Loyal and Lawless. A novel

Front matter

I I ■ LOYAL AND LAWLESS LOYAL AND LAAVLESS a ifafai BY ULICK RALPH BURIŒ AUTHOR OF "BEATING THE AIR." " Words followed words, from question answer flowed And talk of various kinds deceived ." Tarnell. •' Two Nations ; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy ; "■ who are formed by a different breeding, arc fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws."— Disraeli. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON : CHAPMAN & HALL Limited, 193, PICCADILLY. 1880. [AU Rights Reserved.'] LONDON : BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARft.

Chapter I

"To expect to tranquillize and benefit a country by gratifying its agitators, would be like the practice of the superstitious of old with their sympathetic powders and ointments, who, instead of applying medicaments to the wound, contented themselves with salving the sioord which had inflicted it. Since the days of Dane Gelt downwards — nay, since the world was created, nothing but evil has resulted from concession made to intimidation." Whately, Notes to Bacon's Essays. In the year of grace one thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight, an old man and his wife quarrelled o\rer their whiskey one night in Dublin, and the weaker vessel con taining somewhat more of the spirit than she was made to hold, let loose a savage bull-dog that was tied up in the yard, and, by way of giving force to her arguments, set him upon VOL. II.

B her husband, who was almost bedridden ! In spite of the hubbub, the neighbours did not dare to interfere, and had it not been for the arrival of a policeman, who, at the risk of his life, broke through the window into the room, and by a well-aimed blow of his truncheon freed the old man's throat from the grip of the bull-dog, there would have been what Irish Judges and Irish journals call homicide. Indeed, the word "murder" is not a favourite one west of St. George's Channel — perhaps because the thing is too common. It is a great pity that the use of the Irish language is not more encouraged, in speak ing of Irish affairs, for the English tongue being obviously inaccurate and frequently quite incapable of expressing the thought or intention of the speaker, it is thus much calculated to mislead — A.Then used to speak of Irish subjects or to attempt to convey Irish ideas.

The husband and wife, on the intervention of Authority in metal buttons, at once made up their quarrel ; and as soon as the victim so gallantly rescued was sufficiently recovered from his wounds, which at one time threatened to prove fatal, he — sued the policeman for the value of the dog that he had killed ! This little story, which, like every other in this veracious history, is strictly true, is perhaps a fairly accurate type of the state of affairs in Ireland after the fall of Fenianism. The American element in the early Fenian agitation had alarmed the priests. There was a split among the patriots. The more respectable section, including the greater number of the Roman Catholic clergy, ap pealed to the British Government for help, boasted of their loyalty, represented the con dition of the country as being eminently dangerous, and urged that the danger could only be averted by concessions to themselves.

Intelligent English statesmen of course be- B lieved them, and the result was the Irish Church Bill of 1870, and the Irish Land Bill of 1871. Without expressing any opinion upon the merits of these Acts of Parliament, it should not be forgotten how they were obtained. Catholic Emancipation was a most just and righteous measure, yet after it had been refused by the Imperial Parliament to half a century of calm request, it was conceded to agitation, in a moment of panic — by the Duke of Wellington ! The precedent was a bad one; and Avhile many people think that justice to Ireland is only done when England is afraid, everyone knows that concessions can only be obtained by tall talk and bullying : meantime those who suffer unjustly but silently are disregarded, and oppressed. And yet people wonder that the country is not quieter, and affect to be surprised at agitation and obstruction being as popular as they are successful.

But Fenianism is now dead and gone, and both the husband and the wife of the National Party have recovered from their intoxication, have seen their mistake, and, having again combined, are ready to serve out Police-Sergeant Bull as they served out Constable Gladstone ; and they are flourish ing again, under a new and happy name, as the great united party of Home Rule. And there is no doubt that the name is a good one, and the party is strong. The name is a good one chiefly because it means nothing, and affords a war-cry to Avhich all can re spond — a banner under which all may fight. It sounds reasonable in England. It can be softened down to nothing in London drawiug-rooms, Avhere it may be interpreted to mean the saving of the valuable time of the British Imperial Parliament. It can be held up as purely seditious in Ireland, where it is interpreted to mean Repeal, or Separation from England, or Independent autonomy — what you will.

