A fair Saxon

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Chapter I

In one of the central and populous districts of London there runs a long, rather broad thoroughfare, which, although almost absolutely unknown to the country visitor, or to Londoners living in other districts, might form the main street of a good-sized provincial city. The houses were once accounted stately and spacious. Nobles and statesmen lived there even so lately as Evelyn's time, nor had it wholly lost its character when Swift and Harley walked London streets. Then it fell into shops, and now the shops themselves have degenerated to almost the lowest grade. The upper window-frames of many a house where small coals and potatoes are sold below VOL. u. 1 display the remains of ornamentation which the hand of a Wren may have designed. Some of these upper rooms are still spacious and with a lingering look of dignity about them, although a clothes-line stretched from one end to the other bears a load of miscellaneous drapery, visible to the street outside, and which makes it plain that the occupant of that part of the house lives by taking in washing. ut of some of the highest windows dirty children are hanging over for a glimpse of the pavement, and are amusing themselves by dropping potatopeels or bits of cabbage-stump on the wayfarers below. These children make the unaccustomed passer-by hold his breath and tremble, for he expects to see them come toppling down upon the pavement. But they are used to the condition of things, as the Swiss children are used to walk on the edge of a precipice, and they never fall over. It is not thus that the numbers of the infant population are diminished there.

This is summer weather, and the windows are open. . Where there are not children, there is to be seen at each upper aperture an unshorn and unkempt man, in his shirt-sleeves, smoking a pijx^ or a woman in what Mr. Pepys would call her smocksleeves and bodice, who has stopped in her household work to have a look at the street. A good many windows, one is surprised to see, have flowers in pots, and some have birdcages. This is not a vicious thoroughfare — only overcrowded, dirty,* and poor. The shops may be easily classified. Small coals and potatoes, a butcher, a pawnshop, a dining-room — with a pudding like a cannon-ball, and ever-steaming, sickening meats — a tripe shop, a shop for the sale of sweetmeats, cheap toys, ballads, and little story-books, a bakery, a carver and gilder's, and several publichouses — someof them having concert-rooms, and exhibiting tempting prints of a comic singer with a battered hat, and a young lady in evening dress.

There are several lanes or courts, and at the corner of one of these stands the Harp of Erin public-house — a rather large establishment, with a painted and faded sign on the front wall representing a dishevelled and largely developed female figure, clad in green, and allowing her hair to fall over a gigantic lyre, the chords of which it drapes like the

1—2 long moss that trails from the branches of trees in a forest of the Carolinas. In the windows of this hostelry are little printed bills, announcing that the raffle in aid of the funds of the St. Dermod Sick and Burial Society is going on every night during the week.

We have been describing this place by daylight, but it is night when we get there. A hansom cab stops in front of the Harp of Erin, and Mr. Tyrone and Colonel Quentin leap out. Both are in evening dress, and look oddly out of place there. Tyrone has a light coat thrown over his other clothes, but Colonel Quentin stands out lithe, swaggering, brilliant, in his black swallow-tail and white tie. It is late now, and there are few people about.

General Macan had gone on before to prepare for their coming. They enter the bar and ask for him. He comes down in a moment; there are sounds of laughter and applause and many stamping feet in a large front room on the first floor.

" The raffle's going on above, full blast,'' the General says. " The room's very full, and you'll not care to pass through it. I'll take you to the committee-room at once. Show us the private way up, Tim/'

Tim, an Irish barman, with his shirt-sleeves tucked up, and who had just been showing and descanting on his brawny muscle to an admiring customer with a blackened face, striped trousers, and a banjo, opens a door behind the bar, and tumbles up a flight of narrow stairs, which leads to a corridor. At the street end of this corridor is the room where the raffle is going on ; at the other end is seen a door with panes of glass in it, which are hung inside with a curtain of green baize. When Tim has conducted them thus far, he leaves them.

General Macan then leads the way, Tyrone follows; Colonel Quentin, smoking a cigar, comes last.

