Dark Rosaleen E-Book

Marjorie Bowen

• Herausgeber: Classica Libris
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Ireland 1796 – the dream that became a nightmare
Every Irish patriot was dreaming of the day when his country would be free from the tyranny of the English. Fired by the success of the revolution in France, the United Irishmen hatched a perilous plot – to overthrow the Government.
They chose as their leader Lord Edward Fitzgerald, brother of the Duke of Leinster. And their choice brought him to a crossroads. One road led to Kildare and his lovely young wife, Pamela. The other beckoned him to Dublin, political intrigue – and betrayal.
Edward Fitzgerald loved his wife as much as he loved his country. But he chose the road to Dublin...

Leseprobe

Copyright

First published in 1932

Copyright © 2023 Classica Libris

Verse

O! the Erne shall run red

With redundance of blood,

The earth shall rock beneath our tread,

And flames wrap hill and wood,

And gun-peal, and slogan cry,

Wake many a glen serene,

Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die,

My Dark Rosaleen!

My own Rosaleen!

The Judgment Hour must first be nigh,

Ere you can fade, ere you can die,

My Dark Rosaleen!

JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN

(From the Irish of Costello)

(DARK ROSALEEN is one of the many names symbolical of Ireland, in use among the patriots and forbidden by Law. The use of it was attended by severe penalties.)

“There was mixed with the public cause in that struggle, ambition, sedition and violence; but no man will persuade me that it was not the cause of liberty on one side, and of tyranny on the other.”

Chapter 1

1

The boy was building a small fort in the Orangery, of toy bricks, mud, and sticks. The Orangery was empty. Only a few, dry, fragrant leaves from last year remained in the corners and on the wide sills of the windows which reached from floor to ceiling. On the other side a magnificent tapestry was carefully hung and the figures on it seemed to fill the large building.

When the boy glanced up from his fort he was acutely aware of all these strange, tall figures, which were moving in a stately cavalcade towards the corner where he lay: white elephants, camels of a pale honey colour, giraffes and zebra speckled and striped, princes turbanned and wearing armour that sparkled with gold thread, slaves leading monstrous beasts by scarlet cords, and captives, their arms bound behind them—all these seemed, to the lonely boy, to watch him at his play; and as the sun, pouring in through the long panes of glass, caught here a strand of bullion, there a thread of silk, they appeared to move as if about to speak.

Above the corner where the boy worked was the Triumphal Car bearing the Hero of this parade, and close by the heavy wheel was a Negro who helped to push the majestic chariot.

The expression of this figure, which seemed bent, not only in labour but in supplication, and the way in which he rolled his eyes, as if in a frenzy of terror, affected the little boy. The man was a slave and plainly expected punishment. As the boy returned to his work, laying out his lines and galleries and ramparts according to the drawing in Indian ink beside him, marking the places for each cannon and building up the citadel where the flag should fly at last, he was conscious of the shadow thrown over him by the suffering of another—a picture only, but terribly real.

He vaguely regretted that his mother and stepfather Mr. Ogilvie had not remained to keep him company, and presently he sat up with a sigh, brushing the dried earth off his hands and with his back to the tapestry, gazed out through the open door on to an expanse of lawn and park where all the grass, trees and flowers seemed to shimmer in the sun.

The long silence was broken by the first of two visits which were to make that day memorable. As he stared through the open door another boy put his head round it and smiled.

“I was told to come and play with you. May I do so?”

The child nodded with grave courtesy. Visitors to the Château were not rare, but this one spoke English and that was a little uncommon.

“My mother sent you?”

“Oh, yes,” the stranger advanced. “Her Grace said that the other little lords and ladies were away, but that I might have the honour of coming here to play with your Lordship.”

The boy did not at all like this way of speaking. He felt embarrassed by the other’s fawning awkwardness. The stranger was a little younger than himself, sharp, shrewd and precocious in manner.

“Oh, what a beautiful fort you are making here, may I look at it?”