To the Papist, it means Rome Rule ; to the tenant, Immunity from Rent ; to the Ioav agitator, Plunder ; to the more intelligent, Place. The party is strong, partly because it is fairly united, and partly because England is more or less afraid of it. Until lately the priests have represented the loAvest and most disaffected section of the population, and it was ever their cue to do so. Fenianism, as we have said, frightened them ; and during the Fenian agitation they committed the fatal error of allowing a party lower and more disaffected than themselves, to stow up under them. Without their support, it is true, the party could do little or nothing, and it failed in all its efforts. Rebellious Fenianism was first laughed at, and then crushed ; but it left an irreconcilable party behind it — American, free-thinking, poor, bold — a party which disregarded the personal authority of the priests, as welL as the general authority of their Church.

The Irish ecclesiastics were somewhat in the position of the scribes and Pharisees referred to by St. MattheAv : they did not like to approve this party on account of its want of faith, and they dared not condemn it, for they feared the people. But they have not studied casuistry at Maynooth for nothing. When O'Connell, after the Lichfield House compact, was asked, at some public meeting, by a dubious or over-zealous supporter, how he could countenance that English party which the Liberator used to denominate as " the base, bloody, and brutal Whigs," he replied by a story. " Don't ye all know, boys, what Paddy did when the Avindow of the cabin was broke ? He had no glass handy, so he just took the first thing that was convanient, an old hat maybe, and stuffed it into the window, to keep out the could.

It wasn't just what he wanted. It Avasn't Avhat was best. But it was the best thing Paddy could get at the time, and it kept the wind out till he could get a better, and then, bedad, he'd throw it away. Boys, the Whigs are just Paddy's old hat." And the delighted audience hailed this double fraud — upon the English, and upon themselves, with a tempest of applause. Both the Priests and the Irreconcilables think of each other as the old hat of the story, and meanwhile, mindful of their weakness if divided, sink their differences for the time being, to fight under the convenient and united banner of Home Rule. And the priestly party still preserves its influence in the government of Ireland, and above all, its share of the Government patronage ; and the irreconcilable leaders, whether in or out of Parliament, are content to utilize the cold period of Conservative predominance in England, by gaining the popularity of the lowest and most disaffected of the population in Ireland, and to bide their time, ready to turn their position to the best advantage, Avhenever an opportunity may offer itself.

A well-knoAvn and superlatively clever Irish barrister, who aftenvards became one of the most distinguished of Irish Judges, at a banquet given to celebrate his return to Parliament as an ultra-irreconcilable, said that " he belonged to no English party, and should regard none ; that he knew the way did not lead to preferment, and he gloried in it," with much more to the same effect; "that his mission in life Avas not professional advance ment, but independent action for the speedy redress of Irish grievances." A few months afterwards he Avas Her Majesty's Solicitor- General for Ireland, and Avas in due time raised to the Bench — and an excellent Judge he made ; and though he once told the electors of a well-knoAvn Irish county that, " although the days were then long and the nights short, the winter was coming, Avhen the days Avould be short and the nights long, and then let every man remember who voted for the 'unpopular' candidate," he lived not only to regret his youthful indiscre tions, but to atone for them by a fearless and loyal judicial career, which made him the butt for every calumnious scribbler and preacher in Ireland, without — and this is the lesson to be learned — gaining for himself the consideration and respect he was more than entitled to at the hands of the English Government.

It A\*as Avith him as with others : when he Avas noisy and almost openly seditious, he was rewarded with high office and adA^ancement ; but when he made use of his past experiences of disaffection, only to serve the interests of order and liberty, he was left for ever in the cold shade of a puisne judgeship, while those who were in every way inferior to him were yearly promoted over his head. Truly, the "English in Ireland" have as little gratitude as they have justice.

Chapter II

There is a small dinner-party in a large house in Eaton Place. Lord and Lady Bulmershe, the host and hostess, and the Honourable Ida Farley, their daughter, — three ; Lord and Lady Chippendale, and Lady Cecil Brydges, — six ; Captain and Miss Marion Trelawney, — eight ; Lord Bel mont, and the Countess, his mother, — ten ; Mr. and Mrs. Royston, — twelve ; and two stray men, — fourteen. " With regard to the melons, Lady Chip pendale," said Whiskerandos, " if you will only take my advice you will have no further trouble. There is only one way of doing it> and that is to have plenty of beech bark ashes. When my brother-in-law, Sir William Gre ville, was alive, he used to have Avonderful melons, merely by using beech bark ashes." ' Really," said her ladyship. " Yes, indeed. He never had a melon fit to eat, until one day he Avas complaining to me, and I told him what to do.

