In the Irish Brigade - G. A. Henty (the dot read aloud .txt) 📗

liable to be arrested as a Jacobite agent in the service of France. Therefore, I wrote the letter that I did in hopes that you would leave the country, for the time had not yet arrived when you could safely be recognized by me as the rightful owner of Kilkargan. I have heard, however, that you have received a full pardon for past offences, and a restitution of your rights, and I am only too glad to be able to retire from the false position in which I was placed, and by which I incurred the hostility and dislike of my neighbours and tenants. As you know, I have lived an almost solitary life here, and have spent far less than the income of the estate. I am well aware that, acting as I have done as your trustee, you have a right to demand from me an account of the rents I have received; but I trust that you will not press this matter, as you'll at once come in for the receipt of the rents; and I shall be enabled to live in comfort, in Dublin, upon the savings I have effected, and a small property I received as a younger brother's portion.

You will, of course, understand why, during your stay here, I refrained from any outward demonstrations of affection for you. I felt that suspicions might have arisen, had I not done so, that you were my brother's son, in which case the estate would surely have been confiscated. Seeing that the bent of your inclinations was for an active and stirring life, and as the English army was barred to you, I thought it best that you should go abroad, and so be out of the way until the time should come when matters would so quieten down, in Ireland, that my influence might avail to secure an indemnity for you for serving in France, and enable me to hand over your estate to you.

Your affectionate uncle, John O'Carroll.

Gerald laughed aloud as he read the letter.

"Is it good news, your honour?" Mike, who happened to be busy in the room, asked.

"Nothing could be better. My dear uncle has heard that Lord Godolphin and the Earl of Galway have become my patrons, that the queen has restored to me my rights, and Mr. Counsellor Fergusson has taken up my case. He therefore declares that, as it was always his intention to restore the estate to me, as soon as I could safely return, he is now ready to do so, and only hopes that I will not insist upon his handing over the back rents; which, indeed, I question whether I could do, as the estate was granted to him, personally, by the Government.

"However, of course I shall not press that. I shall be only too glad to obtain possession without the scandal of having to show, in the public courts, that my father's brother was a villain."

"The ould fox!" Mike exclaimed indignantly. "I felt sure, when you told me what the counsellor had said, that he would wriggle out of it somehow. I would give all the gold pieces I have in my belt for half an hour's talk with him, with a good shillelah!"

"Well, we can afford to let bygones be bygones, Mike. And after all, he did me a service, unwittingly, in sending me over to France. In the first place, I had three years of stirring life; in the next, I have made many good friends, and have gained the patronage of two powerful noblemen, without which I should have assuredly never come in for Kilkargan at all."

"That is true for you, your honour. And without it, I might be still a private in O'Brien's regiment, instead of being your honour's body servant."

"And friend, Mike."

"Yes, sir, as you are good enough to say so."

Mr. Fergusson put John O'Carroll's letter down, with a gesture of disgust, after he had read it.

"It is what might have been expected from such a man," he said. "A traitor to the cause he once adhered to, false to his religion, and a usurper of his nephew's rights.

"At any rate, Mr. O'Carroll, I congratulate you. It has prevented a grievous scandal from being made public, and the large expenditure entailed by such a case. You have now only to go down and take possession."

"I shall write to my uncle, and give him a week to clear out, and to make what explanation he chooses of the change."

Gerald wrote at once to his uncle. It was coldly worded, and showed unmistakably that he was, in no way, deceived by the professions in his letter. He told him that he considered it fair that he should retain the savings he had made, as he had personally been confirmed in the ownership of Kilkargan, the Government being ignorant that his brother had left a son. He said that he thought it would be more pleasant, for both of them, that they should not meet, and wished, therefore, that he would leave, before his arrival to take possession.

John O'Carroll at once summoned the tenants, and astonished them by informing them that, he was glad to say, he was free at last to lay down the position he had held as owner of Kilkargan. That his brother James had left a son, whom they all knew as Desmond Kennedy, but whom he had been obliged to treat with coldness, lest suspicions should be excited as to his identity. Had this been known, he would assuredly have been proscribed as the son of a rebel, and debarred by law from any inheritance. He was delighted to say that the time had come when he could publicly acknowledge him, and place him in possession of the estate, as Her Majesty had granted him a special indemnity against the pains and penalties incurred by his father's act of rebellion and treason, and had restored to him his full rights.