The other rose, his natural sweetness struggling with a dislike of this intruder. He brushed the powdered earth from the knees of his trousers.

“Of course you may look at it, but there is not very much to see. I have only half finished, there is a good deal of work but I like to do it all myself. You are English, are you not?”

“Oh, no, like ypur Lordship, I am Irish—I was born in Dublin.”

“My name is Edward and if you have come to visit us there is no need for you to be so formal.”

“Oh, but I could not presume on any familiarity! It is very condescending of her Grace to receive us at all. You are a Lord, are you not? And the son of the greatest nobleman in Ireland?”

“The title I have is nothing. Mr. Ogilvie says it is but a formal thing, and I like better to be Edward Fitzgerald, Esquire.”

“But your father was a Duke,” insisted the other child eagerly, turning away from the fort in which he had not taken the least interest, “and your brother is a Duke now and I have seen his great house in Dublin. It is a magnificent palace indeed.”

Edward Fitzgerald was at a loss for a reply; his uneasiness increased. He could see that his visitor was of a rank greatly inferior to his own and that he had been told to flatter him, and he, who had been brought up in advanced ideas, greatly disliked this.

“Yours is the greatest family in Ireland,” insisted the visitor, gazing at the young Lord with curiosity. “Why, the Geraldines are princes, are they not? You read about them in the history books—it was Maurice Fitzgerald who rose in rebellion against the king and was hanged at Tyburn, and all the great earls of Kildare and Desmond were Geraldines tool”

“We don’t talk of such things,” replied Edward with increasing embarrassment, and to escape from the subject he added in nervous haste. “And who are you?”

The other boy made a bow.

“I am only your Lordship’s humble servant—Thomas Reynolds. In fact,” he added, with false humility that sat oddly on one so young, “though we try and keep up the appearances of gentry and have a great deal of money we are nothing but silk mercers from whom her Grace is condescending enough to buy her brocades, it is true that my mother is a Fitzgerald—but a very distant relative.”

“There is no condescension in mother dealing with you and it is very honourable to be a silk mercer.”

“Oh, yes, indeed, and we are very thankful for our good fortune and prosperity. Her Grace has been a very generous customer. Coming to France with my mother, who has been to Lyons to buy pieces of damask and brocade, I asked to make a little tour of the country, as gentlemen do to finish their education, and she thought we might venture to come to Aubignè to pay a humble visit of respect to her Grace.”

As young Master Reynolds saw the boy whose possible friendship he so much desired to gain, considering him with candid, uncalculating eyes, he began to strut about and boast of the number of his warehouses, the size of his shops, the business of his wharves—all of the handsomest, the most commodious in Dublin—and to brag of his own future.

“I shall go to Trinity College—I shall go into the army, no doubt. I shall keep racehorses, I shall come often to Paris for my diversion,” then, as if recollecting himself, “how idle all this must seem to you! What is the utmost a merchant can attain compared to the future that is before your Lordship!”

Edward smiled, honestly amused.

“I shall be a soldier, too. Did you see my fort? I think it will look very well when the cannon are set in place.”

“A soldier. Oh, yes. How fine you will look in regimentals! I suppose you will very soon get a company? Your brother, his Grace, has several in his gift.”

“I don’t want to get promotion that way. I hope to earn distinction by merit.”

Tom Reynolds smiled. “Truly, what odd notions your Lordship has been brought up in! I swear that sounds like the talk of some of the republicans and democrats whom my mother says are poisonous creatures and on no account to be listened to.”

“My mother does not think so, nor does Mr. Ogilvie nor my brothers and sisters, nor any one they know. No, nor my uncle either.”

“Your uncle.” Thomas Reynolds snatched eagerly at that word. “That is his Grace of Richmond, is it not?”

Reluctantly Edward nodded. This insistence on ranks, titles and riches embarrassed him. He began to defend himself against something vaguely offensive in the other’s personality by relating some of the modern precepts with which his mother and Mr. Ogilvie had so earnestly inculcated him.

