Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 106 — page 2: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

2 rc of Connemara, and the largest landholder in the barony of Ballinahinch, yet not a man was there in the province of Connaught from Down- atrick Head to Galway Bay more thoroughly ted, feared and despised. The Burkes of Twelve Pins were turn-coat Irishmen, and had been since the time when the Dutchman, William of Orange, marched toward the Boyne water. The head of the Burke family at that time with all his sons, four stout boys, had join the army of the usurper, and three of them had fallen in the bloody, decisive fight, which un- seated the weak, unstable James Stuart, and fixed the Dutchman firmly on the English throne. And when the spoils came to be distributed— when the broad, rich lands of the unfortunate Irishmen who had boldly periled life and limb for their country, their religion and their king, were confiscated by the conqueror, and par- titioned out among tho soldiers whose good swords had made him, the foreigner, the lord of Britain, Burke was not forgotten; his zeal—his treachery to his native land, was well reward- ed; and so it camo about that the Burkes, of Twelve Pins, who, by years of squandering, had thes rid of both gold and land, at a single low regained far more than the had lost, and became once again one of the richest families in Galway, though few men would have cared to pay the price that the wealth cost them. ittle the Burkes seemed to care, though, for sg opinion, and from the first turn-coat, up the days of the present Desmond, who was in fact the only representative of the old family, one and all had stuck with strict fidelity to England and the House of Hanover. e O’Briens, on the contrary, had been good, stanch Irishmen. In ’98 they carried a pike; in 47 had worn the colors of the United Irish- men; and in all things and at all times had held as true to Erin’s cause as the Burkes had to the side of the tyrant and oppressor. And, as a natural consequence, as one family had risen and prospered, the other had declined and suffered; and so, finally, it came about that the O’Briens became tenants of the Burkes; and some ten years before the time of which we write both families were reduced to two mem- bers each, a mother and son on the Burke side, and a nephew and aunt on the O’Brien. Desmond and Desmond’s mother—a haughty dame, nearly all of whose life had been spent in London and on the Continent, and who thor- oughly hated Ireland and everything Irish, al- hough she was always eager enough to take the rich rents of her Irish qropecis=ene the widow O’Brien and her nephew, James, who, being one of the lightest-hearted lads in the county, the best wrestler, the fastest runner, the ablest man with the old Irish blackthorn, an ‘‘iligant” dancer, and, in fact, so accom- plished in all the sports and pastimes common to outh, and so gin with everybody, and so oroughly Irish at heart, so earnestly devoted to his native land, that the old Celtic name of Shamus was applied to him; and so “ Mister James O’Brien,” was rarely called anything but Shamus O’Brien. No common t lad was Shamus. His father had sent him to Dublin, and he had been educated for a lawyer, but the death of his pa- rent—his a parent, for his mother had de- this life when he was te young—and he discovery that his father’s affairs were so dreadfully disordered that the estate which he had left ely paid his debts, abruptly put an end to this young man’s studies. Shamus came home and accepted a which bis father’s lawyer, old Timothy of Ballinahinch, offered him. O’Glory was the leading lawyer of the dis- trict, a little, dried-up, weasel-like man possessing a kindly heart anda great knowledge of the law, besides being thoroughly trust- worthy, although, like all the rest of the world, he had no objection to making an honest penny when he could. In O’Glory’s dull, dusty and musty office young Shamus met his fate. P Maggie Moore, of Killkerran, was the pret- tiest girl in all Connemara; and an heiress too, for her father, old Patrick Moore, had been a a and thrifty man, and when he died had eft to his only child a fortune such as few girls in Ireland could boast of possessing. The old lawyer was her guardian, and after her father’s death she came to live in the O’Glory mansion, a stately pile on the ou of the town which was known as O’Neal Hall, so named because the wife of the lawyer claim- ed a direct descent from great O’Neal of the Red Hand; and though she had been as poor as a church-mouse when she had married ppc te still she considered that the noble blood wi her veins more than off-set his money; and she never allowed him to forget this fact either, al- though, to tell the truth, the female descendant of the t O'Neal was of most vulgar habits and ° Maggie Moore and