The foster-brothers of Doon : a tale of the Irish Rebellion of 1798

Preface

. Though the following pages are in the form of fiction, no pains have been spared to preserve minute accuracy in all that concerns the history of that terrible outbreak, known as the Irish Rebellion of 1798. The various volumes, written on both sides of the question, have been carefully studied, and innumerable contemporary documents — pamphlets, newspapers, broadsheets, and ballads — have been collected and examined. The sole desire of the writer has been to discover and present the truth. Let no reader of this tale imagine that the pictures of that disastrous period are overdrawn. Any person who has carefully studied the history of the time, will know that the writer has erred rather in an under-statement of the facts, than in an excess of vivid incident. Were the narrations of certain historical scenes as complete and full in all their details as they might have been, they could only cause pain to the reader.

The horrors of the bridge at Wexford, and the slaughter at Vinegar Hdl, have therefore been but briefly sketched : — a score of kindred tragedies are only glanced at. The wonderful Irish genius for wit and humour has been used to lighten any sombreness in the narrative, asit must be in every faithful transcript of the character of the people. It may be added, that all verses of ballads, and passages from pamphlets, speeches, etc., introduced into the narrative, are veritable extracts from effusions of the period.

PREFACE.

. It is the strong conviction of the writer, produced by long and intimate acquaintance with the Irish people and their history, that the superstition and priestcraft of Roman Catholicism form the chief cause of the troubles of that most beautiful yet most unhappy island. But these evils are to be eradicated, not by the nominal and lifeless profession of a purer faith, but by a living, loving trust in the Divine Saviour. Too often has Irish Pro testantism,- in past times, assumed the form of a political creed, or been but the watch-word of a party. In the deeper piety, the devouter fervour, and the fuller exercise of that " love, which is the fulfilling of the law," displayed by the Protestant churches of the sister island, we have the best and surest augury that the darkness of Ireland's " night is past, and the true light now shineth."

May " the Lord hasten it in his time !" It may be stated, in conclusion, that The Foster-Brothers of Doon appeared in the " Leisure Hour " previously to the outbreak of the present Fenian agitation. The writer need scarcely say that the descriptions given refer exclusively to a by-gone era in the history of the country. They cannot, without the grossest violation of truth and good faith, be pleaded as justifying the incendiary projects which are now once more disturbing the peace of Ireland. I CONTENTS. CHAPTER pi(.B I. FURLONG'S FORGE . ... 9 II. UNDER SLIEVE-BUI . . . . . . .18 III. THE TRIANGLE . . . . . . . .21 IV. JUSTICE ON THE GRASS-PLOT . . .32 V. THE STRIPES ........ 39 VI. THE AVRONG MAN ....... 47 VII. A night's WORK ... ... 52 VIII. THE RECTOR OF DOON ..... .62 IX. THE CAPITAL FELONY .... .71 X. IN A CERTAIN COURT-HOUSE ..... 76 XI.

AVHO LIVED IN THE PICTURE-GALLERY .... 82 XII. AT THE FOEGE ........ 90 XIII. A MESSAGE WITH SPEED ...... 97 XIV. " ROARING PEG," AND THE BANSHEE .... 104 XV. AMATEUR DENTISTRY . . . . . .111 XVI. THE SILVER BULLET ....... 119 XVII. A HEDGE SCHOOL ....... 125 XVIII. FERGUS KAVANAGH ....... 132 XIX. THE COUNSELLOR AMONG THE HEATHER . . . .137 XX. IN HIDING ...... 117 XXI. A SPINNING-WHEEL PARTY .... ■ 151 XXII. A BLISTER FOR MR. BODKIN ....-• 163 XXIII. FURTHER CANVASSING . . . . - • .167 CONTENTS. PAGE CHAFTI R XXIV. FATHER COSTELLO S SERMON . • • ■ . x I u XXV. BEFORE THE NOMINATION . ■ ■ ■ I°" XXVI. AFTER THE NOMINATION . • .188 XXVII. OLD JUG'S REQUEST . - • 193 XXVIII. A STATE TRIAL . . ■ 200 XXIX. IN NEWGATE ... • • "07 XXX. IN SACKVILLE STREET ... ... 215 XXXI. A PROCLAMATION ....... 222 XXXII.

