The O'Donoghue Part 71

"Get me some wine, Wylie, and be quick!" cried he, as they reached the door.

"You had better get off, and rest a few moments, sir," said the other.

"Rest!--I'll never rest," shouted he, with an infamous oath, "till I see that fellow waving from the gallows! Some wine this instant!"

To the loud summons of Wylie no answer was returned, and the light that shone so brightly a moment before was now extinguished.

"Break open the door! B----t you! what do you delay about?" shouted Hemsworth. "There are some rebel tricks at work here."

At the same instant the light re-appeared, and Mary's voice was heard from within--

"Who's that, at this hour of the night, making such a noise?"

"Open the door, and be d-----d to you!" cried Hemsworth, who, having got off his horse, was now endeavouring with his foot to force the strong door.

"It will take a better man than you to stave that pannel in," said Mary, who, although recognizing the voice, affected not to know the speaker.

And she said truly, the door once made part of the rudder of an Indiaman, and was strong oak belted with iron.

"Put a light in the thatch! Snap your pistol, Wylie, and set fire to it!" cried Hemsworth, savagely; for any opposition to him at this moment called forth all the malignity of his nature.

"Oh, is it you, captain?" said Mary, with a voice of well-affected respect; "the Lord pardon me for keeping you out in the cold!" and with that she opened the door, and with many a low curtsey saluted her guest.

Rudely pus.h.i.+ng her aside, and muttering an oath, Hemsworth entered the cabin, followed by the others.

"Why was the light put out," said he, "when you heard us knocking at the door?"

"I did not hear the knocking," said Mary. "I was in the little room there, and goin' to bed. The saints be good to me!--since the soldiers were here, the hearing is knocked out of me--the noise and the ballyragging they went on with, from mornin' till night!--and now that they are gone--thanks to your honour, that ordered them away two days ago up to 'the Lodge'--I do be thinking, they are here still."

"Bring us some wine," said Hemsworth, "and the best in your house. You need not spare the tap to-night, for it's the last you will ever draw beneath this roof. There;--don't look surprised and innocent;--you know well what I mean. This is a rebel den, but I will leave it a heap of ashes before I quit the spot."

"You'll not burn my little place down, captain?" said Mary, with a look, in which a shrewd observer might have read a very different expression than that of fear. "You'll not take away the means I have of earning my bread?"

"Bring the wine, woman; and if you don't wish to wait for the bonfire, be off with you up the glen. I'll leave a mark on this spot as a good warning to traitors. People shall talk of it hereafter, and point to it as the place where rebellion met its first lesson."

"And who dares to say that there was any treason in this house?"

"If my oath," said Wylie, "won't satisfy you, Mrs. M'Kelly----"

"Yours!" interrupted Mary;--"yours!--a transported felon's oath!"

"What do you think of your old sweetheart, Lanty Lawler?" said Hemsworth, as he drank off goblet after goblet of the strong wine.

"Wouldn't you think twice about refusing him now, if you knew the price it was to cost you?"

"I would rather see my bones as black as his own traitor's heart," cried Mary, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes, "than I would take a villain like that! There, captain, there's the best of the cellar, and there's the house for you, and there," said she, throwing herself on her knees, "and there's the curse of the lone woman that you turn out this night upon the road, without a roof to shelter her, and may it light on you now, and follow you hereafter!"

"Clear your throat, and cool it, after your hot wishes," said Hems-worth, with a brutal laugh; for in this ebullition of the woman's pa.s.sion was the first moment of his enjoyment.

With a gesture of menace, and a denunciation uttered in Irish, with all the energy the native language possesses, Mary turned into the road, and left her home for ever.

"What was that she said?" said Hemsworth, turning to one of the men that stood behind the chair.

"It was a saying they do have in Irish, sir," said the fellow, with a simper, "and the meaning of it is, that it isn't them that lights a bonfire, that waits to dance round the ashes."

"Ha! that was a threat, then! She will bring the rebels on us;--but I have taken good care for that. I have sent a strong party by the other road, to cut off their advance from the Bay, and we'll hear the firing time enough to warn us; and that party," said Hemsworth, muttering to himself, "should be at their post by this time;" here he looked at his watch: "it is now eleven o'clock; you took the order, Wylie, for Captain Travers to go round by Googawn Barra, and occupy the pa.s.s between Carrig-na-curra and Bantry Bay?"