young Shamus became ac- quainted; their friendship soon ripened into and she sweet sixteen— tion Glory, love , he was twen damgerous i for then passion glows and pru- no dence is but | Shamus O’Brier. Both the old lawyer and his wife were won- derfully surprised and disgusted when they dis- covered the love a@air Between the two, and they took speedy measures to put a stop to it, the more so as they were desirous of uniting the heiress to Desmond Burke, who had con- trived, in some peculiar way, to make a friend of the old lawyer. The gir! was instantly sent abroad and Shamus discharged. When this happened it was just at the time of the Fenian rising, and it was an easy matter for the hot-headed agitators to enlist young O’Brien in their wild and desperate schemes. The attempt failed, of course, and Shamus was obliged to fly for his life—a hunted fu- gitive. He managed to escape from the country and was ee to have fled to America, ever the secure haven of all restless souls. After a couple of years the heiress was per- mitted to return to Ireland, cured of her folly it was hoped; and Desmond Burke was en- couraged to persevere in his suit, although Mag- gio never gave him reason so to do. When the heiress neared her twentieth birth- day it was rumored that young O’Brien had returned to Ireland, although there was a price set upon his head, The authorities never suceeeded in catching him, or even in ane a clew to his where- abouts, although Desmond, who was a magis- trate and the commander of the yeomanry of the district, did his best to snare his rival. Nearly a year had elapsed since the report was first started and yet no certain tidings had been had of O’Brien. Then came the dark days to the widow, his only relative, and Burke gladly jumped at the chance to eviet her, thinking that the outrage would produce a tumult and that if O’Brien was in the country he would not fail to come forward, for it was o y predicted that the old widow would not be evicted from her little holding without a struggle. And thus matters stood at the time at which we commence our story—our ower true tale of the n isle, that ortunate country which has been so terribly afflicted and misgoverned. CHAPTER II. SOGARTH AROON, THERE were fully a hundred people on the ground, and the men clutched their sticks and muttered many an —— word as they looked down the road, up which they expected to see the process-server and his cohorts advancing. The process-server, Dooney MacDarrow, was a well-known character, who was briefly summed up in a single sentence—he was the big- gest ‘‘ blaggard ” in the county. When it became known, on the previous day that notice of eviction was going to be served on the old widow, wide-spread and out-spoken was the indignation. The debt owed by the widow was only a trifle, five pounds, and many and deep were the curses called down upon the head of Desmond Burke, when his intention to evict leaked out. It was no secret to the neigborhood that young and handsome Shamus proved a suc- cessful rival to Captain Burke, and that the love which Desmond sought had been given to the proscribed and outlawed man; so, of course, all jumped cp omgd to the conclusion that mal- ice prompted the act. The time was ripe for open resistance to the law, too, for the peasantry had been so ground down under the iron heel of oppression that they were desperate, and recked little of conse- quences, Nearly every man in the barony was behind in his rent, and each and every one expected that his turn would come next, and these r peasants clung to their little farms, weish, in many _— had been held by son, father, grand- father, and great-grandfather, with a persist- ence and energy that is really almost unac- countable, — that like trees, they had taken root in the earth from whence they ined their subsistence, and that removal meant death. The peasants had been fearfully excited by the news that Captain Burke had determined to evict the widow, and more than one bold spirit had declared that he, for one, would not stand tamely by and see the dirty work go on. This news had been brought to the ears of Dooney, who was no coward, whatever else might be his demerits, and he snapped his fin- gers, ae. “That for thim bould byes!” he eried, in scorn. “It’s mighty foine and for thim to say what they will do, but, doin’ it is a hoss of another color, as they will find if they dare for to come betune me and my dooty, do By mind! I will sarve that process on the widdy, if it takes every sodger in Ireland to back me up! Faix! it’s foine quarters we have in the jail for the bould marauders that dare buck ‘in’ the law.” he process-server was defiant, the peasantry enraged, and the chances for a eonflict seemed Dooney thought so, too, for he started forth upon his mission escorted by six constables, who had been sent for from