, and with 
 a sincere wish to overcome the coolness that Regan 
 had lately observed towards him, he advanced to him 
 with open hand and greeted him kindly. It was 
 obvious, from the expression that passed over 
 Regan's face, that the meeting was quite as startling 
 and disagreeable to him as it had been to Rory, who 
 continued still, however, the offer of his hand, and 
 repeated his words of kindly recognition. A cold 
 reply was all that followed, though the hand was 
 accepted : but there was no sympathy in the contact ; 
 the touch of friendship was wanting, — that touch 
 whose sensation is so undefinable, but so well under-
 
 Rory O'More 129 
 
 stood, — that natural freemasonry which springs from 
 and is recognised by the heart. 
 
 As soon as the light was struck, a lamp was lighted 
 in a ship-lantern that hung from the low roof of the 
 cellar over a coarse table round which benches of a 
 rude construction were placed. Another person as 
 well as Regan was present in addition to the three 
 Rory had followed from the public-house ; and this 
 man seemed more familiar with De Welskein than 
 any of the others, and sometimes addressed him in 
 French. Round the cellar were some coils of rope ; 
 a couple of hammocks were hung in one corner; two 
 or three kegs and some rolls of tobacco were stowed 
 away under a truckle-bed in another quarter of the 
 den ; and in a rude cupboard, coarse trenchers and 
 drinking-cans were jumbled together, with some stone 
 jars of a foreign aspect. After some bustle, pipes 
 and tobacco were laid on the table, the stone bottles 
 and the drinking vessels were taken from the cup- 
 board, and De Welskein invited Rory to sit down 
 beside him. 
 
 " Combe, you sair — sect down — here someting 
 for you to drink — not nastee, like pobelick-house, 
 bote goot — ha, ha ! No doretee portere, bote bran- 
 dee — ver goot and nussing to pay." 
 
 All the men sat down, and sending the stone jars 
 from man to man, the cans were charged with 
 brandy, slightly diluted with water from a black 
 pitcher ; pipes were lighted, smoking and drinking 
 commenced, and while a desultory conversation was 
 kept up among the rest of the party, De Welskein 
 questioned Rory as to the cause of his being the 
 messenger to him. Rory made him acquainted with 
 De Lacy's illness, and the circumstances that led to 
 his being his guest ; in all of which communica- 
 tion the person who spoke French assisted in mak- 
 
 VOL. I. — 9
 
 I30 Rory 0' More 
 
 ing De Welskein and Rory intelligible to each other. 
 This was no very easy matter sometimes ; the 
 Frenchman's English bothering Rory uncommonly, 
 as his name did also. However, as it was necessary 
 he should drink to the founder of the feast, he was 
 obliged to make an offer at his name, and so he 
 boldly took his can of grog in his hand and with his 
 best bow said, — 
 
 " Here 's to your good health, Mr. Wilkison." 
 
 A laugh followed at Rory's expense, in which the 
 Frenchman only half joined, for it has already been 
 noticed that his name was matter of anxiety to him ; 
 so as soon as the laugh had subsided, he said, — 
 
 " No, no ! not dat my nem ; — De Welskein." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir — but would you say that 
 agin, if you plaze ? " 
 
 The Frenchman now slowly and distinctly pro- 
 nounced his name, giving the w the sound of the v^ 
 which it assumes in Dutch names, and repeated, — 
 " De-Velskeen." 
 
 "Thank you, sir," says Rory, — "I ax your 
 pardon, and again I say. Here is to your good health, 
 Mr. Devilskin." 
 
 A roar of laughter followed this mistake of Rory's, 
 and all swore that that was the best name of all the 
 others he enjoyed : but the Frenchman did not like 
 it, and said impatiently, using his own language, 
 as a foreigner generally does when he becomes 
 excited, — 
 
 " Non^ non^ non^ mon ami ! — Devilskeen ! — non ; 
 c'est *" Poil-de-diable / ' — Sacre — quel nom 1 — '•Poil- 
 de-diahle ! ' you say not dat. — Pierre," said he, ad- 
 dressing his friend who spoke French, '■'■faites-lui 
 comprendre mon nom — pas De IVelskein^ parceque c'est 
 trop difficile^ ma is St. Foix" 
 
 " Ou Sans-peur" said Pierre.
 
 Rory O'More 131 
 
 The Frenchman nodded assent and said, " Bon." 
 The compliment appeased him. 
 
 Pierre now told Rory to address De Welskein by 
 the favourite name of Sans-peur ; but this was as 
 difficult to Rory as the other, and the nearest ap- 
 proach he could make to it was " Scamper." This 
 he varied sometimes into " Sampler," or " Sand- 
 paper," as luck would have it. 
 
 While the drinking and smoking proceeded, De 
 Welskein told Rory of the intended expedition from 
 the Texel ; and when he had given him all the 
 verbal instruction he thought requisite, he entrusted 
 him with the letter to De Lacy from General 
 Hoche. 
 
 " Tare an' ouns ! " said Rory ; " is it the rale 
 Gineral Hoche ? " for Hoche's name and reputation 
 were well known in Ireland. 
 
 " 0«/," said De Welskein. 
 
 " What do you mane by we? — It 's not uz at all 
 I'm axin' about ; but I want to know, is this letther 
 from the rale gineral ? " 
 
 " Certanlee ! — out." 
 
 " Augh ! what is he sayin' we for ? " said Rory, 
 turning to Pierre, who was grinning at Rory's mis- 
 takes and the Frenchman's impatience. 
 
 " He means, yes," said Pierre : "<?«/ means yes." 
 
 "Oh! I ax your pardon, Mr. Sandpaper; — then 
 this is the rale gineral's letther! Oh! to think that 
 I 'd ever see the proud day that I 'd have a letther of 
 Gineral Hoche's in my fist ! " and he kissed it with 
 rapture. 
 
 The Frenchman cried " Sacre ! " and laughed at 
 his enthusiasm; and Rory proceeded, — 
 
 " And will we see the gineral here, Mr. Scraper? " 
 
 "Me fraid no!" said De Welskein; and he 
 shook his head mysteriously and made a grimace.
 
 132 Rory O^More 
 
 " What do you mane ? " said Rory. 
 
 " Me fraid he die." 
 
 "Is it Gineral Hoche die! — arrah, an' what 
 would he die for ? " 
 
 " Me tsinks he get vaut you call gunstump." 
 
 " Gun — what ? " 
 
 " He as got de gunstump in him." 
 
 " God keep us ! " says Rory, — " think o' that ! 
 And where is it in him, sir ? " 
 
 " Inside, into his boddee." 
 
 " Oh ! murdher, my poor fellow ! to have the 
 stump of a gun stickin' in him ! " 
 
 "No, no, de gun not stick in him — you mistak : 
 it is vaut I vood say, dat he has de ticklehine." 
 
 " What is it he says about ticklin' ? " said Rory 
 to Pierre, who only grinned and enjoyed the mutual 
 mistakes of the Frenchman and the Paddy. 
 
 " Jl<fal a la poitrine" said De Welskein. 
 
 " That 's thrue, 'faith," said Rory. " If he 's so 
 bad as that, his only dipindince is in the Padhereens^ 
 sure enough." 
 
 Peter (or Pierre) now laughed outright at Rory's 
 blunder, which must be explained. Padhereens is the 
 name the Irish give to their beads, upon which they 
 count the number of Paters (or Pathers) they repeat, 
 and hence the name Padhereens ; and Rory very 
 naturally came to the conclusion, that if a man was 
 at the point of death, which Rory conceived to be 
 most likely when he had the " stump of a gun stickin' 
 in him" the best thing he could do would be to say 
 his prayers. 
 
 De Welskein saw there was a mystification go- 
 ing forward ; so he said to Pierre, " Expliquez 
 done ! " 
 
 " What he says is," said Pierre, " that the general 
 has a consumption."
 
 Rory O'More 13 
 
 *' Ah ! I forgess de terrninaison ; — gunstumpsion, — 
 yais, dat is raight ! — gunstumpsion." 
 
 " Oh, murdher ! " said Rory : " if we had him 
 here, we would cure him intirely." 
 
 *' Comment?" said the Frenchman. 
 
 '' Oh, it 's common enough in this country, in- 
 deed," said Rory. "The finest thing in the world 
 for consumption is goat's milk, made into whay." 
 
 " Ah, yais, — ghost's milk ver goot." 
 
 " Goafs milk, I say," says Rory. 
 
 " Yais, yais, I oonderstan'," said the Frenchman 
 with great complacency : " Ghost's milk." 
 
 "'Faith it's ghost's milk he'll be takin', I'm 
 afeard, sure enough," said Pierre, laughing at De 
 Welskein's mistake. 
 
 " Oh, murdher! " said Rory, "and isGineral Hoche 
 goin' to die ? Oh, thin that is the murdher ! " ^ 
 
 So, Rory, in the idiom of his language, unintention- 
 ally expressed what was in fact the fate of the gallant 
 Hoche. 
 
 A tap at the door of the cellar announced a fresh 
 arrival ; and after some signals given, the door was 
 opened, and some other men entered, and, at short in- 
 tervals after, a few girls. Some of the latter were 
 good-looking, though with a certain expression of 
 boldness and recklessness that Rory did not admire. 
 Rory had enough of imagination and sentiment to 
 render the society of the softer sex always matter of 
 deli":ht to him ; but there was somethino- in the man- 
 ner of these girls he did not like. 
 
 "You see," said De Welskein, " de leddees mek 
 
 visite to me." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Rory, who did not know how, 
 very well, to answer this appeal. 
 " But you no dreenk." 
 
 1 This expression means "that is the pity."
 
 134 Rory O'More 
 
 " Thank you, sir, I 'm doin' very well." 
 
 " You no like brandee ? " 
 
 " 'Faith, it 's iligant stuff it is ! But you know, 
 Mr. Sandpaper, that enough is as good as a faist." 
 
 " If you no like brandee, give you wine." 
 
 Rory refused the offer ; but one of the girls ad- 
 dressed De Welskein, and thanking him for his offer, 
 said, "if he'd make a big jug o' the nice thing he 
 gave them the other night ? " 
 
 Pierre explained to him that some of the ladies 
 would like negus, because they thought it genteel. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the Frenchman, " yais, my dear, cer- 
 tainement^ you moste have your leetle niggers : vouds 
 you like to have some nutmarks een it ? " 
 
 " What do you say, Mr. Whelpskin ? " said the 
 girl, simpering. 
 
 " Vouds you like nutmarks ? " 
 
 Pierre came to the rescue. *' He says, would you 
 like to have your jug o' negus made with nutmegs ? 
 my darling." 
 
 "Any way Mr. Whelpskin plazes." 
 
 " So it 's not too wake^^' says another. 
 
 " A dash o' sper'ts through it will make it livelier, 
 sir," said the most audacious of the party. And ac- 
 cordingly a large jug of niggers, with nutmarks and 
 the dash o' sper'ts, was made. A fiddler, in some 
 time, made his appearance ; and after the first jug of 
 niggers had been demolished, a dance was set on foot. 
 One of the ladies asked Rory to " stand up on the 
 flure," which, of course, Rory did, and exerted him- 
 self to the utmost to do credit to his dancing-master. 
 In short, Rory, though he did not like the party, had 
 intuitively too much savoir vivre to let any repug- 
 nance he might entertain be manifested. He drank, 
 to be sure, sparingly ; and after the niggers was in- 
 troduced, he took no more brandy-and-water : he
 
 Rory O'More 135 
 
 smoked an occasional pipe, and danced "like any 
 thing," but he kept himself clear of intoxication, 
 though he had drunk enough to produce exhilaration. 
 Dance after dance succeeded ; and Rory displayed so 
 much elasticity of limb, that it excited the admiration 
 even of De Welskein. One of Rory's partners 
 seemed much taken with him ; and after a certain 
 jio- they had executed, much to their mutual honour 
 and the admiration of the beholders, the fair danseme 
 sat beside him so close, as not to admit of any doubt 
 that she rather admired him. A cessation to the 
 dancing now took place, and brandy-and-water and 
 niggers ad infinitum was the order of the day — or 
 rather the night. A song was next called for from 
 the girl who sat beside Rory ; and after a proper 
 quantity of hemming and hawing, and protestations 
 that she was very hoarse, she sang with a good voice, 
 whose natural sweetness seemed to have been ren- 
 dered coarse by exposure to weather, the following 
 song : — 
 
 Oh ! if all the young maidens was blackbirds and thrishes. 
 Oh ! if all the young maidens was blackbirds and thrishes, 
 Oh ! if all the young maidens was blackbirds and thrishes, 
 It's then the young men would be batin' the bushes. 
 
 Oh ! if all the young maidens was ducks in the wather, 
 Oh ! if all the young maidens was ducks in the wather. 
 Oh ! if all the young maidens was ducks in the wather, 
 It's then the young men would jump in and swim afther. 
 
 Oh ! if all the young maidens was birds on a mountain. 
 Oh ! if all the young maidens was birds on a mountain. 
 Oh ! if all the young maidens was birds on a mountain, 
 It 's then the young men would get guns and go grousin'. 
 
 If the maidens was all throut and salmon so lively, 
 If the maidens was all throut and salmon so lively, 
 If the maidens was all throut and salmon so lively, 
 Oh ! the divil a one would ate mate on a Friday.
 
 136 Rory O'More 
 
 Loud applause followed this charming lyric, during 
 the singing of which the damsel cast sundry sly 
 glances at Rory, who could not mistake that she was 
 making love to him. Rory was a handsome fellow, 
 and was as conscious as most handsome fellows are, 
 that there is a certain readiness on the part of the 
 softer sex to be affected by good looks — but this 
 rather open manifestation of it embarrassed him. To 
 repel a woman was what his nature would not per- 
 mit him to do; yet to yield to the species of tempta- 
 tion that was offered to him was what his heart for- 
 bade. 
 
 The revel had proceeded now for some hours, and 
 great licence was exhibited on the part of all. Rory's 
 partner still clung to him with a degree of seductive- 
 ness that might have influenced him at another time; 
 but now the unholy spell was powerless. He had 
 that morning won the plighted troth of his Kathleen, 
 and the bare thought of being faithless to her was 
 profanation. He thought of her sweet song, even in 
 defiance of the scraping of the tipsy fiddler, who still 
 stimulated the drunken party to stagger through the 
 dance ; and above the reeking steams of punch and 
 tobacco rose the sweet odour of the breath of the 
 cows and the morning flowers to his memory : the 
 recollection was his salvation. 
 
 Oh ! what of earthly influence can so fortify the 
 heart of man against the seductions of vice as the 
 love of a virtuous woman ! 
 
 Let us pursue this scene no further : suffice it to 
 say, their brutal revelry had so far overcome the party, 
 that of all present, Rory O'More and his partner only 
 v/ere thoroughly conscious of what was going forward. 
 When Rory saw there was none to oppose his retiring, 
 he drew the bolt of the door to depart : his tempting 
 partner made a last appeal to induce him to stay, and
 
 Rory O'More 137 
 
 even threw her arms round his neck and kissed 
 him. 
 
 Rory's manhood rebelled for a moment ; but the 
 thouo-ht of Kathleen came over him, and in as sooth- 
 ing a tone as he could command, he said — " Don't 
 blame me ; I 've a sweetheart that trusts to me, and 
 I must n't deceive the innocent girl ! " 
 
 The words " innocent girl " seemed to go through 
 the heart of the woman like a pistol-shot. She with- 
 drew her arms from Rorj^'s neck, and hiding her 
 flushed face in her hands, burst into tears, and, throw- 
 ing herself on a bench, sobbed as though her heart 
 would break. 
 
 Rory looked on her with pity ; but, fearing to trust 
 himself to so softening an influence as a woman's 
 weeping, he rushed up the broken steps of the cellar, 
 and ran down the narrow alley until he had turned 
 its corner. He then paused a moment, to endeavour 
 to remember the way he had come, which had been 
 so intricate, that under the exciting circumstances in 
 which he had been led to the place and was leaving 
 it, it cannot be wondered his recollection was rather 
 misty ; so, taking the turn which chance suggested 
 when he ran from the alley, he threaded some lonely 
 lanes, treading as stealthily as his haste would permit ; 
 — for an occasional gleam of light through a cracked 
 shutter or the chink of a door betokened that some 
 of the inhabitants of this ill-conditioned quarter were 
 still watchers; and from the specimen he had seen 
 of the company it afforded, he had no wish to en- 
 counter any more of its inmates. The sensation of 
 a freer atmosphere than that of the confined closes he 
 had been traversing now came upon him, and indi- 
 cated the vicinity of a more open space ; and facing 
 the current of air that streamed up the lane, he soon 
 arrived in what appeared to him to be the high street
 
 138 Rory O'More 
 
 of the town. Here all was empty, dark, and silent, 
 except for the splashing of the rain from the spouts 
 of the houses, and Rory was obliged again to pause, 
 for he knew not which way to turn, as he had made 
 his way from the alley by a route different from that 
 by which he entered, and he was consequently in a 
 street he had never seen before, in a town to which 
 he was a stranger. 
 
 He stood for some minutes, unmindful of the tor- 
 rent of rain that was falling, quite absorbed in the 
 consideration of what he should do. It was late, and 
 he doubted whether at such an hour he would be 
 likely to get admittance to a place of abode for the 
 night ; besides, he did not know where to find it ; and 
 it struck him that the only course left him was to 
 make the best of his way out of the town, and pro- 
 ceed homewards. This, to be sure, was a heavy 
 task to impose on himself, for he had not taken any 
 rest since he left his own house ; he had traversed a 
 considerable tract of country, and to go over the 
 same ground again without the intervention of sleep 
 was what even so active a fellow as Rory O'More 
 did not relish the contemplation of. Therefore the 
 decision he came to at last was, to leave the matter 
 to chance ; — if in his passage through the town he 
 saw any place that promised him shelter, to ask for 
 it ; and if not, to start direct for home. 
 
 His resolve being taken, he wrapped his frieze-coat 
 about him — for he now noticed that it did rain 
 rather heavily — and walked at a smart pace up the 
 length of street that lay before him. He had not 
 proceeded far when the fall of many footsteps at- 
 tracted his attention ; and from the heavy and 
 measured tread, it was plain that a party of soldiers 
 was in his neighbourhood. He stopped and held his 
 breath; the party was evidently getting nearer; he
 
 Rory O'More 139 
 
 had no right to be abroad at that hour, for the curfew 
 law had been revived of late. He thought of the 
 letter he had in his possession, and death to himself, 
 and discovery of the plot flashed upon his imagina- 
 tion. To tear the letter suggested itself to him ; but 
 then, it might contain intelligence of importance: to 
 preserve it therefore was desirable ; yet to have it 
 found, destruction. What was to be done ? 
 
 Listening intensely to ascertain the quarter whence 
 the footsteps approached, he was soon sensible that 
 the party advanced from the point towards which he 
 was moving : therefore, trusting to the darkness of 
 the night and the lightness of his heels, Rory turned 
 about, and with that peculiar agility of step so char- 
 acteristic of his countrymen, he ran lightly down the 
 street. As he advanced towards the end of it, he 
 perceived there was a wider space beyond it ; and 
 knowing the shade of the houses favoured his escape, 
 and still hearing the footsteps following him, he 
 dreaded that the moment he should emerge from the 
 street into the open space, he should be seen. While 
 this thought occurred to him, he perceived, a few 
 steps in advance of him, a large old-fashioned pro- 
 jecting porch, whose clumsy columns and deep recess 
 suggested at once the idea of concealment : so, turn- 
 ing sharply up two or three steps, he became en- 
 sconced in the door-way, drawing himself up closely 
 behind one of the columns. 
 
 As the footsteps advanced, Rory could hear the 
 rattling of fire-arms mingling with the heavy tramp 
 of the men. His anxiety was at its height when he 
 saw the party just before the door : " Another in- 
 stant," thought he, " and the danger 's past ! " when, 
 to his consternation, the sudden exclamation of 
 " Halt / " brought the file of men to a dead stand- 
 still within a few feet of his place of concealment.
 
 I40 Rory 0' More 
 
 He now thought it was all over with him : he ex- 
 pected to be dragged from his hiding-place every 
 instant, brought before the military authorities, and 
 the letter he bore about him being inevitably found, 
 hanged at the drum-head for a rebel. He heard 
 some mysterious mutterings of the corporal, and 
 immediately after, the clattering of a couple of 
 bayonets, — he fancied them already in his body. 
 But still he remained unmolested, though the file of 
 men yet stood before him : — Rory scarcely dared to 
 respire. 
 
 It happened that this house, within whose porch 
 he had taken refuge, was inhabited by the colonel of 
 the regiment then quartered in the town. It stood 
 at the corner of an open and irregular space, called 
 " the Green," where some houses v/ere scattered 
 round a piece of dirty grass, and geese and pigs used 
 to promenade during the day, and the belles of the 
 town in the evening, to hear the band play, and let 
 the officers stare them out of countenance. The bar- 
 rack lay at the upper end of the street ; but the quar- 
 ters were so indifferent, that the colonel preferred 
 taking up his residence in this house, which was re- 
 moved from the barrack, it is true ; but, to increase 
 his security, which the suspicious nature of the times 
 rendered it necessary, in his opinion, to look after, he 
 had two sentinels stationed there, conducing not 
 only to his safety, but to his consequence, of which 
 the colonel was not a little vain. The narrowness 
 of the foot-way before the house would have rendered 
 sentry-boxes inconvenient in front, — therefore they 
 were placed round the corner ; and it was while the 
 corporal was employed in relieving the guard at the 
 flank of the house, that the file of soldiers remained 
 before the porch. 
 
 This was for some minutes — for every body knows
 
 Rory O'More 141 
 
 that such matters must be conducted with that system 
 and solemnity so necessary to the good of the service. 
 
 To relieve the guard the corporal marches up one 
 of his men to face the sentinel on duty. These two 
 make a rattle with their firelocks and hold them in a 
 transverse position, which looks pretty ; then they 
 advance to each other with two long strides, and 
 stick their faces close together, to the manifest danger 
 of flattening their noses, the corporal standing by all 
 the time, as if to see that they should not bite each 
 other : another slap on their firelocks to rattle them ; 
 then the new-comer goes over to the sentr)'-box, and 
 the other takes his place : then the corporal utters 
 some mysterious grumblings — such as " Haw ! " 
 " Who ! " the men throw their transverse muskets 
 upon their arms, as if they were going to nurse them : 
 another grunt from the corporal — the relieved sen- 
 tinel joins the main body, the corporal puts himself at 
 their head, gives another mysterious growl, and tramp, 
 tramp, they go, again to perform the same interesting 
 and intellectual ceremonv at another sentr)'-box, until, 
 having finished his rounds, the corporal marches back 
 into the guard-house twelve wet men, in lieu of twelve 
 dry ones that he took out. 
 
 While all this " pomp and circumstance of glorious 
 war" was going forward, Rory was in agony. No 
 image is sufficient to express the state of excitement 
 his impatient nature underwent during the interval 
 which he thought an age : a bee in a bottle, a school- 
 boy in his master's apple-tree, or a hen on a hot grid- 
 dle, are but faint figures of speech for the purpose. 
 Well was it for Rory that the rain continued to fall 
 so copiously ! — the soldiers buried their faces deeply 
 inside the collars of their coats, and cast not a glance 
 towards the porch. Thus, the very inclemency of the 
 night was propitious to the refugee, who was startled
 
 142 Rory O'More 
 
 once more, however, for a moment, by the return of 
 the corporal, which caused a movement amongst the 
 men. " They see me now," thought Rory to him- 
 self, and his heart sunk when he heard the words 
 "Fall in." 
 
 " Oh, murdher ! " thought Rory : " if they come 
 in, I 'm lost." 
 
 They did not " come in," however, and after an- 
 other growl from the corporal, which was unintelligi- 
 ble, the blessed sound of " March ! " fell on Rory's 
 ear with something of the same sensation that the 
 announcement of a reprieve produces on a prisoner 
 in the condemned cell ; and he saw the file execute a 
 " right-about-face," and go the way whence they 
 came. Every successive tramp that increased the 
 distance between Rory and the soldiers took a ton 
 weight off his heart, and as the receding footsteps of 
 the men faded into distance he breathed freely again. 
 
 As soon as the silence was perfectly restored, Rory 
 thought of emerging from his place of retreat. Had 
 he been a person conversant with the relieving of 
 guards, he would have guessed that some such matter 
 must have been the cause of the scene just recorded ; 
 but living a rural life, as he did, such martial mysteries 
 were unknown to him, and while he congratulated 
 himself on being free from danger and contemplated 
 a retreat, he little dreamt that at the flank of the 
 house under whose porch he stood, a pair of sentinels 
 were on guard. So, when there was no sound to in- 
 dicate that any one save himself was on the watch 
 (for, it being still raining, the sentries on the flank 
 kept most religiously bound within their sentry-boxes 
 — and small blame to them !), Rory thought he had 
 better be off, and ventured to withdraw his body from 
 the small space between the column and the wall into 
 which he had miraculously jammed himself: but in
 
 Rory O'^More 143 
 
 the doing of this, he was obliged, as it were, to jerk 
 himself out, and by some unlucky chance, either in 
 getting himself in or out, the cape of his coat caught 
 in a bell-pull, and in the effort to free himself he felt 
 that he was laid hold of by the shoulder, and heard at 
 the same instant of time the sound of a bell. Those 
 who have felt what it is to be in nervous situations 
 will not wonder that Rory's heart jumped as he felt 
 himself cauo;ht, and heard at the same moment a 
 sound whose very purpose is to awake attention. 
 And it was such a bell ; — none of your trifling tink- 
 lers, none of your little whipper-snapper sort of bells; 
 not like the bark of a Blenheim, but the bay of a 
 watch-dog ; not like a muffin-merchant's, but a dust- 
 man's ; not merely made to call Molly up stairs, — 
 but one of your deep-mouthed devils, doomed to 
 destroy the repose of half a street ; — in short, 
 
 a dreadful bell, 
 
 To fright the isle from its propriety." 
 
 Rory stood aghast ! Had the metal that composed 
 this " infernal machine " been molten and cast down 
 his throat, it could not have astonished him more : 
 besides, it seemed as if it would never have done 
 ringing. We hear great complaints in our days of 
 bell-hangers ; but those of old, to judge from the 
 case in question, must have been prime hands, — for 
 on it went, ding, ding, ding, as if it really had a 
 pleasure in ringing. Whether it was the specific 
 gravity of the monster that produced so much vivacity 
 in the spring on which it was suspended, or the su- 
 perior skill of former bell-hangers, may remain a 
 matter of dispute to the curious ; but the fact that 
 resulted (and facts are all we have to do with) is, 
 that ere the bell had ceased its villainous vibrations, 
 Rory heard a window raised above his head, and the
 
 144 Rory 0' More 
 
 demand of "Who's there?" in no very gracious 
 voice. 
 
 Rory kept profoundly quiet. 
 "Who's there?" was again snarled out. 
 Rory looked up from the shelter of the porch and 
 saw a head and a nightcap protruded from the win- 
 dow: he was as quiet as a mouse. 
 
 " Sentry ! " was the next word Rory heard, given 
 in a most authoritative tone. 
 
 A gust of wind and a dash of rain whirled round 
 the corner, which must have convinced the colonel 
 (for it was he who was calling from the window) that 
 his voice could not have reached the sentinels in the 
 teeth of the blast which blew his nightcap off his head 
 and dashed it into Rory's face. 
 
 Rory was nearly knocked down, — for the smallest 
 thing upsets us when we are alarmed. 
 