Macan opens the glass door without any ceremony, and Tyrone enters. There is no secrecy and no precaution.

"Shut the door after you, Phil," the General says, carelessly. And Quentin, entering, shuts the door.

They are in a tolerably large room, lighted with gas. The floor is uneven in many places, but the remains of decaying cornices, and even some misty traces of a painted ceiling, show that it was once a handsome and stately apartment. There is a round table in the centre, looking small when compared with the size of the room, and the table is strewn with tickets, checks, papers, account-books, all having reference to the St. Dermod Sick and Burial Society. The walls are hung with bills describing the grand piano, the silver watch, the accordion, the railway season-ticket, the arm-chair, the oil painting, and the other treasures which are to be disposed of for the benefit of the charity. Several men are seated round the table; two or three are lounging in chairs which they have tilted back, so that the chair stands on its hind legs, and the head of the sitter touches the wall.

"Gentlemen," General Macan proclaims in grandiloquent style, and with one hand proudly outstretched, "I have the distinguished honour to introduce the descendant of the great Tyrones — the heir of ages of rebellion — one of the real Princes of Erin."

A burst of applause followed, and the men all rose to their feet, and received Tyrone with a perfectly Oriental prodigality of bows and homage. Some colour came into Tyrone's cheek — ^he had vanity enough to be pleased with all this for the moment. But he had come to observe, and his quick eye took in every feature and form at a glance. He did not fail to notice that one man was much less profuse in his welcome than the rest, and that after one formal bow, he instantly crossed the room and engaged in conversation with Colonel Quentin. This man was evidently a foreigner. Tyrone noted his spiked moustache and his quick gestures. He was well-dressed, and looked like a gentleman.

Not so the others. The majority were of the class who might have kept small shops in the neighbourhood, and the Irish accent rolled off their tongues. The two or three who lounged in the chairs were obviously Irish Americans, and probably had been soldiers. They were loose-limbed, bold, and athletic, with a certain swagger. But the whole gathering had little about it of that air of joyous heedlessness which is . the common atmosphere where Irishmen are in the majority. There was a vague suggestion of sternness, or even of ferocity, about them.

"Gentlemen," one man exclaimed, "we welcome our natural leader! Tyrone for ever! Begor, and 'twas time you come among us at last I"

He caught Tyrone's hand and wrung it, and there were tears dancing in his wild eyes.

"Glory be to the Powers that we've lived to see the day !" another cried. " Here's the young chief in his true place! We'll carry him at the head of us yet !"

"Another cheer, boys, for the bold Tyrone!" a third voice exclaimed, and there were fresh plaudits and stampings, and Tyrone's gloved fingers were squeezed in many a successive grip.

Tyrone was a little taken by surprise, but not much. He had lately begun to suspect the true nature of the important association of Irish and American patriots which Macan had persuaded him to visit. Heedless as he too often was, he had taken this step deliberately and with his eyes open.

Now he waited coolly until their excitement had somewhat soberized. Colonel Quentin eyed him keenly; so did the foreigner who stood beside Quentin.

"Gentlemen," said Tyrone, in his clear, frank voire, that had something sympathetic and winning in it, " I am always delighted to meet my countrymen. I am Irish, heart and soul — I think I have always shown that. But I don't claim to be a leader of any Irish movement. I hope Ireland, God bless her! has wiser heads to guide her, though I think she can't have many more faithful hearts. But I must plainly tell you that at present I don't even know what your movement is, and I can hardly say whether it is my place to lead you until I know whither you want to be led."

" Oh, begor, it isn't a Tyrone that'll want any teaching on that point," remarked one of the audience, with a wink.

