Orange and Green - G. A. Henty (the reader ebook TXT) 📗

by name. Turning round, he leapt from his horse and ran up to one of the prisoners.

"My dear John!" he exclaimed, "I am glad indeed to see you. Why, what brings you here?"

After exchanging hearty greetings, Walter led him away from the group, and the two sat down together on a bank.

"What brings you here?" Walter repeated.

"All the waggons within miles round Dublin have been requisitioned," John said; "and as our three were called for, my father suggested that I should accompany them, to see that the horses were fed and cared for."

"Which are your waggons?" Walter asked.

"The three last in the column."

Walter immediately ran to his father, told him what had happened, and begged that the three waggons should be exempted from the general destruction. Captain Davenant at once rode up to the men, and ordered the waggons to be unloaded and their contents added to the pyre which was being prepared, but that the waggons themselves should be taken back a quarter of a mile along the road, and left there under the charge of their drivers, who were not to move until joined by their owner. He then rode back, and shook hands with John.

"I am glad to see you," he said. "All are well, I hope, at both our homes?"

"Quite well, sir."

"Thank God for that! Now, I must leave you to see that our work is thoroughly carried out. You will find your waggons safe, a quarter of a mile along the road. I will leave you to tell all the home news to Walter, who will retell it to me afterwards."

"Now tell me all the news," Walter said, when they were together again.

"The news is not altogether pleasant," John replied. "The whole of the country round Dublin is being harried by the cavalry in garrison there. They pay no attention whatever to papers of protection, and care but little whether those they plunder are Protestant or Catholic, friend or foe. They go about in small parties, like bands of brigands, through the country; and those who go to Dublin to obtain redress for their exactions are received with indifference, and sometimes with insult, by the authorities. Then, too, we have had trouble at home.

"My grandfather became more bigoted than ever, and would, if he had the power, have annihilated every Catholic in Ireland. My father and he had frequent quarrels, and I was in daily expectation of an open breach between them, and of my father giving up his share of the property, and taking us to England. He was a backslider, in my grandfather's eyes. The tales of battle, plunder, and murder seemed to have taken the latter back to his own fighting days; and he was rather inclined to consider the generals as lukewarm, than to join in the general indignation at their atrocious conduct.

"Even the sufferings of the Protestants did not seem to affect him. The Lord's work, he said, cannot be carried on without victims. It horrified me to hear him talk. If this was the religion of our fathers, I was fast coming to the conclusion that it was little better than no religion at all.

"I think my father and mother saw it in the same light, and the breach between them and my grandfather daily widened. But I have not told you the worst, yet. A party of cavalry rode up the other day, and were about, as usual, to seize upon some cattle. My father was out, and my grandfather stepped forward and asked them 'how they could lay it to their consciences to plunder Protestants when, a mile or two away, there were Catholics lording it over the soil--Catholics whose husbands and sons were fighting in the ranks of the army of James Stuart?'

"I was in the house with my mother, but we heard what was said; and she whispered to me to slip out behind, and find my father, and tell him what was being done. I made off; but before I had gone a quarter of a mile, I saw the soldiers riding off towards the castle, with my grandfather riding at their head. I was not long in finding my father, who at once called the men off from their work, and sent them off in all directions to raise the country; and in an hour two hundred men, armed with any weapon they could snatch up, were marching towards the castle, my father at their head. There were Catholics and Protestants among them--the latter had come at my father's bidding, the former of their own free will.

"We hurried along, anxiously fearing every moment to see flames rise from the castle. Fortunately, the soldiers were too busy in plundering to notice our approach, and we pounced down upon them and seized them unawares. They were stripping the place of everything worth carrying away, before setting it on fire. We burst into the hall, and there was a sight which filled my father and myself with anger and shame. Your grandmother was standing erect, looking with dignity mingled with disdain at my grandfather; while your mother, holding your brother's hands, stood beside her. My grandfather was standing upon a chair; in his hand he held a Bible, and was pouring out a string of denouncing texts at the ladies, and was, at the moment we entered, comparing them to the wicked who had fallen into a net.

"I don't think, Walter, his senses are quite right now. He is crazed with religion and hate, and I believe, at the time, he fancied himself in the meeting house. Anyhow, there he was, while two sergeants, who were supposed to be in command of the troop, were sitting on a table, with a flagon of wine between them, looking on with amusement. Their expression changed pretty quickly, when we rushed in.

