Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu, page 72
“By your leave, my Lord Tyrconnel,” rejoined the ambassador, with provoking coolness; “I represent, here, the majesty of France — the power which has supplied your empty magazines, filled your garrisons, replenished your treasury, and, under the safeguard of the fleur-de-lis, from the deckage of a French navy, and amidst the battalions of a French army, landed your royal master (and he laid a galling emphasis on the word), upon the shores of Ireland; I have the exalted honour to represent King Louis — the monarchy of France, in this assembly; and I have yet to learn that France appears in your Irish councils on sufferance.”
“Your excellency seems to have forgotten,” exclaimed Sarsfield, sarcastically, for he shared in the national and personal jealousy with which the obvious prevalence of French councils in the cabinet interieur had inspired the Irish adherents of the royal cause, “that the flower of our Irish army is serving your master in France; and for the supplies he is pleased to send — what are they but a loan, and a prudent one to boot? Pshaw! Count d’Avaux,” he continued, more gruffly, “we all know as well as you do that France serves but her own ends in throwing some men and money into this country. It is childish all this rhetoric vapour, fustian.”
“Colonel Sarsfield, you have said enough,” exclaimed d’Avaux, calmly, but with a heightened colour, and at the same time preparing to rise; “such language, scarce seemly from one gentleman to another, when offered to the Majesty of France — .”
“Count D’Avaux, my good friend, for my sake,” cried James, excitedly, laying his hand upon the ambassador’s arm— “Colonel Sarsfield, we have had enough, and over much, of these vain altercations; let them be ended. My Lord Tyrconnel, I look to you to keep our hot Irish bloods from boiling over. This is, beside,” he added, more severely, and glancing at Sir Hugh, whose presence had been forgotten for the moment, “scarce prudent or politic, or seemly. My lords and gentlemen of the privy council, our time is scarce enough for business; it shall not be wasted in distractions. Nay, D’Avaux, I entreat — Colonel Sarsfield, I command,” he continued, raising his voice as the two personages indicated, successively attempted to speak. “Messieurs, there must be an end of this; while I preside here I will be obeyed. Ma foi! gentlemen, am! King here, or not? Tyrconnel, Riverston, second our endeavours, I pray you in this matter.”
“Your Majesty’s command is enough for me,” said Sarsfield, with an angry glance at D’Avaux, followed, however, by a profound and graceful inclination to the King, whose extreme distress had, perhaps, wrought upon him more effectually even than his manifest displeasure.
“We are so persuaded, Colonel Sarsfield,” said James quickly; and then he added, with a sigh, which seemed to rise from the very depths of his heart, and with a slight knitting of the brows, as if in pain, “God knows — God knows we are troubled and perplexed over much already by the outrages and the wiles of open and of secret enemies; let us be at peace with one another. We are friends; I beseech you, as friends, be at peace one with another.”
The king spoke in such a tone of extreme distress and earnest entreaty, that an embarrassed silence of some seconds followed — a pause of which it were hard to say whether it partook most of the solemn or the ridiculous. Tyrconnel, however, interrupted this awkward silence.
“May it please your Majesty to permit me to put a few questions to Sir Hugh Willoughby,” he asked, “before his attendance is dispensed with?”
“Surely, surely; but be brief — be brief; we have wasted time enough, and over much, already,” rejoined the king, a little peevishly; and taking a pen, he began to jot down some notes with a careful hand in ft small blank book, in which were entered the materials of those journals which he kept with such persevering amplitude and punctuality.
“It may be, my Lord Chief Justice Riverston,” said Tyrconnel, as if suddenly recollecting a circumstance which had escaped him, and with a gracious smile— “it may be that you had best, with his majesty’s permission, withdraw for a few moments from the council; as you shall try this case hereafter, it were but fair play in us to guard the prisoner against prejudicing himself by too much freedom in your presence.”
“Do not withdraw on my account, my lord,” said Sir Hugh, sternly and quickly; I will take sufficient care not to prejudice myself. I thank you for your merciful anxiety, my Lord Tyrconnel; but it is altogether causeless.”