"Explanation only spoils this sort of thing," said General Macan, jauntily; "we'll tell you all about our means. Colonel Tyrone, but about our ends, oh, sure, as Lord Byron says, 'I beseech you to suppose them.' "

"Excuse me, General Macan," said Tyrone, coldly, "and pray let me remind you once more that I hold no military rank. I must have the clearest knowledge of what your objects are before my name is given to help them. Gentlemeuj" he

10 A FAIE SAXON.

added, with a certain simple dignity, "I have nothing to give to any cause but my name. It is my last and only possession. It is your possession indeed as well as mine ; it is a poor part of our national history. It shall not be given away lightly. What then do you want of me?''

"But this is absurd " the foreigner

broke in. Quentin checked him.

" Don't you know what you've been brought here for? Didn't the General tell you?" several voices exclaimed, some in blank wonder, some in angry remonstrance.

*' General Macan is not to blame," Tyrone said ; " 1 refused to receive any explanation from him; When he told me of some great patriotic association, 1 thought a Tyrone had a right to know something about it. But I refused to be instructed by him. I preferred to see some of my countrymen face to face."

^' That's true as Gospel," Macan observed, "but I took it for granted you knew all about it.".

An uneasy condition of mind began to show itself, and people looked angrily at Macan, who only whistled a tune, and bore the complacent mien of one who waits until a little becoming comedy of formula has been got properly through. He assumed that all this on Tyrone's part was only like the feigned reluctance of a singer who wants pressing.

" Come," said Tyrone, " let us not be formal. Let us sit down round the table, and talk the matter agreeably over. We are oil Irish here, I suppose?"

" Or friends of Ireland," quietly observed Colonel Quentin.

"Or friends of Ireland," said Tyrone, very slowly ; and studying the faces. "There are sometimes family councils where the offices even of the best friends are a little out of place. But Ireland has not so many friends that she can aflFord to shut out any. Well, then, we are all Irishmen here, or friends of Ireland. What do we propose to do for Ireland?"

" Set her free, by God !" exclaimed a stout fellow, bringing his fist down with a bang upon the table.

" By what means?"

"With the pikes in good repair!" sang out Macau's mellow voice, and a fierce burst of applause followed.

''Then you are trying to organize a Fenian rebellion?"

" Devil a doubt of it !" exclaimed Macan ; and there was a fresh roar of approval.

" Then/' said Tyrone, rising, " all I can say to my countrymen is to warn them against such insane projects. If there is any one here with whom the name of Tyrone and its old memories has any influence, I beg of him — I implore of him — • to have nothing to do with this ! It will only end in a few miserable deaths and a national disgrace.'^

" Disgrace !" one man cried, " Does a Tyrone call it disgrace to rebel against England?"

" No I" Tyrone answered, with an equal vehemence, " I don't — although I believe in my soul that the English people only want to be our true friends. I don't call rebellion disgrace. The traditions of centuries are not so soon forgotten. Just now 1 believe it would be a crime, but not a disgrace. But I don't call your Fenian scheme a rebellion. I don't give that the name of a rebellion which will never call for even one charge of cavalry to put it down."

Angry murrnurs followed.

"Be easy, boys — easy, now!'^ said the self-satisfied Macan. " Just let me explain. The condition of things is changed, Mr. Tyrone. Look across the ocean, sir! Think of the hundreds of thousands of Irishmen there. Let me show you some of our figures and facts "

" Do you take me for a fool, or a New York serving- woman, General Macan? I know the value of your facts and figures. All the world ought to know what they mean. I want to hear no more from you. I only warn my countrymen here against you."

"He's in for a Government place,'' growled one voice.

" Turned tail, by thunder !" one of the Irish Americans exclaimed.

" Be gorra, he's in the Government pay already!" some one else cried out. "He's a spy ! Shut the door!"

Several hands hastened to make fast the door. The ferocity of panic was beginning to set in. The men crowded round Tyrone.

"One's life isn't worth a cent here," Colonel Quentin coolly remarked. Then he called out in a clear voice, " Gentlemen, we can't convince Mr. Tyrone; but I am sure he will promise that if he is allowed to go — I am sure he will give his word of honour not to disclose anything he has seen or heard "

" I will pledge myself to nothing," Tyrone answered, vehemently. " If I go out of this place alive, I will go out as free and unpledged as I came in. I will promise nothing. If it seems to me right for the interests of Ireland, I will denounce all this at the next police-station. You may murder me, but you shan't get any promise from me."