"It needed all my father's efforts to prevent the whole party being hung, so furious were all the rescuers at the outrage upon the good ladies of the castle. But my father pointed out to them that, although such a punishment was well deserved, it would do harm rather than good to the ladies. They had orders of protection from the lords justices; and he should proceed at once, with four or five witnesses, to lay the matter before the general at Dublin, and demand the punishment of the offenders. But if the party took the law into their own hands, and meted out the punishment the fellows deserved, the facts of the case would be lost sight of. There would be a cry of vengeance for the murder, as it would be called, of a party of soldiers, and it would serve as an excuse for harrying the whole district with fire and sword.

"Having at last persuaded the angry tenants and peasantry to lay aside their project of vengeance, my father went to the soldiers, who, tied hand and foot, were expecting nothing short of death. He ordered all their pistols and ammunition to be taken away, and their bonds to be loosed; then told them that their escape had been a narrow one, and that, with great difficulty, he had persuaded those who had captured them while engaged in deeds of outrage and plunder to spare them; but that a complaint would at once be made before the military authorities, and the law would deal with them. Finally, they were permitted to mount and ride off, after having been closely examined to see that they were taking with them none of the plunder of the house.

"Everything was then carefully replaced as they had found it; and my father at once rode off, with six of the leading tenants--three Protestants and three Catholics--and laid a complaint before the general. The latter professed himself much shocked, and lamented the impossibility of keeping strict discipline among the various regiments stationed in the towns. However, he went down with them at once to the barracks of the regiment, ordered them to be formed up, and asked my father if he could identify the culprits.

"My father and those with him picked out fifteen, including the two sergeants, as having formed part of the body of plunderers; and the general had the whole tied up and flogged severely, then and there, and declared that, the next time an outrage upon persons who had received letters of protection came to his ears, he would shoot every man who was proved to have been concerned in it. He also gave orders that a well-conducted noncommissioned officer, and four men, should be sent at once to Davenant Castle, and should there take up their quarters as a guard against any party of marauders, with the strictest orders to cause no annoyance or inconvenience to the inhabitants of the castle.

"I learned afterwards that Mr. Conyers, who had been interesting himself greatly on behalf of the ladies of the castle, is a great friend of the lords justices, and other members of the council, and is also acquainted with the general, which will account for the prompt measures taken to punish the marauders--a very rare and exceptional matter, I can tell you."

"I am sure we are greatly indebted to your father and you, for so promptly taking measures to assist my mother," Walter said. "I have no doubt the castle would have been burned, as well as plundered, if it had not been for your rescue of them."

"It is not worth thinking about, Walter. We are heavily your debtors, still, for the kindness of your father and yourself to me at Derry, and indeed on all other occasions. Besides, it was the least we could do, seeing that it was my grandfather's hatred of your family which brought the matter about."

"What became of your grandfather," Walter asked, "when you interrupted his sermon?"

"He fell down in a fit," John replied; "and perhaps it was the best thing he could do, for I don't know what my father and he would have said to each other, had it not been so. He was carried home, and he has not been the same man since. I don't think the subject was ever alluded to between my father and him; but I think that being balked, just at the moment when he thought he had obtained the object of his hopes and prayers for the last forty years, has almost broken his heart.

"He goes about the house, scarce speaking a word, and seems to have lost almost all his energy. He has ceased to read the family prayers, and to hold forth morning and night. I do think he considers that the Lord has cheated him out of his lawful vengeance. It is awfully sad, Walter, though it is strange, to see such a travesty of religion as the tenets of my grandfather and some of the old men who, like him, represent the views of Cromwell's soldiers.

"Their religion cannot be called true Christianity. It is the Judaism of the times when the Jews were among the most ignorant of peoples. To me it is most shocking, and I would infinitely rather be a Mohammedan than hold such a faith as theirs. I thank God that my father and mother have shaken off such a yoke, and brought me up according to the teaching of the New Testament, rather than that of the Old."

By this time the waggons, with the exception of those under John Whitefoot's charge, had been collected in a mass, and fire had been applied to them. They were now a pile of flame. A few of the best and fastest looking of the horses were set aside to be carried off by the troop. The rest were shot, as the great object of the raids was to deprive the English army of its means of transport.

The troop then mounted. Captain Davenant and Walter took a hearty farewell of John, and intrusted him with hastily-written letters for home; and as the smoke of the burning train would soon