“All men are equal. Rank without merit is nothing. A man to be of any consequence has to succeed in the world on his own deserts. The savage who turns wild is perhaps the happiest of all. I hope to go and see savages some day in America. It must be glorious to hunt your own dinner and cook it and sleep under a tent.” Master Reynolds giggled behind a hand discreetly held before his mouth.

“It is very droll. My mother would not believe it were I to tell her your sentiments. Savages, indeed, and all men born equal!”

“It is so,” insisted Edward stoutly, but reddening before the other’s ridicule. “And, believe me, I never think at all who I am.”

“Well,” replied the other, with a flash of what was almost insolence. “If your Lordship is so indifferent I would you could change with me! I vow I should not find it a matter of no consequence to be a brother of the Duke of Leinster, the nephew of the Duke of Richmond, and a son of one of the noblest families in Ireland.”

Edward turned abruptly to the little fort and again endeavoured to engage his visitor’s attention; but young Master Reynolds was plainly not at all interested. He began, instead, to examine the Orangery, to exclaim about its size and splendour and the beauty of the Château.

“It belongs to your uncle, does it not? He is Duke of Aubignè too, in France? Oh, I thought it a splendid place! The Duchess is so gracious as to give my mother tea on the terrace.”

Edward laughed. “I am afraid you do not understand us at all. You must find me rather dull. I don’t know what to do to amuse you.” He frowned in an effort to think of some distraction for his unwelcome and disliked guest. “There are the fishponds—we have some carp supposed to be a hundred years old. Then the fountains, too, or would you like a walk along the Garonne?” he added anxiously.

But Master Reynolds rejected all these attractions.

“I think we should go back to the Château and sit with the Duchess and my mother. Perhaps you will present me to Mr. Ogilvie whom I have not seen yet?”

His bold eyes roamed over the gorgeous tapestry which was now gleaming in the rays of the sinking sun and exclaimed: “That must be worth a great deal of money! My mother had one to sell once, not so fine as that, and got near a thousand pounds for it.”

Edward, who had never thought of anything in terms of money, was again at a complete loss.

“It is a beautiful thing,” he said, thoughtfully. “I think there is no room for it in the house, that is why they keep it here. The Orangery is warmed in winter for the plants, so it does not get damp.”

Master Reynolds stepped close to the arras and stared at the figure of the triumphant conqueror in his gilded chariot.

“Would it not be splendid to be in his position!” he exclaimed, with real feeling. “Fancy, to be at the head of such a procession, with all this pomp and parade just for oneself alone! A wreath of laurel and gold armour and jewels round one’s neck!”

“But there is the slave—see how unhappy he looks, as if expecting a beating! How can the man in the chariot feel glad with that poor creature pushing his wheel?”

“The slave?” exclaimed Master Tom, swinging round in amazement. “Why, that adds to the pleasure of it, to think that one has all those people to do nothing but one’s will!”

“They are human beings too,” exclaimed Edward, reddening. “They have their rights and it is very horrid to think that they should suffer. I wish Mr. Ogilvie would talk to you. If you would listen to him a little while you would soon think quite differently.”

Master Reynolds smiled behind his hand, and said, with a smoothness displeasing in one of his age:

“Why, I have no doubt Mr. Ogilvie is a very learned gentleman and would soon convert me.”

“Let us go and find him,” exclaimed Edward eagerly. But before the two boys could leave the Orangery, Edward’s mother came swiftly across the lawn and said kindly to young Reynolds:

“Your mother’s coach is waiting and she is asking for you. I am afraid there is no more time for you to see the Château. You will come another day, perhaps.”

“Or I may wait on you in Dublin, your Grace?” replied the boy eagerly.

“Why, yes, that of course, and I must come to your mother’s warehouses to see what new silks she has brought from Lyons.”

As the coach rolled away towards the great gates of scrolled iron, the Duchess laughed good-humouredly.

“That is a sad little monkey. The poor, silly, conceited woman! It is unhappy for them that her husband is dead, for I believe he was a man of sense and judgment.” “Who are they?” asked Edward, still baffled and puzzled.