" FRESH FRUIT," AND WHAT IT INVOLVED . . . 229 XXXIII. THE ORANGE LILY ....... 236 XXXIA'. THE MIDNIGHT OATH . ... . . . . 243 XXXV. A DRAWING-ROOM, VICEREGAL AND OTHERWISE . . . 252 XXXVI. EARL CAMDEN'S WELCOME ...... 260 XXXVII. AVOLFE TONE'S PLANS ....... 265 XXXVIII. DEATH IN THE DOCK ....... 273 XXXIX. A NIGHT OF DEBATE ....... 280 XL. ON THE CANAL ........ 286 XLI. CHIEFLY IN FRANCE ....... 292 XLII. CHRISTMASTIDE, 1796-7 . .... 301 XLIII. A FRENCH ALARM . . . . . . 308 XLIV. HUE AND CRY ........ 319 XLV. PER SLOW COACH ..... . 323 XLVI. SEDITION IN A SHOP ... ... 329 XLVII. WHAT THE BEACON FIRE MEANT ..... 340 XLVIII. AMONG THE INSURGENTS ... . 347 XLIX. BIVOUAC ON VINEGAR HILL .... 353 L. THE WOODEN BRIDGE AT AVEXFORD 3gl LI. THE AVINDMILL AT ENNISCORTHY . 3g7 LII. " WALKING THE PIKES " . . 377 LIII. THE LAST OF THE STORM . .

Chapter I

furlong's forge. A wild March wind was abroad on the roads, skurrying the dust in clouds, whirling it on high towards the skies. Sharp and shrill from the north-east blew the breeze ; the sheep in the pastures huddled their tender lambs together under the lee of bare brown hedgerows and spiny furze-bushes, covering the young things with blankets of living fleece — mother-like, bearing the brunt of hard weather themselves ; as would other mothers housed in the cabins which dotted this fertile county of Wexford. far and wide — mothers who left their spinning-wheels set in the red firelight, to tuck still warmer the rosy children packed three or four into a crib in a corner, and comforted with the summer garments of the aforesaid sheep. Thus lay little Una Furlong, nestled in an osier cradle of her father's weaving, and no more conscious of the gale that whistled about the crazy thatch of the forge, than if she were reposing in Fairy-land " I'm thinkin' the frost is broke up . for good, Myles," said the widow Furlong to her son, after some attentive listening to the sounds without.

" May be so," was the laconic reply. " An' then you'll be havin' the neighbours' ploughs to settle."' continued the old woman, chafing her hands over the blazing bogwood, contentedly. The smith vouchsafed no response whatever. He was working at his anvil, carefully fashioning some long, two-edged weapon, heating and hammering the steel with great assiduity, and apparently in entire abstraction to his employment. The face that bent over the glowing metal was not prepossessing. Erows black as ink, and particularly shaggy, almost divided his countenance, like a dark bar pressed over his smouldering eyes. This was the notable characteristic to a stranger. His figure was short and thick-set, evidently of prodigious strength ; the muscles on his arms stood through the swarthy skin like ropes when he wielded his hammer.

Sometimes a soft whistle was shaped by his large lips, and broken abruptly when a thought about the handi work came across the tune, which was the popular ditty of " Cruis keen Lawn." "The ploughs would bring you in more tenpennies than the pikes," quoth the old woman, lighting the stump of a black pipe. " Who knows ? who knows ?" he uttered, somewhat dreamily ; and, concluding within himself on some alteration of shape, or improvement of temper, he blew the bellows again. " Where's Freney, the night ?" he demanded abruptly. " Doesn't he know that I want him in the forge ?" " An' sure I tould ye he was gone to Barney Brallaghan's wake, wid the fiddle, to raise a bit of divarshin," was the reply. " Ye wouldn't be keepin' the poor boy at home always?" Her son uttered a sort of growl as he laid by the pike-head ;- and, taking a brick or two from the back of his forge chimney, he drew forth other pikes, whence he selected one, and proceeded to whet its edge on a grindstone.