The terror of premature disclosure has always been, and for good reason, a sort of overmastering panic among the humbler class of Irish conspirators. The men in the Harp of Erin who now gathered round Tyrone were almost beside themselves at the thought that they were to be betrayed to the police. Not personal fear influenced them alone, but the 'thought of the frustration of their plans. Through many a rude, fierce mind the suggestion flashed that a trial and conviction for murder would not disclose the conspiracy; that Tyrone's dead body might convict his slayer, but would not betray the cause. A ring of furious faces was quickly drawn around him, and the Irish Americans significantly put their right hands behind them for their revolvers. Tyrone stood with perfect composure, unarmed, defenceless, well knowing defence to be out of the question, but resolute and quiet, with all the brave blood of his race sustaining him. For a moment his life hung upon a chance, a word, a glance — only for a moment.

" Easy, now — easy,'' said the gallant Macan, elbowing his way with a careless roughness through the circle, shouldering this man out of the way and dragging another back, until he came side by side with Tyrone. " No, you don't ! Colonel Tyrone came here with me of his own will, trusting to my word; and he's going out of this of his own free will too, just whenever he feels like it. Na'ry promise, na'ry pledge ! I never asked for any promise when 1 brought him. in, and by the immortal Jupiter, he shan't be asked for any promise when he's going out ! Fall back, every mother's son of you ! I reckon I'm in command here. Any fellow that just

Steps one inch nearer to Colonel Tyrone will save his wife the trouble of cooking his breakfast to-morrow morning, and aflFord her the pleasure of seeing how she looks in a widow's cap !"

General Macan lent additional point to the humour of his conclusion by presenting the barrel of a very elegant silver-mounted ** six-shooter " for the inspection of the angry group.

"Come, that's all right and pleasant," the General continued, when the murmuring and sullen circle had dispersed. " I'm always in command when business is on, and any fellow that don't feel like obeying, would do well to arrange beforehand for his favourite pattern in the matter of a coiEn. Bad luck to ye all ! Do you think Owen Roe O'Neill was in the habit of assassinating people, or that Wolfe Tone would have shot an unarmed man on sight ? I'm ashamed of youl All right now, Mr. Tyrone ; the boys are sorry, and they'll never do it again. They didn't think of themselves just for the moment. Well for them that Macan has brains enough to think for all."

" General Macan," said Tyrone, " I thank yow, and I esteem you a soMier and a gentleman."

Macan's eyes flashed with delighted pride. " See that, now !" he exclaimed. " Praise from a Tyrone. By the immortal Jupiter "

"But Mr. Tyrone," said the foreigner with the moustache, now entering into the conversation, " will know how to make excuses for the anxiety of men who have a great cause — the cause of Ireland — in their hand, and who cannot stand on ceremony." " I have not the honour of knowing you, sir," Tyrone said, coldly. " Is the cause of Ireland in your hands?"

" I serve Ireland as Mr. Tyrone's ancestors served France. My name is perhaps not unknown to Mr. Tyrone. I am General Charette."

** I thought as much," Tyrone replied, who had for some time suspected that he saw before him a famous conspirator and military adventurer known to many countries, a stormy petrel of political revolution, a cosmopolitan rebel who had begun at the barricades of July, fought under Garibaldi in 1848, and under John Brown in Kansas; was one of the thousand of Marsala, and and was " out" with Langiewitz in Poland, a brave, restless, irrepressible, self-conceited, and feather-headed sort of man, whose instinctive notion of a government was something like the nine-pins in a game, something that strong and skilful men were to try to overturn. Established institutions anywhere were to General Charette what a butterfly is to a child, irresistibly tempting to all the destructive faculties. This was just the sort of man to whom Tyrone had an inherent objection, and, in part, perhaps, an unreasonable objection, and his demeanour now probably showed some of this feeling.