“Did he not tell you? Mrs. Reynolds, who has the big silk warehouse in Dublin. I believe she is worth twenty thousand pounds, and I have always found her very obliging and courteous; she is a Fitzgerald, too, but not of your family, I think. But it is impossible to put her at her ease, and what has she not made of the boy!”

The deepening light began to return to the landscape the colour which had been taken out of it by the heat of midday, the trees in the park, the plantains, the oaks, the beeches, took on firm shapes. The river, which had been imperceptible in the haze, now appeared blue as violets, and beyond the meadows showed the brilliant grass ready for the hay-making, studded with blue and white and yellow flowers. Every brick and stone in the facade of the Château was clearly visible, every veining, calcyx and stamen in the flowers curling round the terrace balustrade stood out.

Edward was comforted by the beauty about him. He had been jarred and ruffled by the visit of the little silk mercer, he had felt vicariously humiliated by the talk of the other boy. He wanted to go back and look at his fort; but he hesitated. He did not care to go into the Orangery in the dusk; for then, even more than in the sunshine of the afternoon, the figure of the crouching slave pushing the wheel became alive and ominous. Ashamed of his own intangible fear, which he did not even put in the form of a thought, the boy went slowly on his way.

But when he reached the foot of the stone stairway that led to the terrace he met the second visitor, a little girl wearing a pale blue cloak and a wide straw hat tied under her chin. She said in French (which he knew as well as his own language):

“Oh, you are Edward? Madame said I would find you here.”

She gave him her hand and the boy put it on his own and kissed the fingers as he had seen his father and Mr. Ogilvie do when presented to ladies.

“What would you like to do, Mademoiselle?” he asked.

The child reflected a second.

“I was told that we might go and pick some peaches, but I—I prefer nectarines.”

“We have some nectarines, too,” he replied. “Come with me before it gets too dark for me to see which are the ripest.”

She put her hand through his arm, and with an engaging air of confidence walked beside him through the gloom. They reached the long, deep, pink-coloured brick wall of the fruit gardens where pears, nectarines, peaches and apples in espalier were nailed, facing southwards. The fruit was warm and luscious behind the curling leaves protected by fine net.

“Will you have a nectarine or a yellow plum? Or one of these pears which I don’t know the name of, but which are supposed to be very rare?”

“I would like a nectarine, please.” He stepped across the border which was set with tufts of basil, thyme and rosemary and putting his hand under the net he picked one, two, three, and placed them in the folded arms of the little girl.

“What is your name, Mademoiselle?”

“Louise.”

She fingered the fruit curiously, delicately. “They are quite warm from the sun.” She offered him one and they ate silently.

Edward felt in complete sympathy with her, he longed to tell her all his most secret thoughts, even about the Negro on the tapestry in the Orangery. He looked at her very keenly. Young as she was she had much character in her face, and at the corner of her mouth was a small brown mole.

She was a very serious little girl, but not in the least timid or shy. She began to talk of herself, how she was being taught to embroider and to play the harp. She was often in Paris, but liked the country, where she had a pony, better. When she grew up she meant to have a cabriolet with a white horse.

Then she listened with interest while the boy told her of himself, of his lessons with Mr. Ogilvie whom he loved so much, his desire to become a soldier, of his brothers and sisters.

They turned slowly back towards the house, and as they neared the terrace they heard a voice call:

“Louise. Louise.”

“It is my mother. It is time I went. Some day you must come and see us. We too have a garden and I would like to show you our still-room. I am allowed to make things there myself sometimes. Comfits, you know, from violets and rose petals. You put them in the hot sugar...”

“Louise, Louise,” came the voice of her mother.

“Oh, don’t go,” implored the boy, “please stay, there is so much I want to ask you. When shall I see you again?”

She shook her head with a child’s vagueness.

“Soon,” he insisted.

“Oh, yes. I like you very much. I must come again soon.” Then she turned, and obedient to the insistent call, ran away. He saw her little figure in the blue cloak pass rapidly up the steps to the terrace and then become lost behind the balustrade and the vases of flowers.

