Tom Burke Of "Ours", Volume I

CHAPTER XI. TOO LATE

The day which followed the events I have mentioned was a sad one to me. The fatigue and the excitement together brought on fever with De Meudon. His head became attacked, and before evening his faculties began to wander. All the strange events of his checkered life were mixed up in his disturbed intellect; and he talked on for hours about Italy, and Egypt, the Tuileries, La Vendee, and Ireland, without ceasing. The entire of the night he never slept, and the next day the symptoms appeared still more aggravated. The features of his insanity were wilder and less controllable. He lost all memory of me; and sometimes the sight of me at his bedside threw him into most terrific paroxysms of passion; while at others, he would hold my hand for hours together, and seem to feel my presence as something soothing. His frequent recurrence to the scene in the churchyard showed the deep impression it had made upon his mind, and how fatally it had influenced the worst symptoms of his malady.

Thus passed two days and nights. On the third morning, exhaustion seemed to have worn him into a false calm. His wild, staring eye had become heavier, his movements less rapid; the spot of color had left his cheek; the mouth was pinched up and rigid; and a flatness of the muscles of the face betokened complete depression. He spoke seldom, and with a voice hoarse and cavernous, but no longer in the tone of wild excitement as before. I sat by his bedside still and in silence, my own sad thoughts my only company. As it grew later, the sleepless days and nights I had passed, and the stillness of the sickroom, overcame me, and I slept.

I awoke with a start; some dreamy consciousness of neglect had flashed across me, and I sat up. I peeped into the bed, and started back with amazement. I looked again, and there lay De Meudon, on the outside of the clothes, dressed in his full uniform, – the green coat and white facing, the large gold epaulettes, the brilliant crosses on the breast; his plumed chapeau lay at one side of him, and his sabre at the other. He lay still and motionless. I held the candle near his face, and could mark a slight smile that curled his cold lip, and gave to his wan and wasted features something of their former expression.

“Oui, mon cher,” said he, in a weak whisper, as he took my hand and kissed it, “c’est bien moi.” And then added, “It was another of my strange fancies to put on these once more before I died; and when I found you sleeping, I arose and did so. I have changed something since I wore this last: it was at a ball at Cambacérès.”

My joy at hearing him speak once more with full possession of his reason, was damped by the great change a few hours had worked in his appearance. His skin was cold and clammy; a gluey moisture rested on his cheek; and his teeth were dark and discolored. A slimy froth, too, was ever rising to his lips as he spoke; while at every respiration his chest heaved and waved like a stormy sea.

“You are thirsty, Charles,” said I, stooping over him to wet his lips.

“No,” said he, calmly, “I have but one thing which wants relief; it is here.”

He pressed his hand to his heart as he spoke, while such a look of misery as crossed his features I never beheld.

“Your heart – ”

“Is broken,” said he, with a sigh. For some minutes he said nothing, then whispered: “Take my pocket-book from beneath my pillow; yes, that ‘s it. There is a letter you ‘ll give my sister; you ‘ll promise me that? Well, the other is for Lecharlier, the chef of the Polytechnique at Paris; that is for you, – you must be un élève there. There are some five or six thousand francs, – it ‘s all I have now: they are yours; Marie is already provided for. Tell her – But no; she has forgiven me long since, – I feel it. You ‘ll one day win your grade, – high up; yes, you must do so. Perhaps it may be your fortune to speak with General Bonaparte; if so, I beg you say to him, that when Charles de Meudon was dying, in exile, with but one friend left of all the world, he held this portrait to his lips, and with his last breath he kissed it.”

The fervor of the action drew the blood to his face and temples, which as suddenly became pale again. A shivering ran through his limbs; a quick heaving of his bosom; a sigh; and all was still. He was dead!

The stunning sense of deep affliction is a mercy from on high. Weak human faculties, long strained by daily communing with grief, would fall into idiocy were their acuteness not blunted and their perception rendered dull. It is for memory to trace back through the mazes of misery the object of our sorrow, as the widow searches for the corpse of him she loved amid the slain upon the battlefield.

I sat benumbed with sorrow, a vague desire for the breaking day my only thought. Already the indistinct glimmerings of morning were visible, when I heard the sounds of men marching along the road towards the house. I could mark, by the clank of their firelocks and their regular step, that they were soldiers. They halted at the door of the cabin, whence a loud knocking now proceeded.

“Halloo, there!” said a voice, whose tones seemed to sink into my very heart; “halloo, Peter! get up and open the door.”

“What’s the matter?” cried the old man, starting up, and groping his way towards the door.

The sound of several voices and the noise of approaching footsteps drowned the reply; and the same instant the door of the little room in which I sat opened, and a sergeant entered.