 " Sentry ! " was shouted louder than before. 
 The soldiers answered the summons. The colonel 
 asked who rang the bell : — the sentries did not know. 
 " You have been asleep ! " said the colonel. 
 " No, your honour," said the sentry, " we could n't ; 
 the guard has been but just relieved ! " 
 " Have you seen no one passing ? " 
 " No, your honour, — no one passed at this side ; 
 and we marched down the other street not five 
 minutes ago and not a living soul was in it." 
 " Then what could have rung the bell ? " 
 " 'T was only a mistake, sir," said Rory, whose 
 excitement had been wound to such intensity, that 
 his eagerness to satisfy the question overlooked the 
 consequence to his personal safety in the sound of 
 his voice being heard ; but the instant he had spoken, 
 he said to himself, " The d — 1 cut the tongue out of 
 you, Rory ! " 
 
 Fortunately the gusts of wind and splashing of rain
 
 Rory O'More 145 
 
 rendered all sounds, and the points whence they came, 
 uncertain. Nevertheless, the colonel looked towards 
 the porch ; but seeing no one, he said to the sentry, 
 " What 's that you say about a mistake ? " 
 
 " No, your honour, I don't mistake," said the 
 sentr)', who was equally uncertain with the colonel if 
 any third person had spoken, and fancied he had been 
 charged with making a mistake. 
 
 '' Did n't you say something of a mistake ? " asked 
 the colonel in one of the pauses of the storm. 
 
 " No, your honour," said the sentry. 
 
 Just at this moment, when Rory was thinking if 
 he had n't better make a run for it at once, he heard 
 the bolt of the door behind him gently drawn, and the 
 instant after, a pluck at his coat, and a whispered 
 " Come in," made him turn round. He saw the door 
 stand ajar, and a hand beckon him forward, at the 
 same moment that the voice of the colonel from 
 the window said, " See if there 's any one hiding in 
 the porch." 
 
 Rory slipped inside the hall-door, which was softly 
 closed as the sentry walked up the steps. 
 
 " There 's no one here, your honour," said the 
 sentry. 
 
 " Push the door," said the colonel. 
 
 The sentry did so ; but the door had been fastened 
 on the inside. 
 
 VOL. I. — 10
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SHOWING THAT ONE HALF OF THE WORLD DOES 
 NOT KNOW HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES ; AND 
 ALSO, THAT SOFT WORDS CAN BEND HARD IRON, 
 THOUGH THEY DO NOT BUTTER PARSNIPS 
 
 VERY much about the time that Rory O'More 
 rushed from the cellar and endeavoured to 
 make his way out of the town, there was an old 
 tinker, driving an ass before him, making his way into 
 it. From the rudely constructed straddle of the sorry 
 animal, three or four rusty old kettles, and a budget 
 containing the implements of the tinker's trade, de- 
 pended ; but the straddle was worth more than it 
 looked good for, — for the tinker had so contrived 
 the pannels of the lumbering affair, that a convenient 
 space vv^as left within for stowing away tobacco, 
 which he bought from Monsieur De Welskein, and 
 sold at a handsome profit to the peasantry, during his 
 wandering among them — for they could get none so 
 good or so cheap through the legitimate channel : 
 besides, they were glad to give a helping hand to the 
 old tinker, whose poverty and shrewdness commanded 
 at once their pity and their fear. 
 
 It may seem strange to class these two feelings 
 together — but they often exist. They say " Pity is 
 akin to love ; " — but it is equally true that " Love is 
 related to fear:" — and thus, perhaps, a sort of col- 
 lateral relationship may be established between them. 
 
 I should not have made any observation on this,
 
 Rory O'More 147 
 
 but that I do not remember seeing it remarked else- 
 where, and when one advances any thing new, it is 
 common even to oneself to be startled at it, and a 
 desire is at once engendered to make it manifest that 
 one has not committed an absurdity. 
 
 Now, I remember well, when a child, that I was 
 often horrified by the presence of a certain old and 
 disgusting beggarman ; yet I constantly gave him 
 alms. There was something in that old man I 
 dreaded ; and yet I remember, even to this day, I 
 pitied him. To be sure, the virtue of charity had 
 been early instilled into my mind by one who now, I 
 trust, in heaven enjoys the reward of her goodness 5 
 and so gracious and winning is the habit of doing 
 charity's holy offices, that even to the innocent child, 
 on whom neither want nor reason can have impressed 
 the value of the virtue he is taught, there is something 
 pleasant in the timorous dropping of a halfpenny from 
 its pure and dimpled fingers into the soiled and 
 withered palm of age : as if Heaven had preordained 
 that no weakness or antipathy of our nature should 
 interfere with the sacred duty ; — a duty so sacred, 
 that even our Lord himself made its beauty the theme 
 of a parable, and reproved the intolerant Jew with 
 the mild precept of " Go thou and do likewise." 
 
 Solomon, for that was the tinker's name, was pitied 
 and feared ; for he seemed to be poor, and was known 
 to be penetrating. He had a prying temper and a 
 tenacious memory. The former led him to a knowl- 
 edge of the circumstances of most of the people of 
 all classes in the country where he made his rounds, 
 and the latter treasured up the information. Thus 
 the past and present were alike familiar to him; and 
 from these, his natural acutenesswas often enabled to 
 presage the future. 
 
 Such a power, in the uncalculating community
 
 148 Rory O'More 
 
 amongst whom he moved, gave him a reputation little 
 short of witchcraft. He was called "a mighty 
 knowledgeable man," — and " knowledge is power ; " 
 and where did human power ever exist, that its in- 
 fluence has not been dreaded and its possession abused ? 
 This was fully exemplified in the case of the old 
 tinker, — he was feared, not loved, by the peasantry ; 
 and yet, though no one liked him, there was, from a 
 dread of offending, all the demonstrations of civility 
 shown him that love would have procured. The 
 tinker was quite aware of the position he held, and 
 of its cause ; and his bitterness (for he was bitter) 
 enjoyed the triumph of forcing these pretended testi- 
 monies of affection, and he laughed at this perjury of 
 the heart. " Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays 
 to virtue." How often is a smile the tribute that 
 fear pays to power ! 
 
 Nevertheless, with this dread — it may almost be 
 said, dislike — that he inspired, he was pitied, from 
 his apparent wretched and desolate condition. Home 
 he had none, nor living thing with whom he held 
 continued companionship, except the poor ass he 
 drove, whose food was a nibble from the road-side, 
 unless when it was bestowed by the same friendly 
 hand that gave food to his master — for Solomon 
 never paid for any thing except what he traded on. 
 The love of money ruled him with a power stronger 
 than that by which he ruled his fellow men ; and 
 though he possessed the superior acuteness that gov- 
 erned intelligent creatures, he was himself the sense- 
 less slave of an inanimate metal. He was a miser, 
 — a miser in the fullest sense of the word ; not lov- 
 ing money for the sake of what money can procure, 
 but loving it for its own sake — worshipping the 
 mere thing : to him a guinea was a god. To such a 
 wretch, to starve was easier than to pay ; therefore
 
 Rory O'More 149 
 
 he never tasted food except it was given to him : and 
 even on these terms he seldom wanted, for he laid 
 the country under contribution, from the kitchen ot 
 the squire to the peasant's pot of potatoes. With all 
 this, he was stealthy and roguish as a fox, tortuous 
 and treacherous as a snake — secret, cold, and greedy 
 as the grave. 
 
 Yet, with the characteristic touch of fun that per- 
 vades every thing Irish, this hateful old miscreant had 
 a comical name bestowed on him ; — he was called 
 " Sawdhering Solomon," from his profession of tinker : 
 and this was the name he commonly went by, 
 though sometimes it was changed for " Solomon Sly." 
 Neither of these names was meant, of course, to 
 reach his ears ; but he was made cognisant of them 
 by means of the little boys, who hated him openly, 
 and who shouted the name after him when they were 
 quite sure of being out of the reach of the old tinker's 
 crooked stick : and sometimes the urchins ventured 
 so far even as to throw stones or clods at him when 
 they had the ambuscade of a hedge and the interven- 
 tion of a ditch to screen and protect them. On these 
 occasions, Solomon might get a whack on the back 
 from a stone, or have a dry clod judiciously lobbed 
 under his ear, powdering his wig with all the breaking 
 particles of earth that did not run down between his 
 clothes and his back. Then would he turn round to 
 strike with his stick ; but the retiring laugh and foot- 
 steps of children at the other side of the hedge, were 
 all that were manifest to Solomon : and then would 
 the old vagabond grin and shake his stick with the 
 expression of a fiend, and utter horrible curses on the 
 thoughtless urchins. And though the provocation 
 was unjustifiable, it is true, yet there is something 
 abhorrent in the idea of age cursing childhood, par- 
 ticularly as the vindictive old tinker used to curse.
 
 150 Rory O'More 
 
 It was about the time that Rory O'More was leav- 
 ing the cellar, that Solomon, I say, was making his 
 way into the town, at whose outskirts he made a 
 detour from the high road and drove his ass up a little 
 lane, at the end of which there was a small haggart^ 
 whose fence was only a low wall of loose stones and 
 some furze-bushes. Solomon very coolly abstracted 
 some stones, pulled away some of the furze, and 
 made a way for his ass to enter the haggart, where, 
 placing him between two small stacks of hay, he 
 procured shelter and provender for the poor brute. 
 He then lifted the straddle and his old kettles from 
 the ass's back, and withdrew from the premises, 
 carrying his goods to some distance, where, under a 
 hedge, he let them lie ; and marking the spot well, 
 he proceeded alone to the town, and made for the 
 cellar of the smuggler. 
 
 It was only in his capacity of smuggler that De 
 Welskein held any communication with the tinker. 
 Solomon, though he guessed that an extensive con- 
 spiracy was on foot, yet, wise as he was, he did not 
 know any individual engaged in it, for none would 
 trust him to belong to the Union, and those who 
 engaged in it kept the secret inviolate, — singularly 
 so indeed, for in all the thousands who had sworn, 
 there was but one found to betray, and he entered 
 the confederation for the very purpose. 
 
 When the unfortunate girl whom Rory had left 
 sobbing in the cellar had recovered her outbreak of 
 grief, she arose from the bench on which she had 
 flung herself in her passion of tears, and the feeling 
 that had possessed her heart changed from lawless 
 love to bitter hate — for 
 
 " Hell has no fury like a woman scorn'd ; " 
 1 Hay-yard.
 
 Rory O'More 151 
 
 and cursing the man that had made her feel such 
 degradation, she quitted the den of riot and iniquity, 
 leaving the beastly revellers sunk in besotted slumber. 
 When Solomon, therefore, reached the cellar and 
 tapped stealthily at the door, he received no answer. 
 On knockino; ao-ain more loudly, the door yielded to 
 his touch, and pushing it gently open, he looked cau- 
 tiously into the cellar. He saw a dim lamp, over- 
 turned drinking-vessels, and prostrate figures, and 
 heard the heavy snoring of drunken sleep. He ad- 
 vanced noiselessly, and looked carefully about ; and 
 when he found that deep and real slumber reigned 
 around him, he cast about his searching eyes, and his 
 heart (if he had such a thing) was gladdened at the 
 thought of being a gainer by the universal swinishness 
 in which his friends were buried. He stole softly 
 over to the truckle-bed under which the tobacco was 
 hid, and going on all-fours, he looked to see if there 
 was a roll of it within easy reach — for the legs of 
 one of the sleepers hung over the side and made a 
 sort of barrier. 
 
 He crawled nearer, and, with the aid of his crooked 
 stick abstracted a parcel of the precious weed from its 
 place of concealment : and then, with the stealthi- 
 ness of a cat, he stole back to the door, which he 
 closed gently after him, and retreated with his booty. 
 
 Now, it was to buy tobacco that the tinker had 
 made his visit to De Welskein ; and he chuckled at 
 the thought of getting the merchandise without the 
 transfer of coin, and hugged the roll of tobacco to 
 his heart with the passion of a lover. To re-cram 
 the pannel of his ass's straddle, and depart after his 
 exploit, was Solomon's first intention as he sneaked 
 back towards the haggart where his ass was commit- 
 ting robbery also : but another idea arose, and he 
 slackened his pace while he conned it over, and
 
 152 Rory O'More 
 
 on second thoughts he considered it more advisable 
 to make his visit to De Welskein, as it was about 
 the period that worthy knew he had intended calling, 
 and if the abstracted tobacco should be missed, his 
 unusual absence might direct suspicion against him, 
 as it was some time since Solomon had made a pur- 
 chase, and De Welskein knew that tobacco was 
 what Solomon could not do without. Therefore, 
 instead of going back to the haggart, he went to 
 a neighbouring lane where he knew the forge of 
 a blacksmith stood, and poking and scraping out 
 with his stick and hands a hole out of a heap of 
 cinders and ashes that stood near the door, he con- 
 cealed the treasure beneath it and returned to the 
 cellar. He knocked again, lest any of its inmates 
 might have awoke in the interval ; and finding all 
 as silent as before, he entered, and approaching De 
 Welskein, he shook him by the shoulder till he 
 roused him, and said, — 
 
 " One ud think you had nothing to be afeard iv, 
 when you sleep with the door open." 
 
 De Welskein rubbed his eyes, stared up at Solo- 
 mon, uttered a great many " Sacres" and " Diables" 
 and proceeded to awake the rest of the party and 
 demand the cause of the door being open. They 
 were all bewildered, being still half drunk ; but after 
 much blustering and swearing, Rory O'More at last 
 was missed, and also the girl with whom he had 
 been dancing. This was conclusive evidence of how 
 the circumstance had occurred, and De Welskein's 
 rage and abuse of Rory were furious. Regan, too, 
 threw in his word of censure ; and, amongst them 
 all, poor Rory had more foul words applied to him 
 than he ever had before in the same space of time. 
 
 "Who is that you're blessin', all o' yiz ? " said 
 Solomon.
 
 Rory O'More 153 
 
 Cl' 
 
 That scatthered-brained swaggerer Rory O'More," 
 said Regan. 
 
 " Rorv O'More ! " said Solomon, who knew Rorv's 
 habits were not likely to lead him into the disorderly 
 set ; — " whv, what brought him here r " and he 
 looked sharply at De Welskein, as much as to say, 
 " There 's a mystery." 
 
 " Why, sare ? if you go for dat moche, what for 
 yoii come here ? — ha ! " 
 
 " Oh, you know yourself, munseer," said Solomon, 
 "what brings me here; but, " 
 
 " Well, sare," said De Welskein, interrupting him, 
 " and me know whas bring de osser gentlemans too : 
 das nufF for me — nussing to vou." 
 
 "Oh, don't be onaisy," said Solomon coolly — " I 
 don't want to smoke your saycrets." 
 
 " No, G — d — n ! you old rog ! you not smok me, 
 you razzer smok my tabac." 
 
 Solomon looked towards the Frenchman, to see if 
 there was any meaning in his eye when he spoke of 
 his tobacco ; but he saw his secret was safe. The 
 Frenchman proceeded, — 
 
 " Dere ! you seet down you — old rog — vieux 
 chaudronnier de campagne — seet down, smoke vour 
 tabac and dreenk, and nebber mind nussing else ! " 
 
 Solomon did as he was desired ; he took a pipe 
 and mixed a stiff glass of brandy-and-water, after 
 tossing off a couple of glasses pure, to warm his 
 heart, as he said himself, " afther the cruel wettin' 
 he got." 
 
 "Warm his heart indeed!" said one of the men 
 aside: "'faith, all the sper'ts in Ireland, and all the 
 turf in the Bog of Allen, wouldn't warm it." 
 
 De Welskein took Regan aside, and expressed 
 great displeasure against Rory for leaving him with- 
 out saying where De Lacy was to be found ; but
 
 154 Rory 0' More 
 
 Regan set him at rest on that subject by telling him 
 he knew Rory's place of abode, and would conduct 
 him to it if he liked. This consoled the Frenchman 
 and he again lay down to sleep, requesting more care 
 might be taken about the door. Solomon continued 
 to smoke and drink until the approach of dawn, when 
 the man called Pierre let him out of the cellar, and 
 he went back to the haggart, having made the best 
 bargain he could for some tobacco, and getting his 
 pocket-pistol, as he called a tolerably capacious tin 
 flask, filled with brandy as a bonus for his " taking 
 sttch a potuer o' tahakky from them^'' as he said him- 
 self; and the equivoke gave poignancy to the 
 pleasure of his theft. 
 
 When he got back to the haggart, he abstracted 
 his ass from the haystack, which the ass seemed loath 
 to quit, and before retiring, the little beast made a last 
 desperate plunge into the hay, and dragged away 
 so large a mouthful, that it trailed after him all the 
 way from the stack to the gap where Solomon now 
 led him out, and the poor innocent haystack looked 
 very much in the condition of a hot loaf out of which 
 Master Tommy has had his wicked will. 
 
 Solomon replaced the stones and the furze-bush, 
 and led ofF his ass to the hedge where the straddle 
 was secreted : there he stuffed it with the purchased 
 tobacco (the stolen roll still lay where the tinker had 
 concealed it), and mounting his wallet and his kettles 
 on the back of the ass, he drove him away from the 
 field as soon as sunrise permitted him lawfully to 
 appear on the road. 
 
 What did he do then ? 
 
 He had the impudence to march up the lane that 
 led to the haggart, driving his ass before him and 
 crying loudly, " Pots, pans, and kittles to mind." 
 The ass turned a longing look towards the haggart,
 
 Rory O'More 155 
 
 and a whack from Solomon's stick was required to 
 remind him that tinkers' asses must not eat hay by 
 daylight. Solomon now approached the dwelling to 
 which the plundered haggart was attached, and found 
 the family awake and doing : the man went out to 
 work, and the woman, in answer to Solomon's re- 
 quest to know " if there was any pots, pans, and 
 kittles to mind," produced a certain tin saucepan, 
 with a demand to know " what would he take to 
 repair it? not that it wanted it much," she said, 
 " only, divil take it ! it put out the fire always when 
 it was put on, but did n't lake a great dale at all." 
 
 " Why, tare an' ouns, woman," cried Solomon, 
 holding up the vessel between him and the sky, 
 " there 's a hole in it you could dhrive a coach 
 thro'. " 
 
 " Arrah, be aisy ! " says the woman. 
 
 " Look at it yourself," says Solomon, letting the 
 saucepan down. 
 
 A little child now popped his finger through the 
 hole, and waggling it backwards and forwards, said, 
 *' Look, mammy ! " and grinned as if he had done 
 a very clever thing. 
 
 The mother gave him a box on the ear, calling 
 him " a divil " at the same time, and sent him yelping 
 away. 
 
 " 'Faith, that 's a 'cute child ! " said Solomon, 
 grinning a horrid smile; "he'd make an iligant 
 tinker, he sees a hole in a pot so well." 
 
 " The meddlin' cur!" said the mother. "Well, 
 what '11 you put a bit o' sawdher an it for ? " 
 
 " A bit o' sawdher, indeed ! " said Solomon. " Oh, 
 'faith, it 's a piece o' tin I must insart into it." 
 
 ^' Divil an insart," says the woman, "you'll insart 
 my saucepan, my good man ! Sawdher is all it wants 
 — jist a weeshce taste o' sawdher."
 
 156 Rory O'More 
 
 '' Cock you up with my sawdher indeed ! " said 
 Solomon ; " why, 't would take more than all the 
 sawdher I have to stop it. Sure, sawdher is as dear 
 as tin; and rawzin 's riz." 
 
 '' Arrah, why would rawzin be riz ? " 
 
 " There was sitch a power o' fiddlers to be at the 
 fair next week, that they bought all the rawzin up." 
 
 '•'• Ah, go 'long wid you ! " 
 
 "It's thruth I'm tellin' you." 
 
 " Well, what will you take for the saucepan ? " 
 
 " I '11 mind it for fourpince." 
 
 " Fourpince ! Oh, where do you expec' to go 
 when you die ? Fourpince indeed ! I '11 give you 
 tupp'ns." 
 
 " Could n't," says Solomon, shaking his head and 
 going to drive away the ass. 
 
 " Well, what will you say ? " said the woman. 
 
 "Well, see now," said Solomon, "I'm tired with 
 thravelling a'most all night, and I'm wantin' rest; 
 and indeed I 'd be glad to sit down, if it was only to 
 rest, let alone doin' a job and airnin' a thrifle ; and 
 indeed I want it bad, for the times is hard ; and, so 
 God bless you, if you '11 jist throw in a thrifle o' 
 brequest into the bargain, and gi' me tupp'ns ha'pny, 
 I '11 make the saucepan as good as new." 
 
 " Well, I would n't be hard wid you, my poor man, 
 and so you may do it." 
 
 So down sat the tinker and opened his budget ; and 
 his iron was heated and his " sawdher " produced, not 
 forgetting the "rawzin" that was "riz;" and bits 
 of old tin were produced from his budget, into which 
 the children looked with the most profound curiosity, 
 endeavouring to fathom the depth of its mvsterious 
 treasures. Other bits of tin dazzled their longing 
 eyes, and a great shears seemed placed there to guard 
 the invaluable store from plunder. Solomon cut and
 
 ' //^ r^yt^nJa^Ay.
 
 Rory O'More 157 
 
 rasped and hammered away, and rubbing his hot 
 soldering-iron upon his powdered rosin and solder, he 
 raised so great a smoke and so bad a smell, that the 
 children looked on him as some wonderful conjuror; 
 and as they saw the bright streaks that his implement 
 produced wherever it was rubbed, their delight was 
 profound. 
 
 When the man of the house returned to breakfast, 
 he saw Solomon seated at the door mending the leaky 
 vessel, and his children standing round him in wonder, 
 and as soon as the job was done, Solomon was called 
 in to breakfast. 
 
 "What do you think?" said the husband to the 
 wife. 
 
 " What ? " said she. 
 
 "That blackguard calf got over the wall o' the 
 haggart again last night and made a holy show o' the 
 hay-stack." 
 
 "Oh, you don't tell me so ! " said the wife. 
 
 "Luck to the lie in it!" said the husband. 
 
 Solomon kept eating his breakfast with the most 
 profound indifference until the husband and wife had 
 exhausted their eloquence, and then he said, 
 
 "Them cawves is great rogues." 
 
 "The divil run a-huntin' with him for a calf! Oh, 
 wait 'till the next time I ketch him ! " 
 
 " Poor thing, poor thing!" said Solomon, tenderly. 
 " Sure, it 's nath'ral they 'd ate ! " 
 
 " 'Faith, he may be contint with his good grass I 
 think," said the man. 
 
 " Thrue for you — thrue for you," said Solomon, 
 quietly : " but it 's remarkable how bowld some o' 
 them cawves is." 
 
 Breakfast was finished — the job paid for — the 
 wallet replaced on the ass amid the observation and 
 regret of all the children, who watched the old tinker
 
 158 Rory O'More 
 
 and saw him depart with sorrow as he drove his ass 
 down the lane, after getting a job and begging a 
 breakfast from the man he had robbed over- night. 
 
 Solomon now proceeded to the town, and went to 
 the forge beside which he had deposited the tobacco. 
 Here he had a plausible pretext to go, for the shoes 
 of the ass wanted to be looked to. On his arrival at 
 the forge, the smith was unoccupied, so there was 
 more time to spare for Solomon to make as hard a 
 bargain as he could for the execution of the job. 
 
 " Maybe you could let me make an exchange wid 
 you ? and if you would have any thing in the tinkerin' 
 line to do, sure I 'd do it for nothin' for you, if you 'd 
 do the ass for nothin'." 
 
 " Not a pot, nor pan, nor kittle have I," said the 
 blacksmith j "I 'm a bachelor, and intind to stay so." 
 
 In the mean time he began to examine the ass's 
 shoes ; and the tobacco with which the straddle was 
 lined being so near his nose, the smith began to snufF, 
 and said at last, "Where the dickins is the tabakky ? " 
 
 Solomon who caught the sound of the first sniff the 
 smith had given, saw directly how matters stood, and 
 hastened to the rescue : he got close beside the ass, 
 and to the smith's inquiry he said, — 
 
 " It 's here in my pocket, and mighty fine tabakky 
 it is, — see. I got a bargain o' some from a friend 
 a while agon, and — but don't mintion it — if you 
 like I '11 share the bargain wid you, to the value of 
 a new set o' shoes for the baste." 
 
 " Gor ! that ud be a power o' tabakky ! " said the 
 smith, 
 
 " But it 's iligant tabakky," said Solomon. Pulling 
 from his pocket several yards of the material, wound 
 into a close ball, and popping it under the smith's 
 nose, he said, "What do you think of that, your 
 sowl ! "
 
 Rory O'More 159 
 
 " Faix, that is tarein' tabakky, sure enough ! " 
 was the delighted smith's reply. 
 
 " Well, what do you say to a new set o' shoes for 
 the baste ? " said Solomon. 
 
 " I dunna," was the undecided answer. 
 
 " You know you '11 have the owld shoes in." 
 
 " To be sure I will," said the smith, " sure that's 
 only nath'ral : but what good is a little ass's shoes r " 
 
 " Oh, shoes is shoes," said Solomon. 
 
 " Why, tare alive ! they are wore as thin as a 
 sixpence," 
 
 " 'Deed, that is thrue," said Solomon, " for the 
 last set he had an him was from the finest smith in 
 Ireland : they wore powerful." 
 
 " Arrah, who 's that ? " said the workman, piqued 
 at the mention of the finest smith in Ireland, he him- 
 self not being the person meant. 
 
 " Whv, who would it be but Brian Branagan ? " 
 said Solomon, who well knew that Brian Branagan 
 was the rival of the man who stood before him, and 
 living in the adjoining lane, but who had never made 
 shoes for the tinker's ass in his life. 
 
 This was a master-touch of Solomon, — the smith 
 bristled directly for the palm of superiority. 
 
 "Whv, thin, is it Branagan you say is the finest 
 smith in Ireland ? " 
 
 "Yis," said Solomon vtvy quietly. 
 
 " Throth, then, it 's little you know about it. 
 Branagan indeed ! The divil a bigger botch ever 
 dhruv a nail than the same Branagan : he a smith ! ! " 
 
 " Oh ! I don't purtend to know indeed," said 
 Solomon with an affected air of not wishing to offend, 
 at the same time laving hold of the halter of the ass. 
 " But he 's good enough for me, any how : good 
 mornin' kindly to you," said he, going. 
 
 This was too much for the smith.
 
 i6o Rory O'More 
 
 " Come back here, I tell you ! it 's I that '11 show 
 you what a set o' shoes is : Branagan indeed ! " 
 
 " Well, will you take what I said ? " said Solomon, 
 affecting not to care much whether the smith did or 
 not. 
 
 " Yis, yis, but never say the word Branagan to 
 me ! " Here he laid hold of his pincers, knife, and 
 hammer, and began to knock off the points of the 
 nails from each hoof, and pull off the ass's shoes — 
 every drag he gave, which was with great vigour, 
 accompanied by a " hugh " and the exclamation of 
 " Branagan indeed ! ! " 
 
 " Had n't I better take off the sthraddle," said 
 Solomon. 
 
 " Ay, off wid It," said the smith. 
 
 So, Solomon took off the highly-perfumed straddle 
 that was so near betraying him, and then filling the 
 smith's pipe, and his own too, with some of the to- 
 bacco which he had sold to the smith, he commenced 
 puffing away vigorously, that the smell of the lighted 
 weed might prevent the perfume of the dry being 
 noticed. 
 