"I did, sir, and he set off the moment I gave the letter."

"Then the fellow, Mark, cannot escape me," said Hemsworth. "If he leave the castle before I come, he falls into the hands of the others. Still, I would rather be judge and jury myself and you shall be the hangman, Sam. There's little love between you: it is an office you'll like well."

"If I don't do it nate," said Wylie, "the young gentleman must forgive me, as it is my first time;" and they both laughed heartily at the ruffian jest.

"But what are we staying for?" said Hemsworth, while he drained his gla.s.s. "Let us get up the dragoons, and make sure of him at once. I am strong now, and ready for any exertion."

"'Tis a pity to burn the little place, captain," said one of the fellows of the party. "There's many a dacent boy would think himself well off, to get the likes of it for his reward."

"Make yourself at home," said Hemsworth, "for I'll give you a lease for three lives of it--yours, Wylie's, and mine own--will that satisfy you?"

The fellow stared at the speaker, and then looked at Wylie, as if not knowing whether to place any faith in the words he heard.

"I didn't say you were to get the premises in good repair, however,"

said Hemsworth, with a bitter laugh, "I didn't boast much about the roof," and at the same moment he took a lighted turf from the hearth, and thrust it into the thatch, while Wylie, to curry favour with his patron, imitated his example.

"Where does that door lead to?" said Hemsworth, pointing to the small portal, which led into the rock towards the stable.

"That's the way to the stable," said Wylie, as he opened it, and looked down the pa.s.sage; "and here's another door, that I never saw before."

"That's where she do keep the spirits, sir," said one of the men; "'tis there she do have all the liquor."

"There's nothing like whiskey for a blaze," said Hemsworth, with a half drunken laugh. "Burst open that door!"--but all their efforts were vain: it was made with every precaution of strength, and studded over with strong nails.

"Stop!" said Hemsworth, as he pushed the others rudely away, "there's a readier plan than yours to force it. I'll blow the lock to pieces!" and, so saying, he took the pistol from Wylie's hand, and, having leisurely examined the priming and the flint, placed the muzzle in the lock.

"Be quick, sir, be quick!" said Wylie; "the place is filling with smoke!"

And so it was: the crackling of the thatch, and the dense ma.s.ses of black smoke that filled the cabin, showed that the work of destruction was begun.

"Here, then: this is to put the seal to your lease, Peter," said Hemsworth, as he pulled the trigger.

A quick report followed, and then a cras.h.i.+ng sound, as of splintered timber, and, sudden as the lightning flash itself, a noise burst forth louder than thunder, and at the same moment the house, and all that were in it, were blown into the air, while the ma.s.sive rock was shattered from its base, full fifty feet up above the road. Report after report followed, each accompanied by some new and fearful explosion, until at length a great portion of the cliff was rent asunder, and scattered in huge fragments across the road, where, amid the crumbling masonry and the charred rafters, lay four black and lifeless bodies, without a trait which should distinguish one from the other.

All was silent on the spot, but through every glen in the mountains the echoing sounds sent back in redoubled peals the thunder of that dreadful explosion, and through many a far-off valley rung out that last requiem over the dead.

For some time the timbers and the thatch continued to burn, emitting at intervals lurid bursts of flame, as more combustible matter met the fire, while now and then a great report, and a sudden explosion, would announce that some hitherto untouched store of powder became ignited, until, as day was breaking, the flames waned and died out, leaving the rent rocks and the ruined cabin the sad memorials of the event.

Nor were these the only occurrences of which the glen was that night the witness. Mark, his brain burning for the moment when the fray should commence, rode on amid the storm, the cras.h.i.+ng branches and the loud brawling torrents seeming to arouse the wild spirit within him, and lash his enthusiasm even to madness. The deafening clamour of the hurricane increased, as he came nearer the Bay, where the sea, storm-lashed and swollen, beat on the rocks with a din like artillery.

But louder far than all other sounds were the minute peals of cannon from the Bay, making the deep valleys ring with their clangour, and sending their solemn din into many a far-off glen.

"They are coming! they are coming!" cried Mark, as he bounded madly in his saddle. "What glorious music have they for their march!"