He had a good deal of difficulty in getting his gardener to use beech bark ashes ; but he did so at last, and he had the most splendid melons yon ever saw in your life." " Dear me ! You don't say so?" said her ladyship ; and then, anxious to change the conversation from anything even so remotely relating to the Grevilles, she turned to Lord Belmont. " India is a great place for melons, I suppose, Lord Belmont?" Well, yes, there are plenty of them ; they grow in the fields, you knoAv." " And are they good ? " "Yes, I think so. One sees them in piles on the backs of donkeys, you knoAv ; but, upon my word, I forget if they are good or not." Lord Belmont' s month at Madrid had given a serious turn to his thoughts, and even to his actions, for a short time ; and the Countess, his mother, much pleased with the steadying effect of his dissemina tion of wild oats during his " grand tour " in the East, and not caring to inquire too particularly how and when he had sown those valuable seeds, had persuaded him to accompany her on a " petit tour " in London society, with a view to uniting himself with a Avife — preparatory to his settling down on his ancestral acres, as a domestic and exem plary earl.

And as in a country fair, some invisible attraction or sympathy draws him who has a horse to sell towards him who has a horse to buy, so the mother of the Earl of Belmont, and the mother of Lady Cecil Brydges foregathered ; and, after a good deal of preliminary fence and bargain, a sale was tacitly concluded. Not, of course, that any reference was made to the subject matter which was nearest those parts of the good ladies' nervous systems that did duty for hearts ; indeed, the negotiation rather resembled that game so popular in assem blies of children, where the utmost amount of information is to be given upon a certain subject without using certain words : the words so tabooed being of course skilfully chosen as being those most intimately con nected with the subject to be elucidated. On the present occasion, unfortunately for the Countess's diplomacy, Lady Cecil had heard the praises of the Hunmanby melons, and skilfully performing that piece of social arithmetic known as putting two and two together, she made a point of sitting next Marion Trelawney when they reached the drawing-room after dinner, and said "Are you not a cousin of Sir James Greville ?

" " Yes ; but I do not very often see him," returned Marion, feeling that she might be ignominiously plucked, if closely examined with regard to her knowledge of the Baronet. " I know his brother Arthur much better." " Oh yes, the one in the Foreign Office." " Yes. He is at Madrid now, but he is coming home again soon. Do you know him?" " He stayed at Wareham once," said Cecil, evasively, " not long before he went abroad." " Are you fond of music ? " said Lady Belmont to Cecil, from the other side of the ottoman. "Yes." " I mean, do you play or sing?" "Yes, both, a little." " Ah ! Belmont is so very fond of music ; I hope you will sing something to-night. I will ask Lady Bulmershe." " Oh, pray don't ! " said Cecil. " I never sing before strangers." Lady Belmont smiled, and said, " Oh, we are not strangers ; I hope you do not think so."

Cecil said " Oh no," in a voice of polite negation; and she did not actually discourage Lord Belmont, who came into the room a moment afterwards with the other gentle men, and Avho, after a few words from his mother, came up to Cecil, and made himself very agreeable to her during the rest of the evening. He had met her once or twice before, and she had pleased him. She was unmis takeably "good form;" she Avould obviously make a very good country countess. The next day he called on Lady Chippen dale. The day after, he met Lady Chippendale and her daughter at a party. The next dav he proposed to ride with Cecil in the Park. The next day, the marrying mothers of society said to one another, " Why, I declare I believe Lady Chippendale is going to catch young Lord Belmont for that plain daughter of hers."

A month later, Lord Belmont proposed, and was accepted. For six months Cecil had heard nothing of Arthur Greville. She was not quite sure Avhether she was piqued with him for abandoning her, or whether she herself had abandoned him. She did not care about Lord Belmont, certainly ; but he seemed very agreeable and kind, and her mother was very anxious that she should marry him. Indeed, when she hesitated — -which she had done at first — the marriage had been put to her by her mother as a matter of duty ; and Lord Chippendale, and the fifth Commandment — with promise, and Lord Wareham, and other social and religious levers— had been brought to bear upon her by her affectionate parent. Well, she supposed she could rub through the VOL. II. C tt world pretty Avell as Countess of Belmont, even if Foreign Office clerks did not think it worth while to write to her. And so, for these and half-a-dozen other reasons, of which she knew nothing, she said Yes. But she was not quite satisfied.

Chapter III

" There's no place like home." John Howard Payne. The release of O'Bride was duly chronicled and satisfactorily accounted for in the next number of the Green Banner ; but Mr. O'Slattery, soon after, having unfortunately nothing particular to write about, and seeking to familiarize himself with the practice of his chosen profession by taking notes of cases in the courts of laAv, brought himself once more before the public by a most scurrilous article founded on a garbled report of a case Avhich was still proceeding, and Avas, after due in quiry, once more sentenced to six months' imprisonment for contempt of Court. o This accident, however, brought him still more into the notice of the popular party, and on his release from imprisonment he was honoured by a public dinner, which was presided over by an honourable and gallant member of the British Imperial House of Commons.

