صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

and unsparing Ironsides, to whom our people are as the Philistines, and the children of Ammon to the Israelites of old, heathen to be hewn down unsparingly, and their slaughter held good service to the Lord. Safety will be to none but those who band together in strongholds, and trust for defence to the mortal sword. Dermot O'Brien, I will serve you well. Will you afford me shelter, a home, a name, protection ?" "Can these things be?" cried the young earl, perfectly crushed for the moment, and thunderstruck by those dread tidings.

"By all my hopes of pardon!-by all my trust in God!" exclaimed O'Neil, solemnly.

"In which God, O'Neil ?" asked Dermot, again speaking with a sneer; for involuntary suspicion crept into his mind whenever he heard his apostate kinsman quote the Bible, or allude to the religion from which he had once fallen away : "the God of our fathers, or the God of the Saints, as you call them ?— Hugh O'Neil, how can you ask us to believe you?"

"What should it profit me to lie to you-a lie, if it be one, which must be discovered with to-morrow's sun?"

"I know not. Thou wert ever politic and astute, Hugh; and as I now bethink me, even in thy childhood, given somewhat to lie!—and yet, as thou sayest, what should it profit thee?— For by my soul, if a lie it be, and by to-morrow's dawn I will know it, thy carcass shall swing living from the scathed pine upon the summit of Slievh Buy, until the ravens shall devour thy false heart-strings. Wilt thou abide the trial? Bethink thee!-Thou hast time; I owe thee still my life. If thou be guilty, take thy purse, for thine it is, and get thee gone. Three days' grace shalt thou have and law, ere I or mine pursue thee! Go with us if thou wilt; but by all that I hold most dear and most holy, if thou have lied to us, the doom which I have said is thine to-morrow!"

"I will abide it! I will go with thee !—and if I have spoken truly

"

"It shall be with thee as thou wilt. Soh! silence there! silence those bugle-notes! This is no time for minstrelsy or glee! If this be true that he hath told, we may be called ere long to sound the mort for Ireland's freedom! To horse, my men!-to horse, and home in silence!"

CHAPTER III.

"Day set on Norham's castled steep,

And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone."

SCOTT.

No farther words were spoken after the last commands of the O'Brien had found their way to the ears of his attentive and obedient vassals. The quartering of the deer—a ceremony in those days still observed with much of the old feudal pompwas left to the wild foxes and wolves-for there were wolves yet in Ireland at that time—and to the ravens of the wild moorland hills; the bloodhounds, which had received already their share of the spoil, were coupled up half-surly and insatiate; girths were tightened, and weapons looked to with some care, and the little party got to horse and proceeded on their homeward route, with graver faces and less buoyant hearts than they had ridden forth in the morning.

The young Earl of Thomond-for such was the true title of the young gallant chief who was generally known among his countrymen as the great O'Brien-rode perhaps a hundred yards in advance of his retainers, between the two elder and most trusted of his comrades, his cousin, Con O'Brien, and the gentleman whom he had addressed as Florence Desmond-and to whose counsel and suggestions he appeared to pay unusual deference.

This latter, unlike his kinsman, the younger O'Brien, who was little more than a fine-spirited young cavalier, was a man somewhat advanced toward the middle age, though not so much so as to have lost anything either of physical or mental vigor; and was one whom, from a mere casual glance, a stranger would have pronounced to be acquainted with the world, both of courts and camps; and so, in truth, he had been.

In age, he was not, perhaps, so mature as he appeared, having been worn considerably by the fatigues of war, and exposure to all kinds of weather; and, though he looked a man of forty years, he had not, probably, passed his thirty-second sum

mer.

In person he was very tall, measuring considerably over six feet in height, admirably built, and broad-shouldered in proportion to his stature; otherwise he was thin-flanked, and so slender, although deep-chested, that he might well have been called thin, had not the round and starting muscles of his limbs shown clearly that it was the fatty portions of the human frame alone which had in him been kept down by toil and activity, while all the rest was hardened into brawn and sinew.

