Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated), page 77
When he took his place at the bar, and looked calmly round him, it were hard to say whether the lines of nobleness or affliction most prevailed in his faded features.
“Where is Tisdal?” whispered old Sir Hugh, somewhat anxiously, in the ear of Caleb-Crooke, his solicitor.
“I know not,” answered he, glancing inquiringly around. “Would he were here and he whispered to a messenger, who bustled away to find him.
Aye, where was Tisdal? Soon enough is old Sir Hugh to see and to hear that trusted villain, though now he may not; yet, reader, if you glance with us into that dark, mildewed closet, not twenty yards away, what see you there? Tisdal! aye, Tisdal — though you scarce know him in his desperate solitude. See his arm extended on the table — the fingers clutched together, as in a death spasm; see the elbow of the other arm upon his knee — his head thus propped, and his hand locked in the shaggy hair, as though he would wring and wrench the very scalp off; see the terrors of his deathlike face — mark how he shakes, how the strained sinews vibrate — hear those sobs and shudders; and then turn back your gaze from that lost demoniac being, to the high, serene aspect of the forsaken old man, and say which is the happier of the two.
The jury are sworn — Mr. Attorney-General Neagle rises grimly to his stern duty, with a rustling of silk, and a crumpling of papers — the crowded court becomes hushed, the clear voice of the advocate alone is heard, and the work of LAW begins.
The speech of an attorney-general, in those days, if he did his duty, was expected to be a very different thing from the address of the same functionary in modern times. It was, from beginning to end, a piece of coarse invective and impetuous railing; in which the guilt of the accused was not only taken for granted, but heightened and exaggerated by the fiercest and darkest colouring. Sir Hugh was often on the very point of yielding to the impulses of the wrath and scorn inspired by this unmeasured oratorical discipline, and interrupting the prosecutor in his harangue, by indignant recriminations, which would have but opened a new field for the rhetoric of the advocate; and in all probability seriously diminished whatever chance Sir Hugh might still have had of escape.
The urgencies of his friends, however, were seconded by the feelings of astonishment and perplexity with which other portions of the speech filled the mind of the old knight; and he was forced to listen, with breathless wonder, which hovered between horror and incredulity, as the florid barrister informed the jury that he would prove the prisoner to have been in the constant and daily habit of holding treasonable language with his friends and followers — and that, too, of the most atrocious kind; and that, moreover, he had declared to one much in his confidence, but who, prompted by the compunction of his wounded conscience, had since confessed the conversation — that had the castle of Glindarragh been tenable when the king’s troops arrived, on the night of the affray, he would have held it against them, “in the name of that unnatural prodigy — that viper — that, in a measure, parricidal usurper, William of Orange — who, gentlemen of the jury, were he, through the perfidy of the disaffected English colonists, in this ancient kingdom, to force an entrance, and establish his wicked authority here, would, so help me heaven as I believe it, pour out his wrath and vengeance upon the head of every loyal man in the kingdom; nay, punish you, gentlemen, and myself, for calling to account this hoary rebel.”
In the old chamber in the Carbrie, meanwhile, sate poor Grace Willoughby — a glass of water on the table, from which she swallowed a little from time to time, with pale and trembling lips, and a sobbing effort to relieve the choking at her throat — a bright feverish flush was on her cheeks, giving to her eyes an unnatural brilliancy, starting up at every sound, straining her sight along the street, to catch the first glimpse of the messenger who came and went to and from the court, bearing to her short notes, which told the progress of the terrible ordeal proceeding there. The last of these lay upon the table, and was couched in these terms: —
“The jury have retired — the judge has charged unfavourably — it is all Tisdal’s evidence — a villain. We have hopes, notwithstanding; don’t despond, darling. God bless you.
“H. W.”
It was now nearly dusk, and still the poor girl gazed from the window; then starting, ran to the door, and held it open, listening in ain for a repetition of the sound which fancy alone had heard; then returning, wringing her hands the while, to the table, and reading again and again, the little note, already a thousand times conned over, in the desperate endeavour to extract from its laconic intimations, some dearer light into the horrible obscurity of her suspense.
