Stories of Waterloo;
and Other Tales.
by William Hamilton Maxwell
London: Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley
1829
Vol. 1.
———
—Chapter 3—
The Adventure of the Captain of Grenadiers.
WHEN
Kennedy decided on taking the shortest apparent route from the mountain lough to his quarters, he was little aware of the difficulty of the ground he had determined on traversing. Scarcely had he lost sight of the lake, by crossing the steep rising ground above it, before he found his further progress interrupted by the course of one of the many mountain streams tributary to the river of Woodford. The valley where he now stood was a natural amphitheatre formed by the curving of the rivulet; and the banks rising precipitously from the water, and in many places beetling over their base, forbad all approach to human footsteps.
The soldier paused, disconcerted; he must either retrace his steps, and follow the path he had taken in the morning, or by a tedious détour, through a marsh which terminated the valley, and which his quick eye at once detected as a perilous mode of egress, endeavour to recover the track from which the unexpected obstruction of this mountain barrier had so unfortunately diverted him. Evening was coming on fast; the night mists were already rising from the low grounds, and the sportsman decided on making an attempt higher up the valley, and there endeavour to surmount the obstacle which lay between him and his destination.
Nor were his efforts unsuccessful. Farther on a small spring trickled over the ridge of the precipice, and an irregular channel had been gradually formed by its waters in the cliff; a few bushes of wild myrtle were growing on its verge, and the heath there was strong and well rooted. Kennedy without hesitation attempted an ascent, and in a few minutes, with powerful exertion, the dangerous effort was successful, and he stood safely on the brow of the precipice.
To his dumb companion, however, the cliff was impracticable. After several efforts, he found that he could not succeed, and, with the astonishing instinct which distinguishes that species of the canine race, having surveyed the valley for an instant, Sailor started at full speed to cross the morass which formed its termination.
While Kennedy paused to recover his breath, and observe the course his dog would pursue to rejoin him, he remarked a small cut, made in the turf, from the place where the spring was gushing from the rock, and easily discerned that this little canal was not the work of nature. Where it led to was not visible; and he determined to follow its course, as offering the easiest mode of egress from the intricate spot where he stood. The water ran in crystal brightness for a short distance, and then winding round the base of a huge rock, disappeared. Kennedy was turning it abruptly, but started; for before him, and within a step or two, a woman stood, her finger placed upon her lip, and her arm extended, to bar his farther progress. For a few moments he gazed on her with surprise. She was young, and strikingly handsome; her dress was that of a peasant, but arranged with perfect neatness: her hair was partially screened by a broad ribbon across the forehead, and partly fell in luxuriant tresses down her back and shoulders: her eyes were particularly dark and intelligent; and her red lips, half apart, indicative of anxiety and attention, revealed within a row of even teeth, as white as ivory itself.
The fisher's surprise was momentary: struck with the uncommon loveliness of the mountain-nymph, he seized her extended hand, and began to offer the customary tribute of admiration; but a speaking look, and a gesture of peculiar meaning, restrained him. After gazing for a moment round her, she inquired in an emphatic whisper, the object of his present journey.
"Faith, pretty one," replied the soldier, "nothing but the simple object of endeavouring to reach home before night overtakes me in these bleak hills, or the bleaker moors beneath us;—but now, you shall be my guide, and I will be your protector."
Again he would have taken her hand, but her impressive action prevented him. She sprang upon the brow of the rock,—looked anxiously around, and then placing herself beside Kennedy, pointed to the marriage ring upon her finger, and in a low and earnest whisper, continued -
"Captain Kennedy—for God's sake return: move as silently as a ghost; your safety—your life depend upon a feather. I have watched you, and saw you like a doomed man, hurry to the very spot where destruction was inevitable: return promptly, quickly, silently;—steal back, cautious as a midnight robber; for if one awakes, (and he is fearfully near you) your life, if a kingdom rested upon it, would not be worth the purchase of a farthing."
While she still spake, the noise of a slight rustling in the heath was heard; her glance rested quickly on the brow of the hillock opposite; by an expressive turn of her eye she directed Kennedy's observation to the spot; and, nearly concealed by the thick heather, a man's head was visible.
