Phelim Otoole's Courtship and Other Stories Part 17

"There is some mystery here," said the jailer. "I suppose the fact is, that this fellow returned a wrong name to Mr. S., and that that accounts for the name of Arthur Maguire being in the letter."

All Phelim's attempts to extricate himself were useless. He gave them the proper version of the letter affair with Fool Art, but without making the slightest impression. The jailer desired him to be locked up.

"Divil fire you all, you villains!" exclaimed Phelim, "is it goin' to put me in crib ye are for no rason in life? Doesn't the whole parish know that I was never off o' my bed for the last three months, wid a complaint I had, until widin two or three days agone!"

"There are two excellent motives for putting you in crib," said the jailer; "but if you can prove that you have been confined to your bed so long as you say, why it will be all the better for yourself. Go with the turnkey."

"No, tarenation to the fut I'll go," said Phelim, "till I'm carried."

"Doesn't the gintleman identify you, you villain," replied one of the turnkeys; "an' isn't the Square's letther in your favor?"

"Villain, is id!" exclaimed Phelim. "An' from a hangman's cousin, too, we're to bear this!--eh? Take that, anyhow, an' maybe you'll get more when you don't expect it. Whoo! Success, Phelim! There's blood in you still, abouchal!"

He accompanied the words by a spring of triumph from the ground, and surveyed the already senseless turnkey with exultation. In a moment, however, he was secured, for the purpose of being put into strong irons.

"To the devil's warmin' pan wid ye all," he continued, "you may do your worst. I defy you. Ha! by the heavens above me, you'll suffer for this, my fine gintleman. What can ye do but hang or thransport me, you villains? I tell ye, if a man's sowl had a crust of sin on it a foot thick, the best way to get it off 'ud be jist to shoot a dozen like you.

Sin! Oh, the divil saize the sin at all in it. But wait! Did ye ever hear of a man they call Dan O'Connell? Be my sowl, he'll make yez rub your heels together, for keepin' an innocent boy in jail, that there's no law or no warrant out for. This is the way we're thrated by thim that's ridin' rough shod over us. But have a taste o' patience, ye scoundrels! It won't last, I can tell yez. Our day will soon come, an'

thin I'd recommend yez to thravel for your health. h.e.l.l saize the day's pace or happiness ever will be seen in the country, till laws, an'

judges, an' Jries, an' jails, an' jailers, an' turnkeys, an' hangmen is all swep out of it. Saize the day. An' along wid them goes the parsons, procthors, t.i.thes an' taxes, all to the devil together. That day's not very far off, d----d villains! An' now I tell ye, that if a hair o' my head's touched--ay, if I was hanged to-morrow--I'd lave them behind me that 'ud put a bullet, wid the help an' blessin' O Grod, through any one that'll injure me! So lay that to your conscience, an' do your best. Be the cra.s.s, O'Connell I'll make you look nine ways at wanst for this!

He's the boy can put the pin in your noses! He's the boy can make yez thrimble, one an' all o' yez--like a dog in a wet sack! An', wid the blessin' o' G.o.d, he'll help us to put our feet on your necks afore long!"

"That's a prudent speech," observed the jailer; "it will serve you very much."

Phelim consigned him to a very warm settlement in reply.

"Bring the ruffian off" added the jailer; "put him in solitary confinement."

"Put me wid Foodie Flattery," said Phelim; "you've got him here, an' I'll go nowhere else. Faith, you'll suffer for givin' me false imprisonment. Doesn't O'Connell's name make you shake? Put me wid Foodie Flattery, I say."

"Foodie Flattery! There is no such man here. Have you got such a person here?" inquired the jailer of the turnkey.

"Not at present," said the turnkey; "but I know Foodie well. We've had him here twice. Come away, Phelim; follow me; you're goin' to be put where you'll have an opportunity of sayin' your prayers."

He then ushered Phelim to a cell, where the reader may easily imagine what he felt. His patriotism rose to a high pitch; he deplored the wrongs of his country bitterly, and was clearly convinced that until jails, judges, and a.s.sizes, together with a long train of similar grievances, were utterly abolished, Ireland could never be right, nor persecuted "boys," like himself, at full liberty to burn or murder the enemies of their country with impunity. Notwithstanding these heroic sentiments, an indifferent round oath more than once escaped him against Ribbonism in whole and in part. He cursed the system, and the day, and the hour on which he was inveigled into it. He cursed those who had initiated him; nor did his father and mother escape for their neglect of his habits, his morals, and his education. This occurred when he had time for reflection. Whilst thus dispensing his execrations, the jailer and the three gentlemen, having been struck with his allusion to Foodie Flattery, and remembering that Foodie was of indifferent morals, came to the unanimous opinion that it would be a good plan to secure him; and by informing him that Phelim was in prison upon a capital charge, endeavor to work upon his fears, by representing his companion as disposed to turn approver. The state of the country, and Foodie's character, justified his apprehension on suspicion. He was accordingly taken, and when certified of Phelim's situation, acted precisely as had been expected. With very little hesitation, he made a full disclosure of the names of several persons concerned in burnings, waylayings, and robbery of arms. The two first names on the list were those of Phelim and Appleton, with several besides, some of whom bore an excellent, and others an execrable, character in the country.

