"Let us come away," said Evelyn, who was getting uncomfortable. Her brother placed his hands for her foot, and lifted her into the saddle with a displeased countenance. The old woman's protestations were numerous. She really loved this foster-son with a prouder and deeper love than her own.

CHAPTER XIII.

A MESSAGE-WITH SPEED.

It was nothing new that Ireland should be disturbed; the novelty and the marvel would rather have been her quiescence. Since James II. fled from the field of the Boyne, the Irish people, who had espoused his cause, had given no peace to the successors of his conqueror. Religious antagonism intensified national antipathy. James III. was upheld by the Romish bishops and priests of Ireland, mainly because the Protestant and the Saxon upheld George II. When Jacobitism died out, through the incapability of its head, another rebel spirit, sounding in name so like it, yet so different-Jacobinism-crept in. France was the land of desire for multitudes of Irish Roman Catholics; the orient whence their sun of liberty was to rise. In short, a chain of insurgencies ran through Irish history during all centuries since 1172; of which the Defenders, who rioted at present, formed the latest link.

They were particularly turbulent during this summer of 1793. Colonel Butler, who remembered the outburst of the Whiteboys in 1759, and all sorts of minor rebellions every two or three years since, could not recall a time of equal disturbance. The province of Connaught seethed in a perpetual ferment. Unquiet lives must

G

those Protestants have had who dwelt therein; the houses of such, in the country parts, were never safe from outrage. Burglary for the sake of fire-arms occurred most nights, notwithstanding the awful penalty of death hanging over the heads of all to whom the rrime should be brought home. But it is singular proof of the inefficacy of such Draconian laws to check offences, that while the statute-book of Britain was full of the severest punishments, the crimes sought to be repressed by them were considerably more rife than since a milder legislation has prevailed.

The northern counties were also agitated. Indeed, it was there this particular form of disturbance had originated; and in no matter more important than a personal fight. Presbyterians and Romanists took opposite sides; and soon, from an individual grudge, sprung the factions of the "Peep o' Day Boys," and "Defenders." The former were so called because they visited the houses of the latter at daybreak to disarm them.

All parties were wrong: all parties committed outrages. The intemperance of political feeling at the period can scarcely be exaggerated. The Irish House of Commons was an arena for personalities such as would hardly be permitted in a third-rate debating club of our day; and the insults of the evening were avenged or atoned on the duelling-ground next morning. From the viceregal court at the Castle, down to the knot of peasants in the whisky-shop, party-feeling split the nation into animosities the most violent.

Even social gatherings took a political complexion. Colonel Butler's dinner parties became assemblies of partisans, of magistrates, more than meetings of friends. Never had these entertainments been what too often such degenerated into elsewherebacchanalian orgies. For it was a period when hard drinking was considered a part of the education of a gentleman; and to give his guests the means of intoxication, nay, to urge them to it, was one

of the duties of a hospitable host. But the master of Doon Castle had too much innate retinement for this.

"No," said the colonel, pushing back his ruby wine-glass; "I don't remember any time like it. North, south, west, Ireland is in a flame."

"Shoot 'em all," broke in Mr. Waddell, somewhat irrelevantly, while he re-filled his tumbler with claret. "Shoot 'em all. Bring in martial law. That's the only cure, in my opinion."

"Our county has been pretty quiet as yet," observed a long thin gentleman opposite, who was sipping punch. "Wexford has not had any open disturbance; I believe there are fewer troops here."

"If not yet, sir, depend upon it the disturbance is to come,” rejoined a small ruddy magistrate, who engrafted on a cheery demeanour the inconsistency of Cassandra's prophetic propensities. "Depend upon it, sir. I am certain they are marching about our fields and roads every night. What was brought to me this very day? A Defender, sir; a fellow who hardly took the trouble of denying the charge; and what should be found in his pocket, sir? Nothing less than the oath.”

He rummaged in his own pockets, and drew forth a blotted and soiled piece of paper, written over in the roundest of round hands, with words which were occasionally ill-spelled, and utterly without punctuation.

"The oath, sir, in all its malignity and treason." He rose to he occasion by getting upon his feet in order to read it aloud, with explanatory interpolations of his own.

"The beginning is harmless enough," quoth he: "any of you gentlemen might bind yourselves thereby, in perfect good faith and loyalty:-'I do swear of my good will and consent to be true to his Majesty King George III.' Now, just observe the artfulness of that commencement. I would wager my best hunter to a tenpenny

nail that it has drawn in many a loyal fellow who would shrink from open treason. But after it comes the paragraph with the sting. I will be true while under the same government!" "

The reader paused and glanced round. Several of his hearers endeavoured to extract the sedition from this apparently harmless sentence, and failed. Mr. Waddell was one of these; nevertheless, he said aloud, "Atrocious!" with his eye on the colonel.

"I do not quite perceive," began that gentleman, blandly.

"Not perceive the villanous ambiguity, sir? I don't speak without book, sir, without competent authority. The meaning is, that if the government of his most gracious Majesty were subverted to-morrow morning, they would be no longer under it, of course, and no longer bound to support it. Hence it is clear that these Defenders propose first to compass the overthrow of the government of his most gracious Majesty, and as soon as that is done, they are discharged from this insidious oath. Gentlemen, could treason go farther?”

A murmur passed among the listeners.

"Would you oblige me with a sight of that document ?" asked Colonel Butler, when the reader folded it up, and sat himself down. The following words additional were in it :—

"I swear to be true, aiding and abetting, to every true brother; and in every form and article, from the first foundation in 1790, and every amendment hitherto. I will be obedient to my committees, superior commanders and officers, in all lawful proceedings."

The reference to 1790 meant the political reconstruction of the secret society, by those who were seeking to amalgamate it with the United Irishmen, and work both for treasonable purposes. This was the oath of which Myles Furlong had been made a dispenser in the district of Doon, and to which he had proved most faithful.

"Shoot em' all," said Mr. Waddell. "We won't be safe in our beds, shortly. We must have martial law." Whether he imagined that would effect his desired preventive measure of a universal fusillade, he did not declare.

"It seems to me," began Captain Gerald, in his slow, easy tones, "that too much stress is laid on all this. The peasantry must be plotting and scheming: it seems a necessity of their very existence an outlet for Celtic energies, if you find no better work for them. Possibly they may be the tools of men in higher places."

"Possibly?" repeated the ruddy magistrate. "It is demonstrated."

66

Very well," rejoined Captain Gerald. "The State is too strong for them. The government can afford to smile at the riotous acts of a few wretched outlaws, who go about burning and robbing houses. Efficient police ought to put a stop to it."

66

"I should think," said his father-who was never more easily offended than by an intimation that he over-rated the popular disturbance-" when these few wretched outlaws, as you call them, proceed to such lengths as the utter destruction of Mr. Tenison's splendid mansion, Coalville, in spite of the military, it is time that they should be honoured with some notice."

"Six thousand Defenders present there!" remarked the ruddy magistrate. "A small army!"

"And they hold regular reviews, midnight parades, and drills, in the county Derry," adjoined the colonel; "wearing green cockades as a military badge."

The captain, who had been for some time in a real regiment of the line, before taking his present commission in the militia, shrugged his shoulders with all a soldier's contempt for undisciplined mobs. The evidence of their numbers and their violence was unquestionable: but he despised them none the less.