"Attend," she said in a deep whisper. "We must now follow a different course to what I had intended, or you are lost: go on boldly; enter the hovel beyond the hill, and ask for refreshment and a guide: conceal who and what you are: be bold, be prudent; for a stout heart, and a ready wit, alone can save you. I will be with you as soon as I can find one who will protect you with his life; but, till I come, leave not the cabin: show neither alarm nor uneasiness, but trust to no one; and now to deceive yonder spy, who watches us——"
In a moment she assumed an air of rustic coquetry; the soldier perceived her object, and seizing her hand, attempted to snatch a kiss:—while apparently struggling in his arms, she muttered—"Go on—cross the hill without hesitation: be collected, for your life depends upon your acting;"—and springing from his hold, she struck him playfully on the face with her open hand, and then bounding from him, with a loud laugh, and the speed of a hunted deer, she turned the rock, and was out of sight in an instant.
There was no braver man than Captain Kennedy; but, as he followed the last flutter of the female's dress, as she vanished from his sight, he sensibly felt his own forlorn and destitute situation: he was unarmed and alone, in the depth of a solitude, where human aid was hopeless; and his wild monitress had but too clearly intimated, that danger, nay death, awaited him. Bitterly he cursed his imprudence for thus unnecessarily exposing himself; for none knew better than he did the ferocious character of the desperate men who infested these wilds. But while his heart beat fast; while, in rapid succession, those bitter thoughts crowded thick upon each other, Kennedy did not forget the line of conduct pointed out for him to pursue. After a moment's hesitation, he resolutely prepared to cross the hill. Danger, imminent and deadly, lay in his path; but if he did not seek it, it would undoubtedly find him. Endeavouring to master his agitation, and assuming a composure in his looks, far foreign from his heart, he boldly ascended the rising ground before him; and as he cast apparently a careless glance across the hillock, he remarked the person who had been watching him crawl cautiously away among the heath, and disappear in the irregularities of the mountain's broken surface.
When Kennedy gained the summit of the ridge he found himself above a little dell, situated in the bosom of the hill he had surmounted. It was a spot of singular loneliness; a stranger might pass near it repeatedly, and yet nothing but accident reveal to him its existence. It had been evidently used for what the peasantry call a bouilie, or temporary residence in the summer for the young persons of the lowland villages, who annually frequent these mountains with their cattle, which at stated times are driven up to be pastured. The roofless walls of several huts were still remaining, and one long hovel was covered with a rude thatch composed of the bent grass, which grew abundantly in the numerous swamps with which these wilds abounded.
This hovel was inhabited: a clear blue smoke eddied from the imperfect roof, and through the fissures of its loosely-constructed walls; and the small canal which led from the spring which we have before described, was artfully conveyed by many an ingenious winding, until it discharged its water into a rude trough which rested on the walls of the hovel. This, and the flashing of a large fire from the open door-way, at once showed Kennedy that this wild spot had been prepared for illicit distillation.
Nor could a better situation have been selected than this lonely dell for carrying on this hazardous work extensively, and, at the same time, avoiding the chances of a discovery. The succession of fresh water, which is indispensable for the process, fell in icy coldness from the spring into the vessel where it was required; and the heated fluid it replaced with the refuse of the potall, as the liquor is termed from which the spirit is extracted, after it became exhausted in the still, was conveyed by concealed sewers to a distance; and mixing with one of the streams, became speedily lost in the rush of its waters.
While Kennedy was examining this lone retreat he felt himself rudely touched upon the shoulder, and on turning round, his eye met the same wild face which he had before indistinctly observed watching him when talking to the young female. There could not be a more savage-looking being than the man who now stood beside him. He was a low-sized person, of gaunt and bony proportions; his limbs thin and sinewy, and, like his face and bosom, covered with red hair; his eye was wild and unsettled, and his air indicated a mixture of ferocity and cunning. Except a tattered shirt and short woolen drawers, he was perfectly naked. He roughly demanded, in Irish, from the soldier, what business brought him there, and pointing to the hovel, signed that he must go there before him. To resist the mandate of the mountaineer would have been neither possible, nor politic; and, remembering the directions given him by his fair monitress, Kennedy, although he understood his native language well, at once affected ignorance, and signing to the stranger to that effect, he preceded him in silence to the hut.