" Does Mr. Tyrone mean to imply ?"

" I don't mean to imply, but to say, very distinctly, that I think the cause of Ireland would get on better if it were left in the hands of Irishmen, and not mixed up in the milange of the Revolution, a3 you, General • Charette, would call it. I would earnestly urge my countrymen to keep out of all that, and to avoid all professional and trading Revolutionists/'

" But this is insolence !"

Tyrone reddened, but took no notice of the words. He had turned to leave the room, and only stayed to deliver this parting injunction,

^'Tbe cause of Ireland is not that of mere revolution. It is the cause of national freedom, and nothing else. The less we have to do with strangers the better."

"It is time/' Charette almost screamed, planting himself straight before Tyrone, and staring him full in the face, " it is time that strangers should cease to fight for Ireland, when the descendants of her old leaders are too much coward— coward !— to fight for her.*'

This was too much. Tjnrone had been fighting with passion of one kind or another all the night. He flung all self-command away, and, with his gloved hand, struck General Charette in the face. The General went down like Dante when Francesca's story smote him.

He was up in a moment with Quentin at his side, and a little crowd round him. Charette was pale with passion, but much calmer now than before, and he talked to Quentin with fierce subdued eagerness. General Macan abruptly threw his arm under Tyrone's to lead him away.

" Oh, by the immortal Jupiter !*' he ex-

2—2

20 A FAIE SAXON.

claimed, " this sort of thing will never do. We'll be having a free fight here if this goes on any further. It's a pity you lost your temper, Colonel Tyrone ; but I confess the General was a little too cheeky for the patience of an Irishman. He's a vindictive devil, too, that same Charette, and there wont be much good come of this. 1 suppose there's no chance of your apologizing?"

" To him — to that insolent scoundrel?" "Oh, by the Lord Harry, come away,

do."

" I ought to apologize to you, Macan," Tyrone said, good-humouredly, " for getting into a quarrel here, and I owe an apology to myself for having made myself ridiculous."

''Well, as to that I don't know; it's the genius of an Irishman always to be making himself ridiculous. But I don't like this quarrel at all, and that's an odd thing, too, for people tell me 1 haven't much objection to quarrels as a rule. Come away, Colonel, it's all over — for the present."

Tyrone, escorted by Macan, went down stairs and quitted the Harp of Erin. All the tumult in the room he left was now stilled. General Charette was pale and calm, and he still talked in an undertone with Colonel Quentin.

Tyrone jumped into the cab which was waiting, and drove away.

General Macan returned slowly to the committee-room, whistling meditati vely. When he entered, he took Quentin aside.

" This is a bad business, Phil ! I wonder if the Head Centre could do anything?''

" The Centre of Gravity," said Quentin, "couldn't do anything with our friend yonder. He says he wiU kill Tyrone, or Tyrone shall kill him. I think he means it, too."

"It's been a muddle," Macan observed, with a shake of the head, "an awful muddle."

" I don't think so."

" Well, there's this row, — and then he'll never go with us anyhow."

"Tyrone?"

Macan nodded assent.

" I tell you he shall ; and he will easily enough, if you only play your cards well."

" I don't see it, Phil."

"Don't you? /do."

"Let's have some champagne," Macan said, " anyhow; I want a drink. I'll stand — it's hard if the St. Dermod Sick and Burial Society can't afford a drink all round. How many of us are here? Eight, nine, ten. Never mind. I'll pay for alL Give a pull to that bell, Phil, and then we'll have a talk about business."

CHAPTER IL

It would not be easy to overrate the disagreeable nature of the reflections with which Tyrone awoke the next morning. The manner in which he had been drawn into a knowledge of the Fenian plot greatly embarrassed him. To allow the thing to go on would, in all probability, only end in a miserable little abortive outbreak — and yet how to stop it in time ?