“Sorry to disturb ye, sir,” said he, civilly; “but duty can’t be avoided. I have a warrant to arrest Captain de Meudon, a French officer that is concealed here. May I ask where is he?”

I pointed to the bed. The sergeant approached, and by the half-light could just perceive the glitter of the uniform, as the body lay shaded by the curtain.

“I arrest you, sir, in the King’s name,” said he. “Halloo, Kelly! this is your prisoner, isn’t he?”

A head appeared at the door as he spoke; and as the eyes wandered stealthily round the chamber, I recognized, despite the change of color, the wretch who led the party at the churchyard.

“Come in, damn ye,” said the sergeant, impatiently; “what are you afraid for? Is this your man? Halloo, sir!” said he, shaking the corpse by the shoulder.

“You must call even louder yet,” said I, while something like the fury of a fiend was working within me.

“What!” said the sergeant, snatching up the light and holding it within the bed. He started back in horror as he did so, and called out, “He is dead!”

Kelly sprang forward at the word, and seizing the candle, held it down to the face of the corpse; but the flame rose as steadily before those cold lips as though the breath of life had never warmed them.

“I ‘ll get the reward, anyhow, sergeant, won’t I?” said the ruffian, while the thirst for gain added fresh expression to his savage features.

A look of disgust was the only reply he met with, as the sergeant walked into the outer room, and whispered something to the man of the house. At the same instant the galloping of a horse was heard on the causeway. It came nearer and nearer, and ceased suddenly at the door, as a deep voice shouted out, —

“Well! all right, I hope, sergeant. Is he safe?”

A whispered reply, and a low, muttered sound of two or three voices followed, and Barton – the same man I had seen at the fray in Malone’s cabin – entered the room. He approached the bed, and drawing back the curtains, rudely gazed on the dead man, while over his shoulder peered the demoniac countenance of the informer Kelly, his savage features working in anxiety lest his gains should have escaped him.

Barton’s eye ranged the little chamber till it fell on me, as I sat still and motionless against the wall. He started slightly, and then advancing close, fixed his piercing glance upon me.

“Ha!” cried he, “you here! Well, that is more than I looked for this morning. I have a short score to settle with you. Sergeant, here ‘s one prisoner for you, at any rate.”

“Yes,” said Kelly, springing forward, “he was at the churchyard with the other; I’ll swear to that.”

“I think we can do without your valuable aid in this business,” said Barton, smiling maliciously. “Come along, young gentleman; we ‘ll try and finish the education that has begun so prosperously.”

My eyes involuntarily turned to the table where De Meudon’s pistols were lying. The utter hopelessness of such a contest deterred me not, I sprang towards them; but as I did so, the strong hand of Barton was on my collar, and with a hoarse laugh, he threw me against the wall, as he called out, —

“Folly, boy! mere folly. You are quite sure of the rope without that. Here, take him off!”

As he spoke, two soldiers seized me on either side, and before a minute elapsed, pinioned my arms behind my back. In another moment the men fell in, the order was given to march, and I was led away between the files, Kelly following at the rear; while Barton’s voice might be heard issuing from the cabin, as he gave his orders for the burial of the body, and the removal of all the effects and papers to the barrack at Glencree.

We might have been about an hour on the road when Barton overtook us. He rode to the head of the party, and handing a paper to the sergeant, muttered some words, among which I could only gather the phrase, “Committed to Newgate;” then, turning round in his saddle, he fixed his eyes on Kelly, who, like a beast of prey, continued to hang upon the track of his victim.

“Well, Dan,” cried he, “you may go home again now. I am afraid you ‘ve gained nothing this time but character.”

“Home!” muttered the wretch in a voice of agony; “is it face home after this morning’s work?”

“And why not, man? Take my word for it, the neighbors will be too much afraid to meddle with you now.”

“Oh, Mister Barton! oh, darling! don’t send me back there, for the love of Heaven! Take me with you!” cried the miserable wretch, in tones of heart-moving misery.

“Oh, young gentleman,” said he, taming towards me, and catching me by the sleeve, “spake a word for me this day!”

“Don’t you think he has enough of troubles of his own to think of, Dan?” said Barton, with a tone of seeming kindliness. “Go back, man; go back! there ‘s plenty of work before you in this very county. Don’t lay your hand on me, you scoundrel; your touch would pollute a hangman.”

The man fell back as if stunned at the sound of these words; his face became livid, and his lips white as snow. He staggered a pace or two, like a drunken man, and then stood stock-still, his eyes fixed upon the road.

“Quick march!” said the sergeant.