 While the smith was engaged in shoeing the ass 
 inside the forge, Solomon had time to disengage the 
 roll of stolen tobacco from the heap of cinders where 
 he had concealed it, and hiding it in one of his old 
 kettles, he was quite at ease, and blew the bellows 
 for the smith while he heated the iron, or looked over 
 him at work with an air of delight, saying, as the 
 smith rasped up and finished his work, "Well, but 
 thim is the rale iligant shoes ! " 
 
 " You '11 never talk o' Branagan agin, will you, 
 afther that ? " said the smith. 
 
 " Throth, an' I won't," said Solomon ; " and sure 
 it 's only an owld fool I was, up to this present time, 
 in thinkin' the like : but the owldher we grow, the
 
 Rory CMore i6i 
 
 more we larn. Sure, it 's a grate loss to me I did n't 
 know you sooner ! " 
 
 " Well, it 's never too late to mind," said the 
 smith. 
 
 " Thrue for you," said Solomon ; " nor to mahe^ 
 aither." And so saying, he filled his pipe again from 
 the smith's tobacco, and wishing him good-morning, 
 off he went, having secured his plunder, and getting 
 a new set of shoes on his ass : so that he was now 
 ready for a long and prosperous round, through his 
 usual beat. 
 
 The smith idled the rest of that day, smoking at 
 his new stock of "• 'bakky," drinking to quench his 
 thirst, and filling up the intervals by snapping his 
 fingers and crying, " That for Branagan ! " 
 
 VOL. I. — II
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 " IN THE DARK ALL CATS ARE GREY." RORY 
 
 BECOMES POSSESSED OF AN IMPORTANT SECRET, 
 AND DISCLOSES ONE IN EXCHANGE 
 
 WHEN Rory O'More was admitted to the safe 
 side of the door, he felt the pressure of a 
 hand upon his arm, which he interpreted into the 
 meaning of " be quiet ; " and as it was Rory's own 
 opinion that, in his present circumstances, it was the 
 best thing he could do, he acquiesced. One thing 
 however he was sure of — that it was a woman who 
 admitted him to the house, for he felt the soft breath- 
 ing of one of the gentle sex upon his cheek as he 
 stood motionless by the door beside his benefactress, 
 while they heard a few words passing between the 
 colonel and the sentinel, until the latter descended 
 the steps. 
 
 Immediately after, Rory heard the woman say 
 gently, " Come down, darlin' ! " and holding the 
 hand that was laid upon his arm, he followed his 
 conductress as softly as he could. They soon began 
 to descend some stairs, and before they had reached 
 the bottom of the flight, the sound of a bolt being 
 drawn was heard upstairs, and Rory's friend said in 
 a suppressed voice of terror, " Oh, murdher ! there 's 
 the colonel comin' down ! you must hide in the coal- 
 hole. Make haste, for the love o' God, or I 'm a 
 ruined woman ! — here, here ! " and she dragged 
 Rory along while she spoke. *' Get in there, as far
 
 Rory O'More 163 
 
 as ever you can, and hide yourself, or I dunna what 
 will become of the pair of us ! " 
 
 At the same time, she opened a door and pushed 
 Ror)' inside of it. He heard her footsteps retreat 
 lightly and rapidly. " More opening of doors ! " said 
 Rory to himself, as he scrambled over some coal and 
 slack, holding his arms extended to save his nose from 
 fracture; and he found the coal vault extensive, for 
 it was some time before he was stopped by a wall. 
 As soon as he went as far as he could go, he crouched 
 down, keeping his face however turned towards the 
 point whence he entered, and he soon heard the de- 
 scending footsteps of the person he was taught to 
 believe was the colonel. The footsteps seemed to 
 ramble over a great space of flagged apartments, and 
 various doors squeaked on their hinges as they were 
 opened and shut in succession by the invisible peram- 
 bulant. At last Rory saw the glimmer of a light, 
 which grew stronger by degrees, until the door of the 
 cellar opened, and then he saw a Don Quixote sort 
 of a man, with a candle in one hand and a drawn 
 sword in the other, poke his head in at the door of 
 the cellar, and holding the candle a yard before him, 
 say, " Is there any one here ? " 
 
 Rory knew better than to make any answer this 
 time, and having thrown the tail of his coat over his 
 head, leaving only a small peep-hole for his eyes, he 
 remained undistinguishable amidst the surrounding 
 gloom ; for the vault was so deep, the candle so dim, 
 the colonel so short-sighted, and Rory crouched so 
 low, that he quite defied observation. Despite his 
 dangerous situation, however, it was as much as Rory 
 could do not to laugh ; for the colonel, with his long 
 face, long candle, long body, long arms, long sword, 
 long legs, and short shirt, cut so ridiculous a figure, 
 that a man of more solid mood than Rory might have
 
 i64 Rory O'More 
 
 been provoked to mirth. However, by good luck, 
 Rory did not laugh, though the colonel, a la Don 
 Quixote, continued to open his goggle eyes on the 
 gloom before him ; but he was startled from his fixed 
 observation by hearing a slip amongst the coal, which 
 drew forth a still fiercer demand of " Who 's there ? " 
 — Upon this summons, Rory perceived, between him 
 and the light, a great cat cautiously crawl to the sum- 
 mit of the heap of coal, and, with a tail bristling to 
 the size of a sweeping brush, make a desperate rush 
 down the acclivity and dart between the colonel's legs. 
 The man of war actually jumped with alarm at the 
 suddenness of the surprise, and, as if ashamed of 
 being so frightened at such a cause, muttered spite- 
 fully, " D — n the cat ! " He now retired from the 
 cellar, and went to wake (as he thought) the woman- 
 servant who let Rory in, and whose sleeping apart- 
 ment was in the basement story. Rory heard him 
 cry, " Betty ! " — no answer. " Betty ! " again, — 
 still silence preserved. " Betty ! " still louder than 
 before ; — Rory heard a snort and a growl as if from 
 a suddenly-awakened person. 
 
 " Who 's that ? " said a female voice. 
 
 " Your master : have you heard any noise in the 
 house ? " 
 
 " Noise, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes, noise, — have you heard any ? " 
 
 " No, sir : I have been in bed, sir, and asleep, 
 these three hours. I hope there 's nothing the 
 matther, sir ? " said Betty, with very honest seeming. 
 
 "I have been disturbed," said the colonel; "and 
 I thought robbers had got into the house. I certainly 
 heard a noise." 
 
 "Oh, I dar say, sir," said Betty; "'twas nothing 
 but the cat : he 's mightly throublesome and lively, 
 that cat is, — and I forget to shut him up sometimes
 
 Rory O'More 165 
 
 — and I'm afeard he has been disturbing you, sir. 
 Oh dear, but I 'm sorry ! " 
 
 This was a good guess of Betty's ; for the colonel 
 having seen a cat, now retired, and Ror)^ was once 
 more left in darkness. And now that the immediate 
 chance of discovery was removed, he began to con- 
 jecture by what extraordinary means he was let into 
 a house to which he was an utter stranger, at the 
 moment he needed it most, and by a woman of whom 
 he knew no more than the man in the moon : her 
 name was Betty — that was all the knowledge he ar- 
 rived at, — and that he only knew from hearing the 
 colonel address her. 
 
 After the lapse of half an hour, Rory heard the 
 name of " Darby " whispered at the door of the cellar. 
 
 In equally gentle tone, he barely ventured to say, 
 rather huskily, " Iss." 
 
 " Come out, darlin' ; take care you don't rovvl 
 down any of the big lumps o' coal." 
 
 Rory, profiting by the caution, got out with as 
 little noise as possible ; and coming in contact with 
 his female guide, he was led into an apartment, the 
 door of which was very cautiously locked by the 
 woman. 
 
 " Now we may spake more at our aise," said she. 
 " How are you, darlin' ? " 
 
 " Indeed I 'm throubled with a mighty bad cowld," 
 said Rory, who thought this the best thing he could 
 say whereby to account for the husky tone in which 
 he spoke, that his natural voice might not betray the 
 mistake which had so far favoured him. 
 
 " Oh, but your voice is gone intirely. Darby 
 darlin' ! " says the woman : " but here 's somethin' 
 to comfort you^ agra ; here" — and she led him to 
 where a chair and table stood — *' here, sit down and 
 ate your supper : there 's an iligant piece o' roast
 
 i66 Rory O'More 
 
 beef, and a jug of beautiful beer, I kept sly for you. 
 If you like, I 'II light a candle for you." 
 
 " Oh, by no manes ! " said Rory ; " it 's betther 
 not : as the house was alarmed, the light might be 
 bad." 
 
 " No, — it 's not that so much, but I 'm afeard o' 
 the noise of sthrikin' the flint." 
 
 " Don't think of it, Betty dear," grumbled Rory. 
 
 " Lord ! how your voice is althered ! " 
 
 *' Indeed I 'm chokin' with the cowld — hegh ! 
 hegh ! Oh, murdher ! " 
 
 " Ate a bit, and it '11 do you good. I 'm grieved 
 you haven't a light, darlin'j 'twould be sitch a com- 
 fort to you." 
 
 " I don't miss it in the laste, Betty : I can find the 
 way to my mouth in the dark." 
 
 And so saying, Rory began to eat his supper, which 
 was most acceptable to him for two reasons: — first, 
 he was hungry ; and in the next place, the occupation 
 accounted for his silence, which it was so desirable to 
 preserve. 
 
 " But, you villain ! what did you ring that thievin' 
 bell for ? " 
 
 " 'T was a mistake, darlin' — hegh ! hegh ! hegh ! 
 Oh! this cowld is chokin' me ! " 
 
 " Don't disthress yourself talkin'. Darby dear ; re- 
 lieve yourself with the mate and the dhrink." 
 
 Rory obeyed. 
 
 " I run up the minit I heard the bell ; and, sure, 
 was n't it the hoighth o' good luck that I got you in 
 before the colonel kem down ! Oh ! he 'd murdher 
 me, I 'm sure, if he thought how it was ! But, afther 
 all. Darby jewel, what harm is there in an honest 
 woman havin' her husband to come see her ? — sure 
 it 's nath'ral." 
 
 " To be sure, Betty jewel," said Rory, who now
 
 Rory 0' More 167 
 
 perceived that he was mistaken by Bettv for her hus- 
 band ; and Rory's inventive imagination set to work in 
 fancying what a dilemma he should be in, in case the 
 real husband might arrive. In the mean time, how- 
 ever, he fortified his patience and resolution with the 
 beef and beer, which did great credit to the colonel's 
 larder and cellar. 
 
 " But you 're not atein', Darby dear," said Betty. 
 
 *'No, but I 'm dhrinkin'," said Rory. 
 
 " Much good do your heart, jewel ! But, tell me, 
 how is Johnnv ? " 
 
 Now, who the deuce Johnnv was, Rory could not 
 tell; but supposing, from the diminutive form of the 
 name, it might be her child, he thought it best to 
 please her with a favourable answer ; so he said, 
 " Johnny 's ven,' well." 
 
 " Thank God ! " said Betty. " He 's a fine cray- 
 thur : how well he got over it ! " 
 
 *' Iligant ! " said Ror)', who wondered what it was 
 Johnny got over, 
 
 "And how is the hives ? " said Bettv. 
 
 " They 're all where they wor," said Ror\', who did 
 not dream of any other hives than beehives ; while 
 Betty meant the cutaneous eruption that " Johnny " 
 was sufferinG; under. 
 
 " And has none o' thim disappeared ? " said Betty. 
 
 "Oh! no," said Rorv ; "we take great care o' 
 thim." 
 
 "Do, darlin', do; — keep 'em from cowld." 
 
 " Oh yis; we put sthraw over them," said Rorv. 
 
 "Sthraw!" said Betty; "why, thin, is it takin' 
 lave o' your sinses you are. Darby ? Is it sthraw on 
 the hives ? " 
 
 "Sartinly; sure the bees likes it." 
 
 " Bees ! " said Betty ; " arrah, what bees ? " 
 
 " Why, the bees in the hives," said Ror)-.
 
 i68 Rory O'More 
 
 " Arrah, man, don't be going on with your hum- 
 buggin' ! you know I 'm axin' about the child very 
 well, and you must go on with your thricks about 
 beehives. I hate humbuggin', so I do. Darby, — 
 and you know I do; and you will be goin' on, all I 
 can say." 
 
 Rory saw there was some mistake; and to stop 
 Betty, he said, " Whisht, whisht ! " 
 
 "What is it ? " said Betty. 
 
 " Don't talk so much, or maybe they '11 hear 
 
 uz." 
 
 Betty was silent for some time ; but as perfect still- 
 ness seemed to reign in the house, she returned to the 
 charge on the hives. , 
 
 " But, tell me, is the hives all out ? " 
 
 " Av coorse," said Rory. 
 
 " And do they look well ? " 
 
 " Mighty purty indeed," said Rory ; " and there 'II 
 be a power o' honey in them, I 'm sure." 
 
 Betty now gave him a box on the ear, saying, 
 " Devil sweep you ! you will be humbuggin' so you 
 will. You cruel brute ! can't you make fun of any 
 thing but the poor child that is lyin' undher the 
 hives?" 
 
 " Sure, I tell you the child is well and hearty j and 
 is n't that enough ? " said Rory. 
 
 " And it 's only jokin' you wor ? " said Betty. 
 
 " To be sure," said Rory ; " you ought to know 
 my ways by this time. This is mighty fine 
 beef!" 
 
 "But, 'deed an' 'deed, is Johnny " 
 
 " Bad luck to the word more I '11 say ! " said Rory, 
 affecting an angry silence. 
 
 Betty now changed her ground, and thought a bit 
 of scandal confided to Darby, would amuse him ; so 
 she began to tell him that, suppose the colonel should
 
 Rory O'More 169 
 
 find out she brought her husband into the house, he 
 had no right to complain, for at all events it was her 
 own husband, and nobody else. 
 
 Ror>' chuckled at her confidence. 
 
 "Not all as one," said Betty, "as him — with an- 
 other man's wife ! Purty goin's on." 
 
 " Do you tell me so ? " said Rory. 
 
 " I found it all out, so he 'd betther say nothin' to 
 me, or I could desthroy him. Not that she 's a bit 
 worse than ever she was ; but if the collecthor knew 
 it " 
 
 Rory cocked his ears. "Is it Scrubbs you mane ? " 
 
 " Who else," said Betty. 
 
 " And his wife ? " said Rory. 
 
 *' Is come over on a visit, hy the way — but I 
 
 know what I know." 
 
 " How long ago ? " said Rory. 
 
 ** Since you were here last," said Betty. 
 
 " That 's a long time," thought Rory to himself. 
 
 *' Scrubbs went to town last week, and over comes 
 madam — on a visit. Av coorse she'll go back 
 when she expects her nate man home. But it sarves 
 him right ! — what could he expec' when he tuk up 
 with the likes of her, the dirty cur ! " 
 
 Betty went on for some time in this strain, venting 
 the vials of her wrath on the colonel and Mrs. 
 Scrubbs ; and Rory did not interrupt her, for he was 
 glad the more she talked, as it relieved him from the 
 difficultv of remaining concealed under her questions. 
 After exhausting her news and her abuse, she began 
 to ask Rory more questions, to all of which he re- 
 plied by the exclamation of " Whisht," protesting at 
 the same time he was afraid to speak for fear of dis- 
 covery by the colonel. At last, when Betty found 
 he had cleared the dish and emptied the jug, she 
 said, —
 
 170 Rory O'More 
 
 " You had betther come to bed now, darlin'." 
 This was a poser, and Rory said, " Whisht" 
 
 again. 
 
 "Come to bed, jewel — you'll be more comfor- 
 tabler there than sittin' here in the cowld, and we can 
 talk without any fear o' bein' heerd, with our heads 
 undher the blankets." 
 
 " I can't bear my head undher the blankets," said 
 Rory. 
 
 " That 's newly come to you, thin," said Betty. 
 
 " That is since this cowld," said Rory, recovering 
 himself: " it chokes me, this cowld does." 
 
 " There 's not a finer thing in the world for a 
 cowld than to go to bed," said Betty. 
 
 " But the cowld rises in my throat to that degree 
 when I lie down," said Rory, " that it smothers 
 
 me." 
 
 " Maybe 't would be better to-night, darlin'," said 
 Betty. 
 
 " I 'd rather sit up," said Rory. 
 
 "You '11 be lost with the cowld," said Betty, " and 
 no fire in the grate." 
 
 Rory found Betty was determined to have matters 
 her own way, and began to get puzzled how he 
 should avoid this difficulty, and the only chance of 
 escape he saw open to him, was to request the tender 
 and confiding Betty to prepare herself for a " grate 
 saycret " he had to tell her, and that she would 
 promise when he informed her of it, not to be too 
 much surprised. Betty protested to preserve the 
 most philosophic composure. 
 
 " You won't screech ? " said Rory. 
 
 " What would I screech for ? " said Betty. 
 
 " It 's mighty surprisin'," said Rory. 
 
 " Arrah, don't keep me waitin', but let me have it 
 at wanst," said Betty eagerly.
 
 Rory O'More 171 
 
 " Now, darlin', take it aisy," said Rorv, " for you 
 must know " 
 
 '^ What ? " said Betty. 
 
 " I 'm not Darby," said Rory. 
 
 Betty scarcely suppressed a scream. 
 
 " You villain ! " said she. 
 
 " I 'm not a villain, aither," said Rory. 
 
 " What brought you here at all ? " 
 
 " Yourself," said Rory : " sure, was n't it yourself 
 pulled me inside the hall-door ? " 
 
 " But, sure, I thought it was Darbv was in it." 
 
 " Well, and have n't I been honest enough to tell 
 you I 'm not Darby, at last, when it might have 
 been throublesome to vour conscience, Betty ? " 
 
 " Ay," said the woman, " there 's more o' your 
 roguer}' ! Betty too ! — how did you make out my 
 name, you divil's limb ? " 
 
 '' A way o' my own, Betty." 
 
 " Oh, a purty rogue you are, I go bail — throth 
 it 's not the first house you got into, I dare sav, nor 
 the first poor woman you enthrapped, you midnight 
 desaiver — and takin' up my name too." 
 
 " Well, I have n't taken away your name any howj 
 so don't be so fractious." 
 
 " Arrah, but how do 1 know but you will." 
 
 " Well, it 's time enough to cry when you 're 
 hurt, Betty, — keep yourself cool now — there 's no 
 harm done." 
 
 *' No harm indeed ! Curse your impidince ! — No 
 harm ! Whv, how do I know but it 's a robber you 
 are maybe ? 'Faith I b'lieve I 'd best rise the house 
 and own this thing to the colonel." 
 
 " Betty dear," said Rory very quietly, " have a 
 little wit in your anger, agra ! think o' your char- 
 aether^ Betty." 
 
 " Oh mv characthcr, my characther, sure enough
 
 172 Rory 0' More 
 
 it *s ruined for ever ! Oh, what '11 1 do ! " And she 
 was going to cry and make a fool of herself when 
 Rory reminded her that crying would do no good. 
 
 " The curse o' Crum'll an you ! what brought you 
 nigh the place at all ? and who are you ? " 
 
 '' No matther who I am, but I tell you what is the 
 best thing you can do : jist let me stay quietly in 
 the house until the dawn, and thin let me out 
 onknownst." 
 
 " Oh, I dar' n't, I dar' n't," said Betty. " Sure if 
 you wor seen quittin' the place, 't would be the ruin 
 o me ! 
 
 " By dad ! I must quit it some time or other," said 
 Rory : " and sure if you let me out now itself, maybe 
 the colonel will hear the door opening ; or even if he 
 does n't, sure the sojers is now on the watch, and 
 would catch me." 
 
 " Oh, you must n't go out by the front," said 
 Betty : " I '11 let you out into the garden at the back, 
 and you must get over the wall, for here you must n't 
 stay — that's tee-totally out o' the question." 
 
 " Well, any thing for a quiet life," said Rory ; " do 
 what you plaze with me : but I think, as I am here, 
 you might as well let me sit up here till towards 
 
 mornm'." 
 
 " No, no, no ! " said Betty in great tribulation. 
 " Who knows but Darby might come ! and then what 
 in the wide world would I do ! " 
 
 " You should keep him out," said Rory. 
 
 " Out, indeed ! " said Betty, — " keep Darby out ! 
 Sure, he 'd suspec' somethin' was n't right, for he 's 
 as jealous as a turkey-cock, and he 'd murdher me if 
 he thought how it was. Oh, what brought you here 
 at all ! " 
 
 At this moment, some pebbles were thrown against 
 the area window.
 
 Rory O'More 173 
 
 " Oh, by this and that," said Betty, " there he is. 
 — Oh, what 'II become o' me ! " 
 
 " Tut ! woman aHve," said Rory, who endeavoured 
 to make her attend, for she became almost confounded 
 by the difficulty of her situation, and was clapping her 
 hands and uttering a volley of Oh's, — " Tut ! 
 woman, don't be clappin' your hands like a wash- 
 woman and makin' an uproar, but jist let me out 
 smart into the garden, and I '11 get over the wall as 
 you towld me." 
 
 Betty seemed aroused to action by Rory's sugges- 
 tion, and now led him to a back window, which she 
 opened carefully ; and telling Rory to get out softly, 
 she handed him a chair, and then followed herself. 
 She conducted him then to the end of the garden, and 
 placing the chair close to the wall, she held it firmlv, 
 while Rory got upon the back rail, which enabled him 
 to lay his hands on the top of the brickwork, and he 
 soon scrambled up and dropped himself on the out- 
 side. On his landing, he ran as fast and lightly as he 
 could from the quarter where the sentinels were 
 placed, and so far escaped unobserved, and continued 
 in a straight line up a narrow street that opened from 
 one of the corners of the green. Here he paused a 
 while before deciding which way he should proceed ; 
 for, in the hurry of leaving the house, he never 
 thought of asking Betty which was the way to go. 
 Rory took the first turn out of this street that chance 
 suggested, and was getting on famouslv, as he thought ; 
 but while in the very act of congratulating himself on 
 his wonderful deliverance from the soldiers, he turned 
 another corner, and was scarcely round it, when a 
 startling " Who 's there ? " was uttered a few paces 
 ahead of him, and the rattling of a firelock accom- 
 panied the challenge. 
 
 Rory saw the game was up, and that after all his
 
 174 Rory O'More 
 
 former luck, it was his fate to become a prisoner ; so 
 he approached the point whence he was challenged, 
 and said, " A friend." 
 
 " Advance and give the countersign," said the 
 sentinel, emerging from a sentry-box. 
 
 " I have n't sitch a thing about me, sir," said Rory.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IN WHICH RORY REMEMBERS THE OLD SAYING OF 
 u PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT " 
 
 WHEN Rory could not give the countersign nor 
 produce a pass, the sentinel told him he was 
 his prisoner, and must remain in his custody until 
 the guard should be relieved ; to which Rory made 
 not the least objection. 
 
 To all the soldier's questions as to where he had 
 been and what brought him out at that hour of the 
 night, Rory gave ready but evasive answers, until, the 
 first moment of surprise being past, he had time to 
 invent such replies as would least embarrass him in 
 any subsequent examination he might undergo ; and 
 was so far successful, that the soldier believed him to 
 be a peasant who was abroad at that hour through 
 ignorance. 
 
 Rory now thought of General Hoche's letter, and 
 began to feel uneasy at the possession of such a docu- 
 ment. Under the surveillance of the sentinel he 
 could not well manage to tear it ; and even if he had, 
 it being found near the spot, would prove a suspicious 
 circumstance against him. In this dilemma, an in- 
 genious thought occurred to him. Stooping, as it 
 were to rub his leg, he soiled his fingers with the 
 mud upon his shoes, and then introducing his hand 
 into the pocket which held the letter, he dabbled it 
 with the dirt to take off its look of freshness, and 
 doubled it together in narrow folds, so as to resemble
 
 176 Rory O'More 
 
 those billets of paper which the Irish peasantry so 
 commonly stick in their hats for the purpose of light- 
 ing their pipes. This, the thin texture of the foreign 
 paper enabled him the better to do ; and Rory then 
 stuck the dangerous document into his hatband, 
 where he trusted to its remaining without exciting 
 suspicion. 
 
 In about half an hour the guard was relieved, and 
 Rory was handed over to the patrole, who marched 
 him into the guard-house of the barrack, up to whose 
 very walls it was his ill luck to have directed his 
 steps on leaving the colonel's house. Rory entered 
 the place of durance with the greatest composure, 
 and began talking to the soldiers with the most 
 admirable nonchalance. 
 
 " Faix, I 'm glad I had the luck to fall in with 
 you ! " said he, *' for I did n't know where in the 
 world to go ; and here I am undher a good roof, 
 with a fine fire in the place." 
 
 The soldiers did not attend to him much, but 
 crowded round the fire, while the Serjeant went to 
 make his report to the officer of the guard that a 
 prisoner had been brought in. 
 
 This officer happened to be a very raw ensign, 
 who having lately joined, and being moreover by 
 nature a consequential coxcomb, was fond of giving 
 himself all the airs in which a position of authority 
 could permit him to indulge, much to his own personal 
 delight and the good of his majesty's service. 
 
 When the serjeant had announced his own presence 
 before his superior officer by the respectful enuncia- 
 tion of " Plase your honour," he stood as upright as 
 his own halberd — he had just about as much brains, 
 — with his arms and hands stuck straight and close 
 to his side, until the ensign thought fit to lift his 
 gooseberry eyes from the novel he was reading.
 
 CI 
 
 Rory O'More 177 
 
 When he vouchsafed to look at the serjeant, he 
 said, " What 's your business ? " 
 
 "The pattherowl, your honour, has tuk a presner." 
 Where did they make the arrest ? " 
 The rest, your honour ? there 's no more o' 
 them, your honour," 
 
 ^' I say, where did thev capture him ? " 
 
 " Oh ! they did nothing to him, your honour, until 
 they have your honour's ordhers." 
 
 " Confound vou ! I sav, where did they take 
 him ? " 
 
 *' They have tuk him into the guard-house, your 
 honour." 
 
 " You horrid individual ! I mean, where was he 
 found ? " 
 
 " In the sthreet, your honour." 
 
 " You beast ! What street ? " 
 
 " Butthermilk Street, your honour." 
 
 " Near the barrack ? " 
 
 " Yis, your honour." 
 
 " Has he any accomplices ? " 
 
 " We have not sarched him yet, your honour." 
 
 " Confound you ! — I mean, was he in company ? " 
 
 *' Yis, your honour ; he says he was in company, 
 but they turned him out, your honour." 
 
 " Then he was alone ? " 
 
 *' Yis, your honour." 
 
 " Have you searched him? " 
 
 " No, your honour." 
 
 '' Demneetion, sir ! You should always search a 
 prisoner the first thing — you don't know but a 
 prisoner may have concealed arms or treasonable 
 papers on his person. Search him directly." 
 
 " Yis, your honour," said the serjeant, raising his 
 arm like the handle of a pump, and when he had 
 it at full length, doubling it up from his elbow till 
 VOL. I. — 12
 
 178 Rory 0''More 
 
 his hand, as flat as a fish-knife, touched his head : 
 then deliberately reversing all these motions until his 
 arm was back again at his side, he turned on his heel, 
 and was leaving the room, when the ensign, calling 
 him back again, said, with an air of great authority, — 
 
 " I expect never to hear of such a gross breach of 
 discipline and neglect of duty again : never report a 
 prisoner in my presence without being able to answer 
 all such important questions as I have been asking 
 you ; and for this purpose let your first duty be 
 always to search him directly. Go, now, and report 
 to me again when the person of this prisoner has 
 undergone rigid inspection. Retire ! " 
 
 " Yis, your honour," said the Serjeant, repeating 
 his salute with his usual solemnity, and stalking from 
 the room into the guard-house. 
 