The next day Fool Art went to Larry's, where he understood that Phelim was on the missing list. This justified his suspicions of the Squire; but by no means lessened his bitterness against him, for the prank he had intended to play upon him. With great simplicity, he presented himself at the Big House, and met its owner on the lawn, accompanied by two other gentlemen. The magistrate was somewhat surprised at seeing Art at large, when he imagined him to be under the jailer's lock and key.

"Well, Art," said he, concealing his amazement, "did you deliver my letter?"

"It went safe, your honor," replied Art. "Did you yourself give it into his hands, as I ordered you?"

"Whoo! Be dodda, would your honor think Art 'ud tell a lie? Sure he read it. Aha!"

"An' what did he say, Art?"

"Whoo! Why, that he didn't know which of us had the least sense. You for sendin' a fool on a message, or me for deliverin' it."

"Was that all that happened?"

"No, sir. He said," added the fool, with bitter sarcasm, alluding to a duel, in which the Squire's character had not come off with flying colors--"he said, sir, that whin you have another challenge to fight, you may get sick agin for threepence to the poticarry."

This having been the manner in which the Squire was said to have evaded the duel, it is unnecessary to say that Art's readiness to refresh his memory on the subject prevented him from being received at the Big House in future.

Reader, remember that we only intended to give you a sketch of Phelim O'Toole's courts.h.i.+p. We will, however, go so far beyond our original plan, as to apprise you of his fate.

When it became known in the parish that he was in jail, under a charge of felony, Sally Mattery abandoned all hopes of securing him as a husband. The housekeeper felt suitable distress, and hoped, should the poor boy be acquitted, that he might hould up his head wid any o' them.

Phelim, through the agency of his father, succeeded in getting ten guineas from her, to pay the lawyers for defending him; not one penny of which he applied to the purpose for which he obtained it. The expenses of his defence were drawn from the Ribbon fund, and the Irish reader cannot forget the eloquent and pathetic, appeal made by his counsel to the jury, on his behalf, and the strength with which the fact of his being the whole support of a helpless father and mother was stated.

The appeal, however, was ineffectual; worthy Phelim was convicted, and sentenced to transportation for life. When his old acquaintances heard the nature of his destiny, they remembered the two prophecies that had been so often uttered concerning him. One of them was certainly fulfilled to the letter--we mean that in which it was stated, "that the greatest swaggerer among the girls generally comes to the wall at last."

The other, though not literally accomplished, was touched at least upon the spirit; transportation for life ranks next to hanging. We,cannot avoid mentioning a fact connected with Phelim which came to light while he remained in prison. By incessant trouble he was prevailed upon, or rather compelled, to attend the prison school, and on examining him, touching his religion? knowledge, it appeared that he was ignorant of the plainest truths of Christianity; that he knew not how or by whom the Christian religion had been promulgated; nor, indeed, any other moral truth connected with Revelation.

Immediately after his transportation, Larry took to drink, and his mother to begging, for she had no other means of living. In this mode of life, the husband was soon compelled to join her. They are both mendicants, and Sheelah now appears sensible of the error in their manner of bringing Phelim up.

"Ah! Larry," she is sometimes heard to say, "I doubt that we wor wrong for flyin' in the face o' G.o.d, becase He didn't give us childhre. An'

when it plased Him to grant us a son, we oughtn't to 've spoiled him by over-indulgence, an' by lettin' him have his own head in everythin'

as we did. If we had sint him to school, an' larned him to work, an'

corrected him when he desarved it, instead of laughin' at his lies, an'

misbehavior, and his oaths, as if they wor sport--ay, an abusin' the nabors when they'd complain of him, or tell us what he was--ay!--if we had, it's a credit an' a comfort he'd be to us now, an' not a shame an'

a disgrace, an' an affliction. We made our own bed, Larry, an' now we must lie down an it. An' G.o.d help us! We made his bed too, poor boy, an'

a hard one it is. G.o.d forgive us! but, anyhow, my heart a breakin', for bad as he was, sure we havn't him to look upon!"