The interior of the hovel displayed a melancholy and revolting picture of savage life; a still was at full work, attended by an old man and a lad. The former was one of those persons who, in the remote districts, where private distillation cannot be prevented, travel through the mountains, preparing the vessels used in the process, and either working them, or instructing those who may engage them in the mysteries of this wretched trade. The lad was employed, under the directions of the old man, and appeared as anxious to receive his precepts, in this art, as if he had been acquiring a safe and reputable calling. At the farther end of the cabin a quantity of dry fern was spread. A torn blanket, and two or three frieze coats, were lying on the heap, and formed the covering of the occupants of the hut both by night and day. A cleeve, or pannier, filled with potatoes, with a metal pot, were standing in the corner, and a couple of loys (narrow spades) and a rusty musket, comprised all the articles which the hovel contained. In a recess in the wall were a few earthen vessels and a glass; these were for the customary uses of drinking, or ascertaining the strength and flavour or the spirit, as it fell from the worm.
Kennedy's eye, in traversing the hut for a moment, rested suspiciously on the old firelock; but he quickly remarked that it was without a flint, and consequently useless. The men had withdrawn to a corner, and were conversing in a low whisper. From their frequently turning an inquisitive look to the farther end of the cabin, which was wrapped in darkness, the soldier concluded there were more in the hut than he had yet discovered. Nor was he wrong: the still fire suddenly threw out a strong flash of light; and although the blaze was momentary, he observed a human figure, stretched in a dark recess, beyond the still; but whether it was male or female—living or dead, the partial light prevented him from determining.
While pondering on the course he should adopt—whether to address the inmates of the hut at once, or await patiently the result of their deliberation; a fourth person entered. He was very different in his dress and appearance from the persons within. He was a stout, powerful, middle-aged man, wearing excellent clothes, and carrying a clean carbine in his hand, and with a case of pistols in a belt beneath his large coat, which thus answered the double purpose of concealing his arms, when necessary, or in rain protecting them from the weather. He measured Kennedy from head to foot with his eye, and beckoning to the two elder peasants, and throwing a malignant glance at the soldier, retired from the hut, accompanied by the mountaineers.
At a little distance from the door they stopped, and a deep and earnest consultation was carried on in a low tone of voice, which prevented Kennedy from hearing a syllable of their conversation; but he well knew that it boded him no good. For an instant, he determined to attempt an escape; but a moment's consideration told him that the thing was hopeless. The chances of success were desperate. It was nearly dark; he had four persons to contend with, beside the sleeper; and, for aught he could tell, others whom he had not seen were near him. Even could he free himself from these men, he was bewildered in a labyrinth of rocks and morasses, from which, in safety and day-light, he would find it nearly impossible to extricate himself;—an escape would then be little short of miraculous.
While thus deliberating, the outlaws re-entered; and lifting a sort of wicker door from the wall, placed it across the entrance, and secured it with a spade; and the armed man, addressing Kennedy, in excellent English, demanded his name, residence, and the object which brought him to the mountains. With assumed calmness, the soldier replied, that he was a sportsman, and stranger, and allured by the report he had heard of the mountain lough, he had been induced to visit it.
The robber shook his head, and turning to his companions, whispered in Irish, "It is as I told you—we are set; and if he had a thousand lives, he dies."
Kennedy started: he knew the language intimately; he heard his doom pronounced; and that too by an idiomatic phrase in Irish, which conveyed the certainty of his murder in terms for which the English has no words sufficiently expressive.
Kennedy's agitation did not escape the outlaw, who rapidly exclaimed, "does he understand us?" The old man answered in the negative, but added, "try him yourself."
In this moment of mental anguish, Kennedy's natural hardiesse saved him. The robber confronting him, addressed him in his native tongue; and while he eyed him with a searching look, Kennedy, with astonishing composure, requested him to speak to him in English, for unfortunately he was an Englishman, and of course ignorant of the language.