At last a step was heard upon the stair. She ran to the door; a servant, pale and haggard, hurried across the lobby; she strove to speak, but could not. The note was in her hand — she read it — one word — gracious God! but one— “GUILTY.” For a few dizzy seconds her eye remained fixed upon the terrible word; and then, clapping her hands together, with one wild scream, she fell senseless to the ground.
*
It was now night, and two gentlemen, in unbounded exultation, were seated at supper in a handsome room in the Carbrie; they were Miles Garrett and Thomas Talbot; they had drunk deeply, and were both somewhat flushed and excited.
“My brother knows how to play his cards, that’s all,” said Talbot, filling his glass with claret, “and fortune has dealt him a pretty strong hand of trumps, it must be allowed; knowledge, sir, is necessary — granted, but knowledge without opportunity avails nought. Here, for instance, am I,” he continued, recklessly— “I dare swear there is not a poor gentleman in Christendom better understands the hard and soft points of human character — from the court to the cabaret; but what avails it, my friends — or the devil made me a priest, civiliter mortuus, and for any good my skill can bring me, I might as well be as great a fool as old Willoughby, or as great a brute as yourself.”
Garrett knew his companion’s rough way, and in a moment of success like this, he could not resent it.
“What say you to a cardinal’s hat,” suggested Garrett.
“Look me in the face, man, and say how a cardinal’s hat would sit upon me,” said Talbot, scornfully. “Some attributes for Church preferment I do possess — I allow it. I could drink you, for instance, under the table. I know what’s good, and how to help myself, but as there’s no promotion to be had without talents of the sort, so there’s none to be had either without the talent of hiding these gifts from all but the Church itself; now I’ve no fancy for putting my candle under a bushel, and to speak plainly, such is my temper, I would not be Pope, and practice so much restraint. I’m out of my element in this accursed calling; had they made me, instead, a captain of dragoons, I’d have stood as high as my brother by this time, and on far firmer ground to boot; but somehow, when a man gets a title — he wants an heir, and the mischief on it is, an heir must be legitimate, and so, to beget him, you must take a wife — and thus there’s an end of your fun; for trust me, I’ve seen many a gay fellow married, and though they may grin, they seldom smile again! Thus am I better content to live as I do, than if I took a dukedom with all the appurtenances. Fill your glass, Garrett; I’ve a toast to give you.”
They each filled, and Talbot resumed —
“Come, Garrett, let us drink to the fair lady to whom you owe more than to all the sex beside; let’s drink, I say, to Lady ‘Willoughby.”
Garrett laughed and shrugged, and said —
“She has been, after all, worth something to me, and to you, too, for that matter; but there’s a knocking at the door — eh?”
“No — is there?” said Talbot, “well, what are you afraid of?”
“Come in — who’s there — come in, I say,” said Garrett.
The door opened, and Garvey, with his usual cringing, villainous smile, sneaked in inch by inch.
“Who is that?” asked Talbot drily, after treating Garvey to a full stare of some seconds.
“He’s an attorney fellow, and a scrivener,” answered Garrett, in a stage whisper.
“Cheap and nasty, I dare affirm,” said Talbot, carelessly filling his glass once more, “and well worthy of his client.”
“Well, Garvey,” said Garrett, somewhat ungraciously, “don’t you see, sir, I’m engaged.”
“Well! I was not aware, Mr. Garrett; I beg pardon, sir — I crave your pardon gentlemen both.”
As Garvey spoke thus, he stood a little behind Talbot, and unobserved by him, he looked in Garrett’s eye with a look of impatient significance, and beckoned over his shoulder, toward the door, with his thumb.
I thought you were alone, Mr. Garrett,” he continued, in the same humble tone, “and it was my own little account I wanted to say a word about — and if it wouldn’t be too bold, I’ll ask you, Mr. Garrett, just for a minute to come out to me on the lobby.”
“Never mind me, you fool; go with him to the lobby, or to the devil, or where you list, only shut the door,” said Talbot, “and don’t bring that respectable, grinning, cut-throat, looking gentleman, back again with you — that’s all.”