The soldiers stepped out again; and as we turned the angle of the road, about a mile farther, I beheld Kelly still standing in the self same attitude we left him. Barton, after some order to the sergeant, soon left us, and we continued our march till near nine o’clock, when the party halted to breakfast. They pressed me to eat with every kind entreaty, but I could taste nothing, and we resumed our road after half an hour. But the day becoming oppressively hot, it was deemed better to defer our march till near sunset; we stopped, then, during the noon, in a shady thicket near the roadside, where the men, unbuckling their knapsacks and loosening their stocks, lay down in the deep grass, either chatting together or smoking. The sergeant made many attempts to draw me into conversation, but my heart was too full of its own sensations either to speak or listen; so he abandoned the pursuit with a good grace, and betook himself to his pipe at the foot of a tree, where, after its last whiff escaped, he sank into a heavy sleep.

Such of the party as were not disposed for sleep gathered together in a little knot on a small patch of green grass, in the middle of a beech clump, where, having arranged themselves with as much comfort as the place permitted, they began chatting away over their life and its adventures pleasantly and freely. I was glad to seek any distraction from my own gloomy thoughts in listening to them, as I lay only a few yards off; but though I endeavored with all my might to attend to and take interest in their converse, my thoughts always turned to him I had lost forever, – the first, the only friend I had ever known. All care for myself and what fortune awaited me was merged in my sorrow for him. If not indifferent to my fate, I was at least unmindful of it, and although the words of those near me fell upon my ear, I neither heard nor marked them.

From this dreamy lethargy I was at last suddenly aroused by the hearty bursts of laughter that broke from the party, and a loud clapping of hands that denoted their applause of something or somebody then before them.

“I say, George,” said one of the soldiers, “he’s a queer ‘un, too, that piper.”

“Yes, he ‘s a droll chap,” responded the other solemnly, as he rolled forth a long curl of smoke from the angle of his mouth.

“Can you play ‘Rule Britannia,’ then?” asked another of the men.

“No, sir,” said a voice I at once knew to be no other than my friend Darby’s, – “no, sir. But av the ‘Fox’s Lament,’ or ‘Mary’s Dream;’ wasn’t uncongenial to your sentiments, it would be a felicity to me to expatiate upon the same before yez.”

“Eh, Bell,” cried a rough voice, “does that beat you now?”

“No,” said another, “not a bit. He means he ‘ll give us something Irish instead; he don’t know ‘Rule Britannia! ‘”

“Not know ‘Rule Britannia!’ Why, where the devil were you ever bred or born, man, – eh?”

“Kerry, sir, the kingdom of Kerry, was the nativity of my father; my maternal progenitrix emanated from Clare. Maybe you ‘ve heard the adage, —

Not but that, in my humble individuality, I am an exceptions illustration of the proverbial catastrophe.”

Another shout of rude laughter from his audience followed this speech, amid the uproar of which Darby began tuning his pipes, as if perfectly unaware that any singularity on his part had called forth the mirth.

“Well, what are we to have, old fellow, after all that confounded squeaking and grunting?” said he who appeared the chief spokesman of the party.

“‘Tis a trifling production of my own muse, sir, – a kind of biographical, poetical, and categorical dissertation of the delights, devices, and daily doings of your obaydient servant and ever submissive slave, Darby the Blast.”

Though it was evident very little of his eloquent announcement was comprehended by the party, their laughter was not less ready, and a general chorus proclaimed their attention to the song.

Darby accordingly assumed his wonted dignity of port, and having given some half dozen premonitory flourishes, which certainly had the effect of astonishing and overawing the audience, he began, to the air of “The Night before Larry was stretched,” the following ditty: —

“Eh! what’s that?” cried a gruff voice; “the corpse does what?”

“‘T is a rhetorical amplification, that means he would if he could,” said Darby, stopping to explain.

“I say,” said another, “that’s all gammon and stuff; a corpse could n’t know what was doing, – eh, old fellow?”

“‘T is an Irish corpse I was describin’,” said Darby, proudly, and evidently, while sore pushed for an explanation, having a severe struggle to keep down his contempt for the company that needed it.

An effort I made at this moment to obtain a nearer view of the party, from whom I was slightly separated by some low brushwood, brought my hand in contact with something sharp; I started and looked round, and to my astonishment saw a clasp knife, such as gardeners carry, lying open beside me. In a second I guessed the meaning of this. It had been so left by Darby, to give me an opportunity of cutting the cords that bound my arms, and thus facilitating my escape. His presence was doubtless there for this object, and all the entertaining powers he displayed only brought forth to occupy the soldiers’ attention while I effected my deliverance. Regret for the time lost was my first thought; my second, more profitable, was not to waste another moment. So, kneeling down I managed with the knife to cut some of my fastenings, and after some little struggle freed one arm; to liberate the other was the work of a second, and I stood up untrammelled. What was to be done next? for although at liberty, the soldiers lay about me on every side, and escape seemed impossible. Besides, I knew not where to turn, where to look for one friendly face, nor any one who would afford me shelter. Just then I heard Darby’s voice raised above its former pitch, and evidently intended to be heard by me.