" I hopes every one of thim isn't drivin' a nail in yer coffin," was the old woman's cheering observation. furlong's forge. 11 " I wish ye'd hold yer croak," he responded, roughly. "But I won't," she said, pertinaciously, laying her pipe m a recess of the wall. " I'm not goin' to have Una, the craythur, left an orphan before my very eyes, with nobody but my ould bones to look to for a bite or a sup in the whole world. It's all very well for them that has nayther chick nor child to be going about, rightifyin' the government, and turnin' out the English " " Old Jug," said he, interrupting her, with a suppressed voice, " I'm not such a fool as all that comes to. You'll think different when you sees me sittin' up in the Big House at Doon, back in my own rights again." A derisive, crackling laugh was her commentary on this speech.

His dark face slowly flushed, till it was the hue of his own molten metal, and the smouldering eyes flashed dangerously. " What !" he exclaimed, " do you mane to deny that the Fur longs was owners of the whole counthry side, an' not so long ago nayther ? Don't you know, that if everybody had his own this minit, it's myself that would be masther of the Doon estates, which Orange William wrung from my father's grandfather. An' that black-hearted colonel— don't I remimber the day he said he'd sthrap me up to his triangle — me, his son's foster-brother !" " An' that's the rason you should keep away from them pikes, Myles dear, an' give no one an occasion to say a word agin you," rejoined the widow. " Women are always afeard," observed Mr. Furlong, whetting his pike carefully, after which uncomplimentary remark upon the sex, he whistled a good deal more of " Oruiskeen Lawn ;" and his mother smoked.

" Whisht !" she said, suddenly raising her head. " Stop that grinding — there's feet on the road." The smith instantly suspended operations, and listened intently. The sharp trotting of hoofs on the stones was heard between the gusts. " The horse wants a shoe, whoever he is," said Myles, gathering up his pikes and stowing them away in their hiding place with great celerity. When he had inserted the loose bricks, he sprinkled the interstices with dust from the earthen floor. " Spies are so plenty," muttered Myles. " An' if he's an Orange man, won't I put on a sweet shoe for him ! I'm certain sure the baste won't fall dead-lame on the other side of Slieve-Bui, not a bit of it !" Into a deep sleep sank Myles thereafter, resting his head against the chimney corner, with a half-smoked pipe loosely in his fingers ; while the sounds that issued from his nose were quite sufficient to account for his indifference to the ungentle knocking of the stranger, which was apparently made with the loaded end of a riding-whip.

"Is there any one there?" called out Mrs. Furlong, in a voice of the utmost innocence and helplessness, as if it had suddenly occurred to her that perhaps the knocks might be attributed to some such cause. " Why, then, if ye wor the Seven Sleepers himself, ye ought to be woke by this time," exclaimed the stranger ; " an' it wouldn't take much more delay to coax me to spin the door off its hin°es." " An' what is it ye want, if a body might be afther axin' ?" The only answer was a sound as if the outsider were about to fulfil his threat, and had flung himself against the door furiously. " Arrah, can't ye be asy a minit," whined the old woman. " till I rubs the sleep out of my eyes ? An' have some consideration for the sick child in the corner— — " But her objurgations were lost in the thundering knocks at the door, in the midst of which it dashed open, owing to the with drawal of the bolts ; and the stranger struck more blows than one on empty air, as he plunged within, and before he could stop him self. furlong's forge. 15 "I think I've left my mark," said he, with evident satisfaction.

" Betune us an' all harm," said the woman, " what's that follyin' ye in ?" She had crossed herself with great devoutness before she realised that it was only the traveller's horse, who, like a sagacious beast, preferring the inner glow of warmth to the outer storm, took immediate steps to carry out that preference. His master laughed, and backed him 'into the segment of the cabin at the other side of the forge, bidding the old woman bolt the door and shut out the blast. " Poor Sans-culotte !" patting the beast, and speaking in an accent more refined than his first brogue. " He wants a shoe, Mrs. Furlong ; wake up your son, whom I congratulate on his sound sleeping." ' An' why shouldn't he, the poor boy, afther his hard day's work, small blame to him !" said the widow, suppressing her astonish ment at hearing her name.

" Troth, I never laid eyes on the man before," she added to herself. Her furtive glance was intercepted by a keen one from the stranger, who had relieved his horse of the bit, and loosened the girths. " You said nothing about the night's work, Old Jug," he ob served with a meaning smile, as he laid his hand on the forge. "The fire's not out here so long." His dark, close-shaven face looked detestable, to her : she began to fear him. " Aud this is the sick child, I suppose ?" glancing at little Una. " 'Deed an' troth she is sick," asserted the old woman, roused by the irony of his tone : " an' only she is, what would keep me from Barney Brallaghari's wake, where there's tobakky and snuff for the takin' ?" Myles thought it high time for him to awake, which he did slowly, and with difficulty, under repeated pulls from his mother's fingers.