 Now, the room where the officer sat was a small 
 apartment partitioned off the guard-house ; and Rory, 
 whose ears were open, heard every word of the offi- 
 cer's magniloquence and the Serjeant's stupidity ; and 
 so soon as he heard the order about searching, and 
 the words " treasonable papers," he thought that to 
 let the letter remain in existence would be only run- 
 ning an unnecessary risk ; so he very deliberately 
 approached the fire, and having taken Hoche's letter 
 from his hatband, he spoke to some soldiers who were 
 sitting round the hearth all unmindful of what was 
 going forward between the officer and the serjeant, 
 and, handing them the letter twisted up in the form 
 of a match for lighting a pipe, he said, — 
 
 *' I beg your pardon for being so throublesome, 
 gintlemen, but would you oblige me to light this taste 
 of paper for me to kindle my pipe ? for indeed it 's 
 mighty cowld, and I 'm lost with the wet." 
 
 One of the soldiers did as he required ; for the 
 request was so natural, and Rory's manner so cool,
 
 Rory O^More 179 
 
 that no suspicion was awakened of the importance of 
 the document on whose destruction Rory's life or 
 death depended, and the lighted paper was handed to 
 him over the shoulders of the party that enclosed the 
 fire, and Rory lighted his pipe with a self-possession 
 that would have done honour to an American Indian. 
 From the wetting the letter had sustained while ex- 
 posed in Rory's hat, it burned slowly ; so, when he 
 heard the serjeant coming from the officer's room, 
 and his feigned match not yet consumed, he leaned 
 over the back of the soldier who had obliged him, 
 and saying, " Thank you kindly, sir," threw the 
 remainder of the paper into the fire, just as the Ser- 
 jeant returned to execute the ensign's order. 
 
 The search instituted upon Rory's person produced 
 no evidence against him. When it was over, he sat 
 down and smoked his pipe very contentedly. In a 
 (ew minutes another prisoner made his appearance, 
 when a second party, who had been relieving guard, 
 came in. This man was making loud protestations 
 that he was not the person the soldiers took him for; 
 but his declarations seemed to have no effect on the 
 guard. 
 
 " I wonder you were not afraid to come to the 
 place again, after having escaped once before," said 
 one of the sentinels who brought him in. 
 
 " I tell you again, I never was there before," said 
 the man. 
 
 "Bother!" said the sentinel; "you won't do an 
 old soldier that way." 
 
 " By this and by that," said the prisoner. 
 
 " Whish, whish ! " said the soldier ; " sure we were 
 looking for you before : however, you contrived to 
 give us the slip." 
 
 " I gave you no slip," said the prisoner : " I tell 
 you again, 't was the first time I was there."
 
 i8o Rory O'More 
 
 " Fudge ! " said the soldier : " how did the bell 
 ring ? " 
 
 " Divil a bell I rung," said the man. 
 
 Rory understood in an instant how this mystifica- 
 tion took place: he suspected at once this must be 
 Darby, who had thrown the pebbles that startled 
 Betty so much ; and, while he laughed in his sleeve 
 at the poor husband being mistaken for the person 
 who had disturbed the colonel's house, he continued 
 to smoke his pipe with apparent indifference to all 
 that was going forward, and did not as much as look 
 up at the prisoner. It was absurd and whimsical 
 enough, certainly, that Betty should first have mis- 
 taken him for Darby, and then that Darby should 
 be mistaken for him by the soldiers. Darby still 
 continued to protest his innocence of any pre- 
 vious approach to the house ; but the soldiers 
 could not be persuaded out of their senses, as 
 they themselves said ; and so the affair concluded 
 by Darby being desired to sit down beside his fel- 
 low-prisoner. 
 
 Rory now looked at him, to see what sort of a 
 bargain Betty had made in a husband, and, to his 
 surprise, he beheld one of the men he had seen in the 
 cellar. A momentary look of recognition passed be- 
 tween them, and then they withdrew their eyes, lest 
 the bystanders should notice their intelligence. 
 
 " Where will the adventures of this night end ! " 
 thought Rory to himself. 
 
 But all adventures must have an end at last, and 
 this chapter of Rory's accidents came to a close 
 next morning ; in the mean time, however, Rory 
 stretched himself on the guard-bed when he had 
 finished his pipe, and slept soundly. It may be 
 wondered at that he could sleep under such exciting 
 circumstances, and still in a perilous situation ; but
 
 Rory 0' More i8i 
 
 when we remember all the fatigues he had gone 
 though the preceding day, it does not seem extraor- 
 dinary that sleep should have favoured one like Rory, 
 who was always full of hope, and did not know what 
 fear meant.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IN WHICH IT APPEARS THAT ONE MAN's SIN MAY 
 PROVE ANOTHER MAN's SALVATON 
 
 IN the morning he was awoke by a prodigious 
 drumming ; and various other drummings, and 
 fifings, and trumpetings, &c. went forward, with 
 paradings and such military formula : these being 
 finished, Rory and Darby were conducted from the 
 guard-house, and led into the presence of the colonel, 
 whom Rory recognised for his coal-hole acquaintance 
 of the preceding night. 
 
 Rory, on being questioned as to what brought him 
 into the streets at such an hour, said that he was a 
 stranger in the town ; that it being market-day, he 
 went with a few " boys " to have some drink, and that 
 he become drowsy and fell asleep in a public-house ; 
 that subsequently he was awoke, and that he then saw 
 other people in the room ; that a quarrel arose ; that 
 they did not seem to like his company, and " at last," 
 said Rory, " they gave me a hint to go." 
 
 " What hint did they give you ? " said the colonel. 
 
 " They kicked me down stairs, your honour," said 
 Rory. 
 
 A laugh followed Rory's exposition of what a hint 
 was. " That 's rather a strong hint," said the colonel. 
 
 " I thought so myself, your honour," said Rory ; 
 " and so when they kicked me down stairs, I sus- 
 pected it was time to go." 
 
 " But, my good fellow," said the colonel, noticing
 
 Rory O'More i8 
 
 Rory's fine proportions and bold eye, though Rory 
 endeavoured to look as innocent as he could, " I 
 don't think you seem like a fellow that would take 
 such a hint quietly." 
 
 " Why, your honour, I 'm behowlden to you for 
 your good opinion, and indeed it 's thrue, I 'm proud 
 to say ; but what could I do agin a dozen ? I offered 
 to bate them all round singly ; but they would not 
 listen to rayson, and so they shoved me outside the 
 door; and there I was in the sthreet, knowin' no 
 more than the child unborn where to turn, or where 
 to go look for a bed," 
 
 " I '11 have the keeper of that public-house punished 
 for having it open at such an hour. — Where is it ? " 
 
 *' Indeed and I don't know," said Rorv. 
 
 The colonel looked incredulous. He questioned 
 Rory more closely, who fenced very ingeniously ; 
 but still the suspicions of the colonel were excited, 
 and he said at last, — 
 
 " Your account of yourself, my good fellow, is 
 rather confused." 
 
 " No wondher, your honour, when I was dhrunk 
 all the time." 
 
 " That won't do," said the colonel, who continued 
 in a severer tone, — "I suspect you 're a deep fellow, 
 sir, and know more than you choose to tell, and 
 therefore I '11 hand you over to the serjeant. — Here, 
 Serjeant." That functionary advanced. " Serjeant," 
 said the colonel, " take this fellow to the halberds, 
 — let the drummers give him a dozen, and see if 
 that will refresh his memory." 
 
 Rory's heart almost burst with indignation at the 
 thought of the degradation, and he became first red 
 as crimson and then pale as death with rage. 
 
 " Ha ! " said the colonel, seeming to enjoy the 
 pallor his threat had produced, and which he mistook
 
 i84 Rory O'More 
 
 for fear, — " we '11 see, my fine fellow, what you 
 think of the hints the drummers will give you ! " 
 
 In an instant Rory's invention came to his aid ; 
 and though, could he have indulged his desire, he 
 would have had the colonel placed before him on 
 equal terms, and could have plucked out his tyran- 
 nous heart for the degradation he would inflict on 
 him, still he kept down his rising wrath, and let 
 finesse accomplish what he knew force could never 
 achieve : so, with as much calmness as he could 
 muster, he said, — 
 
 " I 'd be sorr)', sir, to put the sarjeant to so much 
 throuble ; and, if you '11 be good enough to clear the 
 room, I '11 tell you something you 'd like to know, 
 
 sir." 
 
 " You may tell it out before all," said the colonel. 
 
 " Plaze your honour," said Rory, who now had 
 recovered his self-command, and enjoyed the thought 
 of foiling cruelty by craft, — "your honour, it 's some- 
 thing you would n't be plazed every one should hear." 
 
 " How should n't I be pleased ? There 's nothing 
 you can tell, fellow, that I should care if the whole 
 world knew." 
 
 " Av coorse not, your honour," said Rory with 
 affected reverence ; " but at the same time, if you 
 b'lieve me, sir, it will be betther for no one but 
 yourself to know of it." 
 
 " Clear the room, then," said he to the Serjeant. 
 "You may remain, Mr. Daw." This was said to 
 the ensign who was officer of the guard. 
 
 " No one but yourself, if you plaze, your honour," 
 said Rory. 
 
 The colonel at first imagined that this was some 
 desperate fellow who had concealed arms about 
 him, and meant to take his life ; but remembering he 
 had been searched in the guard-house, his personal
 
 Rory O'More 185 
 
 security no longer was matter of question, and there 
 was a certain meaning that Rory threw into his 
 manner, which influenced him to grant the prisoner's 
 request to be alone with him. 
 
 " Well, what 's this wonderful secret you 've to 
 tell ? " said the colonel when they were alone. 
 
 " Why, sir," said Rory, affecting great embarrass- 
 ment, and rubbing his hand up and down the table 
 before which he stood, as if he were ashamed of what 
 he had to communicate, " I 'm loath to tell you 
 a'most, sir, begging your honour's pardon ; but " 
 
 " Quick, sir, quick ! " said the colonel impatiently. 
 
 " It 's all thrue what I towld you, sir, about bein' a 
 sthranger in the town, and coming over jist to " 
 
 " The fact, sirrah ! " said the colonel, — " the 
 fact, — tell me what 's this secret of yours ? " 
 
 " Yis, your honour, that 's what I want to ifisense 
 your honour about." 
 
 " You 'd insense any one with your delay, fellow. 
 Come to the fact, I tell you — What 's this secret ? " 
 
 Rory fixed his eyes on the colonel while he pro- 
 ceeded, — 
 
 "You see, sir — I beg your honour's pardon, and 
 hope you won't be offinded with me — but in the 
 
 regard of Misther "and he lowered his voice 
 
 to a mysterious pitch. 
 
 " Who ? " said the colonel, on whom Rory had 
 his eye fixed like a hawk. 
 
 " Misther Scrubbsn, sir," said Rory. 
 
 The colonel winced : Rory saw he had 
 
 " 'Tented him to the quick j " 
 
 and now felt that the game was in his hands. 
 
 " What of him ? " said the colonel recovering him- 
 self, but yet with a very altered t'^nc of voice to that 
 in which he had hitherto pursued his interrogatories.
 
 i86 Rory O'More 
 
 "Why, sir, your honour — you'll excuse me, I 
 hope, — I would n't offind your honour for the world, 
 — but I thought it best not to mention any thing 
 about it while the people was here, becaze people is 
 curious sometimes and might be makin' their re- 
 marks -, and I thought I could betther give your 
 honour a hint when nobody would be the wiser of it." 
 
 " I 'm not any wiser myself of it yet," said the 
 colonel. ■>. 
 
 " No, of coorse, your honour, seein' I was loath to 
 mention the thing a'most, for fear of your honour 
 thinkin' I was takin' a liberty; but the misthiss — 
 
 Misses Scrubbs I mane, your honour " and 
 
 Rory here stuck his eyes into the colonel again. 
 
 "Well? " said the colonel. 
 
 " I knew she was over here with a frind^ your 
 honour, and I knew that she did not expec' the 
 masther down — the collecthor, I mane." 
 
 " Well," said the colonel. 
 
 " And I thought it best to tell her that I heerd 
 the masther is comin' down to-morrow, and av 
 coorse your honour knows he would not be plazed if 
 the misthiss was n't in the place, and might suspect^ 
 or the like. I hope your honour is not offinded," 
 
 The emphasis on '■'■your honour knows" and " 5«j-- 
 pect" was accompanied by sly smiles and winks, and 
 significant nods ; and the colonel saw clearly that 
 Rory was possessed of the knowledge of his intrigue 
 with Mrs. Scrubbs, and that the best thing he could 
 do was to make him his friend ; so he said very 
 gently, — 
 
 " Offended ! my good fellow, not at all. And so 
 you came over to tell your mistress ? " 
 
 " I thought it best, sir ; for indeed she is a pleasant' 
 lady, and I would n't for the world that she 'd get 
 into throuble, nor your honour aither."
 
 
 Rory O'More 187 
 
 " Well, here 's something to drink my health." 
 Oh, your honour, sure I would n't." 
 I insist upon it," said the colonel, forcing five 
 guineas into Rory's hand, who did all in his power 
 not to take them ; for, though he hesitated not to 
 execute this manoeuvre to save his life, he did not 
 like receiving money on a false pretence. 
 
 " Indeed, thin, I never intended to take money, 
 nor to tell your honour of it at all — only the 
 misthiss, but for the quare accident that brought me 
 before your honour." 
 
 " I 'm glad I 've seen you," said the colonel, " to 
 reward your fidelity to your mistress : she shall be 
 home before to-morrow." 
 
 " Throth, then, I pity her to be obleeged to lave 
 so iligant a gintleman." 
 
 " Hush ! " said the colonel. 
 
 " Mum ! " said Rory, winking and laying his 
 finger on his nose : " but sure you 're the divil among 
 the women, colonel ! " 
 
 The colonel was pleased at the compliment paid to 
 his gallantry ; and merely saying to Rory, " Be dis- 
 creet," he called in the persons who were waiting in 
 wonder outside to know what important communi- 
 cation had been going forward. 
 
 " This man is free," said the colonel : " I 'm quite 
 satisfied with his explanations. And, serjeant, take 
 him with you to the adjutant's office, and let him 
 have a pass." 
 
 This was a bit of finesse on the colonel's part, to 
 make it appear that it was on public, not private 
 grounds, he gave Rory his freedom ; for at this 
 period, a pass from a commanding officer empowered 
 the bearer to go unmolested at all hours, and was 
 entrusted only to emissaries or known friends of 
 government.
 
 i88 Rory O'More 
 
 The colonel was so thrown off his guard by Rory's 
 ruse de guerre^ that he never asked his name ; so Rory 
 obtained his pass without being known, and then 
 turned his face homeward. As he rattled along the 
 road, high in spirits, as men always are when they 
 have conquered difficulties, his head was in a whirl at 
 the retrospect of the various adventures which had 
 befallen him within four-and-twenty hours. 
 
 " First, I meet French missionaries " (he meant 
 emissaries, but no matter), — " thin I get all the 
 news o' what 's goin' on that will astonish the world, 
 
 — thin I get a rale letther from Gineral Hoche — 
 Ah ! there 's the murdher ! — the letter's gone. Bad 
 cess to it ! why could n't I conthrive to keep it ? 
 But no matther — afther all, it might be worse, sure ; 
 if 't was found I 'd be hanged. — Not that I 'd care so 
 much for that, as the thing being blown. — Indeed, I 
 might ha' been hanged maybe, afther all ; only I 
 knew about the colonel's purty doings. — Well, well, 
 
 — to think that the sins of one woman should save 
 the life of another man ! But that 's the will o' God 
 and the blessed Vargin. — And to think I should not 
 only get home safe, but have five goolden guineas in 
 my pocket into the bargain ! — Throth, Rory, luck 's 
 on your side, my boy ! " 
 
 Now, it was not merely luck was on Rory's side, 
 for he turned all the accidents to good account, which 
 would have been thrown away on a fool; and this, 
 after all, is what makes the difference, in ninety-nine 
 cases out of every hundred, between a lucky and an 
 unlucky man. The unlucky man often plays life's 
 game with good cards and loses ; while the lucky 
 man plays the same game with bad ones, and wins. 
 Circumstances are the rulers of the weak j — they 
 are but the instruments of the wise.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 BEING A MIXTURE OF ROMANCE AND REALITY 
 
 THE interest which De Lacy felt on Ror)''s 
 return, in listening to the important intelligence 
 he brought, was mingled with amusement at the ad- 
 venturous way in which he had conducted the enter- 
 prise. The loss of the letter he did not much regard, 
 as the most valuable information it could have con- 
 veyed was in his possession, namely, the preparation 
 of the extensive armament for the invasion of the 
 island ; and, under the circumstances, he not only did 
 not blame Rory for the mishap, but gave him great 
 credit for his courage and intelligence ; for Rory had 
 communicated to him every particular of his adven- 
 tures. De Lacy blamed De Welskein for holding 
 the unlicensed communion Rory described in his 
 cellar, and assured O'More he was not aware that 
 such was the smuggler's practice when he sent him 
 on his mission. 
 
 "You don't imagine, Rory, that I would counte- 
 nance nor be the companion of such ruffians ? " 
 
 "To be sure you would n't, sir," said Rory; "and 
 I hope you don't think I 'd suppose such a thing," 
 
 " No -, but as you were sent there bv me, 1 wish 
 you to understand " 
 
 " Oh, sir, I don't mind such a thrifle," said Rory. 
 
 " I don't think it a trifle," said De Lacy. 
 
 " But sure, if it was you was there, of coorse he 
 would n't have done the like by you, sir."
 
 I90 Rory O'More 
 
 " He dare not, the rascal ! but that 's not enough ; 
 he should n't have treated my agent so : but, to 
 be sure, in these affairs one must not be too par- 
 ticular. They say poverty makes men acquainted 
 with strange bedfellows; and revolutions must do 
 the same thing." 
 
 Yet, much as De Lacy strove to reconcile the 
 thing to his feelings, i.is delicacy revolted at the scene 
 of brutal debauch that Rory, a pure-hearted peasant, 
 was made the witness and partly the partaker of. 
 De Lacy was in every way an enthusiast : he believed 
 in that high standard of human virtue which could 
 sacrifice all for virtue's sake ; his love of liberty was 
 pure, — unstained by one unholy motive, and how- 
 ever much he might be blamed by those who thought 
 the cause in which he was engaged unjustifiable, or 
 even flagitious, his motives at least were high and 
 noble : they might be called mistaken, but not 
 unworthy. 
 
 His profession as a soldier, his present exploit as 
 a patriot, and his love as a man, were all undertaken 
 and pursued with a feeling belonging rather to the 
 age of chivalry than the time in which he lived. Or 
 it might be perhaps more truly said, belonging to his 
 own particular period of existence, — that glorious 
 spring-time when every leaf of life is green, and the 
 autumn of experience has not laid the withering tint 
 of distrust upon one. The age of s^hivalry, did I 
 say ? Every young and noble heart has its own age 
 of chivalry ! 
 
 De Lacy's love has been once mentioned before — 
 at least glanced at ; and it may be as well to give 
 some slight notion of that event, so interesting in 
 most people's lives. Not that De Lacy's love has 
 much to do with the events about to be recorded ; but 
 as it will be necessary to touch upon it perhaps else-
 
 Rory O'More 191 
 
 where, the reader mav just be given a peep into the 
 affair: besides, it will help to exhibit the refined 
 nature of De Lacy's mind. 
 
 He had left behind him in Paris a girl to whom he 
 was deeply attached, and bv whom he believed him- 
 self to be ardently beloved. But Adele Verbigny 
 was unworthy of such a love as De Lacy's, inasmuch 
 as she could not understand it. Love was with her 
 a necessity : she thought it quite indispensable that 
 every young lady should have a lover ; and if that 
 lover was a hero, so much the better. Now, De 
 Lacy happened to be a handsome fellow and a soldier; 
 and when he volunteered to undertake the dangerous 
 mission to Ireland, she was charmed, because that 
 her Horace should be the " saviour of a nation," Sec. 
 &c. she considered a triumph to herself. So, babbling 
 in the exaggerated jargon of the feverish time in which 
 she spoke, she said she offered up the hopes of her 
 heart upon the altar of Freedom, and desired him go 
 and disenthral his native land from the voke of 
 tyranny, and return crowned with laurels to enjoy 
 her love. 
 
 De Lacy believed the little Parisian felt all she 
 said, and loved her better than ever. While he was 
 yet uncertain of the moment of his departure, he 
 received a peremptory summons from the Director}' to 
 start immediately with a government courier to the 
 coast. He hastened to the house of Adele to take 
 a tender farewell. Her mother met him as he entered 
 the apartment. 
 
 " Hush ! " said she ; " Adele sleeps." 
 
 " I have not a moment to wait," said De Lacy ; 
 " I 'm summoned on the instant to depart." 
 
 " You see she sleeps," said the mother : " she cried 
 so much last night at the separation of the lovers in 
 the plav, that she was quite overcome. Her nerves
 
 192 Rory O^More 
 
 have been shattered all day, and she went asleep just 
 now on the sofa to restore herself." 
 
 "Sweet soul!" said De Lacy — "poor Adele ! if 
 she wept at a fictitious separation, what would she 
 suffer at a real one ! I will not wake her — no — 
 mine be the pain of parting. Tell her," said he 
 tenderly, and he looked at the sleeping girl while he 
 spoke to her mother, — " tell her I go to fulfil my 
 duty to my country. I will return with its blessings 
 and the laurels of victory to lay at her feet, and then 
 I shall be worthy of her." He knelt to kiss her, but 
 paused. "No," he said, "I might awake her: this 
 is all I shall take," and he gently drew a flower from 
 the folds of her dress, — " 't is a type of her beauty, 
 her sweetness, and her innocence ! " He then rose 
 and hurried to depart. " Farewell, mother," said 
 he, — "permit me to call you so, — and tell Adele 
 why I would not wake her; and will she not love me 
 the better when she knows how much I renounced 
 in relinquishing the parting charm of a kiss and a 
 blessing from her own bright lips ! " He could trust 
 himself to say no more, but he rushed from the 
 house. 
 
 The ravings of De Lacy during his dangerous ill- 
 ness had been divided between the recollection of 
 Adele and anticipation of the intended revolutionary 
 struggle. On his recovery, however, his mind reverted 
 more pleasurably to the former subject than the latter; 
 for, to his enfeebled nerves, love was a theme more 
 congenial than war. 
 
 In such a frame of mind it was that De Lacy sat 
 in his bedroom, a few days after his recovery, with 
 some papers lying before him, and his eyes resting 
 on the flower he had taken from the bosom of Adele 
 the night he had parted from her. He thought of 
 the rircumstances of that parting ; and as the sleep-
 
 Rory 0' More 193 
 
 ing girl was recalled to his fancy, his heart went 
 through all the emotions of that parting again, 
 through the influence of an imagination always vivid, 
 but now rendered more delicately sensitive through 
 the agency of that susceptibility of nerve which the 
 languor succeeding a severe illness produces, and the 
 fulness of his heart and the excitement of his fancy 
 found vent in recordino- his farewell and the emo- 
 tions of that moment in verse ; and, dedicating to his 
 Adele the inspiration of his muse, he wrote the 
 
 following — 
 
 SONG 
 
 Sleep, my love — sleep, my love, 
 
 Wake not to weep, my love, 
 Though thy sweet eyes are all hidden from me: 
 
 Why shouldst thou waken to sorrows like mine, love, 
 
 While thou may'st, in dreaming, taste pleasure, divine, love ? 
 
 For blest are the visions of slumbers like thine, love — 
 So sleep thee, nor know who says " Farewell to thee! " 
 
 II 
 
 Sleep, my love — sleep, my love. 
 Wake not to weep, my love. 
 
 Though thy sweet eyes are all hidden from me: 
 Hard 't is to part without one look of kindness, 
 Yet sleep more resembles fond love in its blindness, 
 And thy look would enchain me again ; I find less 
 
 Of pain to say, " Farewell, sweet slumb'rer, to thee! '' 
 
 Thus, in writing and reading, — for De Lacy had 
 a few choice books with him, — some days were 
 passed ; but his strength began to return, and he was 
 soon able to walk abroad. In his rambles, a book 
 was mostly his companion; and it was the frequency 
 of his being observed by the country people in the 
 VOL. I. — 13
 
 194 Rory O'More 
 
 act of reading that he obtained the name of " the 
 Scholar," for so he became universally called by 
 the peasants, who liked him for his courteous manner, 
 and the freedom with which he conversed with them. 
 Who and what he was, they did not care : but not 
 so little Sweeny and Scrubbs, who used to exchange 
 mutual " wonders " with each other as to " What 
 the deuce he could be ? — What brought him there ? 
 — What he was about? " &c. &c., and the conclu- 
 sion they always arrived at was, both shaking their 
 heads very significantly, and saying, " Very odd ! " 
 De Lacy avoided the village in his walks. In the 
 first place, the retirement of the quiet banks of the 
 river, or the wildness of the hills above it, was more 
 congenial to his temper ; and secondly, he wished 
 to keep himself beyond the range of observation as 
 much as possible. With reading and sketching, and 
 making short excursions into the adjacent country, 
 his days passed pleasantly enough, while all the time 
 he was taking note of what he saw and heard ; for 
 though the expected assistance from the Texel, of 
 which he was in daily hopes of receiving intelligence, 
 rendered it unnecessary to write to General Clarke 
 on the subject, as the blow he expected would be 
 struck without any urgency on his part, yet his own 
 anxiety to acquire a knowledge of the internal state 
 of the country stimulated his inquiries. Old Phelim, 
 the schoolmaster, was often questioned on such 
 matters : and his oddity amused, while his informa- 
 tion satisfied, De Lacy. 
 
 It might be supposed by the general reader that, 
 engaged in such a cause as De Lacy then was, an 
 introduction to the parish priest would have been 
 held desirable ; but it was not so — far from it. De 
 Lacy, in common with all the leaders of the political 
 f^ovement then going forward in Ireland, desired
 
 Rory O'More 195 
 
 to shun by every possible means any contact with 
 the priesthood. The results of the French Revolu- 
 tion had given the alarm to the clergy of all de- 
 nominations ; and the Irish Roman Catholic priest, 
 so far from countenancing the introduction of revolu- 
 tionary principles into Ireland, had refused absolu- 
 tion to " The Defenders," a political union formed 
 amongst the lower orders of the Catholic Irish, to 
 protect themselves from the aggressions of the " Peep- 
 o'-day Boys," who were Protestants and Presbyterians. 
 The dominant party in Ireland have endeavoured to 
 propagate the belief that the rebellion of 1798 was 
 of religious origin, and put in practice for the murder 
 of all the Protestants in Ireland : but what is the 
 fact ? The society of United Irishmen was first 
 established in the North of Ireland, where the ma- 
 jority of the population was Protestant and Presby- 
 terian. It was by Protestants and Presbyterians the 
 society was founded, and Protestants and Presby- 
 terians were its principal leaders. So, to credit the 
 Orange account of the affair, we must believe that 
 the Protestants originated the ingenious device of 
 organising a revolution to murder themselves ! 
 
 The truth is, the revolution then contemplated was 
 purely political. When the repeated calls for reform 
 in the Irish parliament and a repeal of the penal laws 
 against Catholics were refused till disappointment 
 grew into despair, then, and not till then, did the 
 people coalesce to take by force what they had vainly 
 sought by petition. The Catholics, from the very 
 nature of their religion, which teaches such tame 
 submission to authority, would never have dared to 
 rebel. It was the stern Presbyterians, reformers by 
 descent, that organised the movement to relieve Ire- 
 land from the political degradation in which she then 
 was prostrated, and long oppression at last roused
 
 196 Rory O'More 
 
 the Roman Catholics to make common cause with 
 them. 
 