Tyrconnel was evidently not prepared for this, for a faint cloud of displeasure and disappointment darkened the haughty face of the practised dissembler.
“Be it as you will, then,” he said; “only be cautious — say no more than is simply necessary.”
Sir Hugh turned impatiently away, and Tyrconnel continued: “We have heard something against the character and credibility of this Mr. Hogan, your chief accuser. You represent his visit to your house to have been a mere pretence, to gain an entrance for lawless violence. I have heard matter which would give a colouring to this. It has been suggested to me that he presented you with a forged warrant of search, on the night of the affray. Did you read the name signed at the foot of it?”
“I care not to answer that question, my lord,” said Sir Hugh, calmly, but decisively.
“You are asked,” said the king, laying down his pen, and looking upon the contumacious prisoner with an expression of imperious surprise— “you are asked whether you read the signature at the foot of the warrant. The Earl of Tyrconnel awaits your answer.”
“May it please your majesty,” said Sir Hugh, respectfully but perfectly firmly, “I have already declined to answer my Lord Tyrconnel’s question.”
“You will answer the King, then,” said James, peremptorily; “we now ask you that question, and expect an answer.”
“My liege,” said Sir Hugh, “the question touches matters affecting my life. For this reason it was, my liege, I refused to answer it.”
“Ma foi! dost thou refuse to answer me?” said the King, colouring, and with more impatience than dignity, at the same time striking his notebook upon the table.
“If your Majesty commands me to answer” — said Sir Hugh.
“I ask you the question, and I expect an answer.” reiterated the King.
“I will obey your royal command, should your majesty impose it on me,” replied the old knight; “but while your royal permission leaves me free to claim the constitutional privilege of every man under a capital accusation, I will do so; and, with all submission to your majesty, I must continue to decline to answer that question.”
“My liege,” urged Tyrcounel, in an under tone, “will you not command him to answer?”
The King hesitated; spoke a little in a low tone to D’Avaux; and only the last words he said were audible as he leaned back —
“He is right — ay, quite right— ’tis not worth pressing. Sir Hugh Willoughby,” he added, aloud, addressing the old knight in atone of high displeasure, “as our wish hath not prevailed with you in this matter, we shall not add our command. By my troth, sir knight, there have been kings of England who would have dealt sharply with such contumacy; but let that pass — I had rather err on the side of clemency than exercise severity, however just. We have come into this our kingdom of Ireland,” he continued, with dignity, as he glanced round the members of the council, “not to pursue and to punish, but rather to reconcile, to restore, and to forgive. He who reads the hearts of kings, and under whom kings reign, and to whom alone must even kings render an account — the great God knows how gladly we would make all our subjects, even those who have wronged us deepest, happy and secure — how gladly we would assure them that we are ever more ready to grant forgiveness than they to ask it; and that, save for the necessity of warning and example, the halter and the axe might be unused for us till doomsday.”
“My liege,” said Tyrconnel, with a sullen displeasure which he was at no pains to conceal, “the prisoner does not choose to answer the questions which I put to him; and as your majesty tolerates his recusancy, I shall press him with no further examination — I’ve done with him.”
“Then, i’ God’s name, let him begone, and let us to other matters,” said James, hastily; and then he added more austerely, “you may depart, Sir Hugh Willoughby; the council have no further need of your attendance.”
Much relieved at the unexpected ease of his escape from a scene which he had anticipated with so much anxiety and alarm, Sir Hugh bowed low to his majesty, and, withdrawing under charge of the same official who had conducted him into the chamber, was once more committed to the keeping of the guard who waited in the outer room.
“That old gentleman,” said Galmoy, slowly, as his sleepy eye followed Sir Hugh from the chamber, and continuing to lean indolently back in his chair; “that old gentleman presumes strangely upon your royal clemency; there is treason in every circumstance of his case, and rebel in every word he uttered; and yet he looks your majesty in the face, as confidently as though he had raised a regiment in your service. I could scarcely forbear laughing at his impudence.”