Without more ado, Garrett followed Garvey from the apartment, and closing the door, he continued to follow him into another chamber.
“Well!” exclaimed Garrett, looking with inquiring anxiety into the little man’s face which, he knew not exactly how, boded something disastrous.
“Not well, I’m afraid,” he rejoined, “at least, not so well as we thought, by half — by no means so smooth a business as we took it for; but who knows — who knows — and all’s well that ends well.”
“Will you speak out, and leave your riddles; what’s wrong?” said Garrett, with an oath and an impatient stamp upon the floor.
“The whole of it is just this then,” said Garvey— “the old knight, Sir Hugh Willoughby, has but a life interest in his property.”
“A life interest! impossible,” cried Garrett aghast, and thoroughly sobered in an instant by the announcement; “do you mean to say that he has no more than a life estate in Glindarragh. Zounds! do you mean to say that’’
“By my troth I do,” rejoined Garvey, “and so it is; if the old knight were hanged tomorrow, his daughter has the fee-simple of Glindarragh, and all the rest by marriage settlement, charged with a jointure to the old lady, so unless you can attaint the women too, you’re as far as ever from the old gentleman’s acres.”
“Why — curse me, its incredible!” ejaculated Garrett, more appalled and bewildered than ever. “I never heard of this settlement, though his wife, to be sure, had a fortune, and true enough, there must have been some settlement in her favour; but, hell and death, man’ how do you know this — how have you heard it — how do you know it’s true; is it true?”
“Crooke’s confidential clerk has a sneaking regard for me, for one reason or another, no matter,” replied Garvey, “and he told me all about it; there is not a doubt of it; the fact is so. I thought it best, Mr. Garrett, not to mention it before your guest.”
“You were right — quite right,” said Garrett, hastily, and then he paused for two or three minutes. “It wont do — I’m afraid it won’t do,” he added, anxiously, “but it shall be tried. Garvey, I’ll see you in the morning, at my lodgings — I must back again to my friend.”
And so saying, with a changed mien, and a fallen countenance, he retraced his steps; he paused on the lobby for a minute to recover his looks, which he felt were troubled and disconcerted.
“I’ve one shot left in the locker, at all events,” he muttered, “and if it tells, why then, what care I. I have all I want without their help — and as for Talbot — why, in that case, I can whistle him off to the devil, who owns him, and dare his worst. Come, come, all’s not lost yet.”
He placed his hand upon the latch, and in another moment he and Talbot were once more seated together as we found them.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE CELL AND THE RIVALS — THE BROKEN CANE AND A LAST CHANCE FOR LIFE.
THE evening of the following day had consigned Sir Hugh to a chamber in the Birmingham tower, then the usual state prison, and one of the gloomiest in the old Castle of Dublin. A small apartment, of irregular shape, overspanned by a dusky low arch of stone; a single narrow grated window, scarcely large enough to admit a man’s head, and close to the vaulted ceiling, grudgingly lighted the dismal apartment; two or three rude pieces of the commonest furniture, thinly occupied the bare stone floor; a truckle bed, little better than a mat, lay in the corner; a dark festoonery of cobwebs waved in the sluggish air, and the low and narrow aperture which gave admission to the room, was occupied by a ponderous door of oak, so studded with nails and screws, and crossed and embedded with rusty bars, that scarce an inch of the timber was any where apparent. Two figures occupied the room; they were those of the old knight and his fair daughter; he so broken, so furrowed with the lines of age and care, but withal, so majestic in his feebleness and humiliation — she so beautiful, yet so sad, that they might have meetly represented Time and Sorrow, in their sad companionship.
“This extremity,” continued the old man, pursuing the current of his melancholy discourse, “would cost me, broken and humbled as I am, scarce a sigh, were it not — were it not,” he repeated with an cent as though his heart were breaking, “ my pretty Grace, for thee; who will guard thee and guide thee through these terrible times, my gentle, loving child?”