 These facts I mention, lest it might be considered 
 inconsistent that De Lacy should not have been in 
 league with Father Kinshela, who, so far from coun- 
 tenancing the influence of Frenchmen in Ireland, 
 considered the Gallic revolution and all its emissaries 
 to be quite as pestilential as they were deemed to 
 be by the stanchest Protestant in the land.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 AN " IRISH " FAIR WITH ONLY " ONE " FIGHT IN IT. 
 
 DE WELSKEIN's metamorphoses. LEARNED 
 
 PIGS. ROASTED DUCKS. LOVE AND MURDER, 
 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 DE LACY had been for some days in expectation 
 of going to a neighbouring fair, which has the 
 reputation of being a scene of great merriment in 
 Ireland, and a very characteristic thing ; and as he 
 had never witnessed such a meeting, his curiosity was 
 not a little excited. It was agreed that he and Rory, 
 as well as his sister, with her suitor Conolly, — who, 
 by the way, was not a favoured, though a devoted 
 lover, — should form a party, to which Phelim 
 O'Flanagan begged to be added, and the request was 
 granted. 
 
 " You must not expect, though," said Rory, ad- 
 dressing De Lacy, " that we '11 have as much fun as 
 usual ; for, you see, the people being more united^ 
 they won't fight as much as they do in common, and 
 the factions is laid down by common consint until 
 matthers get smooth again ; — and when we have 
 justice and happiness among us once more, why thin 
 we can enjoy our private battles according to the 
 good owld fashion." 
 
 " That 's the thing that surprises me," said De 
 Lacy, — " why you are so fond of factions. You 
 are good-humoured and pleasant fellows enough indi-
 
 iqS Rory O'More 
 
 vidually ; but when a set of you get together, you 
 scarcely ever part without fighting." 
 
 " Why, you see, sir," said Phehm, " it is the nature 
 of man to be disputaarious in their various degrees, — 
 kings for kingdoms — scholars for argument, and 
 so an ; and the disputaariousness of human nathur 
 is as like to brake out about which barony is the best 
 ball-players or hurlers, as if Roosia vindicated Proosia, 
 or Proosia vindicated Roosia : for you know, sir, be- 
 ing a scholar, that the vindicativeness of nations to 
 aitch other is no more than the vindicativeness of the 
 human heart, which is as demonstherated in a parish, 
 or a barony, or a townland, or the like, as in the more 
 circumscribed circle of an impire, or a principalatine, 
 all as one as a circle is a circle, whatever the size 
 of it may be, from a platther up to a cart-wheel. 
 Q. E. D. What was to be demonsthrated ! " and 
 Phelim took snufF, as usual. 
 
 " Admirably demonstrated indeed ! " said De Lacy, 
 maintaining his gravity ; " but, if the matter in dispute 
 be ball-playing or wrestling, would not the surest 
 method of settling the business be, to play an equal 
 match of either of the given games, instead of beating 
 each other ? " 
 
 " Arrah, what else do we do ? " said Rory. 
 
 " You always fight instead." 
 
 " But how can we help that ? Sure, we always do 
 challenge each other to play a match of ball or hurl- 
 ing, and thin, in the coorse of play, one man gives a 
 false ball, or another cuts it, and thin there 's a dis- 
 pute about it ; or in hurlin', the same way, in the 
 hate of the game, maybe the fellow before you is jist 
 goin' to have the ball all to himself, and you afther 
 him, hot foot, what can you do but give him a thrip ? 
 and away he goes head over heels, and if he 's not 
 disabled, there 's a chance he loses his timper, and
 
 Rory O'More 199 
 
 comes to thrip you, — when, maybe he is not so ne- 
 cessiated to thrip you as you wor to thrip him^ and 
 that does n't stand to rayson in your opinion, and 
 maybe you can't help givin' him a clip o' the hurl, 
 and down he goes ; and thin, maybe, one o' his 
 barony sees that, and does n't think it raysonable, and 
 slaps at you^ — and so on it goes like fire among flax, 
 and the play turns into a fight in no time j and, 
 indeed, in the long-run we find 't is the best way of 
 arguin' the point, — for there might be some fractious 
 sperits would dispute about the fairness o' this play, 
 or the fairness o' that play, and that it was an acci- 
 dent settled the game ; but when it comes to rale 
 fightin', there can be no words about it, — for, you 
 see, when you dhrive every mother's son o' them 
 before you, and fairly leather them out o' the field, 
 there can be no mistake about it." 
 
 " But does not that produce bad blood amongst 
 you ? " said De Lacy. 
 
 " By no manes," said Rory ; " why should it ? 
 Sure, have n't they the chance of wollopin' us the 
 next time ? " 
 
 "And that perpetuates the dispute," said De Lacy. 
 
 " To be sure," said Rory, " that 's the fun of it. 
 Oh, it would only be a cowardly thing to be always 
 fightin' a party you were sure to bate ! — there would 
 be an end of the glory intirely." 
 
 " All party," thought De Lacy, " is like Rory's 
 game of hurling ; those who are out endeavour to trip 
 up those who are /'«, — and, in conclusion, the only 
 game left is to leather them out of the field ; when there 
 can be no mistake about it." 
 
 It was the next day following Rory's and Phelim's 
 eloquent, lucid, and reasonable exposition of the ne- 
 cessity and propriety of party fights, that the fair was 
 holden, and the party, as already named, started for
 
 200 Rory O'More 
 
 the scene of amusement ; — Conolly having the 
 honour of being gentleman in waiting on Mary 
 O'More, handing her over stiles, &c. ; Phelim and 
 Rory bearing De Lacy company. 
 
 On arriving at the scene of action, they found the 
 fair tolerably " throng," as the phrase is in Ireland ; 
 and the moment they were well on the ground, 
 Conolly commenced the series of gallantries which 
 every aspirant to a pretty girl's favour goes through 
 on a fair-day, by buying a large stock of gingerbread 
 cakes, which appeared to have been made of brown 
 paper and treacle, and apples to match, and requesting 
 the whole party, including De Lacy, who was most 
 politely solicited, to partake of the feast. Now, when 
 people are at fairs, it is a point of honour to eat and 
 drink, and see all that you can, — in short, till you 
 can eat, and drink, and see no more; and all the party 
 present, except De Lacy, seemed determined their 
 honour should not be called in question. The cake 
 and apple stands were generally formed by the com- 
 mon car of the country being backed into whatever 
 position it could take up on the fair-ground ; and the 
 horse being unyoked, a forked pole of sufficient 
 strength was stuck in the ground, and the back-band 
 of the car being deposited between the prongs, it at 
 once obtained support ; after which some wattles 
 (long supple boughs) being bent over the vehicle, a 
 quilt was thrown across these rustic rafters, to form 
 an awning, and the cakes and apples were spread on 
 some sacks, perhaps, or something equally coarse, — 
 any thing, in short, to cover the bare boards of the 
 car, that probably carried a load of sand or earth, or 
 something not so agreeable, the day before, and was 
 now at once converted into a cake-shop. In one 
 corner of the concern, a glass and a black bottle, 
 with something in it, were to be seen ; and under the
 
 Rory O'More 201 
 
 car, from the middle of a bundle of straw, you might 
 perceive the muzzle of a large jar protruding, whence 
 the black bottle could be replenished as occasion 
 required. 
 
 Booths were erected for the accommodation of those 
 who chose to dance, and drink to refresh themselves ; 
 and both these amusements, — that is to say, dancing 
 and drinking, — seemed to be the staple commodities 
 of the fair, even at an early hour ; but the dancing- 
 tents were not in their full glory till much later in 
 the day. 
 
 There was throwing for gingerbread, and other 
 amusements incidental to such scenes ; but nothing 
 very stirring in this line seemed as yet to have set in. 
 So the party strolled on through the crowd ; Rory re- 
 marking to De Lacy as they went, that he told him 
 there would be little or no fun — "And you see how 
 quiet they are," said Rory. 
 
 " God save you, Phelim," said a well-dressed peasant. 
 
 " God save you kindly," answered Phelim. 
 
 " How does the gossoons do without you, Phelim, 
 agra ? " 
 
 " Oh, I gev the craythurs a holiday," said Phelim. 
 " I don't like to be too hard on them. Exercise 
 is good for the gossoons when they are at college, 
 for larnin' lies heavy on the stomach." 
 
 " Thrue for you, Phelim. Not that I know much 
 about larnin' ; but 1 know you must n't brake the 
 heart of a young cowlt." 
 
 And so saying, off Phelim's friend went. 
 
 They now approached a portion of the fair where 
 sales of cattle were going forward. 
 
 " How is the bastes goin' ? " said Rory to a farmer. 
 
 " Indeed, it 's back they '11 be goin'," said the 
 farmer : " there 's no prices at all here — that is, for 
 bastes; but I hear pigs is lively."
 
 202 Rory O'More 
 
 " What 's thim I see up on the hill ? " said Rory. 
 ••' Is it sogers ? " 
 
 '' No less," said the farmer ; " though, indeed, 
 they might save themselves the throuble, — they kem 
 here to watch us ; but there won't be a blow sthruck 
 to-day." 
 
 " Thrue for you," said Rory ; and so they parted. 
 
 They next approached a show-box, where an ex- 
 hibition of Punch and Judy seemed to give great 
 amusement. That interesting domestic history was 
 about half-way through when our hero and his party 
 arrived ; and Rory had been telling in a hasty manner 
 to Mary the nature of Punch's adventures, as they 
 approached. " Make haste, now," said Rory, " for 
 it 's better nor a play. I seen a play when I was in 
 Dublin ; but Punch and Judy is worth two of it. 
 Run ! run ! there he is goin' to kill his wife and child, 
 the comical owld blackguard ! " 
 
 They arrived in time to witness the death of Mrs. 
 Punch and the child, and then the doctor was sent 
 for. The doctor made his appearance ; and Punch, 
 after his legitimate squeak began, 
 
 " Docta-w-r ! " 
 
 *' Sare ? " said the doctor. 
 
 *' Can you cure my wife ? " 
 
 " Yes, sare." 
 
 " What will you give her ? " 
 
 *' Some ghost's milk." 
 
 Rory started, " By all that 's good that 's himself! " 
 said he. 
 
 " Why, is it a rale docthor ? " said Mary. 
 
 "No, no," said Rory. "I was only " he 
 
 paused, and withdrawing from Mary, he beckoned 
 De Lacy from the group, and said, " That 's Mr. 
 Devilskin that 's there," pointing to the show-box. 
 
 " Where ? " said De Lacy.
 
 Rory O'More 203 
 
 " There," said Rory, pointing again ; " inside the 
 show-box. I 'd take my oath it 's him. I thought I 
 knew his voice at first, but I'd sware to the ghost's 
 milk." 
 
 And so it was De Welskein. It has been said he 
 was fond of intrigue and adventure, and he was quite 
 in his element in thus masquerading it through the 
 country ; and while he was sowing rebellion from his 
 love of revolution, and reaping profit from his tobacco, 
 it was pride and glory to him to be playing the buf- 
 foon at the same time, which was at once a source of 
 pleasure and security ; for the smuggler was never 
 long in one spot, but changing to different places in 
 different characters. 
 
 " I want to see him," said De Lacy, " and am 
 glad of this chance-meeting. We must watch an 
 opportunity to speak to him when the show is over." 
 
 While they were waiting for this, a group of horse- 
 men approached the show, and Rory amongst them 
 saw Squire Ransford, the parson. Sweeny, and Scrubbs; 
 the latter engaged in conversation with " the colonel," 
 — he who had given Rory his freedom and his pass. 
 Rory saw there was nothing for it but to retreat, as, 
 if he were seen, his whole finesse about Mrs. Scrubbs 
 would be blown, he would get into trouble, and his 
 name be in the colonel's possession, who, it will be 
 remembered, had never, in his hurry to dismiss our 
 hero, asked who he was. Therefore, screening him- 
 self behind De Lacy, he told him how matters stood, 
 and taking Mary and Conolly with him, he left De 
 Lacy with Phelim for a guide. — "If we don't meet 
 again in the fair," said Rory, " we must only wait till 
 we go home ; " and he retired rapidly from the spot 
 unobserved by the horsemen who had caused his 
 sudden retreat. Appointing then a place of rendez- 
 vous with Mary and Conolly, Rory left them, and
 
 204 Rory O'More 
 
 they returned to witness the finale of Punch and 
 Judy. 
 
 Rory pushed his way through the principal row of 
 booths, where the dancing and drinking were going 
 on prosperously, and entering that under whose sign 
 his appointed meeting with his sister and her cavalier 
 was to take place, he sat down, and calling for a 
 small portion of drink, refreshed himself, intending 
 when that was over to rest himself with dancing. 
 While he sat, he perceived Regan and Kathleen enter 
 at the farther end of the booth, and his heart bounded 
 at the sight of the girl he loved ; but his joy was 
 damped at the thought that in her brother's presence 
 he had better not approach her. To his unspeakable 
 joy, however, he saw Regan depart, leaving Kathleen, 
 after speaking a few words to her ; and when he was 
 some seconds gone, Rory moved towards the girl of 
 his heart gaily, and, as her head was turned away, he 
 proposed surprising her by his presence; so approach- 
 ing unobserved, he tapped her smartly on the shoulder, 
 and had his most winning smile ready to meet her 
 when she should turn. When she did turn, instead 
 of the flush of joy which Rory anticipated, a deadly 
 paleness and a look of reserve were on the counte- 
 nance of Kathleen, and Rory's blood ran cold to his 
 heart. 
 
 " What 's the matther, Kathleen dear ? " said 
 Rory. — Kathleen could not answer. 
 
 " What is the matther ! — for God's sake, tell 
 me ! " said Rory impressively, for he saw by the 
 girl's manner that an unfavourable impression had 
 been made upon her as regarded him. 
 
 " Rory," said Kathleen with that reproachful tone 
 which an offended woman only can assume, — 
 " Rory," said she, " need you ask me ? " 
 What have I done, Kathleen jewel ? " 
 
 ^.^.
 
 Rory 0' More 205 
 
 " Oh, Rory ! so soon to desaive and think light 
 o' me!" 
 
 " Me, Kathleen ! — by all that 's good " 
 
 " Whisht, Rory — whisht ! — swaring won't make 
 it betther." 
 
 " But what is it, Kathleen ? " 
 
 " Oh, Rorv ! don't be so desaitful. You know 
 you 've wronged me ! " 
 
 " By this blessed light ! I never wronged you, 
 Kathleen!" — There was something bearing such 
 inherent evidence of sincerity in Rory's manner, that 
 Kathleen hesitated for a moment, and looked inquir- 
 ingly into his face ; but suddenly withdrawing her 
 eyes and dropping her voice, she said, " I 'd willingly 
 b'lieve you, Rory, — but " 
 
 " But what ? " said Rory. 
 
 "I don't like to accuse you, but you know " 
 
 again she paused. 
 
 '' What ? " said Rory impatiently. 
 
 " The cellar," said Kathleen. — The word was 
 enough. With all that magic rapidity of thought 
 which instantaneously links a chain of circumstances 
 together, Rory saw that his conduct in De Welskein's 
 cellar had been misrepresented ; and when he remem- 
 bered how the girl he had danced with had fastened 
 herself upon him, he could not but see that circum- 
 stances might be made to bear hard against him in 
 the opinion of the woman he was courting — he 
 was silenced by Kathleen's one word — and she mis- 
 taking his silence for guilt, was rising to leave the 
 booth, when Rory, taking her hand and pressing it 
 closely, said, 
 
 " Kathleen, you wrong me ; I know what you 
 mane, but " 
 
 " Let go my hand," said Kathleen. " You had 
 betther look for the hand of the lady you like so
 
 2o6 Rory O'More 
 
 much; I b'lieve you can find her in the fair; " and 
 she again made an effort to go, but Rory still detained 
 her. 
 
 " Kathleen," said he, " it is only Shan Dhu could 
 tell you this, and I did not think he had so black a 
 heart ; for by this light " 
 
 " Whisht ! " said Kathleen in terror, " lave me, 
 lave me; Shan is coming back — I see him." 
 
 " Well, promise to meet me till I clear myself to 
 you." 
 
 " Rory, don't be sthriving to desaive a poor girl — 
 go, I tell you." 
 
 " I won't go unless you promise." 
 
 ''If you've any pity for me, go; Shan is close 
 by." 
 
 " Promise ! " said Rory impressivelv. 
 
 " I will, then," said Kathleen faintly. 
 
 " Meet me by the rath, near the bridge," said 
 Rory, " to-morrow evening. God bless you, Kath- 
 leen, and never b'lieve I have the heart base enough 
 to wrong you ! " 
 
 So saying, he kissed her hand passionately before 
 she could withdraw it, and slipping out through an 
 opening in the side of the booth, he left it without 
 being perceived by Regan. Poor Rory was heartsick 
 at the thought of Kathleen's coldness, and he 
 looked forward with the impatience and longing of a 
 child for the morrow's evening, which he hoped would 
 serve to chase every doubt from her mind. While 
 he was moving through the crowd, his attention was 
 attracted by a party of mummers, who were parading 
 up and down on a platform, in dirty rags sprinkled 
 with rusty spangles, and amongst them he recognised 
 the girl that had been so sweet on him in the cellar; 
 he then remembered Kathleen's saying, " I b'lieve 
 you can find her in the fair," and the thought struck
 
 Rory O'More 207 
 
 him that Regan might have ev'^en pointed out the 
 flourishing damsel before him as his paramour, and 
 Rorv's shame was increased, for, with her ruddled 
 cheeks, short jpetticoats, and shabby finery, she was a 
 most disgusting object, though rather a fine girl. 
 While Rory looked at her, he fancied he caught her 
 eye ; and its brazen glare was for a moment darkened 
 by a demoniac expression, and instantly withdrawn. 
 He wished more and more for the evening of the 
 morrow. On he went through the main chain of 
 tents, but seeing the squire and colonel approaching 
 again, he took a short turn round one of the booths 
 and avoided them ; and making a detour, he returned 
 to the place where he had appointed Mary and 
 Conolly to meet him, where he found them waiting. 
 Joining company, they commenced another ramble 
 through the fair, and at length reached a booth whence 
 there proceeded much laughter, and at the door of 
 which a bespangled buffoon was inviting the people 
 to enter and see the wonderful conjuror who could 
 tell fortunes on cards and cure all sorts of diseases. 
 This promised much diversion, and the laughter con- 
 tinuing to appeal to the curiosity of those outside, a 
 fresh partv, including our hero, his sister, and her 
 admirer, entered. Here they saw a man in a bag-wig 
 and cocked-hat, laced coat and ruffles, performing 
 various sleight-of-hand tricks with cards, and other 
 feats of legerdemain ; and after making his beholders' 
 eyes the size of saucers with wonder, and their mouths 
 of equal capacity, he proceeded to offer for sale various 
 nostrums for the cure of diseases ; amongst others, 
 he produced one which he protested most solemnly 
 was superior to ghost's rnilk. 
 
 " Devilskin again ! " said Rory to himself; " Devil- 
 skin, sure enough ! — more than the skin, by my 
 sowl, for I think he's the d — 1 himself!"
 
 2o8 Rory O'More 
 
 Here was another metamorphose of the French- 
 man. He was in his glory : he had a stall in the 
 fair, in good hands, for the sale of tobacco, and he 
 was masquerading it and making money in another 
 quarter : a French agent in the middle of the fair, 
 where the army were lookers-on to see that no mis- 
 chief was going forward ; — this was his glory, the 
 intrigue and romance delighted him. 
 
 Rory left the booth — he did not wish to meet De 
 Welskein's eye : ijot that he feared him — he could 
 not tell very well himself the precise cause of his dis- 
 like to be recognised by the smuggler; but there was 
 an undefined feeling about Rory, that rather shrunk 
 from having any thing to do with one who seemed 
 invested with mysterious power. 
 
 He awaited outside the booth the egress of his sister 
 and Conolly, who suggested that it was time to get 
 something for dinner. To this Rory assented ; for, 
 notwithstanding that his meeting with Kathleen had 
 damped his enjoyment, his appetite was of too keen 
 and hale a nature to be influenced by a frown from 
 his mistress, as those of more refined lovers are said 
 to be. 
 
 " Not that I 'm very hungry," said Rory. 
 
 " 'Faith, then I am," said Conolly ; " for exceptin' 
 five or six dozen o' gingerbread and a score o' apples 
 or so, between us, Mary and I have not tasted any 
 thing to signify." 
 
 " You were drinking my health very often, too," 
 said Mary. 
 
 " Phoo, — what signifies three or four quarts o' 
 porther ! " 
 
 While we leave this hungry party looking for their 
 dinner, let us return to De Lacy and Phelim, whom 
 we left opposite De Welskein's show-box. 
 
 De Lacy took his opportunity of speaking to the
 
 Rory O'More 209 
 
 smuggler, whom he followed by signal to a booth ; 
 and leaving Phelim standing outside, he entered the 
 booth, and a rude curtain was drawn across the ori- 
 fice by which they came in. De Lacy now found 
 himself in a small canvas apartment, from which, 
 through the division in another curtain, he saw into a 
 large space beyond the sentry-box sort of place m 
 which he stood. 
 
 "Dis mv teatre," said De Welskein. 
 
 " What do you want a theatre for ? " 
 
 "To 'muse mysef — blind de vulgare — male 
 romaunce — y aime les aventures^ vous save-z^ monsieur" 
 
 "I thought, smuggling " 
 
 " Sare ! " said De Welskein with dignity. 
 
 " I mean, your mercantile pursuits would have 
 given you enough of employment." 
 
 " Bah! — bagatelle! — ever boddee can be mar- 
 chand; — bote for les intrigues " 
 
 "That requires a man of genius," said De Lacy. 
 
 "Ah! — b'leeve so, indeet," said De Welskein 
 with great self-complacency. 
 
 " But then your political mission, is not that 
 enough to fill up anv spare time you can withhold 
 from your mercantile pursuits ? " 
 
 " Yais — c^est vrai — ordinairement — for most pee- 
 
 pel ; — but me — love intrigue — romaunce — ha ! ha ! 
 
 — besise — more hard for discover to certen persun. 
 
 Dis dav, marchand — to-mawrow, Ponshe an' Joodee 
 
 — now me shange agen." 
 
 Here he threw off his coat, and proceeded to take 
 out of a canvas bag that lay under some straw in a 
 corner, the laced coat and cocked-hat, wig, &c. in 
 which Ror}' subsequently saw him attired. 
 
 " Now, me go plav Doctair Duck." 
 
 " What character is that ? " said De Lacy. 
 
 " Quaak, quaak, quaak," said De Welskein, with a 
 VOL. I. — 14
 
 2IO Rory O'More 
 
 spirit and vivacious expression worthy of the comedy 
 for u^hich his country is so famous. 
 
 De Lacy laughed — " And do you get fees ? " 
 
 " Certanlee : — no fee, no docteur ; sell leetle peels 
 — cure every ting — better dan ghost's milk. Besise," 
 said he, pulling cards from his pocket, "here more 
 ting — hocus-pocus — poots cards in fool's pauket — 
 ha ! ha ! — mak dem stare — tink me de divil." 
 
 " They 're not far out," thought De Lacy. 
 
 De Welskein having completed his attire, painted 
 his face, rubbed burnt cork on his eye-brows, and 
 shaken flour into his wig, held some short conversa- 
 tion on the state of affairs over the water; and De 
 Lacy, thinking it better not to remain too long in 
 such company, brought his conference to a close as 
 soon as possible ; and after telling De Welskein 
 where he could find him, he drew the ragged curtain, 
 and emerged from the tiring-room of the adventurer. 
 Having rejoined Phelim, he asked him what was to 
 be done next, for he determined to let Phelim do the 
 honours of the fair. 
 
 " I hear there is a pig in the fair, sir," said the 
 cicerone. 
 
 "I 've seen some hundreds already," said De Lacy. 
 
 " Oh, you 're very smart on me now," said Phelim, 
 "and take me up short; but the pig I mane is a 
 larned pig." 
 
 "Indeed! where is he to be seen?" 
 
 " Somewhere up here, I hear. Now I 'd like to 
 see that above all things ; for though I know to my 
 cost that some childhre is no betther than pigs, either 
 in manners nor intellex, I have yet to be insensed how 
 a pig can be equal to a Chrishthan." 
 
 They soon came within hearing of a fellow who 
 was roaring at the top of his voice, — 
 
 " Walk in ! walk in! walk in, ladies and gintlemin;
 
 Rory O'More 211 
 
 here is the wondherful larned pig that knows the five 
 quarthers o' the world, and more; — together with 
 his A. B. C. and apperceeand — and goes through 
 his alphibbit backwars ; — together with addishin, 
 substhracshin, multiplicashin, and divishin; — knows 
 numerashin, minshurashin, navigashin, and bothera- 
 shin" — (Here the crowd always laughed.) — "To- 
 gether with varrious accomplishments too numerous 
 to be minshind, — smokes tabakky and tells cunnun- 
 dherums." 
 
 " Oh ! do you hear the lies he 's tellin' ! " said 
 Phelim; "sure no pig could do the like, barring one 
 pig that is minshind in anshint histhery." 
 
 " I don't remember that pig, Phelim," said De Lacy. 
 
 "Pig — maylius ! " said Phelim, bursting in tri- 
 umph at having caught De Lacy in one of his old 
 and favourite jokes. 
 
 De Lacy could not help laughing at the poor old 
 man's whimsical conceit; and complimenting him 
 on his wit, he proposed to Phelim that they should 
 see if what was promised of the pig were true. 
 
 " Impossible ! " said Phelim ; " it 's only throwing 
 away money." 
 
 "We'll see, at all events," said De Lacy, who 
 paying sixpence, which was twopence more than was 
 required for two admissions, he and the schoolmaster 
 walked up a low step-ladder, which led to the place 
 of exhibition, deafened, as thev passed the crier, by his 
 vociferating, "Step up, ladies ! — jist goin' to begin. 
 Step up, step up — all for tuppince — onlv tuppince ; 
 the larned pig, only tuppince for minsurashin, midita- 
 shin, contimplashin, navigashin, and ^az^-therashin ! " 
 
 When the company had been collected in sufficient 
 quantity, a shrewd-looking fellow, fantastically dressed, 
 led in a pig by a string which was fastened to a ring 
 in the animal's nose.
 
 212 Rory O'More 
 
 The pig ascended a circular platform, in the middle 
 of which a pole was placed, and round the circle 
 were several holes cut. 
 
 " Now, ladies and gintlemin," said the showman, 
 " this is the larned pig, that is perfect masther of 
 varrious branches of idicashin ; and first and fore- 
 most, he will show you his knowledge of the five 
 quarthers o' the world, aiqual to Captain Cook that 
 purformed the circumlocution of the globe. Excuse 
 me, ladies, till I give him his insthrucshins." 
 
 Here he put his mouth to the pig's ear, and the 
 pig grunted. " He says he is happy to have the 
 honour of your company, ladies." 
 
 Here the showman was encouraged by a laugh from 
 the spectators, who, all being willing to be pleased, 
 laughed at a trifle. 
 
 " What did he say to him, do you think ? " said 
 Phelim to De Lacy confidentially. 
 
 " I suppose he gave him a pig's whisper," said De 
 Lacy. 
 