Captain Murphy had spent the first ten years of his life without being encumbered with shoes and stockings. His father was a small squire, avIio had drank himself to death soon after young Michael's birth, leaving a property which, sold some few years after wards to pay off the mortgages, did not quite suffice to cover the attorney's bill of costs. The old Countess of Liffey, who had known his father, paid for his schooling, until he was old enough to take an ensigncy in a march ing regiment which she purchased for him, and died too soon afterwards to experience many proofs of his ingratitude. As a poor lieutenant besieged by duns he contrived to make the acquaintance of the only daughter of a rich manufacturer in a toAvn in the north of England where his regiment was quartered ; and being a very good looking young fellow, and ready to make any statement about himself, past, present, or future, he became the accepted lover of the young lady, and promptly married her.

Her immediate fortune enabled him to pay his debts, to purchase his company, and to live " like a fighting cock " for a few years, when his father-in-law died, leaving him a considerable fortune, which was encumbered only with the condition that it was to be invested in landed property. The captain had intended to have fin gered the whole, and to have spent it royally, and he was much disgusted with this instance of English cupidity and avarice. However, he determined like a philosopher to make the best of a bad bargain, and in vested the whole of his wife's fortune in the purchase of an estate in Ireland, which he got remarkably cheap, through his friend Nathaniel Harris. He made friends with the priests, and soon after got returned for the county in which his new estates were situ ated, as an out-and-out Hibernian ; a sworn foe to English interference with Irish affairs — especially Irish land — and a noisy apostle of the doctrine of Ireland for the Irish.

The dinner at which Captain Murphy noAv presided Avas a great success. The chair man, in proposing the health of their dis tinguished guest — the toast of the evening — alluded to the release, some months before, of Mr. O'Bride, owing to the heroic efforts made in his favour by so many of his com patriots, and especially by his noble friend Mr. O'Slattery, in the Green Banner. (Im mense cheering, during which Patsey, who had never even knoAvn of Mr. O'Bride's existence till the evening he met him at Father Nolan's, felt rather uncomfortable.) " In consequence of these outspoken Avords," continued the honourable and gallant chairman, " and smarting under the success Avith which their publication had been accompanied, the base and mean hirelings of the British Government had seized upon the first paltry excuse that presented itself to wreak their vengeance upon the heroic journalist," and so on.

Even Patsey's American assurance failed him at this new and ingenious turn that was given to the affair ; and he felt relieved Avhen Captain Murphy Avent on to talk of general politics, and the new watchword for the elections, which were noAv known to be nigh at hand. " We must have no more of the tyrannical, and bloody, and blundering rule of the stranger and the Saxon in our land. We must have Home Rule." (Immense cheering) After much more to the same effect, he concluded, and Mr. O'Slattery rose to return thanks. Passing over O'Bride's release and his OAvn subsequent imprisonment in a very few Avords, he went on to say that the best way of securing Home Rule for them selves, was to render all rule impossible for the English, and suggested that every means should be taken by patriots of all degrees to prevent the enlistment of Irish men in English regiments, and so to obstruct the natural course of recruiting ; to prevent British juries from agreeing, especially in criminal cases, and so to obstruct the opera tions of English laws ; and generally, to offer such obstruction to the quiet working of the machine of government, in every way, as Avould not bring those who carried out the programme, within the pale of the law.

" We are weak as yet : they are strong," said he. " It is no use opposing Force to Force : we shall be worsted by their brute strength : we must use our intelligence, and soon we shall be strong enough to have our own will and our own way in everything. It is only individuals up to the present time that have recognized where our real strength lies : we must now recognize it as a nation, and we must be content — for the present — to be a thorrl in the side of England, and not a foe fighting her face to face. If we cannot upset the coach, we can clog the wheels ; if Ave cannot destroy, we can em barrass, and Ave must obstruct." This sentiment was not only received Avith prodigious applause, but the next morning, Avhen most of the guests could more soberly consider the full import of Patsey 's sugges tion, a small meeting Avas convened for that day week, Avhich eventually led to the forma tion of a league for the greater advancement of the political vieAvs — and private interests, of those who desired to fight under the blood less banner of Home Rule in the first crusade of Obstruction.