“Yet, ’tis no laughing matter, Earl of Galmoy,” said James, somewhat curtly; “this old knight is but a sample — and we fear too just a one — of the general temper of our Protestant subjects. They are schooled in rebellion — one and all, with but a few most honourable exceptions; I never trusted them.”
“The history of these kingdoms, and of your royal house,” said Tyrconnel, sternly, “affords memorable and bloody proofs of the wisdom of your majesty’s distrust.”
“True,” said James, calmly; for though he always spoke of his unhappy father with decent respect, he felt no delicacy, and exacted none from others, in alluding to his fate; “but though the bulk of them always repudiated the extremity of that sacrilegious murder; yet, in general and in all other matters, they concurred with the murderer. I remember well, when the late king, my beloved brother, and I, were in France, we had often occasion to go into companies, without letting ourselves be known; and there we used to hear the Protestants — invariably and without exception — speak in praise of Cromwell; a circumstance which easily impressed us both with the conviction that they were, in the mass, not to be trusted; that they were rebels in their hearts.”
“And truly can I aver,” said Tyrconnel; “as far as my poor ex perience goes in the affairs of this kingdom, that whenever and wherever the difficulties of your majesty’s service were the greatest, that I have found them rebels in fact, no less than in disposition.”
“The whole island ought to be governed under martial law; it needs purging and bleeding, to a purpose,” said Lord Galmoy, with a faint sneer; “by — , if your majesty were to give them drumhead law, with an occasional taste of the thumbscrews and the strappado, where the truth was hard to come at, it would make men stare to see the order things would fall into before a month.”
, “Nay, nay— ’tis better as it is,” replied the king; “as soon as we have quelled this untoward revolt in the north, we shall take order so to dispose our troops, that insurrection for the future shall be all but physically impossible; and, meanwhile, we have loyal juries and able judges (and the king glanced graciously at the chief-justice, who bowed low in return); and thus furnished, we fear not lest the guilty shall escape. But enough of this; let us look to the proclamation touching the new coinage: methinks, Duke of Tyrconnel, you have got a rough draft of it, by you.”
So, with the reader’s leave we shall turn to other matters.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE COUNTESS’S BOWER.
HOT and excited, Sir Hugh, accompanied by Jeremiah Tisdal, and attended by the guard, made their exit from the council chamber, and retracing their way through chambers and passages still occupied by loitering groups — they descended the ill-lighted staircase, and found themselves once more in the open yard. Tisdal glanced fearfully, as he passed, at the sentinel who kept watch by the door; and to his inexpressible relief, perceived that the guard had since been changed.
We mentioned before, that the old building which bore the name of the Carbrie, had been subdivided into three houses — the centre one being a well frequented inn — that upon one side a lodging house, in which, as we have seen, Sir Hugh’s apartments were situated, and that upon the other, a sort of dingy, ambiguous-looking tavern, which seemed to be sinking rapidly into utter decay, and carried in its dreary and dilapidated aspect, a certain air of gloom and indescribable suspicion Its desolation was not that of honest poverty, but the wreck and squalor of vice and secret villainy; its darkness and solitude were like the shrinking, sinister seclusion of conscious guilt. There was in the sluggish undulations of its close atmosphere — in the echo of its deserted passages — in the very creak of its half-rotten stairs and rat-eaten flooring, something which seemed to mutter and moan of warning and of peril — there was a certain influence which whispered DANGER in the ear of him who ventured alone to trust himself among its desolate chambers, and equivocal company; the street door gave admission to an ill-lighted and uninviting shop, rather than tavern-room; for a counter traversed it, on which were huddled some measures for liquor, and several glasses, amid the slop of stale libations, the ashes of tobacco, and several dirty stumps of candle; a few barrels, and some dozens of wine flasks in the back ground, supported the convivial pretensions of this inauspicious looking place; the wainscoating was broken, and full of rat-holes, and the furniture both meagre and crazy; — the whole air of the place com billing the character of darkness, discomfort, and debauchery, might best be conveyed in the one emphatic term— “cut-throat.”