" My friend," cried the stranger, disregarding all his demonstra tions of drowsiness, and pointing to the grindstone, " anything but hatchets sharpened here ?" " A thrifle o' knives an' coulters, sir," answered Myles, cautiously. "But if anything straight came the way?" began the stranger, with slight emphasis on the adjective. "I suppose 'twould sharpen as well as the crooked," was the reply. " Come, tell me," said the stranger, bending so as to look eye to eye, "I should think you're a tolerably straight chap yourself?" " I hope I'm as straight as a rush, anyhow," replied the smith, drawing his hand down one side of his face. The traveller re peated the action' as he added, "I rather think that's the rush that sprang in America." " An' budded in France — success to them !'" "And we'll plant it in the crown of Great Britain — hurrah!" exclaimed the traveller, finishing his political catchwords.

" I've heard of you before, Myles Furlong, and that you're good for the good cause ; and if you want to further it this night, get my horse a shoe without delay." And while the smith wrought, the traveller told various bits of news, as was expected from every traveller in the stirring days of 1793. "From Dublin only this morning," said he; "the Catholic Relief Bill passed last night, in spite of Doctor Duigenan and the swaddlers ; we may be all voters and grand jurors now." " I hope the boys aren't goin' to be satisfied with that much," said Myles, looking up. " I hope they'll never stop till the ould religion an' the ould families is up in the world again." " Ah, our free and glorious Hibernian Republic will settle all that," observed the stranger. FURLONG'S FORGE. 17 " Which may it be the day after to-morrow, if not sooner, amin !" ejaculated the smith with fervour.

"Ay, ay! nothing will go right till the Saxon is turned out, and the green flag floats over the Castle. But it's sweet to know that fear wrung this concession out of Westmoreland and his satellites — pure and unmitigated fear. We aren't such geese as to think it was love, I suppose. I tell you, the lord lieutenant shakes in his shoes within the doubled guards of the Castle. What frightened them entirely was the dread of the rising." " The rising !" repeated Myles, eagerly. " You can hammer while I talk," hinted the other. " The signal was to have been the pulling down of Orange William's statue in College Green, and they set patrols of horse to guard it — ha ! ha ! Just as if we couldn't pull it piecemeal to the Liffey, if we'd a mind, in spite of all the fencibles in Leinster." " Thrue for you, sir !"

Myles's teeth, bared with his smile, were tremendous fangs. " I'd only like to be in it, sir." The stranger ruminated for a moment, rubbing his hand to his smooth dark chin. " Do you know any friends or neighbours that would like to hear the best farrier in Ireland discourse on the prevailing murrain, to-morrow night, in Byrne's barn, under the Slieve-Bui?" It seemed a sudden leap from the political to tlie agricultural. " Our little cow died of it, more by token," wailed the old woman from her corner. " The cow that gey the drop of milk to Una. Bad scran to it for a murrain !" " I'll tell the neighbours, sir," said Myles, after a prolonged look at the alert eyes, which told no more than if they were bare sword-points. " Yes. Tell 'em all, far and near. Every man wants to keep off the. murrain ; and this farrier has the finest receipt ever invented for driving it clear and clean out of ould Ireland." p. He drew forth a silver tenpenny to pay for the work ; but Myles would have none of it.

The blacksmith laid that horseshoe, metaphorically, on the altar of the cause, and stood at the forge door thereafter in the windy dark, bareheaded, listening to the rapid hoofs, and wondering who had been his visitor. When he had inquired, the stranger had bidden him to wait — he was not done with him yet. "May he never come back!" quoth Mrs. Furlong, sincerely. CHAPTER H. UNDER SLIEVE-BUI. It was named thus, " the Yellow Mountain," from the streaks and patches of golden gorse which stained its waste summit profusely in summer-time, and outlined the solitary road which crossed the height. The neighbourhood was scarce of mountains, or such dignity would not be attributed to a humble hill ; never would Slieve-Bui intercept higher cloud than an earth-born fog ; yet, from the valley immediately underneath, it looked imposing enough.