An English reader will say at once that Tyrone's course was clear. He was a member of Parliament, and had vowed allegiance to the Sovereign of Great Britain. He had no right to become a party to the concealment of a treasonable plan. He was bound to reveal the whole afl^air.

But the English reader must be asked to endeavour to look at all this from Tyrone's point of view. He came of a race in whose annals rebellion against England had been always esteemed a sacred duty. He was himself entirely opposed to all such projects; partly because he believed them utterly hopeless, but also, in a great measure, because he was honestly convinced that the great mass of Englishmen, including even most of the governing classes, were now anxious to deal justly with Ireland. Still, an Irish scheme of rebellion did not appear to him unnatural, or necessarily criminal. It was an enterprise of which he disapproved on every ground, but he could not pretend to any instinctive and loyal horror of it. On the other hand, the idea of turning over Irish rebels to English police was repugnant to every feeling of his whole soul. Even when he said to himself that for the dear sake of Ireland, for the sake of the very Irishmen concerned in this affair, it would be wise and well to destroy it by premature disclosure, his nature revolted against the thought.

More than that, he could not disguise from himself that he must have been, unconsciously and innocently, the means of fostering the delusion under which souie of these men were acting. His humbler countrymen, especially across the Atlantic, evidently misunderstood his attitude in Parliament, and looked to him as a natural leader of rebellion. He remembered with a certain pang how thoughtlessly he had accepted the part of Irish chieftain, revived and adapted to modem usage ; and he felt as if he was a sharer in the folly and the wrong of those very enterprises which now shocked him with their rashness and their barren danger.

The best thing he could think of, at least for the present, and as a first resource, was to endeavour to persuade Macan and Quentin of the madness of the enterprise. He had heard, too, of a mysterious Head Centre, a sort of hidden Mikado of Fenianism. He would endeavour to see this man, and to convince him.

These thoughts were complicated now with the unpleasant recollections of his unlucky quarrel with the Frenchman, Charette, whose eternal enmity he had of course incurred; and then his own personal embarrassments were daily growing greater and greater.

Tyrone usually breakfasted at his lodgings and then went to his club. He was just about to go out this morning, when a card was brought to him from Colonel Quentin. On the whole, he was glad to have a chance of speaking to Quentin at once, for though he rather disliked the man, yet he saw that there was some sense and capacity in him.

Colonel Quentin entered, elegantly dressed in black frock coat, fawn-coloured trousers, and lavender gloves, with a superb camellia in his button-hole. Tyrone received him with a civility perhaps less cold than usual.

" I have come on unpleasant business, Mr. Tyrone," Quentin said, in his clear, somewhat sharp voice ; " a kind of mission I would gladly have declined. But it was pressed on me by my friend General Charette."

Tyrone could not help looking up with a surprised expression.

" I see you anticipate my business already, and I'm very glad of it, for it relieves me from the necessity of much explanation."

" Still, if you please. Colonel Quentin, we'll have a little explanation."

" If you wish it, certainly. My friend General Charette feels deeply insulted and aggrieved by your action last night. You are not surprised at that, Mr. Tyrone, I am sure."

" Your friend, if he is so. Colonel Quentin, was grossly and purposely insolent; and when men are so, they generally get beaten, don't they? I confess I am very sorry "

" I don't know," Quentin said, with stu-. died slowness, ** I don't know, Mr. Tyrone, whether it is fair to you to allow you to go on. Excuse the interruption, but I really don't think it would be handsome in me to allow you to go on."

Tyrone generally encountered what seemed to him rudeness by a little extra politeness, and thus rebuked it. When Quentin interrupted him, he bowed and listened in perfect silence.

" Because, Mr. Tyrone, I fear General Charette thinks the thing went too far to admit of apology now."

Tyrone smiled slightly.

" If you will do me the favour to listen, Colonel Quentin, you will find that the question is not likely to arise. I was going to say that I am sorry, indeed very sorry, for having allowed myself to be drawn into any sort of quarrel with a person of that stamp. The man you call General Charette is only, I presume, a better sort of brigand.'*