Galway, especially for this service. And Burke also had taken mea- sures to crush all opposition. The district was under martial law, and a full company of yeo- manry, his own company, some eighty men, were quartered in Ballinahinch. Burke had represented to the government that there was great danger of a “rising.” He declared that he had authentic information that Shamus O’Brien’s mission in Connemara was to organize an insurrection, and that supplies of men and arms were to be landed upon the coast, pees from America, the moment the e was ripe, And the government, frightened at shadows, and Sage — each stranger as a Fenian in disguise, y gave the arch-plotter all the power and force he asked. But no one knew better than Burke that the oe ire which had attracted young Shamus back to Ireland, even at the peril of his life, was the pretty heiress of Killkerran, and he mote lover, and, in an English to catch the hp jail, - Sepia: the hopes that dwelt within his reast. _When the people upon the hillside caught sight of the process-server and his guard, high was their wrath, but when they looked around upon theirown numbers, they saw how easy it would be for them to ‘*‘ bate” the satellites of the law if it came to a battle. ‘“‘T’ll strike wan blow for luck, anyhow, be jabbers!” shouted a stout fellow in a terribly ragged suit. ‘‘ Phat does it matter if 1 do go to jail? there’s neither bite nor sup to ate at home, and I might as well be in jail for crackin’ the head of a process-server—bad ’cess to the likes of him—as to starve outside!” There was more than one echo to this speech and when MacDarrow and his guard arrive at the cabin, the way to the door was barred by an angry and excited crowd. The women in the throng were by far the most violent, and they openly excited the men to ‘‘ bate” the process-server and his ‘‘ dirthy ” crowd. ‘‘Tf wan of ye raises even a finger ag’in’ me, I'll be afther having the law on yees!” Dooney declared, ‘It’s the goverment I represint, do ye mind that! Clear the way, and l’ave me put my notice on the door! Don’t force me to use violence, or, maybe, it will be the worse for some of yees! I’m a plain-spoken man, an’ I'll put every mother’s son of yees in jail, if yees are not careful!” “Oh, go to the divil and shake yerself, ye dirty spalpeen!” yelled a woman in the crowd, who was standing on a little elevation by the side of the road; and as she spoke she flung a piece of turf which she held in her hand at the process-server, and the aim was so good that the clod hit Dooney fairly in the eet 3 The process-server actually danced up and down with rage. **Oho, Nell Flaverty!” he cried, ‘‘T’ll have the law on yees for that, bad ’cess to the likes of hoy ye murtherin’ trollop! Ye have ’saulted the government, do yees mind that? It is fourteen month ye’ll get in jail on bread- and-water for that.” : ‘Oh, bad luck to ye and yer dirty jail!” re- torted the woman. ‘‘Give me a sthick, some of yees, byes, till I go and bate the rascally process-server !”’ Dooney had a “nate” bit of a blackthorn twig in his hand, and as he rather prided him- self on his skill with this peculiarly Irish wea- n, and with good reason, for there were few ys in Connemara who could stand up against him, he kindly ape oy to invite the virago to the trial which she had threatened: ‘Give her a sthick, wan of yees, and l’ave her come to the fore till i crack that oneey skull of hers!” he cried. ‘‘Come on now, Miss Flav- erty! The flure is ready for yees and the fid- dlers are waitin’ tostrike up; come on now wid ye an’ I'll go bail that I lay ye out in five minutes, dacently an’in order. Will ye come out now, ye murtherin’ ould baggage?’ But, Mrs. Flaverty shrunk from the contest, and no wonder, for the “‘ blaggard ” was known to be a handy man with his stick, and there weren’t any of the men present anxious to face him single-handed. ‘‘Oho, ye don’t dare!” Dooney exclaimed, in contempt, when he found that the woman did not respond to his invitation. “It’s aisy en- ough to talk, but it’s only talk that ye’re afther. Clear the way now till I stick me notice on the But, the people did not obey the command, in the least; on the contrary, they gathered closer together, so as to bar the e of the process-server; the men gr their sticks more firmly, while the women doubled up their’ fists and shook them fiercely at the satellites o'' the law. Singly they feared to encounter the redoubt able Dooney, but collectively they felt able t» “bate” him and all his gang. The process-server looked annoyed; he kne'y well enough that if the nts stood firm he did not have sufficient force with him to exe- cute his purpose, although the constables were as good men as the force could boast; but, of course six men could not whip forty, to say nothing of the women, and many of the females comic ‘Ss ,OO ” _— ar \ ~~ ’