"Thrue," replied Larry. "Still he was game an' cute to the last. Biddy Doran's ten guineas will sarve him beyant, poor fellow. But sure the boys' kep their word to him, anyhow, in regard of shootin' Foodie Flattery. Myself was never betther plased in my life, than to hear that he got the slugs into his heart, the villain!"

We have attempted to draw Phelim O'Toole as closely as possible to the character of that cla.s.s, whose ignorance, want of education and absence of all moral principle, const.i.tute them the shame and reproach of the country. By such men the peace of Ireland is destroyed, illegal combinations formed, blood shed, and nightly outrages committed. There is nothing more certain than this plain truth, that if proper religious and moral knowledge were impressed upon the early principles of persons like Phelim, a conscience would be created capable of revolting from crime. Whatever the grievances of a people may be, whether real or imaginary, one thing is clear, that neither murder nor illegal violence of any description, can be the proper mode of removing or redressing them. We have kept Phelim's Ribbonism in the background, because its details could excite only aversion, and preferred exhibiting his utter ignorance of morality upon a less offensive subject, in order that the reader might be enabled to infer, rather than to witness with his mind's eye, the deeper crimes of which he was capable.

WILDGOOSE LODGE

I had read the anonymous summons, but from its general import I believed it to be one of those special meetings convened for some purpose affecting the usual objects and proceedings of the body; at least the terms in which it was conveyed to me had nothing extraordinary or mysterious in them, beyond the simple fact, that it was not to be a general but a select meeting: this mark of confidence flattered me, and I determined to attend punctually. I was, it is true, desired to keep the circ.u.mstances entirely to myself, but there was nothing startling in this, for I had often received summonses of a similar nature.

I therefore resolved to attend, according to the letter of my instructions, "on the next night, at the solemn hour of midnight, to deliberate and act upon such matters as should then and there be submitted to my consideration." The morning after I received this message, I arose and resumed my usual occupations; but, from whatever cause it may have proceeded, I felt a sense of approaching evil hang heavily upon me; the beats of my pulse were languid, and an undefinable feeling of anxiety pervaded my whole spirit; even my face was pale, and my eye so heavy, that my father and brothers concluded me to be ill; an opinion which I thought at the time to be correct, for I felt exactly that kind of depression which precedes a severe fever. I could not understand what I experienced, nor can I yet, except by supposing that there is in human nature some mysterious faculty, by which, in coming calamities, the dread of some fearful evil is antic.i.p.ated, and that it is possible to catch a dark presentiment of the sensations which they subsequently produce. For my part I can neither a.n.a.lyze nor define it; but on that day I knew it by painful experience, and so have a thousand others in similar circ.u.mstances.

It was about the middle of winter. The day was gloomy and tempestuous, almost beyond any other I remember; dark clouds rolled over the hills about me, and a close sleet-like rain fell in slanting drifts that chased each other rapidly towards the earth on the course of the blast.

The outlying cattle sought the closest and calmest corners of the fields for shelter; the trees and young groves were tossed about, for the wind was so unusually high that it swept in hollow gusts through them, with that hoa.r.s.e murmur which deepens so powerfully on the mind the sense of dreariness and desolation.

As the shades of night fell, the storm, if possible, increased. The moon was half gone, and only a few stars were visible by glimpses, as a rush of wind left a temporary opening in the sky. I had determined, if the storm should not abate, to incur any penalty rather than attend the meeting; but the appointed hour was distant, and I resolved to be decided by the future state of the night.

Ten o'clock came, but still there was no change: eleven pa.s.sed, and on opening the door to observe if there were any likelihood of its clearing up, a blast of wind, mingled with rain, nearly blew me off my feet. At length it was approaching to the hour of midnight; and on examining it a third time, I found it had calmed a little, and no longer rained.

I instantly got my oak stick, m.u.f.fled myself in my great coat, strapped my hat about my ears, and, as the place of meeting was only a quarter of a mile distant, I presently set out.

The appearance of the heavens was lowering and angry, particularly in that point where the light of the moon fell against the clouds, from a seeming chasm in them, through which alone she was visible. The edges of this chasm were faintly bronzed, but the dense body of the ma.s.ses that hung piled on each side of her, was black and inpenetrable to sight. In no other point of the heavens was there any part of the sky visible; a deep veil of clouds overhung the whole horizon, yet was the light sufficient to give occasional glimpses of the rapid s.h.i.+fting which took place in this dark canopy, and of the tempestuous agitation with which the midnight storm swept to and fro beneath it.