In a word, he was one of those rare specimens of human perfection, whose stature and proportions are so admirably adjusted, that their preeminence of size is unobserved, until it is measured by comparison with some near standard; and then the observer starts to find that he whom he has taken for an ordinary man, is in truth a Hercules in power, though almost an Antinous grace and symmetry.

in

He was not, like his kindred and companions, dark-haired and dark-complexioned, at least, originally; though now his skin, on the face, neck, and hands, where it had been changed by the weather, was scorched to more than gipsy swarthiness from exposure to hotter suns than light the mist-wreathed shores of the green Island.

His brow, however, where the brim of his beaver, or the peak of his casque, which with him had been the more usual head-gear, had kept off the sunbeams, was as smooth and as

white as a lady's forehead; and his eyes were of that deep steelgrey which is so rarely found but in persons of peculiar temperament and superior qualities. The color of his hair, as it had been of old, was no longer easily discernible; for it was now so streaked with lines of wintry grey, and was worn so thin by the pressure of the helmet, that it resembled more in hue the mane of the roan courser which he rode than the lovelocks of a cavalier. It had been once, however, of the deepest and richest chestnut that ever decked the head of mortal man, and as remarkable for its luxuriance and soft wavy flow, as for the splendor of its coloring, and the play of light and shadow on its almost metallic masses. The only point in which this fine tint was still perceivable was the pair of heavy drooping moustaches which he wore after the Spanish fashion, concealing the whole of his upper lip; all the rest of his face being close shaved, contrary to the fashion of the day—at least, in France and England.

His other features, though fine and nobly-formed, were not such as would have led any one to call Florence Desmond a handsome man; and yet there was a changeful play of expression over those strongly-marked lineaments, which could not fail both to attract and rivet the attention. The ordinary character of his face, when in repose, was grave and solemn thoughtfulness, approaching at times to what might be called heaviness of aspect; and never, at any time, even in the most violent action, the most eager and thrilling excitement, did his high, haughty countenance exhibit that glow of physical and passionate enthusiasm which kindles in the veins of the young and ardent. At the most moving instants, whether of action or deliberation, the quickest expression that ever lighted up his aspect was a sort of sharp, hawk-like keenness, purely mental in its character; and at such moments his thoughts seemed to rush with instinctive rapidity, and his deeds almost to anticipate his own volition.

His manners were calm, grave and dignified, almost to coldness; and tinctured with a dignity of air and gait, perhaps derived from the Spaniards among whom he had served long, and with great distinction, which led superficial observers to believe him intolerably haughty. In speech, unless when greatly moved, he was somewhat slow, sparing of words, terse, never trite, though often sententious; but when moved, his eloquence was as impetuous and copious as the mountain torrent-as penetrating as the subtle lightning.

Such, in brief, was the appearance, such the exterior character, of a man who had already played a great part on the great theatre of the world, then crowded with the actors of one of its mightiest dramas. Scarely a country, not a quarter of the globe, in which his sword had not been drawn. Banished

by his religion from his native land, he had taken service with the Spaniards, and learned the art of war in the best school of tactics, and the finest armies then in Europe; nor had he quitted them until the horrors and barbarities in the Low Countries had disgusted him with the standards of the Don; though not till he had fought beneath them against the Moors at Oran and Ceata, and against the Buccaneers beyond the Line, on the coasts of the American terra firma. Again in the Morea, and on the Asiatic mainland, he had crossed swords with the Janizaries and Spahis under the winged lion of St. Mark; and in a word, with the exception of the British isles, in which his sword had never seen the light, there was no European country in which the name of Florence Desmond was not known as a man both of counsel and of action.

The dress of this distinguished soldier was very different from that worn by any of his fellow-hunters, being entirely foreign, both in cut and materials. It consisted of a closefitting just au corps of plain black velvet, with jet buttons, but without lace or ornament of any kind, loose breeches of the same fabric, with a row of jet buttons down the seam, and heavy riding-boots of Cordovan leather, with large Spanish

« السابقةمتابعة »