Lewis Wingfield - My Lords of Strogue. Volume 1 of 3

The young man (pale-faced he was, and slight of build) stopped abruptly and turned red, for my lady's look was fixed on him with undisguised displeasure.

'I beg pardon,' he stammered, 'but I feel strongly-'

'Are you a Roman Catholic?' she asked.

'No,' replied her brother for him, as he patted the scapegrace on the shoulder. 'But he is bitten with a mania to become a champion of the oppressed. He has written burning pamphlets, which, though I cannot quite approve of them, I am bound to confess have merit.'

'That have they!' said Curran, warmly. 'The enthusiasm's there, and the cause is good. But if a man would sleep on roses he had best leave it alone, for anguish will be the certain portion of him who'd fight the Penal Code. Modern patriotism consists too much of eating and drinking and fine clothes to be of real worth.'

'I believe you are too convivially disposed to object to a good dinner!' laughed Lord Glandore. 'There's a power of cant in these patriotic views. As regards us Englishry, the inferiority of our numbers is more than compensated by commanding vigour and organisation. It's a law of nature that a weak vessel should give way before a strong one. History tells us that our ancestors, the English colonists, sturdy to begin with, were compelled by their position to cultivate energy and perseverance, while the aborigines never worked till they felt the pangs of hunger, and were content to lie down in the straw beside their cattle. The Catholics are the helot class. Let them prove themselves worthy of consideration if they can.'

'The Irish Catholics of ability,' returned the neophyte, 'are at Versailles or Ildefonso, driven from here long since.'

'False reasoning, my lord,' said doughty Curran. 'The "Englishry," as you call them, are the servants of England. Their interests are the same, because England pays them well. How can a nation's limbs obey her will if it is weighed to the earth by gyves? First knock off the irons, then bid her stand upon her feet. As the boy says, folks are too fond of prancing round that statue. I don't myself see a way out of the darkness. Why should it not be given to him, and such as he, to lead us from the labyrinth?'

My lord wished he had not summoned these low persons. Before he could reply the young man said sadly:

'What can a lawyer do but prose?'

And Arthur Wolfe, perceiving a storm brewing, cried out with nervous merriment:

'What! harping on the old string, Theobald? Still pining for a military frock and helmet? Boy, boy! Look at the pageant that is spread before our eyes. The triumph of this day is due to its bloodlessness. This grand array would not disgrace its cloth, I'm sure, in the battle; but happily success has been achieved by moral force alone. Right is might with the Volunteers. May their swords never leave their scabbards!'

'You cannot deny,' persisted the froward youth, 'that yonder battalions would be a grander sight if they really represented the nation without regard to creed-if, for example, every other man among them was a Catholic!'

My lord looked cross, my lady black as thunder, so Wolfe, the peacemaker, struck in again as he twisted his fingers in his little daughter's curls.

'I agree that it is monstrous,' he said, with hesitation, 'that three million men with souls should be plough-horses for conscience' sake. In these days it's a scandal. Sister, you must admit that. Perhaps we are entering on a better time. A reformed parliament, if you can get it, will no doubt emancipate the Catholics. You are a hare-brained lad, my godson; but here is a Catholic little girl who shall thank you. Doreen, my treasure, you may shake hands with Theobald.'

My lord waxed peevish, and drummed his fingers on the shutters and yawned in the face of Curran, for he sniffed in the wind a quarrel which would bore him. If folks would only refrain, he thought, from gabbling about these Catholics, what a comfort it would be. My lady, usually disagreeable, was threatening a scene; for they had got on the one subject which set all the family agog. Her spouse wished heartily that she would retire to the family vault, or be less ill-tempered; for what can be more odious than a snappish better-half?

Religious differences had set the country by the ears ever since the Reformation, turning father against son, kinsman against kinsman; and this especial family was no exception to the rule. Lady Glandore hated the Papists with all the energy of one whose soul is filled with gall, and who lacks a fitting outlet for its bitterness. What must then have been her feelings when, ten years before the opening of this chronicle, her only brother, whom she loved, thought fit to wed a Catholic? It was a weak, faded chit of a thing who lived for a year after her marriage in terror of my lady, gave birth to a daughter and then died. The countess, who had endured her existence under protest, was glad at least that she was well behaved enough to die; some people said indeed that she had frightened Arthur's submissive wife into her untimely grave. Be this as it may, the incubus removed, my lady girded up her loins for the effacing of the blot on the escutcheon. The puling slut was gone-that was a mercy. Why had she not proved barren? There was still a way of setting matters straight. Little Doreen must be washed clean from Papist mummeries, and received into the bosom of THE Church, and the world would forget in course of time how the young lawyer, usually as soft as wax, had flown in the face of his belongings. To her horror and amazement Arthur for once proved adamant-he who had always given way rather than break a lance in the lists-sternly commanding his sister to hold her tongue. His Papist wife, whom he regretted sorely, had exacted a promise on her deathbed that Doreen should be brought up in her mother's faith, and a Papist Doreen should be, he swore, at least till she arrived at an age to settle the question for herself. He would be glad though, he continued, seeing with pain how shocked my lady looked, if in her sisterly affection she would lay prejudice aside and help to rear the child; for the sharpest of men, as all the world knows, is no better than a fool in dealing with babies. And so it befell that the Countess of Glandore, the haughty chatelaine who scoffed at 'mummeries' and worshipped King William as champion of the Faith, nourished a scorpion in her bosom for Arthur's sake, and permitted the little scarlet lady to consort with her own lads. My lady's hatred of the national creed had a more bitter cause even than class prejudice. She had a private and absorbing reason for it, more feminine than theological. That reason was-a woman, and a rival-a certain Madam Gillin, widow of a small shopkeeper, with whom the rakish earl chose to be too familiar. Vainly she had swallowed her pride to the extent of begging him to respect his wife in public. He had called her names, bidding her mind her distaff; then had carried in mischief the story to his love, who set herself straightway to be revenged upon my lady.

'The stuck-up bit of buckram's a half-caste at the best!' she had exclaimed. 'She forgets that a Cromwellian trooper was her ancestor, whilst I can trace my lineage from a race of kings. The blood of Ollam Fodlah's in my veins. My forefathers were reigning princes before Anno Domini was thought of, and received baptism at the hands of St. Columba before Erin was a land of bondage. It is seldom that one of my faith can bring sorrow on one of hers; and, please the pigs, I'll not miss my opportunity.'

And indeed Madam Gillin showed all a woman's ingenuity in torturing another. She dragged my lord, who was nothing loth, at her kirtle strings, all through Dublin; paraded him everywhere as her own chattel; kept him dangling by her side at ridottos and masquerades, till my lady, whose mainspring was pride, dared not to show her face at Smock Alley or Fishamble Street, or even on the public drive of Stephen's Green, for fear of being insulted by this Popish hussy. She strove to find comfort in her family, as many an outraged woman does, but that was worse than all; for she looked with groaning on her eldest born, whom his father could not endure, then at that rosy, chubby younger one, and loathed him. Truly the life of the Countess of Glandore was as bran in the mouth to her, despite the wealth of my lord, his great position, and his influence. No wonder if there was an expression of settled weariness about those handsome eyes and peevish lines about her jaded mouth.