A rude noise at the entrance interrupted him — the bars gave way successively — the door swung open, and Miles Garrett entered. He had obviously not expected to see the girl there, for he looked surprized and disconcerted, and for a moment hesitated as if he would have retired; the dogged and forbidding aspect which he had at first worn, however speedily returned, with, perhaps, the more sinister darkness by reason of the effort it cost him to master his strange agitation.
Sir Hugh turned haughtily from him, without rising or speaking a word, and drew his daughter still closer to his side. Miles Garrett took off his hat, then dashed it on again, and glanced with an uncertain look from one to the other; at last he spoke, but not until he had twice or thrice essayed in vain; and when, clearing his husky voice, he did succeed at length, it was with an appearance of something between shame and anger at his own weakness.
“Cousin Willoughby,” he said, gruffly, “you see how it has gone. I told you so — you would not believe me — but who was right?”
“What do you seek here — what can you want with me?” asked Sir Hugh, without looking toward him, and speaking in a tone of subdued sternness.
“Look ye, Cousin Hugh — I don’t mean to make professions of friendship; you refused my offers, and I was vexed, spited — what you will,” said he, growing more fluent as he proceeded. “I have let matters take their course hitherto — I have not interposed my interest to protect you — I have stood neutral. Now, mark me, Cousin Hugh — I speak advisedly, perhaps — perhaps, I say, it is not yet too late.”
“Words — words — words,” muttered the old knight, softly, as he looked down upon his irons with a bitter smile.
“Yes, words, and deeds to match them,” said Garrett, with sudden sternness, “that was my way from a boy, and that being so, my words are well worth weighing. You think it is too late for help; I say it is not, and the result will prove it.”
He paused, but the old man deigned not the slightest answer to his words.
“This is an extremity of sore and urgent peril — while there’s life there s hope, the proverb says; but life once gone, it is gone indeed” he pursued, addressing himself for the first time to the girl; “he lies under sentence — the sword is suspended over him; it may fail tomorrow — it may fall now; the step of the dreadful messenger, even while I speak, may be upon the stair.”
With a mute gesture of agony and despair, the poor girl wildly clasped her hands upon her temples.
“Yet he may be saved — I am sure he may. I can save him!” said Garrett, deliberately.
There was a breathless pause of a few seconds.
“I will save him,” pursued Garrett, vehemently, and then added, dashing his hand upon the table; “but if I do, you — you must marry me.”
Sir Hugh rose slowly from his seat, and drew his daughter back, with something like a shudder, as he gazed silently upon Garrett, with a look in which horror and astonishment were blended.
“God forbid — God, in his mercy, forbid,” he muttered, still drawing his child further back, as if he dreaded even the contagion of his looks.
“Enough!” cried Garrett, ferociously looking from the frightened girl, to the indignant countenance of the old knight, and reading, at a glance, the hopelessness of his proposal; “you have had your last offer — your last chance; fortune shall run her own course with you now — you to the gibbet, and you to the streets..You’ll not be the first of your blood that has come to shame.”
And with a brutal laugh of spite, he shook his hand at the affrighted girl, then turned on his heel, and strode out of the room, white and trembling with rage, which his affected carelessness in vain essayed to conceal.
The last words of the wretch smote like a deathblow upon the brain and the heart of the old man. He stood speechless and stunned for a moment, and then a convulsive burst of sobs relieved him, and burying his face in his hands, he sank into his seat.
Meanwhile, along the footway leading from the Cork Tower toward the Birmingham Tower, upon the broad platform of the Castle wall, a dark-visaged, handsome dragoon, his face pale, and his eyes bright with rage, was pacing swiftly.
“Traced home to him — the wretch!” muttered Torlogh O’Brien — for he was the soldier who thus strode along the Castle wall — with bitter distinctness, muttering his suppressed invectives through his set teeth; “that I should be made the sport of his murderous craft, practised upon by fraud, and made, unconsciously, to lend myself to such an accursed conspiracy. I could have saved that fine old man; my testimony would have made it impossible to find him guilty; and now, I fear, he is, indeed, lost — irrecoverably lost! But ha! who’s that? — by heaven, the murderer!”