A burst of cheering, such as had not been heard in Kilkargan since James O'Carroll rode out, at the head of a troop raised among his tenantry, to fight for King James, greeted the announcement; and, for the first time since that event, John O'Carroll was, for the moment, popular. Subsequent reflection, and their knowledge of his character, soon dissipated that feeling; but in their joy at the announced approaching arrival of their new master, John O'Carroll rode away, with his followers, without the manifestation of hostility that would otherwise have attended his departure.

Bonfires blazed all over the barony when Gerald rode in, accompanied by Mike. The tenants, and a number of the gentry who had known him when a boy, assembled at the castle to meet him; and even his father could not have met with a more enthusiastic welcome than that which was given him.

The next day, Gerald wrote to the Duke of Berwick, telling him what had taken place, and resigning his commission in the Irish Brigade.

"I intend," he said, "to abstain from all part in politics. Although no condition was made, in my pardon for serving abroad and in the restoration of my estate, I feel that, having accepted these favours, I must hold myself aloof from all plots against Queen Anne, though my heart will still be with him whom I hold to be my lawful sovereign. Unless a large army from France was landed here, I believe that any attempt at his restoration would only bring down fresh misery upon Ireland. But, should a force land that would render success almost a certainty, I should then, with the great bulk of my countrymen, join it."

In due time he received an answer, approving the course he had taken.

"I myself," the Duke said, "am under no delusions. With the ten regiments of the Irish Brigade, twenty thousand French troops, and arms sufficient to distribute to the whole country, I believe that Ireland and Scotland might again come under the rule of the Stuarts; but nothing short of such a force would be of any avail. So convinced was I of this that, in 1691, after the successful defence of Limerick, I saw that the cause was for the time lost, and that further resistance would only prove disastrous to Ireland. I therefore resigned my command, and went over to France to serve as a volunteer, and took no part in the war at home. Therefore, I think that you are fully justified in the course you have taken. When the present war, which I think is approaching its end, terminates, and you can again visit France, I trust that I shall see you; and I am sure that you will receive the heartiest of welcomes from your comrades in the Brigade."

Gerald followed out strictly the line he had laid down for himself, and kept aloof from the plots and conspiracies that, for years, agitated the country, entailing disaster upon all concerned in them. Mike was installed as his body servant, and majordomo of his household; and Norah Rooney as housekeeper at the castle.

Three years later, in 1713, the treaty of Utrecht brought the war to an end. Communications being restored between the two countries, Gerald wrote to the Baron de Pointdexter, and told him of the changes which had taken place in his position. He received a warm letter in reply, urging him to go over and pay him and his son-in-law a visit.

But Gerald had had enough of travelling, and wrote to say that he could not leave his estate, as there was much to look after. Letters were, however, frequently exchanged between them, and when, three years later, Gerald married the daughter of the Mr. Kennedy he had visited near Cork, a present of a superb set of jewels, the joint gift of the baron and Monsieur de la Vallee, arrived for the bride.

After the conclusion of the peace, some of the Irish regiments were disbanded, and as the British Government, wiser than before, offered a free pardon to all men and officers who would return, many availed themselves of it; and among these was O'Neil, who delighted Gerald by riding up, one day, to the castle.

"You did not expect to see me again, Kennedy; or, as I hear we ought to call you, O'Carroll. Not knowing where I should find you, I took the liberty of writing to Baron de Pointdexter, and he informed me of your good luck, and your change of name."

"And you have left the French service altogether, O'Neill?"

"Yes, and glad enough I am that I shall be able to end my days at home."

"And what are you thinking of doing?"

"Anything I can get."

"Well, O'Neil, I have some interest with the lord lieutenant. As I am no longer regarded as one likely to join in plots, I think that, were I to ride with you to Dublin after you have been here for a time; and speak to him for you, as one who had seen the errors of his ways, and was anxious to live peacefully, he would procure you some appointment."

O'Neil stayed there for three weeks, and they then rode to Dublin. The lord lieutenant granted Gerald's request, and gave O'Neil an appointment which would enable him to live in comfort; knowing that there is nothing, for keeping a man peaceable, like giving him something to do; and that an idle man is a dangerous man, while one who has a comfortable position can be trusted to hold himself aloof from any business that might imperil his place.

O'Neil thoroughly justified Gerald's recommendation of him, and, a couple of years after his return, married a young and well-endowed widow; and, to the end of his life, abstained carefully from mixing himself up, in any way, in politics.

Gerald saw the failure of Prince Charlie's expedition to Scotland; and the terrible disasters, that befell all who had taken part in the movement, showed him the wisdom of the course he had adopted--of standing aloof from all intrigues in favour of