Chapter IV

" To repress savagery, to prevent armed ruffians from terrorizing over quiet citizens, is the first condition de manded of a government which deserves the name." — Froude. When Lord Belmont took leave of Arthur Greville at Madrid, they had mutually pro mised to maintain a perpetual silence about Mr. Crayshaw's journey from India to Spain ; and when Adam Crayshaw talked over the future as well as he could with the sympa thetic young diplomatist, it was suggested that, as so feAv people in the world knew of the separation and the shame, and as the Avorld takes very little interest in hunting up scandals concerning the obscure dead, Mr. Crayshaw's terrible secret might possibly be kept. And they agreed that at any rate they would try. There had naturally been a difficulty about the Christian burial of the lady who died at Madrid, and who was not a member of the Church, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, so Adam Crayshaw took the body back with him to England, and laid his wife's mortal remains unostentatiously in Kensal Green Cemetery.

No one in England knew how he had tra velled from Lahore to Madrid. The journey from Madrid to London was sufficient. Arthur Greville held his tongue. Lord Belmont tried to forget all he knew. The bereaved husband, Lord Chippendale and his eldest son ; Dr. GAvynne, and Prithu alone attended the funeral. The Chippen dales and the Gwynnes Avent into mourn ing, and Clementina Crayshaw was for gotten. Forgotten, indeed, by all but the member for Kettleford, who sought distraction, as sensible men ever do, in hard Avork, and determined to make use of the experiences of his half-year's sojourn in the Easl, in the service of his country, and to devote his attention, in and out of Parliament, to questions connected with India. But his OAvn private and personal ex perience, his OAvn suffering, and the thoughts that it had evoked, had done him more good than he in his Parliamentary life was likely to do to England or India or any other country.

For he had passed through the fire and had come out purified ; he had been bowed down by shame, and he had risen up ennobled. His hard positive nature had been softened, and very little was left of the old man but his love of truth and his spirit of independence, and a determination to do right aud to fight against wrong, which is the birthright of every Englishman. Death had raised him up to Life. All the influences that had been brought to bear upon him during the last six weeks had been for good. That of the Christian servant, albeit so slight and unobtrusive, had not been* Avithout its effect. The lone: sea voyage, Avith its constant opportunities for reflection ; and again, the conduct of Arthur Greville, had helped to soften his heart, and open his eyes to much that in former days had been to him invisible.

The young diplomatist had not only that fine tact which became his profession, but he had a clear head and good heart. AVhen Lord Belmont first came to him to seek his assist ance, he had determined to do all that lay in his power to promote reconciliation, to ad vance the Right, and to avert scandal. His own wounds were still fresh ; had not his own true love been false to him ? False, ay, false in one sense ; but how different was his position from that of the poor traveller whom he had summoned to speed across Europe to find himself face to face with Dishonour and Death. And when he learned from the traveller that she who lay dead in the ad joining room had been a cousin-german to his own lost love — his Cecil—^-his sympathy increased, as it were, with a bound, for the bereaved husband, and he laid himself out to soothe and comfort, as well as to help him ; and with that fine tact and those thousand graces of the heart which are the only true foundation of graces of manner, and which spring from a refined and generous disposi tion, he soon found his way to the heart of Adam Crayshaw, so long encased in conceit and dogma, but now at length made sensitive by suffering, and softened by sympathy.

The two men, indeed, had but little in common by nature, but when the elder quit ted the Spanish capital to return to his soli tary house in London, there was a bond of union between them, Avhich sprang from the better nature of both, and linked them together for life in a subtle and secret brotherhood. The London season was drawing to a close. Adam Crayshaw had spoken more than once in the House, and with a certain amount of success, on Indian affairs. He had refused all invitations to go into society, and lived and worked quietly at his old rooms in the Temple. At length he had yielded to pressure. He had come to see that there was as much, or in the actual state of public feeling, more good to be done in conversation, than in parliamentary speeches on Indian affairs ; and we find him, sad and staid in his demeanour, and more modest in manner than of yore, at a small dinner-party given by Mr. Thornton Battye, an Indian civilian of some position, in London.

Captain and Miss Marion Trelawney, and Mr. Terence Donelan, Avere also of the party ; as also Mr. Brighton, the blind member of Parliament, who sees so much better than most people upon so many subjects, and who, as if to shoAv the unusual range of his vision, '■',■2 LOYAL AND LAWLESS. stares with particular attention at India, six thousand miles away, and even casts a keen glance noAv and then, through the mists, moral, artificial, and real, which envelop the country, at Ireland, which might be twelve thousand miles away, for all that most of us see, or, indeed, for all that many of us care to know. " There will be a general election soon, I suppose," said Terence Donelan to his next neighbour, as soon as the ladies had left the dining-room ; " and then perhaps you Eng lish will reap the fruits of all that you have been doing in Ireland, during the last three or four years."