 " Good, sir, good," said Phelim, " by dad ! you 're 
 always ready — a pig's whisper! — well I'll never 
 forget that ! " 
 
 The showman now laid four pieces of card, with 
 the names of the four quarters of the world written 
 upon them, over four holes on the opposite parts of 
 the circle, and said, — 
 
 " Now, ladies, which o' the five quarthers o' the 
 world shall this wondherful scholar show you? — 
 Europe, Asia, Afrikay, or Amerikay ? " 
 
 " Amerikay, if you plaze, sir," said a woman, who 
 blushed excessively at hearing the sound of her own 
 voice in public. 
 
 " Sartinly, ma'am. Show the lady Amerikay, sir." 
 
 The animal now got a pull of the string, and he 
 began poking his nose round the circle, and at last
 
 Rory O'More 213 
 
 stopped at the quarter named, and shoved the card 
 from over the hole. 
 
 Great applause followed, and the showman re- 
 warded the pig by giving him an acorn. De Lacy 
 saw at once how the trick was done ; but to Phelim's 
 question of " Arrah, how did he do that ? " he made 
 no reply for the present. 
 
 The showman was about to remove the cards, 
 when Phelim interrupted him : — 
 
 " You said, sir, you 'd show the five quarthers o' 
 the world by manes o' your pig; and indeed if he 
 knows five quarthers, it 's more than I know." 
 
 " To be sure he knows more than you know," said 
 the showman. 
 
 A burst of merriment followed this hit : for many 
 of the spectators knew Phelim, and that a pig should 
 be said to know more than he did, delighted them. 
 When the laugh subsided Phelim continued : — 
 
 " Maybe you don't know, my good fellow that 
 you are addhressing a philomath ? " 
 
 "A what? " 
 
 " A philomath, sir." 
 
 The showman now turned to the pig, and puttino- 
 his mouth to his ear, as before, said, — 
 
 " Can you tell me what is a filly-mat .? " — The 
 pig grunted again. 
 
 " He says, a filly-mat is a grumblin' owld fellow." 
 
 Another laugh against Phelim succeeded the show- 
 man's buffoonery, whose practised effrontery was too 
 much for Phelim. Phelim, however, was too used to 
 triumph to give in so easily, particularly in the pres- 
 ence of so many who knew him; and rallying once 
 more, he said, — 
 
 " Well, if there is a fifth quarthcr o' the world, 
 will you be so good to tell the other brute there to 
 show it."
 
 214 Rory O'More 
 
 Phelim had the laugh on his side now. A laugh 
 is a main point of argument with Paddy; and who- 
 ever has the last laugh, has the best of the battle in 
 Ireland. 
 
 The showman waited till the laugh was lulled, and 
 then addressing the pig, he said, — 
 
 " Will you tell that ignorant owld fill-pot what the 
 fifth quarther of the world is ? " 
 
 The pig commenced rubbing himself against the 
 upright stick that stood in the middle of the circle, 
 much to the merriment of the crowd. 
 
 " There ! " said the showman triumphantly. 
 
 *' Is that what you call answerin' the problem I 
 have propounded ? " said Phelim, who thought he 
 had vanquished his man, and got magniloquent in 
 consequence. " I propound to yiz all " 
 
 " If you were poundin' from this till to-morrow, 
 you 're nothing but a bosthoon" said the showman. 
 
 Phelim absolutely staggered at the degrading epithet 
 of bosthoon being applied to a philomath. The show- 
 man continued : — 
 
 " Sure, if you wor n't an owld bogie, you 'd see 
 that the pig was pointin' out to you the fifth quarther 
 o' the world ; but the fact is, you don't know that 
 there is sitch a thing as the fifth quarther ; but," said 
 he, making a flourishing appeal to his audience, 
 " ladies and gintlemin, you see the baste has pointed 
 out to your comprehenshin the fifth quarter of the 
 terrestorial globe, which is the North Pole ! " 
 
 Phelim uttered an indignant " Oh ! " but his ex- 
 clamation was drowned in the vociferous plaudits of 
 the multitude. 
 
 " Lave the place ! lave the place ! " said Phelim to 
 De Lacy, bursting with rage : but De Lacy did not 
 like to lose the fun, and thought Phelim more divert- 
 ing than the pig.
 
 Rory O'More 21 
 
 " Stay," said De Lacy ; " you '11 expose his igno- 
 rance yet." 
 
 Thus tempted, Phelim remained, maintaining a 
 sulky silence, and watching for an opportunity of 
 annihilating the pig and the showman. 
 
 The fellow put his pig through some alphabetical 
 manoeuvres upon the same principle that the quarters 
 of the globe had been pointed out, though the trick 
 was unperceived by the spectators, who still continued 
 to be delighted. 
 
 " Now, ladies and gintlemin," said the proprietor 
 of the pig, " this divartin' baste will go through his 
 alphabit backwars." 
 
 " Maybe he could say the Lord's prayer back- 
 wards f " said Phelim, wishing to be severe. 
 
 " That would rise the d — 1, as every fool knows," 
 said the showman, " and that would not be ao;reeable 
 to the company ; otherwise he could do it aisy." 
 
 " Hurrup, Solomon ! " continued he, addressing 
 the pig — ("He is called Solomon, ladies ; he is so 
 wise) ; go through your alphibit backwars." 
 
 Upon this the pig made a retrograde movement 
 round the circle, the showman exclaiming when he 
 had finished, " That 's doin' it backwars, I think ! " 
 
 The people were tickled with the quibble j but 
 Phelim said, " That 's only a thrick" 
 
 "Well, it's my thrick, any how," said the showman 
 with readiness. " You have n't won a thrick yet." 
 
 Phelim was floored again. By a similar quibble, 
 the animal went through his multiplication-table. A 
 board, with a multiplication-table upon it, had a 
 swinging door hung in the middle; and this being 
 placed before the pig, he walked through it. 
 
 Some of the spectators asked to see the pig " smoke 
 tobakky," as one of the things promised. 
 
 " He would with pleasure, ladies, but he bruk his
 
 2i6 Rory O'More 
 
 pipe in the last exhibishin, and there is not one con- 
 vaynient," was the answer; " but, what is much more 
 curious, he will answer connundherums. Tell me, 
 sir," said he, addressing the pig, " what does the ladies 
 say when they are angry with their husbands ? " 
 
 The pig grunted furiously. This was the triumph 
 of the day ; the men laughed outrageously, and even 
 the women could not help joining ; and a jolly-look- 
 ing fellow in front cried out, — 
 
 " By the powers, Molly, that 's as like you as two 
 pays ! " Another shout followed this sally. 
 
 " Now, sir," said the showman, " what does the 
 girls say when the boys is coaxin' them ? " 
 
 The pig gave a prolonged squeal. 
 
 It was now the young men's turn to laugh, and 
 many a pinched elbow of a pretty girl, at the moment, 
 caused a chorus to the pig's squeal. This was the 
 finale: the pig retired amidst the plaudits of "an 
 admiring audience," who made their exit down the 
 step-ladder, to give place to others who were waiting 
 to go up. Phelim was silent for some time after he 
 left the booth, but at last broke out with, "That fel- 
 low 's a humbugger ! " 
 
 "That 's his business," said De Lacy, "and there- 
 fore you can't give him higher praise than to say he 
 is a humbugger." 
 
 " And is that what you call praise ? " said Phelim 
 in offended wonder, for he thought De Lacy would 
 have sided with his wounded dignity. 
 
 " Certainly," said De Lacy. " Every man to his 
 calling." 
 
 " But is it respectable to be humbuggin' people ? " 
 
 " Oh, that 's quite another question, Phelim ; I '11 
 say nothing for the respectability ; but did n't you 
 perceive the trick by which he makes the pig point 
 out any letter or part of the world he 's desired ? "
 
 Rory O'More 217 
 
 « Not I — how could I ? " 
 
 " Well, I '11 tell you. You perceived there were 
 holes cut round the circular platform, and that a card 
 was always laid over a hole ? " 
 
 "Yis,'ldid," said Phelim. 
 
 " Well, you perceived also, that whenever the pig 
 did a trick effectively, his master gave him an acorn ? " 
 
 " He gave him something, but I did n't knov/ it 
 was an acorn." 
 
 " You know this is the time of their falling, and 
 there is nothing of which pigs are so fond." 
 
 " And do you mane to say, sir, that if you feed a 
 pig on acorns, you '11 tache him to spell, and larn him 
 jography r " 
 
 " No," said De Lacy, smiling : " but I mean, that 
 an acorn was the pig's reward ; but he would not 
 have got the reward if he had noX. found out the acorns. 
 Do you see the trick now ? " 
 
 "Why, thin, indeed, to say the thruth, I only per- 
 saive it afther a manner, like — that is, not complate." 
 
 "Well, I '11 show it to you complate^ then," said De 
 Lacy, who enjoyed the hesitation that Phelim evinced 
 to acknowledge that the showman's trick was beyond 
 him. 
 
 " You saw every card was placed over a hole ? " 
 
 " Yis." 
 
 " And that when the pig came to the right card, he 
 began to poke it with his snout?" 
 
 "Yis." 
 
 " And can't you guess why ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " It was, because his master had a plate of acorns 
 attached to a stick, which he always placed under the 
 hole the card was over; and so the pig went smelling 
 round the circle till he came to the acorns." 
 
 "Tare an' cans ! what a chate ! " said Phelim.
 
 2i8 Rory O'More 
 
 "If the pig made a mistake, he got no acorn; 
 when he found out the right hole, he was rewarded." 
 
 " Oh, the vagabone ! to make the people think 
 that a pig could be taught to know his letthers, and 
 jography, and, afther all, it 's only the nathur of the 
 brute baste is in it ! " 
 
 " And did you expect any more ? " 
 
 "To be sure I did," said the poor simple Phelim; 
 " and what 's worse, the people will b'lieve it, and 
 they '11 say / can't do as much with a Chrishthan child 
 as that vagabone can with a pig. Why, it 's enough 
 to ruin all the schoolmasthers in Ireland ! I '11 go 
 back and expose the villain." 
 
 " No, no, Phelim, you would n't do that ! " 
 
 *' Why would n't I ? is n't it a common forgery on 
 people's undherstan'in's ? " And De Lacy was obliged 
 to lay his hand on the indignant philomath's arm to 
 restrain him. 
 
 " Phelim," said De Lacy, " you don't know but 
 that poor fellow has a wife and children to support ; 
 and if his humbugging, as you call it, is turned into 
 bread and milk for his little ones, you would n't be 
 the cause of making them feel hunger ? " 
 
 " God forbid, sir ! " said Phelim feelingly, his pride 
 giving place to his humanity. " Bread and milk, in- 
 deed ! Oh, thin, if it's but potatoes and salt he can 
 airn in such a good cause, may the Lord prosper 
 him ! " 
 
 It is time to return to Rory and his party whom 
 we left looking for their dinner. But to obtain this, 
 they found no such easy matter. They inquired at 
 various booths without success, for the day was fur- 
 ther spent than they imagined, and the viands con- 
 sumed. 
 
 Rory had been so absorbed between anxiety on 
 account of Kathleen, and wonder at De Welskein's
 
 Rory O'More 219 
 
 Protean powers, that the day had passed over without 
 his being conscious of it ; and the various shows kept 
 the attention of Conolly and Mary so much on the 
 stretch, that they were equally unmindful of the flight 
 of time, and, as Mary herself said, " 'Faith, the day 
 went over like an hour, a'most." 
 
 They sought the long entrenchment of sunken 
 fires over which pots full of beef and cabbage had 
 been "• busy bilin' " when last they passed that way. 
 The fires were there 't is true, and so were the pots, 
 but no beef and cabbage : the solids had been de- 
 molished, and the huge iron pots had given place 
 to kettles, where water was " kept continually 
 bilin' " for the manufacture of punch. What was 
 to be done ? At this hour dinner was manifestly 
 a scarce thing, which fact increased their appetites ; 
 and even Rory himself, in spite of love and Kathleen, 
 began to feel the inward man making appeals to his 
 common sense. While things were in this state, 
 Rory saw a brace of ducks dangling from a string, 
 roasting before a fire at the end of one of the booths, 
 and a girl very busy attending the culinary process. 
 Rory's invention was immediately at work; and his 
 love of fun, joined to his desire for dinner, at once 
 suggested the notion of his making himself master 
 of the ducks. 
 
 So, desiring Conolly and his sister to secure a seat 
 as near as they could to where the birds were in 
 preparation, he spoke to the landlady of the booth, 
 and asked could they have dinner. She said they 
 had nothing but a little cold beef. 
 
 " Well, that same," said Rory. 
 
 So plates were laid, and knives and forks provided, 
 and the half-warm and ragged remains of some very 
 bad beef were placed before Rory and his party. 
 
 " That 'II do," said Rory, who, having thus con-
 
 220 Rory O'More 
 
 trived to get the plates, &c. set about securing the 
 ducks. Feigning an excuse, he said to his party, 
 " Don't begin till Jack comes to us, he '11 be here 
 by-an'-by : " and then turning to the girl who was 
 cooking the ducks, he kept up a conversation with 
 her, and made her laugh so often, that he got into 
 her good graces, and she fancied him the pleasantest 
 fellow in the world. At last, Rory, when he 
 thought the birds were nearly done, said to her, 
 seeing that her face was very dewy from her 
 occupation, — 
 
 " I b'lieve it 's roasting thim ducks you are ? " 
 
 " 'Faith, it 's thim that 's roasting me, you mane," 
 said the girl. 
 
 "It's dhry work, I'm thinkin'," said Rory. 
 
 " Thrue for you," said the girl, " and no one to 
 ofFer me a dhrink." 
 
 " Suppose I 'd give you a dhrink ? " said Rory. 
 
 *'• Long life to you ! " said the girl, looking up at 
 him, and wiping down her face with a back stroke 
 of her red hand. 
 
 " Well, you must do something for me," said 
 Rory, " and I '11 give you a pot o' porther." 
 
 " God bless you ! " said the girl. 
 
 " Jist run down, thin, to Tim Donoghue's stan'in,' 
 — it's at the far end o' the sthreet, — and get me 
 a ha'p'orth o' snufF, for I 'm lost with a cowld in my 
 head that I got through a hole in my hat." 
 
 " Go 'long wid you ! " said the girl, giving the 
 ducks a twirl. 
 
 " It 's thruth I 'm tellin' you," said Rory. 
 
 "Oh! I darn't lave the ducks," said she. 
 
 "Oh!" said Rory in an insinuating tone, "jist 
 slip out here through the slit in the tint, and I '11 take 
 charge o' them till you come back. Here 's a hog for 
 you, and you may keep the change for yourself."
 
 Rory O'More 221 
 
 The " hog " was too much for the girl's prudence : 
 off she started to Tim Donoghue's ; and she was n't 
 ten steps from the place, when Rory had the pair of 
 ducks on the dish before his party, and, as Rory 
 himself said in telling the story after, " the sorrow 
 long they wor in making jommethry of the same 
 ducks." 
 
 When the girl came back and saw the skeletons 
 of the birds she had left in tempting plumpness 
 before the fire, she, in the language of Conolly, 
 *■'' screeched a thousand murdhers, and riz the tint." 
 
 " Oh ! the ducks, the ducks ! " cried the girl. 
 
 " Oh ! you baggage, are they spylte ? " said Mrs. 
 Molloy, the landlady, rushing to the spot on hearing 
 the uproar. 
 
 " No, indeed, ma'am," said Rory very quietly, 
 picking the bones of one of them at the same time ; 
 " they are not spylte, for they wor as fine ducks as 
 ever I put a tooth in." 
 
 " Oh, God be good to me ! " said the woman, 
 with a look of despair ; " is it ating Mr. Regan's 
 wild ducks you are ? " 
 
 Now this " took Rory aback," as sailors say. He 
 would rather that he had not hit upon Regan's 
 ducks for his frolic : but, as chance had so ruled it, he 
 determined to follow up his joke ; so he answered, 
 
 " In throth, ma'am, I did n't know whose ducks 
 they wor ; and as for their being wild^ I never found 
 it out ; and, 'pon my conscience, I think they are 
 a'most as good as if thev wor tame." 
 
 " But they wor Air. Regan's ducks ! " 
 
 " I did n't know that, ma'am : I supposed they 
 wor yours; and when I kem to your tint for en- 
 thertainment, I thought I had a right to whatever 
 ateables was in it, as well as another." 
 
 " Oh ! what '11 Mr. Regan say ? "
 
 222 Rory O'More 
 
 " He '11 say what he has to say for himself," said 
 Regan, who, on hearing that his ducks had been 
 taken by Rory O'More, became exceedingly wroth, 
 and swaggered up to the scene of action. On his 
 arrival there^ he saw Conolly sitting beside Mary 
 O'More, and this, as Rory said when speaking of 
 the affair after, " roused the divil in him ; " so, chang- 
 ing his attack, which was intended for Rory, upon 
 Conolly, he said, addressing the latter in a menacing 
 tone, — 
 
 " How dar you take my ducks ? " Conolly was in 
 the act of rising, when Rory laid his hand on his 
 shoulder, and said, "Sit down — this is no affair of 
 yours." 
 
 In doing this, Rory was actuated by a double 
 motive. In the first place, had the quarrel been 
 established between Conolly and Regan, he knew 
 that his sister's name would be mixed up with it, 
 and his intuitive sense of delicacy recoiled at the 
 thought of Mary's name being connected with a 
 brawl at a fair ; secondly, in point of fact he was 
 the person who had committed the act complained of 
 — and Rory was not the man to let another fight 
 his battle. So, turning to Regan, he said, — 
 
 " It was I tuk the ducks, Shan — Conolly had 
 nothing to do with it ; and if I have disappointed 
 you of your dinner, I 'm sorry for it, — and I hope 
 that 's satisfaction enough. And for you, Mrs. 
 Molloy, I beg your pardon if I tuk what I had no 
 right to, and all I can do is to pay you for the 
 ducks." And he offered her his hand full of silver 
 to take the price from. 
 
 " Take your money out o' that ! " said Regan 
 fiercely, accompanying the words with a shove that 
 scattered Rory's shillings over the table and the 
 ground. " The ducks were not Mrs. Molloy's ducks.
 
 Rory O^More 223 
 
 but mine, and I don't want to be paid for what I 
 did n't intend to sell ; — and all I 've to say is, that 
 I recommend you not to make away with any thing 
 belonging to me for the future." 
 
 There was an emphasis on " belonging to me " that 
 Rory felt was meant to allude to Kathleen ; but that 
 was not so offensive as the phrase " make away," — 
 which being a common form of parlance in Ireland 
 for any thing that is illegally taken, roused Rory's 
 indignation. 
 
 " Regan," said he, " what I did, I did in a joke ; 
 and I have said in good temper, and with a hope of 
 making friends, all that ought to satisfy a man that 
 wished to be a friend ; and if afther that you wish to 
 make a quarrel of it, and mane to throw an affront on 
 me, I tell you, Regan, it 's what I won't take from 
 you." 
 
 " I wish you had been as particular about my 
 ducks," said Regan, walking off. 
 
 " If I tuk your ducks, Regan, I won't take your 
 impidince," said Rory, disengaging himself from 
 behind the table. 
 
 Mary attempted to stop him, but Conolly prevented 
 her, knowing the fatal consequences of a man being 
 hampered with a woman in a fray. " The best 
 thing you can do," said he, " is to lave his hands 
 loose, for he'll have need o' them soon." Then 
 handing over Mary to the care of an elderly man, he 
 said, " Jist take care o' the colleen while I see fair 
 play ; " and he was at Rory's side in an instant. 
 
 There was no time to spare, for Regan turned 
 round at Rory's last word and said, " Did you say 
 impidince to me ? " 
 
 " I did," said Rory. 
 
 The words were no sooner uttered than Regan 
 made a tremendous blow at him ; but rage and
 
 224 Rory O'More 
 
 liquor (for he had been drinking) had deprived him 
 of his usual power in such matters, and Rory easily 
 warded his blow, returning one so well planted, that 
 Regan measured his length on the floor of the booth. 
 
 He rose again, and two or three of his cronies 
 rallied round him, while ConoUy and the lovers of fair 
 play saw that nothing foul should befall Rory. 
 
 From the fury and intoxication of Regan the fight 
 was a short one. After his first fall, Rory requested 
 that his opponent's friends would " take him away, as 
 he was n't fit to fight ; " but this only increased 
 Regan's rage, and he rushed again upon his man. 
 But it was an easy conquest for Rory, though Regan 
 was superior in years and strength ; and the end of 
 the affair was, as Conolly and Rory's friends spread 
 far and wide over the country in relating the affair, 
 " That Rory O'More gave Regan the length and 
 breadth of as fine a licking as ever he got in his 
 life."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A MOONLIGHT MEETING; WITH ONE TOO MANY 
 
 FROM the presence of the military at the fair, 
 and the existence of the curfew-law at the period, 
 it became doubly necessary that the people assembled 
 should disperse in good time, and take their homeward 
 way. 
 
 De Lacy particularly felt the necessity of this, for, 
 circumstanced as he was, to have put himself within 
 reach of military-law would have been madness ; so 
 he and Phelim left the fair much earlier than Rory 
 and his party, for the " small scrimmage " after dinner 
 had occasioned some delay. It is not immediately 
 after a man has " settled the hash " of his enemy, 
 that he can coolly take up his hat (that is, if he has the 
 good luck not to have lost it in the fight), and pay 
 his tavern bill and depart in peace. The decencies 
 of social life must be observed : he must adjust his 
 ruffled attire, sit down to show his presence of mind, 
 and take a drink to quench his thirst — for fighting is 
 thirsty work. Then, as in the case of Rory, one 
 must not be so uncivil as to turn one's back on the 
 congratulations of one's friends ; and there were many 
 who congratulated Rory, for Regan was a quarrel- 
 some fellow, and what, in fighting parlance, is called 
 a " troublesome customer; " and such a man to get a 
 thrashing where it was least expected, excited great 
 satisfaction, and numerous were the shakinp;s of hands, 
 slaps on the shoulder, and exclamations of admiration, 
 VOL. I. — 15
 
 226 Rory O'More 
 
 that Rory had bestowed upon him, and several fresh 
 tumblers were called for to drink " his health, afid 
 77107- e power to his elboiu." 
 
 " Long life to you, your sowl ! " was said to him 
 on all sides — " Musha health and power to you, 
 Rory, my boy ! but you done the thing complate. 
 Divil a purtier bit o' fight mysef seen this many a 
 day. Och ! but you have the owld blood o' the 
 O'Mores in you, ttio bouchal ! '''' 
 
 When he could escape from the congratulation of 
 his friends, Rory, with his sister and Conolly, made 
 the best of their way home. There was not much 
 said on the way ; Mary saw that jealousy on Regan's 
 part had been the real cause of his savage conduct, 
 and therefore, with a woman's tact, she wished the 
 subject of the quarrel to be as little discussed as pos- 
 sible. This partly influenced Rory, too ; but with 
 him there was a more powerful cause of silence. 
 The events of the day were recalled, one by one, to 
 his memory ; and when he remembered all that had 
 passed between him and Kathleen, he more and more 
 regretted his fight with her brother, and feared it 
 might prove an additional obstacle to the course of his 
 " true love," which did not seem to be a bit more 
 likely to run smoother than it was wont to do in 
 Shakspeare's days ; and so he trudged on in silence, 
 anticipating the appointed meeting of the morrow, 
 and thinking all he should say to his Kathleen to 
 assure her of his truth. 
 
 Conolly guessed the cause of Mary's silence on the 
 subject of Regan's misdemeanour, and he had too 
 much wit about him not to know that the expression 
 of triumph at the defeat of a rival, in the hearing of 
 the woman for whom the rivalry existed would only 
 lower him in her opinion. 
 
 Thus, the concluding event of the preceding
 
 Rory O^More 227 
 
 chapter, though it occupied the mind of each, yet, 
 from the causes assigned, all by common consent for- 
 bore to speak of it : therefore, as the predominant 
 impression on their minds was one that might not be 
 manifested in words, they pursued their way in com- 
 parative silence. 
 
 The moon was rising when the party reached the 
 end of the boreen that led to O'More's cottage, and 
 there Conolly parted company. When he was gone, 
 Rory told Mary to say nothing to his mother about 
 the fight. " 'T would only trouble her," said he, 
 " and there would be no use in it. Indeed, we 
 won't spake of it at home at all — even to Mr. De 
 Lacy." 
 
 " I 'd rather myself it was so," said Mary ; " but, 
 Rory dear, won't the mother see the marks on you, 
 and suspect ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I 've no marks on me that she can know 
 of: the sulky thief never put the sign of his fist in 
 my face." 
 
 " Oh ! but I 'm glad o' that, Rory dear," said 
 Mary, " for it looks so ugly and disrespectable to 
 have the marks of fighting on a man's face." 
 
 " Well, sure I could n't help it if I had itself. 
 You know, Mary, 't was n't my fault." 
 
 " No, in throth, Rory ; and sure my heart sunk 
 within me when I seen you stand up, for I dhreaded 
 that horrid fellow was more than your match ; and 
 sure 't was brave and bowld o' you, Rory, ma chree^ 
 to put yourself forninst him." 
 
 " I 'm not afraid of him, the best day he ever 
 stept," said Rory ; " but as for to-day, he was too 
 full o' dhrink to give me any throuble, and it wint 
 agin my heart to sthreck a man that was in liquor, 
 only you seen yourself he would have it." 
 
 " Throth, Rory, you 've nothing to blame your-
 
 228 Rory O'More 
 
 self with," said Mary ; " you showed the hoighth o' 
 good temper." 
 
 Having reached the house, their conversation 
 ended. They found De Lacy and Phelim at supper, 
 which Rory and Mary helped to finish ; and after a 
 desultory conversation about the " humours of the 
 fair," to give the widow some idea of their day's 
 amusement, they separated for the night. 
 
 It was a night of repose to all under the widow's 
 roof except Rory. The excitement of the day, and 
 his anxious anticipation of the morrow, banished 
 slumber, and he rose at an early hour the following 
 morning, unrefreshed and feverish. He appealed to 
 that unfailing friend of a hot head, — namely, spring 
 water, — and by a plentiful deluge from the well, he 
 made himself as comfortable as he could during the 
 day, that to him seemed interminable. At length even- 
 ing arrived, and Rory hastened to the appointed place, 
 where he hoped to meet Kathleen, and clear himself 
 from the charges which had been made against him. 
 
 The place he named for their rendezvous was a 
 rath, near a bridge which crossed the river about 
 halfway between their respective residences. Rath 
 is the name given in Ireland to certain large circular 
 mounds of earth, by some called Danish forts. That 
 they were intended for purposes of defence, there is no 
 doubt ; but they are more likely the works of the 
 ancient Irish than the Danes. 
 
 The rath which Rory named stood near the bank 
 of the river, and probably was intended to defend the 
 passage of the stream, which in later days had been 
 traversed by a bridge of low small arches, such as 
 remain in great numbers in Ireland to this day, and 
 present specimens of early architecture more curious, 
 perhaps, than any thing else in the same way remain- 
 ing in Europe. To the inexperienced stranger it
 
 Rory O'More 229 
 
 would appear that a great deal of masonry had been 
 thrown away on the bridge in question, for there 
 were many arches which were quite dry at some 
 seasons ; but bv those who know how rapidly the 
 streams in the vicinity of hills expand after heavy 
 rains, the knowledge of our forefathers in thus pro- 
 viding against such an exigency can be appreciated. 
 