Apparently satisfied, the outlaw turned to his companions:—"You're right," he said, "the spy's a Sassenach;" and advancing to the fire, he lighted a small torch composed of split bog-deal, and went to the corner of the hut, where, on a heap of fern, the human figure already remarked by the soldier was extended.
During the momentary action of supplying the torch to the fire, the old man, by emphatic gestures, would have prevented him; and when he saw him advance to the fern where the sleeper lay, he muttered as he crossed himself, and threw a look of pity on the victim,—"Mary, mother of God, be good to him! For Johnny Gibbons never yet showed mercy."
Every nerve in Kennedy's frame jarred; the blood rushed back to his heart as the dreaded name of Gibbons was pronounced: the old outlaw indeed spoke truly; for that ruffian never had shown mercy! Kennedy knew him well by character; he had been an outcast from society since the rebellion of ninety-eight; and while the other delinquents had generally received pardon, the ear of mercy was justly closed to him. He was the only one of the western rebels who had been guilty of deliberate bloodshed; and his truculent disposition had not only been displayed to those whom he looked upon as his enemies, but also, and not unfrequently, to his misguided companions. For many years he had infested the wilds of Connemara; but the wanton murder of a comrade, and his repeated aggressions on the peasantry, whom he plundered and ill-used, removed all that mistaken sympathy, which the lower Irish, in the remotes parts of the kingdom, cherish for malefactors; and the ruffian became an object of such general detestation, that he was forced to abandon the mountains, which for fifteen years had sheltered him. The party disturbances which prevailed in the neighbourhood of Woodford induced him to seek this wilderness as a suitable retreat; and in consequence of the disaffection of some, and the wild character of the peasantry, who, even when unconnected with treasonable associations, were generally, from the nature of their pursuits, opposed to the operations of the law, the outcast from Connemara here found protection and support.
Gibbons had been latterly joined by another ruffian, named Garland, who had also been obliged to screen himself from justice. This desperado had been a sort of agent employed by the mountain people to dispose of their whisky in the adjacent counties. In an affray with the revenue-men, an officer had lost his life by Garland's hand: he became, of course, a refugee; and now rendered desperate, he had planned and executed Morton's murder, which has been already alluded to;—and a fit association for Gibbons, their names became formidable to the country around.
No wonder the soldier's heart sank when he saw the sleeping ruffian roused by his companion, and heard him angrily demand "why he was awakened?" The low dialogue was quickly terminated; for with an execration, he bounded to his feet, and lifting a blunderbuss from beside him, staggered forward where Kennedy was leaning against the wall of the hovel. His look and air were indescribably savage; his features were inflamed by inebriety, alarm, and revenge; and as he steadied himself within a few paces of his victim, he shot a glance of malignant exultation from beneath his shaggy eyebrows, which seemed to preclude all hope.
The peasants appeared alarmed at the expectation of a scene of cold-blooded butchery, and murmured prayers, mingled with entreaties, which seemed unregarded by the ruthless being to whom they were addressed; for another eyeing Kennedy deliberately, he suddenly raised and snapped the blunderbuss. It did not discharge; and Gibbons, pouring out execrations, proceeded to re-prime it, from an immense flask of gunpowder which he took from his pocket.
Kennedy now desperately sprang in and seized him; but the struggle would have been a short one. Garland drew a pistol and advanced to the relief of his comrade, when suddenly the wicker door was driven in with violence; a huge dog rushed into the hut, and leaping at the ruffian's throat, pulled him in an instant to the ground. A terrible struggle, in which the robber's pistol went off without effect, ensued.
If Kennedy's impending fate had excited a momentary feeling of remorse in the other savages, his desperate resistance, and the unexpected appearance of his faithful ally, removed it; for the red mountaineer seized a loy, and endeavoured to strike the dog from his hold; and the young savage struck fiercely at the soldier, as he rolled upon the floor, locked in the deadly grasp of Gibbons.