It seemed to frown over Byrne's barn, in the dun evening shadows. People came into that valley, somehow — few of them by the legitimate lonely road across the hill ; for that was open to obser vation. The first comers found half-a-dozen tallow candles stuck on spikes from the walls, lighting and guttering in the draught, without apparent hand to kindle them ; and the nearest house was full a mile away. In fact, the barn was half-ruinous, and legends of ghosts had begun to crust about it, as sea-tangle and mussels about a wreck. Everybody knew that three or four " Whiteboys " had been hanged from some trees not far off, upon the slope of UNDER SLIEVE-BUI. 19 Slieve-Bui, twelve years ago now; and the neighbourhood had since been uncanny. Nobody came alone to the present tryst; and the place was about the last likely to be suspected of a political gathering.

Myles had done his best in beating up recruits for it. The forge had been open all day, but the master absent, and inade quately represented by Freney, whose utmost professed ability at the anvil was to strike off indifferent nails. " I believe you could work if you liked," his brother would say, " only you wants to be ever an' always at that fiddle." To which Freney would respond with a meaning grin, and in nowise deny the imputation. The smith never thought of inviting his brother to the rendez vous at Byrne's barn. Freney's character was of too light a nature for anything so serious as conspiracy. By common consent he was called " the boy," though so old as twenty-six, and was essential at all merrymakings in the barony, wherein he participated with a will. There were no merrymakings this night.

Wake or wedding, dance or christening, was alike suspended ; the men had all business abroad, to hear the great farrier who should descant on the murrain troubling Ireland, in Byrne's barn. It was well filled when he entered — a man with reddish beard and green glasses ; which last were not visible till he removed a broad-brimmed hat from his head. He clambered on the table, which had been pushed to the end wall. " Help me up," said he, to the nearest man, who happened to be Myles Furlong ; "I'm not so young as I used to be, more by token." Myles was so disappointed to see that the farrier was not his acquaintance of the preceding night, as he had fully expected, that he scarce paid heed to the request. A couple of pairs of stalwart arms, however, extended from the throng, gave the stranger his required "lift;" and he bowed to his audience.

" Ladies an' gentlemen," quoth he ; " arrah, what am I sayin' ?" He scratched his red head in amusing embarrassment. "I'm forgettin' that the faymale sect don't illuminate us this evenin' wid their charmin' an' most consolatorious presence ; which is daylight, an' moonlight, an' candle-light all in one, to say nothin' of the rainbow." A hum of applause rose at the brilliancy of this exordium, and the compliment to the absent fair. " But since we haven't 'em," philosophically added the orator, " we must only be strivin' to do without 'em, the darling craythurs. An' maybe, as they aren't here, 'twould be as well for every man to hould his tongue to his wife about what he hears an' sees in this place to-night ; for there isn't any sort of good in makin' 'em unaisy, without rhyme or rason." Another hum proclaimed the acquiescence of the assembled husbands iu this argument.

" Likewise I manes sweethearts, when I talks of wives ;" and his quick eyes glanced over the lines of faces for the beardless ones. " Ye all know that a sweetheart would coax a rabbit out of a hole, let alone -a saycret out of a lover's heart. So ye'll all hould yer tongues, boys, an' bring nothin' home from this but the resate against the murrain only." After a few minutes on this ostensible subject, he continued ; and at once the smirk and half-bantering air changed to an expression of earnest gravity — " Boys, there's a worse murrain in the counthry than what kills the cattle — a murrain that's meltin' away the strength of Ireland, an' won't lave the' poor ould counthry able to rise her hand by-and-by. She's staggering on her limbs already, ready to fall prostrate before her deadly foe ; and England waits to set foot upon her throat for ever, as soon as she's safely down."

UNDER SLIEVE-BUI. 21 A short address in this strain, garnished with the coarse, strong imagery which suited the hearers, and their hearts were all throbbing, their eyes all glowing to his gaze. He depicted the oppressions under which Ireland laboured ; he exaggerated the harshness of the ruling powers ; he told some stories of peasants put to death, and homesteads desolated, of which, indeed, he had pick and choice during the existing state of tln'ngs. " Haven't you the truth of what I say outside there ? It's not a quarter of a mile to Gallows Hill on the side of Slieve-Bui ; an' there's men among you who remember the poor harmless boys strung up on them trees like so many onions." He did not care to specify that the " harmless " sufferers had previously been of a party who piked a Protestant in his bed.