 Rory arrived at the place of appointment earlier 
 than Kathleen, of course : — there needs no master 
 of the ceremonies to tell that a lady must not be 
 kept waiting on such occasions. But as time wore 
 on, he began to feel impatience ; and then he ascended 
 the rath, and looked from its summit in the direction 
 he expected Kathleen to approach. Here he lingered, 
 in hope, till evening was closing, and the yellow disc 
 of the moon began to rise above the broad belt of 
 clouds which skirted the horizon : then he began to 
 fear Kathleen had promised him only to be rid of his 
 importunity — or that some fresh influence had been 
 exercised against him — or that she believed the 
 calumnv ; — which was worst of all. And so great 
 was his anxiety to remove such a fatal impression 
 from Kathleen's mind, that even in defiance of all 
 reasonable expectation of seeing her, he remained on 
 the rath and strained his sight, through the increasing 
 gloom, to catch the first glimpse of her he wished so 
 much to meet. Still, she came not ; and now the 
 moon, emerging from the vapour by which she had 
 been enshrouded, rose above it in all her purity, no 
 longer dimmed by the yellow mist which had tarnished 
 her silvery brightness. Still Rory remained, although 
 he had given up the 
 
 " Last pale hope that trembled at his heart." 
 
 But as the moonlight became so bright, and as he 
 knew the danger of being abroad at such an hour, he
 
 230 Rory O'More 
 
 crouched in the trench on the summit of the rath, 
 and watched with his eyes above the embankment. 
 
 He had just arrived at the conclusion, in his own 
 mind, it was no use to wait any longer, when he 
 fancied he caught the outline of a figure moving 
 towards him ; — it became more distinct — it was a 
 woman's ; a moment more, and his heart told him it 
 was Kathleen. 
 
 He sprang to his feet, and running down the rath, 
 he reached the ditch that bordered the field in time to 
 offer his hand to Kathleen, and assist her over the 
 fence. They stood in bright moonlight ; and Rory 
 could see that an aspect of care was over Kathleen's 
 brow, which even his fervent welcome, and thanks, 
 and blessings, could not dispel. 
 
 " Let us get under the shadow of the bridge," said 
 Rory. 
 
 " No," said Kathleen with an air of reserve. 
 
 " Don't let us stand here, however," said Rory, 
 *■'■ so near the road, and the moon so bright." 
 
 " We can stand inside the rath," said Kathleen, 
 leading the way. 
 
 They soon stood in the trench of the fort, com- 
 pletely shadowed by the embankment, while the moon- 
 light fell brightly on the mound that rose within. 
 
 " God bless you, Kathleen, for keeping your 
 promise ! " said Rory fervently. 
 
 " Whatever you 've to say, say quickly, Rory, for 
 I must not stay here long," replied Kathleen. 
 
 " Then tell me openly, Kathleen, what is it you 
 think you have to accuse me of, and I will explain it 
 all to your satisfaction." 
 
 " You left home for a day about three weeks 
 ago ? " said Kathleen. 
 
 " I did," said Rory. 
 You went to the town beyant ? " 
 
 cc
 
 Rory O'More 231 
 
 " I did," said Rory. 
 
 " You were in a cellar there ? " 
 
 " I was." 
 
 "And not in the best of company, Ror)'," said 
 Kathleen reproachfully. 
 
 "Worse than, I hope, F 11 ever be in agin," said Rory. 
 
 " You own to that, thin ? " 
 
 " I '11 own to all that 's thrue," said Rory. 
 
 " Thin what have you to say about the girl that 
 you were so much in love with ? " 
 
 " In love with ! " said Rory indignantly. " Kath- 
 leen, there is but one girl on this earth I love, and 
 that 's yourself. I swear it by this blessed light ! " 
 
 Just as he spoke, as if the light which he adjured 
 had evoked a spirit to condemn him, a dark shadow 
 was cast on the mound before them ; and on their 
 both looking round, a figure enveloped in a cloak 
 stood on the embankment behind them. Kathleen 
 could not suppress a scream, and even Rory started. 
 
 " Is that what I hear you say ? " said this mysteri- 
 ious apparition. " Kathleen ! Kathleen ! he said the 
 
 same to me." 
 
 Kathleen could not speak, but stood with clasped 
 hands, in trembling astonishment, gazing with the 
 fascination of fear upon the figure that stood on the 
 bank above them. 
 
 "Who are you?" said Rory. — The figure was 
 about to turn, when Rorv caught hold of the cloak in 
 which it was enveloped, and dragged the intruder 
 within the trench of the rath. 
 
 " Who are you ? " said Rory again, turning round 
 the person to face the light. 
 
 "Don't you know mc, Rory O'More ? " said the 
 unknown, who threw back the hood of her cloak at 
 the words, and the pale moonbeam fell on the face 
 of the frail one of the cellar.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 CONTAINING A COUNCIL OF LOVE AND A COUNCIL 
 
 OF WAR 
 
 TO account for the occurrence which concludes 
 the foregoing chapter, it becomes necessary to 
 revert to Kathleen after her return from the fair. 
 She had spent as restless a night as Rory, and after 
 considering for a long time the fitness of meeting him 
 clandestinely, after all she had heard, was still at a 
 loss how to act ; she determined therefore to tell her 
 mother how matters stood, and ask her advice. Be- 
 tween the daughter and mother affection and good 
 understanding had always existed ; but of late there 
 had been an increasing confidence in and leaning 
 towards each other, resulting from the unruly con- 
 duct of the son, against whose aggression and way- 
 wardness Kathleen and her mother were obliged to 
 combine, and endeavour by union in the weaker 
 party to make a better defence against the tyranny 
 of the stronger. 
 
 Regan had not got up the morning succeeding the 
 fair, in consequence of the punishment he had received 
 from Rory, and was lying under some herbal treat- 
 ment of his mother's, in a room that was partitioned 
 off the principal apartment of the farmhouse, which 
 served not only for the kitchen, but for all the daily 
 purposes of the family. Kathleen had just come from 
 her brother's room, whither she had gone to offer any 
 attendance he might require, and gently closed the 
 door after her, thinking that he had fallen asleep,
 
 ,:^4^aAxyri^^^-^-
 
 Rory O'More 233 
 
 while in fact he had only indulged in a dogged silence 
 to her kind inquiries, and feigned slumber to be rid 
 of her. 
 
 Taking advantage of this opportunity^, Kathleen 
 drew a seat near her mother, who was knitting, and 
 settling herself down to her spinning-wheel, she began 
 to work very industriously for some time in silence. 
 The hum of the wheel was interrupted in a minute or 
 two by a short cough ; and as Kathleen's fingers were 
 kept busy, and her eyes fixed upon them, so that she 
 need not have the necessity of meeting those of her 
 mother, there could not be a more favourable moment 
 for the opening of the delicate affair she had in hand ; 
 and so, after one or two more little coughs, she 
 ventured to say, " Mother." 
 
 It may be remarked, that when people have any 
 delicate subject to discuss, more particularly all affairs 
 of the heart, there is something in the mere sound of 
 their voices that gives you to understand what they 
 are about, before a word relating to the subject is 
 said. 
 
 Now, Kathleen's mother was as wise as mothers in 
 general are about such matters, seeing that they have 
 had such affairs of their own on their hands ; and so, 
 the very minute Kathleen said '' Mother," that respect- 
 able individual knew what was coming just as well as 
 if she were a witch. 
 
 *' Well, alanna ? " said the mother softly, coaxing 
 her child's heart out of its secrecy by the encouraging 
 tone of her voice, as a bird chirps its young for the 
 first time from the security of the nest. 
 
 " There 's something I wish to tell you," said 
 Kathleen. 
 
 " Well, darlin', I dar say it 's nothing but what 
 I '11 be glad to hear." 
 
 " I 'm afeard you '11 think me foolish, mother."
 
 234 Rory 0' More 
 
 " Throth, I never seen the sign iv a fool an you 
 yet, alanna bawn." 
 
 Here there was a pause, filled up only by the buzz 
 of the spinning-wheel. The mother thought she had 
 best break the ice ; so, with a tone of gentle pleasantry 
 in her manner, to deprive the subject of its sternness, 
 — to " take the cold out of it," as it were, — she said, 
 " I suppose some o' the boys has been talkin' to 
 you ? " 
 
 " Yis, ma'am," said Kathleen faintly, blushing up 
 to her ears at the same time, while the wheel went 
 round at a desperate rate and the thread was broken. 
 
 While Kathleen mended the thread of her spinning, 
 her mother took up that of the conversation. 
 
 "Well, dear, — well and good, — and why not ? 
 Sure, it 's only raysonable, and what 's before us all in 
 our time when it 's God's will. And who 's the boy, 
 Kathleen dear ? " 
 
 Kathleen, after swallowing her breath three or four 
 times, said, " Rory O'More, mother." 
 
 " Sure, thin, but you 're the happy girl ! God 
 bless you, child, and mark you to grace, to have the 
 very pick o' the counthry axint you ! " 
 
 " Indeed, I thought so myself, mother; but " 
 
 " But what, dear ? " 
 
 " Why, Shan, you know, mother." 
 
 "Yis, yis, dear;" and the mother sighed heavily. 
 It was some time before she could resume the con- 
 versation, and in the interim she raised her apron to 
 dry a tear that trickled down her cheek. How deep 
 is the guilt of the child who causes the tears of a 
 parent ! 
 
 " If Shan could n't get Mary O'More (and more 
 is his loss, Indeed ! ), that Is no rayson, darlln', that 
 you would n't have Rory." 
 
 " But Shan is very much agin it, mother."
 
 Rory 0' More 235 
 
 " How do you know, dear r " 
 
 " He suspects, somehow, that I had a liking for 
 him." 
 
 " Had 2L liking ! " said the mother. " Why, have n't 
 you a liking, Kathleen ? " 
 
 " Whv, you see, mother, he tovvld me things of 
 him ; and if the things was thrue, Ron,- would n't be 
 as good as I thought him." 
 
 " How do you mane, darlin' ? " Here Kathleen 
 entered into an explanation of how Regan had poi- 
 soned her mind against Rorv, and told her mother all 
 she had heard about the adventures of the cellar ; — 
 how, subsequently, she had met Rory at the fair — 
 of her coolness, of his disavowal of guilt, and request 
 that she would meet him to explain every thing. 
 
 " He said, ' This evening, at the rath, beside the 
 bridge '" 
 
 " Whisht ! " said the mother, pointing to Regan's 
 room ; " he 's awake." 
 
 And so he was, and heard the principal part of the 
 conversation between his mother and his sister ; and 
 it was in raising himself in the bed, the better to 
 catch the latter part of the discourse, that he had 
 alarmed the watchful ear of his mother : for poor 
 Kathleen was so absorbed in her subject, that she 
 quite forgot her proximitv to her brother. 
 
 Regan now called for some one to attend him ; and 
 on his mother appearing, he said he was much re- 
 freshed by the last sleep he had, and would get up. 
 
 " Indeed, you 're betther where you are, Shan, for 
 to-day," said his mother. 
 
 " No, no, bed kills me ; it 's not fit for a man : 
 I 'U be the betther of some fresh air." 
 
 " Sure, you would n't go out, Shan, and your face 
 in that condition ? " said his mother. 
 
 " Thim who does n't like my face," said he.
 
 236 Rory O^More 
 
 '' need n't look at it ; " and despite of his mother's 
 entreaties, he proceeded to dress himself, which when 
 he had accomplished, he sallied forth. 
 
 " Why, thin, where can Shan be goin' ! " said 
 Kathleen. 
 
 " Oh, musha, how should I know ? " said the 
 mother. " He 's never aisy at home, God help 
 him ! " 
 
 " Well, mother, what do you think about my goin' 
 to the rath ? " 
 
 " I think you 'd betther go there, darlin' : I don't 
 think myself that Rory O'More would be as bad 
 as you wor made to b'lieve." 
 
 " Indeed, mother, it was agin' my heart I b'lieved 
 any thing bad of him." 
 
 " To be sure, darlin', and it 's only fair to hear 
 what the boy has to say." 
 
 " Thin you think I may go ? " 
 
 " Yis, ma vourneen ; but in case evil tongues would 
 say any thing, I '11 go along wid you." 
 
 Kathleen, after some hesitation, said, " But maybe 
 Rory would be shy of seeing you, mother ? " 
 
 " Sartinly, dear, and I '11 only go along with you 
 convaynient to the rath, I '11 stay a thrifle behind 
 you, so that he won't see me ; but at the same time 
 I '11 be near enough, so that no one shall have the 
 occasion to say a light word o' you — for there 's no 
 knowing what ill-natured tongues may invint." 
 
 This being settled, the mother and daughter awaited 
 the arrival of the evening — the mother with interest, 
 the daughter with impatience. 
 
 In the mean time, Shan Dhu was not idle. He 
 had heard enough of the conversation between Kath- 
 leen and his mother to find that Rory's interest was 
 as strong with the latter as the former, and the thought 
 was poison to him. When he found the appointment
 
 Rory O'More 237 
 
 with Rory was to be kept, he determined to frustrate 
 the happy result which must ensue if it were permitted 
 to take place without the intervention of another 
 party, and he determined in his own mind who that 
 party should be. He was no stranger to the damsel 
 whose blandishments had been thrown away upon 
 Rory, and he found that a bitter hatred existed against 
 him in that quarter : nevertheless, though he must 
 have known that this could have arisen but from one 
 cause, he it was who was base enough to insinuate to 
 Kathleen that an attachment subsisted between the 
 girl and Rory. 
 
 It was to find this unfortunate woman Shan Regan 
 left his house. He knew where to seek her, and met 
 in her a ready person to act up to his wishes. He 
 held out the opportunity of gratifying her revenge 
 upon Rory thus: — to blast his hopes with the girl 
 of his heart, by accusing him of treachery and false- 
 hood, and laying her shame to his charge. 
 
 To this the nymph of the cellar assented ; and thus 
 is accounted for her startling appearance at the rath, 
 which stunned with surprise our hero and Kathleen, 
 to whom we must now return.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 SHOWING THAT MOTHERS IN THE COUNTRY CONTRIVE 
 TO MARRY THEIR DAUGHTERS, THE SAME AS 
 MOTHERS IN TOWN 
 
 WHEN Kathleen saw the handsome features of 
 the woman who had been pointed out to her 
 on the platform at the fair disclosed in the moonlight, 
 she recognised them at once, for they were of that 
 striking character not easily forgotten ; and coming, 
 as she did, to the rath in the hope of having her 
 doubts of Rory's truth dispelled, and instead of that 
 finding them thus strengthened by such terrible evi- 
 dence, she shuddered with a faint scream and sank 
 to the earth. 
 
 " Look what you 've done ! " said Rory, stooping 
 to raise the fainting girl, which he did, and supported 
 her in his arms, as he turned to the ill-omened in- 
 truder, and said reproachfully, " What did I ever do 
 to deserve this ? " 
 
 " Do ! " said she, and her eyes glared on him with 
 the expression of a fiend — " Do ! — what a woman 
 never forgets nor forgives — and I 'II have my revenge 
 o' you, you cowld-blooded thief, I will ! — That 's 
 your innocent girl, I suppose! — Mighty innocent 
 indeed, to meet a man inside a rath, by the pleasant 
 light o' the moon ! — ■ How innocent she is I " 
 
 " May the tongue o' ye be blistered in fire," said 
 Rory with fury, " that would say the foul word of
 
 Rory O'More 239 
 
 her! Away wid you, you divil ! the ground's not 
 wholesome you thread on. Away wid you ! " 
 
 She shrunk before the withering words and the 
 indignant tone of the lover, and retired to the top of 
 the embankment ; but ere she descended, she stretched 
 forth her arm in the attitude of menace to Rory, and 
 said with a voice in which there was more of hell 
 than earth, — 
 
 " Make the most o' your innocent girl to-night, 
 Misther O'More, for it 's the last you '11 ever see of 
 her ! You think to have her, you do, — but she '11 
 never be yours : for if I pay my sowl for the purchase- 
 money, I '11 have my revenge o' you ! — ha ! ha ! — 
 remember my words — never ! never ! — ha ! ha ! ha ! " 
 and with something between the laugh of a maniac 
 and the howl of a hyena, she rushed down the hill, 
 leaving Rory horrified at such a fearful exhibition of 
 depravity. 
 
 When Rory proposed to Kathleen, on their meet- 
 ing, that they should stand within the shadow of the 
 bridge, it may be remembered that she refused to do 
 so ; for her mother, who had accompanied her, de- 
 cided on remaining out of sight in that very spot, 
 while Kathleen should enter the rath for her confer- 
 ence with Rory. 
 
 She had seen her daughter and our hero ascend to 
 the top of the mound, and in a very short time after 
 was surprised to observe a third person take the same 
 course. This excited her curiosity, and she watched 
 anxiously ; and it was not long until she saw the 
 figure descending the mound rapidly, and running to- 
 wards the very point where she stood. The mother 
 immediately crouched under some bushes to escape 
 observation, and the sound of hurried steps having 
 approached close to her place of ambush, suddenly 
 stopped, and she heard, in a somewhat low, but per-
 
 240 Rory O'More 
 
 fcctly clear tone, the name of " Shan " pronounced, 
 and soon after it was repeated. " Shan Dhu," said 
 this unexpected intruder. 
 
 " Here I am," was answered to the summons. 
 
 The name "Shan Dhu" being that of her own 
 son, Kathleen's mother had her attention still more 
 aroused ; and the voice in which the response was 
 made induced her to believe that it was Regan who 
 answered. Peering forth from the bushes as well as 
 she might, she saw the figure of a man emerge from 
 under one of the dry arches of the bridge, and then 
 there was no longer a doubt on the subject ; — it was 
 Shan Regan who came forth to meet the woman who 
 had just run down the hill. 
 
 " Well ? " said Regan. 
 
 " I 've done it ! " said the woman. 
 
 " What did he say ? " 
 
 " Oh, they were both knocked all of a heap." 
 
 " But, did you make her sinsible that the sneaking 
 thief was a black-hearted desaiver? " - 
 
 " Throth I did. Did n't you hear her screech ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Thin in throth she did. I towld her that he had 
 promised me before her, and she dhropt down in a 
 fit." 
 
 " That '11 do," said Regan. " And now we may 
 as well be joggin' since the business is done ; we 
 must n't be seen near the place." And he with his 
 hardened accomplice hastened from the spot. 
 
 Kathleen's mother remained for some time in her 
 place of concealment, that Regan and his abandoned 
 companion might not be aware of her presence. 
 During the few minutes she felt it necessary to re- 
 main in concealment, her mind became fully impressed 
 with the conviction that some deception had been 
 practised upon Kathleen, and manifestly through the
 
 Rory O'More 241 
 
 instrumentalitv of her brother. When the mother 
 thought she might emerge from her ambuscade in 
 safety, she hastened up the side of the rath; as her 
 fears for her daughter had been excited when she 
 heard that " she had dropt down in a fit." 
 
 On reaching the interior of the fort, she heard 
 Rory expostulating with Kathleen on the improbabil- 
 ity of the accusation made against him; for, before 
 the mother had arrived, Rory had contrived, by brush- 
 ing the dew from the grass with his hand, and sprin- 
 klino- the moisture over Kathleen's face, to recover her 
 from the state of insensibility into which the sudden 
 appearance and fearful accusation of Rory's enemy 
 had thrown her. 
 
 " Oh, why did you bring me here at all ? " said 
 Kathleen, in a tone of agony. 
 
 To clear myself to you, Kathleen," said Rory. 
 •Clear yourself! Oh, Rory! that dreadful woman!" 
 By all that 's sacred, Kathleen, I know no more 
 about her than the child unborn." 
 
 " Oh, can I b'lieve it, afther all I 've heard and 
 seen Rorv ? Can I b'lieve it .'* " 
 
 " Kathleen, as I hope to see heaven I 'm innocent 
 of what she accuses me." 
 
 " Oh, 1 wish I could b'lieve it ! " said Kathleen 
 sobbing. 
 
 "Thin you may b'lieve it, my darlin'," said her 
 mother, who now joined them. 
 
 This fresh surprise made Kathleen scream again ; 
 but, recognising her mother, she sprang into her 
 arms. 
 
 " Oh, mother dear ! mother dear ! but I 'm glad to 
 see you," said the excited girl, who had not caught 
 the meanins of the words her mother uttered. " Oh, 
 mother! mother! you are thrue to me, at all events; 
 you '11 never desaive me." 
 
 VOL. I. — 16 
 
 "(
 
 242 Rory O'More 
 
 " Nor I either, Kathleen," said Rory ; " and sure, 
 here 's your mother to bear witness for me. Don't 
 you hear what she says ? " 
 
 " What ? what ? " said Kathleen, bewildered. 
 
 " Compose yourself, dear ! " said the mother. 
 " Don't b'lieve the bad things you 've heard of Rory : 
 they 're not thrue — I'm sure they 're not thrue." 
 
 " Bad luck to the word ! " said Rory, plucking up 
 his courage. 
 
 "But that woman — " said Kathleen, "where is 
 she ? " and she looked round in alarm. 
 
 "She's gone, dear," said the mother soothingly; 
 and Rory, in less gentle accents, made no scruple of 
 saying " Where ? " 
 
 " Rory," said Kathleen's mother, with a serious 
 tenderness in her manner, " I b'lieve that you love 
 my child, and that you mane to be thrue to her." 
 
 " May I never see glory if I don't ! " said Rory 
 fervently. 
 
 The mother took their hands, and joining them, 
 said, " Then I give her to you, Rory, with all the 
 the veins o' my heart; and may my blessing be on 
 you ! " 
 
 Rory took the yielding girl tenderly in his arms 
 and kissed her unresistingly, alternately blessing her 
 and her mother for making him " the happiest fellow 
 in Ireland," as he said himself. 
 
 How all this sudden revolution of affairs in his 
 favour had occurred, Rory gave himself no trouble to 
 inquire, — he was content with the knowledge of the 
 fact ; and after escorting Kathleen and her mother 
 within sight of their house, he turned his steps home- 
 ward, and re-entered his cottage a happier man than 
 he had left it.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 IN WHICH RORY o'mORE PROVES HIMSELF TO BE A 
 MAN OF LETTERS 
 
 THE next morning Rory arose in high spirits, 
 and determined on amusing himself with a 
 piece of sarcastic waggery, that he intended executing 
 upon Sweeny, the reformed Papist attorney, whose 
 apostacy was a source of great indignation to Rory. 
 
 It so happened that the tombstone of old Sweeny, 
 the apothecary, bearing the Popish phrase, " Pray for 
 the soul of Denis Sweeny," stood most provokingly 
 close to the pathway leading to the church-door; so 
 that every Sunday, when his son the attorney was 
 going to attend divine service as by law established^ his 
 Church-of-Englandism was much scandalised by hav- 
 ing this damning (and damnable) proof of his apostacy 
 staring him in the face. Not that he cared for it 
 himself: he was one of those callous-hearted people 
 who could " have botanised on his mother's grave," 
 therefore this proof of his former creed on the grave 
 of his father could have given him no trouble ; but 
 he did not like the evidence to remain there in the 
 sight of other people, and he had asked Rory O'More 
 how the nuisance could be abated. 
 
 Our hero was indignant with the petty-minded 
 pettifogger, and wished to retaliate upon him for the 
 renunciation of his old creed ; for the Roman Catho- 
 lics have the same bitter feeling against the man who 
 secedes from their profession of faith, as those of the
 
 244 Rory O'More 
 
 Church of England entertain against the dissenters 
 from them. 
 
 So Rory, after hearing the attorney's complaint, 
 said he thought he could rectify the objectionable 
 passage on the tombstone. How he accomplished 
 this will be seen. 
 
 After breakfast he asked De Lacy would he go 
 over to see " the churches," as the old burial-place in 
 the neighbourhood was called, where the ruins of 
 some monastic buildings stood, one of which had 
 been repaired and roofed in for the parish church. 
 De Lacy assented to the proposal, and Rory sug- 
 gested that they should endeavour to get Phelim 
 O'Flanagan to accompany them. 
 
 "• His school lies in our way," said Rory, *■'■ and we 
 may as well ax him to come ; for there is a power of 
 owld anshint tombstones in it, in owld Irish, and he 
 can explain them to you, sir." 
 
 True it was, that here many an ancient gravestone 
 stood, mingled with those of later days; — the former 
 bearing the old Irish 
 
 op bo. 
 
 the latter, the 
 
 PRAY FOR — 
 
 showing, that though conquest had driven the aborig- 
 inal Irish from the spot, the religion, though not the 
 language of the people, had survived their down- 
 fall. 
 
 And here what a striking evidence is given of the 
 inutility of penal laws ! — nay, worse than inutility ; 
 for prohibition seems to act on human nature rather 
 as a productive than a preventive cause of the thing 
 forbidden, and the religion of the Irish, like their 
 native shamrock, by being trampled on, becomes pro- 
 lific.
 
 Rory O'More 245 
 
 Their language is passing awav, though it was not 
 penal to speak it ; but their religion has lasted because 
 penalty attended its profession, and the faith of a 
 persecuted people is still recorded in the language of 
 the oppressor. 
 
 Thanks to God ! the days of persecution are past ; 
 and fair fame to England in cancelling from her 
 statutes the unjust aud unholy penalties that man, in 
 his bigoted profanity, had dared to interpose between 
 the worship of the creature to the Creator ! 
 
 And Fortune never dispensed a brighter honour on 
 her favourite than in shedding over the name of 
 Wellington- the glory of being the agent of this 
 blessing to his native land. This mingling of the 
 olive with his laurels increases their brightness as it 
 will their endurance : for when manv a victory he 
 has won shall cease to be remembered, the emancipa- 
 tion of his country from the bondage of bigotry will 
 never be forgotten ; and soothing; be the thought in 
 the hero's last hour, that though many of his achieve- 
 ments have evoked the curses of a foreign land, this 
 greatest triumph of his life will be remembered with 
 blessings by his countrymen ! 
 
 When Phelim was asked to bear De Lacy and our 
 hero company, he was immersed in the mysteries of 
 his school, and could not immediately accompany 
 them ; but he promised to follow soon, and for that 
 purpose gave his scholars half a holiday, for which 
 beneficence on his part they threw up their hats, — 
 that is, such of them as had any ; while those of them 
 who had not, made up the deficiency by extra shout- 
 ing; and Phelim, his school being dismissed, followed 
 De Lacy and Rory to '' the churches." 
 
 This burial-ground was not more than a quarter of 
 a mile from the village ; yet, though in the neigh- 
 bourhood of man's habitation it was particularly
 
 246 Rory O'More 
 
 lonely ; for, except on Sunday, when the small Pro- 
 testant congregation went to divine service, or that 
 the occasion of a funeral called the peasantry to the 
 spot, it was little frequented. 
 
 Indeed, a churchyard is generally avoided ; nor can 
 it be wondered at that the resting-place of the dead 
 should have an appalling influence on the ignorant 
 and superstitious, when even to the most enlightened 
 there is a chastened and solemn tone of feeling pro- 
 duced on entering a place of sepulture. 
 
 Much of this feeling is lessened, or at least the in- 
 dulgence of it is in a more elevated tone, when we 
 walk through the range of magnificent monuments 
 lining the vaulted aisle of some noble abbey. Here 
 the vanitv of our nature is indirectly flattered by wit- 
 nessing the tribute that posterity pays to greatness, 
 and Glory more than half divides the triumph with 
 Death. But in the lonely country churchyard, where 
 some plain headstone or nameless mound of earth is 
 all that is left to tell that there rests a being once in- 
 stinct with life as ourselves, and where, instead of 
 vaulted roof and clustered columns, the ruins of some 
 lowly chapel stand, they, like all around, telling of 
 decay, — there it is that the contemplation of mortal- 
 ity exercises its most depressing influence, and the 
 thought of death strikes coldly on the heart. 
 