“Sure, there’s Captain Bubbleton, of the Forty-fifth Regiment, now in Dublin, in George’s Street Barracks. Ay, in George’s Street Barracks,” said he, repeating the words as if to impress them on me. “‘T is himself could tell you what I say is thrue; and if you wouldn’t put confidential authentification on the infirmation of a poor leather-squeezing, timber-tickling crayture like myself, sure you ‘d have reverential obaydience to your own commissioned captain.”

“Well, I don’t think much of that song of yours, anyhow, old Blow, or Blast, or whatever your name is. Have you nothing about the service, eh? ‘The British Grenadiers;’ give us that.”

“Yes; ‘The British Grenadiers,’ that’s the tune!” cried a number of the party together.

“I never heard them play but onst, sir,” said Darby, meekly; “and they were in sich a hurry that day, I couldn’t pick up the tune.”

“A hurry! what d’ you mean?” said the corporal.

“Yes, sir; ‘t was the day but one after the French landed; and the British Grenadiers that you were talking of was running away towards Castlebar.”

“What ‘s that you say there?” cried out one of the soldiers, in a voice of passion.

“‘Tis that they wor running away, sir,” replied Darby, with a most insulting coolness; “and small blame to thim for that same, av they wor frightened.”

In an instant the party sprang to their legs, while a perfect shower of curses fell upon the luckless piper, and fifty humane proposals to smash his skull, break his neck and every bone in his body, were mooted on all sides. Meanwhile M’Keown remonstrated, in a spirit which in a minute I perceived was not intended to appease their irritation; on the contrary, his apologies were couched in very different guise, being rather excuses for his mishap in having started a disagreeable topic, than any regret for the mode in which he treated it.

“And sure, sir,” continued he, addressing the corporal, “‘t was n’t my fault av they tuck to their heels; would n’t any one run for his life av he had the opportunity?”

He raised his voice once more at these words with such significance that I resolved to profit by the counsel if the lucky moment should offer. – I had not long to wait. The insulting manner of Darby, still more than his words, had provoked them beyond endurance, and one of the soldiers, drawing his bayonet, drove it through the leather bag of his pipes. A shout of rage from the piper, and a knockdown blow that levelled the offender, replied to the insult. In an instant the whole party were upon him. Their very numbers, however, defeated their vengeance; as I could hear from the tone of Darby’s voice, who, far from declining the combat, continued to throw in every possible incentive to battle, as he struck right and left of him. “Ah, you got that! – Well done! – ‘Tis brave you are! ten against one! – Devil fear you!”

The scuffle by this time had brought the sergeant to the spot, who in vain endeavored to ascertain the cause of the tumult, as they rolled over one another on the ground, while caps, belts, and fragments of bagpipes were scattered about on every side. The uproar had now reached its height, and Darby’s yells and invectives were poured forth with true native fluency. The moment seemed propitious to me. I was free, – no one near; the hint about Bubbleton was evidently intended for my guidance. I crept stealthily a few yards beneath the brushwood, and emerged safely upon the road. The sounds of the conflict, amid which Darby’s own voice rose pre-eminent, told me that all were too busily engaged to waste a thought on me. I pressed forward at my best pace, and soon reached the crest of a hill, from which the view extended for miles on every side. My eyes, however, were bent in but one direction: they turned westwards, where a vast plain stretched away towards the horizon, its varied surface presenting all the rich and cultivated beauty of a garden; villas and mansions surrounded with large parks; waving cornfields and orchards in all the luxuriance of blossom. Towards the east lay the sea; the coast line broken into jutting promontories and little bays, dotted with white cottages, with here and there some white-sailed skiff, scarce moving in the calm air. But amid all this outspread loveliness of view, my attention was fixed upon a dense and heavy cloud that seemed balanced in the bright atmosphere far away in the distance. Thither my eyes turned, and on that spot was my gaze riveted, for I knew that beneath that canopy of dull smoke lay Dublin. The distant murmur of the angry voices still reached me as I stood. I turned one backward look; the road was lonely, not a shadow moved upon it. Before me the mountain road descended in a zigzag course till it reached the valley. I sprang over the low wall that skirted the wayside, and with my eyes still fixed upon the dark cloud, I hurried on. My heart grew lighter with every step; and when at length I reached the shelter of a pine-wood, and perceived no sign of being pursued, my spirits rose to such a pitch of excitement that I shouted for very joy.