Dozens among the crowd said " Ay, ay ;" they remembered the scene well. " An' don't ye all know that for gatherin' here this night, to listen to a poor farrier discoorsin' on the murrain, an' thryin' to cure yer handful of cows, ye're every one of ye wid yer necks in the halter this minit ?" The hum became a deep growl of defiance ; and he struck while the iron was hot. " Boys, there's a way of curin' the murrain. There's a way of takin' care of yourselves, in spite of all the fencibles in Ireland. They're banded in regiments, an' why shouldn't ye ? Union is strength. ' In truth, in trust, in unity, and in liberty,' let ye link hand in hand. Irishmen have been divided too long, and the enemy has got an advantage over us by the manes of our dif ferences. If we were all banded together, who would dare shake his fist at us ?

An' 'specially," he added, in a lower tone, with uplifted forefinger, " when the greatest an' the freest nation in the world is not so far across the water as that we couldn't be helped iu our hour of need. Boys," raising his voice again, "are ye satisfied to be slaves for ever ? to be flogged, shot, hung, and burnt, at the will of yere oppressors ?" " No, sure," was the universal response. " All of yez lift up yer hands that's willing for the Oath of the United Irishmen." A forest of brawny, hardworking fists was in the air immediately. " Then I'll administer it to ye, boys, all such of yez as haven't taken it afore ; for I sees some round me that I know to be stanch brothers." His eyes rested for an instant on Myles Furlong's upturned face. " An' every brother has a right to be spreadin' his principles ; and an oath took to him is as good as to Lord Edward himself.

Ye ought all to know one another, an' to meet reg'lar, to back up the good cause. An' then, when there's a network of the Union all over the land, when every village is joined to every town, an' the friends of Ireland know each other everywhere, an' stand shoulder to shoulder, what government will dare to trifle with four millions of United Irishmen ?" • He put his hand in his bosom for the book that was to swear them. Myles, nearest him, noticed on the disengaged hand the odd phenomenon of black hairs, which scarce suited the red tufts of his beard. " Here's the book," began the orator, in a loud tone ; " the book that'll bind you to — to half-a-gallon of tar-water wid tansy in it. I tould you before, Martin Dempsey ; but ye're very stupid intirely, an' I'm afeard ye'll play the mischief wid the cattle among ye."

His tone was totally changed ; his shoulders had got a set in his ears. They looked at him in amazement ; but those nearest the door were conscious of a pressure as from an incoming crowd. The gleam of red-coats filled the entrance. " Make way, boys, make way for the throops," said the orator urbanely. " Maybe they'd like a cure for the murrain as well as UNDER SLIEVE-BUI. 23 anybody; sure it attacks Protestant cows as well as Catholic, which is mighty unmannerly, considherin' it's no matther at all how the 'croppies' lives, while the others — Was you wan tin' to spake, sir ?" to a gentleman in uniform, and with a drawn sword wielded in the air, who had come as far as he could into the building. " I arrest you, Putman McCabe, in the name of the king and the law." " Och thin, sir, ye never were in the wrong box till ye took a poor farrier for McCabe — lights out, boys !"

His broad-brim went down over the nearest candle ; before the soldiers could make the slightest movement to prevent it, the barn was in utter darkness, with only a prevalent smell of molten tallow to attest that there had been light. At the same moment, Colonel Butler's sword was snatched from his grasp. " Shut the door," he roared, backing to the entrance ; " don't let a mother's son of them out, on your peril." But shutting the door was not so easily done : it was a frail con cern, uncertain on its hinges, and none of the soldiers cared to be inclosed with the peasantry. " I demand the surrender of that fellow," said Colonel Butler, loudly. " Those who aid or abet him render themselves liable to the same punishment." " Well," observed the farrier, composedly, " it's come to a pretty pass in Ireland, when a poor man can't go about the counthry sellin' simples an' cures agin witchcraft an' the like, but he must be arrested, an' stuck into jail, an' maybe hung, when he never did anybody a haporth of harm !"