 De Lacy accompanied Rory to the burial-place, 
 which stood on a small mound, the gravestones rising 
 in bare relief against the sky, which here and there 
 peeped through the shattered mullions of some win- 
 dow in the ruined wall of one of the little churches, 
 giving an air of peculiar desolation to the place, 
 which was increased, perhaps, by the slated roof of 
 one of them, which was repaired and employed as the 
 Protestant parish church. A pathway led to this 
 building, and Rory came to a stand where, on one
 
 Ro?y O'More 247 
 
 side of the path, stood a rather conspicuous tomb- 
 stone with this inscription : — 
 
 Pray for the soul of 
 
 Denis Sweeny, 
 who departed, &c. 
 
 " Do you see that ? " said Rory to De Lacy. 
 
 " Yes."" 
 
 " Well, that 's what brings me here to-day." 
 
 " How ? " said De Lacy. 
 
 " Whv, that 's owld Denny Sweeny's tombstone ; 
 and you see the poor owld fellow axes every one to 
 pray for his sowl — and why not? — and indeed I 
 hope he 's in glory. Well, you see by that he was a 
 good Catholic, and a dacent man he was ; and when 
 he died, he ordhered the same tombstone to be put 
 over him, and paid my own father for cuttin' the 
 
 same." 
 
 " Is it after he died ? " said De Lacy. 
 
 " Oh, no — you know what I mane; but sure a 
 slip o' the tongue does n't matther. Well, as I was 
 sayin', my father cut the same tombstone — and a 
 nate bit o' work it is ; see the iligant crass an it, and 
 cut so deep that the divil would n't get it out of it, 
 — God forgi' me for sayin' divil to the crass !" 
 
 " It 's deep enough, indeed," said De Lacy. 
 
 " Ay, and so I towld that dirty brat. Sweeny — 
 the 'turney, I mane — when he axed me about it. 
 What do you think he wants me to do ? " said Rory. 
 
 " To take it back for half-price, perhaps," said 
 De Lacy. 
 
 " 'Faith, he has n't that much fun in him to think 
 of sitch a thing." 
 
 " What was it, then ? " 
 
 " Why, he wants me to althcr it," said Rory. 
 
 " For himself, I hope ? " said De Lacy.
 
 248 Rory O'More 
 
 " No," said Rory ; " though in throth I 'd do that 
 with pleasure, for he 'd be no loss to king or counthry. 
 But, as I was tellin' you, he comes to me the other 
 day, and towld me it was disgraceful to see sitch a 
 thing as *• pray for the sowl ' on his father's tombstone 
 in sitch enlightened times as these, when people knew 
 betther than to pray for people's sowls. 
 
 "*They might do worse,' says I. 
 
 " ' It might do for the dark ages,' says he, ' but it 
 won't do now ; ' laying it all on the dark ages, by the 
 way^ jist as if people did n't know that it was bekaze 
 when he goes to church every Sunday his poor honest 
 father's tombstone stares him in the face, the same as 
 if the voice out of the grave called to him and said, 
 ' Oh, thin, Dinny, my boy, is it goin' to church you 
 are ? ' Not that he 'd mind that, for the cowld- 
 hearted thief has n't the feelin' to think of it ; but 
 it 's the dirty pride of the little animal ; — he doesn't 
 like the 7-ale Prodestants to see the thing stan'in' in 
 evidence agin him. So I thought I 'd divart myself 
 a bit with him, and says I, ' sure the tombstone 
 does n't do you nor any body else any harm.' — 'Yes, 
 it does,' says he ; 'it stands in evidence agin my 
 father's common sinse, and I 'm ashamed of it.' 
 
 " Oh ! " said Rory feelingly, " what luck can the 
 man have that says he 's ashamed of his father's 
 grave ! " The feeling and touching appeal reached 
 De Lacy's heart. Rory continued — "Ashamed, 
 indeed ! — Throth, an' well he may say he 's 
 ashamed ! — not for his father, though — no — but 
 well may he be ashamed to change his creed ! " 
 
 " You should n't blame any man for his religious 
 belief, Rory," said De Lacy. 
 
 " No more I would, sir, if it was his belief that he 
 was reared in ; but " 
 
 " Oh ! " said De Lacy, interrupting him, " if a
 
 Rory O'More 249 
 
 man feels that he has been instructed in a belief which 
 his conscience will not permit him to follow " 
 
 " Sure, sir," said Ron', interrupting in his turn, 
 " I would n't blame him for that neither : but is it 
 Sweeny vou think does it for that ? not he, in throth, 
 — it 's jist for the lucre, and nothin' else. And sure, 
 if he had the feeling in him to love his father, sure it 's 
 not altherin' his tombstone he 'd be, that was made 
 by his father's own directions : and suppose he thinks 
 that he ought to be a Prodestant ever so much, sure 
 is n't it bad of him to intherfare with his poor father's 
 dyin' request that they would pray for his sowl ? " 
 
 " That I grant you," said De Lacy. 
 
 " Well, he comes to me to ask me to alther it. 
 ' For what ? ' says I. ' Bekaze I 'm ashamed of it,' 
 says he. — 'Why?' says I. 'Bekaze it's only 
 Popen,',' says he. — ' Well,' says I, ' if it 's Popery 
 ever so much, sure it 's your father's doin', — and any 
 shame there is in it, it is to him, and not to you, and 
 so you need n't care about it ; and if your father did 
 wish people to pray for his sowl, I think it very bad o' 
 you to wish to prevent.' — ' It can do him no good,' 
 says he. — ' It can do him no harm, anyhow,' says I. 
 
 " So he could n't get over that ver\' well, and made 
 no answer about the good or the harm of it, and said 
 he did n't want to argue the point with me, but that 
 he wanted it althered ; and as my father done the 
 job, he thought I was the person to alther it. ' And 
 how do you want it changed ? ' says I. — ' Take out 
 " Pray for the sowl : " ' says he, ' that 's nothing but 
 Popen'.' — ' My father always cut the sowl very deep,' 
 says I, ' and to take it out is impossible ; but if it 's 
 onlv the Popery you object to, I can alther it if you 
 like, so that you can have nothing to say agin it.' — 
 'How?' says he. — 'Oh, let me alone,' says I. 
 ' You 're no sculpture^' says I, ' and don't know hov.'
 
 250 Rory O'More 
 
 I '11 do it ; but you 'II see yourself when it 's done.' — 
 ' You won't charge me much ? ' says he. — ' I '11 
 charge you nothing,' says I ; 'I'm not a mason by 
 thrade, and I '11 do the job for love.' — ' But how do 
 you mane to do it?' says he agin. — 'Oh, never 
 mind,' savs I ; ' go your ways, I '11 do the job com- 
 plate, and next Sunday, when you go to church, 
 you '11 see the divil a bit o' Popery will be in the 
 same tombstone.' — ' That 's all I want,' says he. 
 — 'Thin we'll be both plazed,' says I. — And now 
 I'm come here to-day to do the very thing." 
 
 " And how do you mean to effect the alteration, 
 Rory ? " said De Lacy. 
 
 "As aisy as kiss hand," said Rory. " Jist do you 
 amuse yourself with looking into the churches; there 's 
 some quare carvings round the windows and doors, 
 and a mighty curious owld stone crass up there be- 
 yant. Or, if you like, sir, sit down beside me here 
 with your book, and you can read while I work." 
 
 De Lacy had not been long engaged in reading, when 
 old Phelim made his appearance; and with so amusing 
 a cicerone, De Lacy passed a couple of hours pleasantly 
 enough in looking over the antiquities of the place. 
 
 After the lapse of that period, Rory had com- 
 pleted his task, and sought his friends to show them 
 how thoroughly he had neutralised the Popery that 
 had so much distressed Sweeny. 
 
 " How could you have done it so soon . " said De 
 Lacy. 
 
 " Oh, I won't tell you — you must see it yourself," 
 said Rory. " It is the simplest thing in life — four 
 letthers did it all." Rory now conducted De Lacy 
 and Phelim to the tombstone, and the moment they 
 stood before it they both indulged in hearty laughter. 
 Rory had carved over the objectionable request the 
 phrase " don't," so that the inscription ran thus : —

 
 Rory 0' More 251 
 
 don't 
 
 Pray for the soul of 
 
 Denis Sweeny. 
 
 " Is n't that the thing ? " said Rory. 
 
 " Capital ! " said De Lacy. 
 
 " Is n't that sarving the little viper right ! You 
 see he dar n't say at wanst, out, honest, that he was 
 ashamed for his own sake^ bekaze he was a turncoat ; 
 but he lays the blame on the Popery. Oh, in throth, 
 there 's many a dirty turn and many a cruel thing 
 done on us ; and thim that does the thing is ashamed 
 to own to the right cause, and so they lay the blame on 
 the Popery. By my sowl ! they ought to be obleeged 
 to Popery for giving them sitch a convanient excuse 
 for not havin' things called by their right names." 
 
 " But won't Sweeny be very angry about it ? " 
 
 " 'Faith, to be sure he will," said Phelim, shaking 
 his head. " Rory, ma houchal^ though I can't deny 
 your wit, I cannot complimint you with an epitha- 
 lamium upon your prudence : you have made that 
 little bitther attorney your inimy to the ind o' time." 
 
 " I know that," said Rory ; "but what do I care \ " 
 
 " Rory, my boy. Prudence, Prudentia^ as the Latins 
 had it, — Prudence, my boy, is one of the cardinial 
 virtues." 
 
 "Well, to expose humbuggin' is as cardinial as ever 
 it was." 
 
 " So you won't listen to me ? — Magister docet^ sed 
 vos vero negligitis." 
 
 "Well, who 's sayin' it 's prudent ? — But all I stand 
 up for is the altheration ; and is n't that complate ? " 
 
 "That there is no dcnyin'," said Phelim. 
 
 " And all with four letthers ! " 
 
 *' You have demonstherated it as complate wid 
 four," said Phelim, "as I do mv mattamatics wid 
 three— Q. E. D."
 
 252 Rory O'More 
 
 " By dad ! I have a great mind to put Q. E. D. at 
 the end of it all," said Rory. 
 
 " For what ? " said De Lacy. 
 
 " Bekase it is zuhat was to be demonstherated" said 
 Rory. 
 
 " 'Faith, I 'm glad to see you remember your mat- 
 tamatics still," said Phelim. 
 
 " Would n't it be grate fun ! " said Rory. 
 
 " It 's bad enough as it is," said De Lacy, " with- 
 out making matters worse. I am afraid, Rory, this 
 was very unwise." 
 
 "Yet you can't help laughin' at it," said Rory. 
 
 " Indeed I can't," said De Lacy. 
 
 " Well, and so will the Prodestants laugh at that 
 contimptible little upstart when they see it, and that's 
 all I want. There 's nothing an upstart feels half so 
 much as a laugh against him," said Rory, making a 
 sagacious comment upon his own imprudent act. 
 
 "Quite true," said De Lacy, " and therefore the 
 attorney will never forgive you." 
 
 " The beauty of it is," said Rory, still enjoying his 
 joke, " that he can't complain openly about it ; for all 
 he said, was that he was ashamed about the Popery of 
 it. Now, I 've taken the Popery out of it, at all events." 
 
 " Certainly," said De Lacy; " but, at the same time, 
 you have increased Sweeny's cause of inquietude by 
 making the offensive phrase more obnoxious." 
 
 " That 's what I meant to do," said Rory boldly ; 
 " I 've caught him in his own thrap. The little 
 scheming 'turney complained only about the Popery; 
 now, with four letthers I 've desthroyed more Popery 
 than the parson could do with twice as many." 
 
 " Upon my v/ord, Rory," said De Lacy, smiling, 
 " many men of letters have failed with the whole 
 alphabet to alter a text so completely as you have 
 done with four"
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 IN WHICH SHAN REGAN AND SOLDERING SOLOMON 
 GIVE A TOUCH OF THEIR QUALITY, AND RORY 
 UNDERGOES A TRIAL OF TEMPER 
 
 ALTHOUGH Regan's mother had discovered 
 his perfidy towards his sister and Rory, and 
 relieved them from the consequences that might have 
 ensued from it, she did not reveal to Rory the treachery 
 of which her son had been guilty, — for still he wa^ 
 her son, and with a mother's tenderness she sought 
 to screen him, in the eyes of our hero, from the con- 
 tempt which so base a means of indulging his dislike 
 must have produced. 
 
 But she saw how deep the hatred to Rory must be 
 on Regan's part, to urge him to such practices as he 
 had exercised against him, and until matters were 
 riper for a disclosure, — in fact, until Kathleen and 
 he should be just going to be married, — she begged 
 of Rory to say nothing about what had passed ; for if 
 it came to Shan's knowledge, he would be " showing 
 his temper " at home, and it was as well not to vex 
 him until the time came when the definite step could 
 be taken which would render his anger of no avail ; 
 for though she would not betray to Rory the baseness 
 of her son, she had no hesitation in owning that he 
 was not his friend. 
 
 It was with this understanding that Rory and 
 Kathleen parted the night of their meeting at the 
 rath. But though i\lrs. Regan kept the means of
 
 254 Rory O'More 
 
 her knowledge a secret from Rory, she revealed to 
 her daughter how she became possessed of the knowl- 
 edge that exposed the treacherous influence employed 
 to ruin the hopes of two innocent people, not only 
 to satisfy Kathleen's inquiries of how her mother 
 could vouch for Rory's conduct, but in order to put 
 Kathleen on her guard against betraying to her 
 brother any symptom of his plot having failed. 
 
 " For what would we do if he thought we found 
 him out ! " 
 
 Miserable mother ! whose only hope of domestic 
 quiet lay in seeming to be ignorant of the ruffianism 
 of her child. 
 
 With all her caution, however, though Kathleen 
 did not betray any symptoms of happiness in her 
 brother's presence, and subdued her looks and manner 
 as much as possible, still Regan was not quite satis- 
 fied with the apparent state of things at home : not 
 that he suspected his plot had been discovered, but 
 he feared that it had not been sufficiently effective, 
 or that Kathleen would exhibit more distress. He, 
 therefore, went further in endeavouring to depreciate 
 Rory O'More in every thing he could say and do, 
 not only at home, but abroad. 
 
 There are some natures so essentially vile that 
 they can never forgive another's success. Such was 
 Regan's. But to this habitual baseness of mind, was 
 added the stimulus of dislike in Rory's affair ; and 
 that his sister's attachment to him seemed still to 
 survive the threats and falsehoods and machinations 
 urged against it, increased that dislike. But it was 
 Rory's triumph over him at the fair that completed 
 the sum of his hatred. This, Regan looked upon as 
 a personal disgrace, and the remembrance of it sank 
 deep in his heart ; and deeper and deeper it sank 
 every day, and the depth of the remembrance called
 
 Rory 0' More 255 
 
 for a greater measure of revenge. Until this could 
 be satisfied, he in the mean time got up a piece of 
 slander against Rory, by falsifying all the circum- 
 stances of the visit to the fair. 
 
 This he did with the most thorough malevolence 
 and injurious perversion of all the facts. He spoke 
 amongst his fellows, openly in the public-houses, 
 where most of his time was spent, in a spirit of jeer- 
 ing slightingness of Mary O'More being "gallivanted 
 round the fair by that omadhaun Conolly, — and 
 thrated Misther Rory, too, I hear. Well, people 's 
 changed ! I thought, wanst, that Rory had more 
 sperit than to be takin' thrates from another man, 
 on account of his sisther's purty face." 
 
 Now, though he got hearers who were base 
 enough to listen to this, he did not find one to 
 believe him, for they were well aware of the secret 
 and real cause of his spleen. But this disparagement 
 did not satisfy him : — there was another and a viler 
 misrepresentation of which he was guilty. The busi- 
 ness of the ducks, which, if truly told, he knew 
 would only raise a laugh against him, he twisted with 
 the true serpent spirit that actuated him, into a crime, 
 and, with the expression of regret which is so often 
 the outward sign of the secret rejoicing of the bad 
 man's heart, he declared he was sorry that Rory " let 
 himself down so much, for he thought he was above 
 Stalin' a poor pitiful pair o' ducks : throth, it was n't 
 worth while bein' a thief (or such a thrijie." 
 
 All this in the course of a few davs travelled to 
 the next parish, where Rory lived ; for even in 
 sylvan scenes the dryads have it not all to them- 
 selves, — there be evil geniuses in the country as 
 well as the town, and " d — d good-natured friends " 
 are to be found everywhere ; and some of these same 
 good-natured folk told Rory what was said of him.
 
 256 Rory O^More 
 
 The first bearer of the disagreeable intelligence 
 was Old Solomon the tinker, who delighted in hav- 
 ing it in his power to say bitter things of every body, — 
 or even to them, when he could do it by innuendo, 
 a favourite weapon of his, and one which he used 
 like a master. 
 
 It happened, during the day Rory and De Lacy 
 went to " the churches," that Old Solomon paid the 
 Widow O'A'Iore a visit. In doing this he had two 
 objects : in the first place, he enacted guide to De 
 Welskein, who wanted to see De Lacy ; and in the 
 next, he was sure of " entertainment," as the sign- 
 boards have it, for himself and his ass. 
 
 He was kindly received at the cottage of the 
 widow, and had some fresh buttermilk and good 
 potatoes given him, with a seat in the chimney 
 corner into the bargain, where he roasted his shins, 
 and smoked his pipe, and said sour things of half 
 the country, — and, in short, made himself perfectly 
 happy. But after spending a couple of hours thus, 
 he began to exhibit symptoms of impatience at Rory's 
 absence ; for he wanted to proceed further, and yet 
 did not like to go without giving to Rory the plea- 
 sant intimation that he was gaining the reputation 
 of being a very ingenious purloiner of other people's 
 property : — waiting to wound the man, the hospita- 
 ble shelter of whose roof he had enjoyed, not only 
 then, but at all times. And this, he must have been 
 conscious, arose from pure good-heartedness : for his 
 habitual influence through the motive of fear did not 
 exist there as in other places, Rory being too sharp 
 a fellow to let Solomon exercise such a power over 
 him ; and it was partly this fact that made the old 
 scoundrel the more anxious to gall, at least, where he 
 could not govern. 
 
 De Welskein waited patiently enough the return
 
 Rory O'More 257 
 
 of De Lacy, as he consoled himself with making 
 compliments to Mary O'More, and doing the agree- 
 able, as Frenchmen generally do : but Solomon 
 from time to time went from the fireplace to the 
 door to look out for Rory, whom, at last, he saw 
 approaching. 
 
 When Rory entered the cottage, he welcomed De 
 Welskein, who seemed rather constrained in his 
 manner towards him, and asked for De Lacy ; Rorv 
 informed him he would soon return, — that he left 
 him and Phelim behind in the churchyard, looking 
 over some old tombstones, but that they would not 
 be long absent. 
 
 " And how are you, Sol. ? " said Rory. 
 
 " Oh, as well as any one wishes me," replied 
 Solomon bitterly. 
 
 " What are you in sitch a hurry for ? " asked 
 Rory ; " sure you are not goin' yet ? " This was 
 said in pure hospitality, for Rory did not like the 
 old cynic. 
 
 " Yis, yis, — you 've had enough of me." 
 
 "Well," said Rory, " plaze yourself and you'll 
 live the longer." 
 
 *' Throth, thin, the more one lives, the more one 
 wondhers," said Solomon. " Rory avic^^ added he, 
 " will you go and get me the ass ? " 
 
 "To be sure," said Rory, who went to the out- 
 house, where the ass had been enjoying a good feed, 
 as well as his master. Reloading him with his pan- 
 niers, containing Solomon's 
 
 " Nippers, twisters, sand, and resin," 
 
 as well as the three ancient pots and pans, Rory led 
 the animal forth to where Solomon stood awaiting 
 his approach, before the door of the cottage ; and 
 when Rory halted the beast before him, the old 
 VOL. I. — 17
 
 258 Rory O'More 
 
 tinker began very carefully to examine every par- 
 ticular of his ass's furniture and appendages, not 
 forgetting the three old rusty kettles that dangled 
 from the straddle. 
 
 Rory inquired if any thing was wrong ? — " Oh, 
 it 's no harm to see if all 's right," said Solomon. 
 
 " Why, would n't it be right ? " said Rory. 
 " Have n't I put on this sthraddle and panniers, and 
 kittles, often enough before ? " 
 
 "Oh yis, — but 1 was only seein' — one, two, 
 three, — I was only seein' if all was safe ; one can't 
 be too sure these times ; — one, two, three : " and he 
 very carefully repeated his scrutiny of the three old 
 kettles as he leisurely pronounced " one, two, three." 
 
 Rory's attention was aroused by this repetition of 
 the words which were the signal to the smuggler ; 
 and fancying for a moment that Solomon might have 
 discovered his agency in the affair, he became very 
 uneasy, and said, — 
 
 " What do you mane by reckoning over one, two, 
 three, so often ? " 
 
 *' Oh, these is quare times," said Solomon. 
 
 This increased Rory's uneasiness. " How do you 
 mane ? " said he. 
 
 " And a quare world, so it is, — one, two, three." 
 
 " What the dickins are you at with your ' one, 
 two, three ? ' " said Rory, whose anxiety increased. 
 
 " Only jist seein' that my property 's safe," said 
 Solomon, giving a look at Rory, which our hero 
 could not understand, for, his mind still reverting to 
 the signals, could not reach the meaning which Solo- 
 mon wished to convey, and he was yet unsatisfied 
 what Solomon's reckoning the kettles meant. How- 
 ever, as the tinker went through that process again, 
 and still repeated " one, two, three," Rory said 
 impatiently, —
 
 Rory O'More 259 
 
 " Tare an' ouns ! is it thim owld kittles you 're 
 reckonin' agin ? " 
 
 " Jist countin' thim, — is there any harm in 
 that ? " said the tinker : " it 's betther be sure than 
 sorry." 
 
 " Countin' thim ! " said Rory, looking at him with 
 all his eyes. " Why, sure you never had more nor 
 three owld rusty kittles in your life ; and they 're so 
 well known over the counthry, that no one would 
 think to make their own of thim, supposin' they wor 
 worth Stalin'." 
 
 " Oh, some people has quare tastes for what be- 
 longs to other people," said Solomon significantly, — 
 " one, two, three, — and a kittle might tickle some 
 people's fancy." 
 
 " The divil tickle you and your fancy ! " said 
 Rory, waxing angry. " Why, barrin' one wanted to 
 hunt a mad dog with it, bad luck to the use any one 
 would have with your owld kittles ! " 
 
 *' Maybe so," said Solomon with great composure ; 
 " but you see," he added, " some people is so handy 
 at staling a pair o' ducks, that no one knows but my 
 poor kittles might go asthray : " and he cast a pro- 
 voking glance at Rory. —As quick as lightning, the 
 truth flashed upon O'More's mind, that the frolic at 
 the fair had been misrepresented ; and though glad to 
 find his fears regarding the discovery of the signals 
 were unfounded, yet with flushed cheek and dilated 
 eve, he said in a tone in which wounded pride more 
 than anger was predominant, " What do you mane ? " 
 
 " Oh, laste said is soonest mended," said the 
 tinker ; — " one, two, three ; — I see they 're all 
 safe. Good cvcnin' to you, Rory." 
 
 " Stop ! " said Rory, confronting him ; " explain to 
 me your dark meaning, and don't lave an affront at 
 the door you were always welkim at ? "
 
 26o Rory O'More 
 
 " How have I affronted you ? " said Solomon, 
 whose frigid coolness of age was in startling relief to 
 the excited fervour of the young man who stood be- 
 fore him. 
 
 " You made a dark hint jist now," said Rory. 
 
 " Make light of it, Rory, ma bouchal" said the 
 tinker, taking the halter of his ass in token of de- 
 parture. 
 
 " You shan't go that way," said Rory, begin- 
 ning to lose his temper ; and he laid his hand on 
 the old man's shoulder in the action of detention, 
 but at the same time with a proper degree of deference 
 to his age. 
 
 " And is it stoppin' a man on the road you are 
 now ? " said the tinker with a low, spiteful chuckle : 
 " throth, you 're improvin' fast!" and he attempted 
 to pass Rory, who now, losing all control of himself, 
 said, — 
 
 " Bad luck to you, you cruked, spiteful, sawdhering 
 owld thief ! how dar you say the like to an honest 
 man's son ! — Stop on the road, indeed ! — stale 
 ducks ! Is it Regan that has the black heart to say 
 I stole his ducks ? " 
 
 " Oh, you know it, thin ! " said old Solomon, be- 
 coming provoked in turn. 
 
 " Know it ! " said Rory, seeing his drift ; " it 's 
 well for you you 're past bating, you owld cracked 
 bottle o' vinegar that you are ! or I 'd thrash you 
 within an inch o' your life. Away wid you, you owld 
 sarpent ! " and he flung him from him. 
 
 The old tinker staggered back, and made a great 
 clatter as he reeled against his old kettles ; but, re- 
 covering himself, he led away his ass, saying to Rory 
 however before he went, " I hear they wor uncom- 
 mon fine ducks ! " 
 
 Rory was startled by this last expression, — the
 
 Rory 0' More 261 
 
 second part of the signal given to De Welskein. — 
 Was it chance ? or did the old tinker mix up the 
 slander of Regan, and imply his knowledge of Rory's 
 mission, in the same breath, to puzzle him ? While 
 he was standing in this state of perplexity and vexa- 
 tion, De Lacy came up to him unperceived, — for 
 Rory was looking after the tinker, whose last words 
 De Lacy had heard, and was attracted by, and ac- 
 costing Ror)', who was taken by surprise, said, — 
 
 " Does that old rascal know any thing about our 
 affairs ? " 
 
 " 'Faith, I dunna if he does," said Rorj^, with an 
 air of abstraction that struck De Lacy as peculiar. 
 
 " Is it not strange, that he should use the words of 
 our private signal ? " 
 
 " Faix, an' it is, and it bothered myself at first," 
 said Rory, " when he said it ; but I think, afther 
 all, he knows nothing about it, and that he only 
 spoke it by chance, and meant something else 
 intirely." 
 
 " What else could he allude to ? " said De Lacy. 
 
 " I '11 tell you about it, sir, another time," answered 
 Rory ; " for it 's a long stor}', and you 'd betther not 
 wait for it now, as Mr. Devilskin is in the house 
 waitin' for you." 
 
 " De Welskein ! " said De Lacy, who entered the 
 cottage as he uttered the name. 
 
 " Bon joiir^ citoyen capitaine" was the address of the 
 smuggler to De Lacy, who welcomed him in return ; 
 the smuggler continuing to address him in French, 
 desired a private interview ; De Lacy pointed to his 
 bedroom, and the Frenchman entered the apartment. 
 De Lacy followed, and as soon as they were within 
 the room, De Welskein pointed to the lock. 
 
 " There is no necessity," said De Lacy. 
 
 " Don't be too sure of that," said De Welskein,
 
 262 Rory O'More 
 
 with a very significant shake of the head, and one of 
 the keen and cunning glances of his dark eye. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said De Lacy. — The 
 Frenchman laid his finger on his lip, to impress the 
 necessity of silence ; and though still speaking his own 
 language, which was sufficient guarantee for secrecy 
 in an Irish cabin, yet the importance of what he had 
 to communicate was so great, that he placed his 
 mouth close to De Lacy's ear, and said, in the most 
 cautious tone, " There is a traitor ! " 
 
 " A traitor ! " echoed De Lacy. 
 
 The Frenchman nodded assent, and added, " We 
 are betrayed." 
 
 De Lacy thought of the words he heard Solomon 
 utter, and said quickly, " That rascally old tinker ? " 
 
 " Vieux chaudronnier de campagne ? — No, no." 
 
 " Who then ? " asked De Lacy. 
 
 De Welskein subdued his voice to the lowest 
 whisper and said, " Rory O'More ! " 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
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