A tall female of some five-and-fifty years — skinny and large boned — arrayed in tawdry finery, was standing behind the counter; her shoulders leaning against the wall, and her arms folded; her hard, bony face was flushed, and the grin of pugnacity and defiance which distended her wide mouth, exhibited many a woeful gap in her discoloured teeth; she was redolent of brandy, and seemed in a state of considerable excitement, as she glanced from time to time, with her spiteful grey eyes, upon her companion — while all the time an almost imperceptible wagging of the head betrayed the malignant resolution with which she maintained her part in the domestic debate with which the dusky chamber was now resounding.
On the counter, with his back toward the entrance, sate the other occupant of the room — a short, square-shouldered, bloated fellow, perhaps some fifteen or twenty years the lady’s junior — with a tallowy, sensual face, and a villainous eye. He was entertaining himself, as the discussion proceeded, by deepening a nick, with his penknife, in the counter.
“It isn’t now — nor once — but always you’re at it,” said the gentleman — knocking the haft of the knife on the table by way of emphasis— “I tell you, you’ve made away with five pound of it — I know it — and I’ll know how — I will.”
He added an epithet and an oath which we need not perpetuate. “Ha! ha!” laughed the lady, malignantly, “you’re taking after the doctor — are you?”
“The doctor’s in his grave,” said the man, cutting a very deep slice, “the old boy has him, and I believe he’s made a good exchange of it out of your hands, anyway.”
“Maybe you’d like to follow him?” retorted she with a ghastly smile.
The man looked up from his task with an expression in which uneasiness struggled strangely with suppressed rage —
“It’s threatening me you are — is it?” he said, while his tallowy face darkened. “Come — come — come, I know a trick worth two of the doctor’s — put me to it — and see if I don’t take care of myself and of you too; pish! do you think to bully me — do you?”
“I could do for you, my boy, as easy as that,” and she snapped her fingers, with a laugh of scorn— “it’s only a whisper — a word with the constable, and Margery Coyle is a widow again; tut — tut — you lump of a fool — no shaking of your knife at me — I don’t value it a rusty nail — don’t think to frighten me.”
“You’re as bad yourself, and you know it, you devil’s carrion,” said the man furiously, but scarce above his breath. “Talk of the constable, indeed — you’re a pretty gaol bird to face the constable — aint you?”
“Look behind you,” said she, contemptuously.
A soldier was pushing at the shopdoor, and the ill-looking host, thus checked in a dialogue which might have led to results more practical than we have been called on to record, threw his legs over the counter, let himself down lazily on the floor, and proceeded to give admission to their guest.
The visitor entered with the familiar swagger of a man who knows he has the power to make himself welcome, and glancing round the chamber, observed —
“Quite private, I see — no company — eh?”
“Not one, corporal — not a soul,” replied the host —
“So much the better,” replied Deveril, taking a gold piece from his waistcoat pocket, and raising it impressively between his finger and thumb. “I’ve spent a good round lump of money with you — Mr. What-d’-ye-call’em, and I mean to spend a trifle more.”
“The keen sense of favours to come,” inclined the short and bloated body of mine host with a profound and grateful acknowledgment.
“The fact is, I want a couple of rooms up stairs,” continued Deveril, “they must open one upon the other, but I’ll see to that myself — I expect some company — very particular company to supper this evening. Come up along with me — I’ll see your apartments, and choose for myself.”
They both accordingly ascended the stairs, and entered the chambers opening from the first landing. The building extended far in a backward direction, and had been very irregularly divided from its neighbour, so that Deveril and his guide found themselves involved in a rambling complexity of passages and dismal chambers, of which it would have been no easy matter to draft the plan. The proprietor had suggested several apartments, as presenting the required relation — that of communicating one with the other; but his recommendations had been either wholly disregarded, or else dismissed with an impatient “pish the soldier, however, at last resolved to cut the matter short by a full explanation.