The scene of murder was hurrying to its close. Kennedy was suffering from the heavy blows of the lad, and Sailor was cut down by the edge of the spade; when, at the moment, a pistol was discharged from the door; a man fell dead across the prostrate soldier, and the powder-flask rolled from Gibbons, and falling on the red embers of the still fire, exploded with tremendous violence. The roof was blown off the hut, the walls rent asunder, and a scene of horrible confusion followed. The still was overturned; the boiling liquor falling upon the young savage and Gibbons, who was already scorched by the explosion, they testified their pain by howls and terrific execrations.
Kennedy, nearly suffocated, was with difficulty dragged from under the fallen roof: he looked round in astonishment: he was supported by a tall and powerful man; and the young female he had encountered before he entered this murderous den bathed his temples in cold water, which she had carried in a hat from the spring. The stunned soldier had scarcely time to recollect himself when his protector inquired if he could stand without assistance: he made the exertion, and found himself able to move with tolerable freedom. "Heaven be praised!" exclaimed the stranger. "If ever you exerted your strength, use it now." As he spoke he put a light fowling piece into his hand, and while the female led the way, he seized Kennedy's arm, and turning round the angle of the rock, plunged into a ravine beyond it.
There was no time for delay: the fire had already seized the thatch and timbers of the cabin, and dried almost to tinder by the constant head, it was instantly in a blaze. By the lurid light of the burning hut several men were distinctly seen dragging the wounded ruffians from beneath the ruins. No excitement was requisite to urge Kennedy to rapid movement. The explosion had long since alarmed the mountaineers, and an immediate pursuit would probably take place.
Without, however, encountering any fresh danger, the little party reached the crest of the hill which overlooked the town of Woodford. The guide stopped. "I must leave you now," he said; "but fear nothing; your safety is certain. I would have conducted you into the barracks, but——" He paused, and the soldier added—"You fear something there?" "I do," said the peasant, frankly. "That I owe my life to you I need hardly say," resumed the soldier, "and now, how can I best replay it? Will money?"
The outlaw waved his hand contemptuously. "Or if, in return, I can afford you protection; if you have committed any offence within the pale of pardon, speak;—speak freely; and should I be obliged to kneel at the foot of the king's throne, I will faithfully endeavour to obtain it. Have you trespassed beyond mercy? Is there blood upon your hands?"
"None," said the outlaw, calmly, "but what was spilled to-night."
"Are you a robber?"
"No!"—and he drew himself up proudly.
"Then come with me," said Kennedy, as he took the wanderer's sinewy hand.
There was a momentary silence. "Pat," said the female, imploringly, "for my sake—for the sake of Him who died for us,"—and she crossed herself,—"refuse not. Is it not better to meet the worst, when innocent, than keep the mountains till these savage men lead you into a life as wild and wicked as their own? Oh, Pat!—for my sake—for the sake of what is yet unborn—leave the hills, and come in—Captain Kennedy and your own innocence will protect you—and what have you to fear?"
When she paused, the soldier united his entreaties to her's; but still the outlaw hesitated. The young woman seemed hurt and mortified, and in a voice betokening disappointment and wounded pride—"He won't sir," she continued, addressing Kennedy, "and we must seek some other haunt, for Garland's faction are too numerous here for our lives to be safe an hour. Come, Pat, let us go. I left all for you—father, mother, friends. I took you when all else frowned on you:—when the world slandered and threw you off, I clung to you, alone, and faithfully. In danger and distress when did I leave your side? and now I am ready to follow, go where and when you will!"
"No, no!—by Heaven, Alice, for me you shall never more be exposed to injury and insult. Captain Kennedy, Captain Dwyer is your prisoner!"
As he spoke, he caught the female to his breast, and wept over her like a child. Then, as if ashamed that his weakness was witnessed, he dashed the tears aside, and taking the pistols from his belt, would have given them to Kennedy; but he declined them, and, with a smile, added, "No, no, brother Captain, I am under your protection to my barrack, and then comes my turn."
As he spoke the soldier led the way, and the outlaw and his mistress followed. The latter left them at the entrance of the village to seek a relative, in whose house she purposed remaining for the night. Kennedy and the outlaw directed their steps to the barracks, where from the lights which flashed from the windows of the mess-room, the soldier calculated on finding his comrades over their wine.
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