She had gone.

2

He found the large rooms with the windows open on to the terrace empty except for the servants who were lighting the candles in the girandoles before the mirror and on the side tables. Presently his mother came into the room. He did not speak to her about Louise, because of some deep reserve that he did not himself understand. He did not ask where she had gone, or what was her name, or if she might come back again, although he wanted to know these things.

His mother kissed him and told him that it would soon be time for his bed. Mr. Ogilvie came in and stood by the bookshelf, turning over a volume with his long fingers. The child watched the gleaming table being set with silver, blue and white china, glasses that had a gilt line round the rim, and napkins of shining linen with an edge of thick lace. Some one sang outside, quite a distance away, but the voice came clearly through the open window into the silent company.

“Mother, what song is that?”

“It is an Irish sing; do you like it?”

“What is the name of it?”

“Oh, it is just some ballad, dear, that the peasants sing.”

“You are not Irish, are you?

“No, Neddy, darling, I’m English.”

“And Mr. Ogilvie isn’t Irish?”

“No, sweetheart, he is Scotch.”

“And I?”

“Oh, you are Irish.”

“I see. Then the song belongs to me.”

“Why, yes, if you like to put it like that.”

He thought again, then asked seriously:

“Mother, are there slaves in Ireland?”

The lady was a little confused by this. “Well, dear, there are slaves if people bring them. A few blacks from the plantations of America.”

“The people, the Irish themselves, they are not slaves, are they?”

“Why, no; what made you think of it?”

“I don’t know,” he replied hastily, suddenly fearful of betraying his secret about the man in the tapestry.

Mr. Ogilvie looked up from his book. With the serenity of a member of a nation that has been, from time immemorial, free, both from domestic and foreign tyranny, he said quietly:

“I’m afraid, Neddy, there are slaves in Ireland, though they may not have that name. They are a misgoverned, oppressed people. You may be able, when you are older, to do something about that.”

The boy reddened so suddenly that his mother was alarmed and thought he had had a flush of fever. He saw himself rushing to the slave in the arras, saving him from his abject position, freeing him, and with him would be Louise offering her sun-warm nectarines.

“Shall I?” he asked eagerly.

“Why, certainly,” said Mr. Ogilvie, closing his book. “There’ll be a great deal that you will be able to do, Edward.”

His mother kissed his hot cheeks. She did not care to think of the future when he would be no longer a child.

“Never mind about that, now; you must go to bed—you are very late, you know.”

Chapter 2

1

The young man looked round the hotel bedroom with curiosity. He had laughed and talked all the way up the wide stairs, speaking of his experiences during his jouraey from Dublin: a rough crossing in the overcrowded packet, trouble with passports and papers, the difficulty of obtaining food at wayside inns, the expense of all accommodation! But he made no complaint; he seemed to have found the whole of the journey a delightful adventure.

It was the hotel-keeper who accompanied him to the large room with the balcony that looked upon the Rue de Richepanse. He was a nondescript individual, as reserved as the traveller was loquacious, and merely remarked, “I have a lighter chamber, but it is let to another citizen, also an Englishman.”

“I am not English.”

“Eh?”

“No, I am Irish.”

The Frenchman shrugged as if the distinction was unimportant.

“The citizen will take this room? It will be thirty francs a week.”

“That is very expensive, is it not?”

“I could not let it go for less. Everything is dear in Paris just now, and the citizen should have understood...”

But it seemed that the question of money really held very little interest for the newcomer.

“Thirty francs or what you will,” he agreed cheerfully. “And I do not know how long I shall stay.”

He went to the window and found himself gazing down on a street that had been smart, but had lately become shabby.

“This has been a private house?” he asked.

“Yes, citizen. You no doubt marked ‘National Property’ written across the front.”

“Yes, indeed. It has been confiscated?”

“Yes, citizen.”

“And this, I suppose,” remarked the young man thoughtfully, “was one of the family’s bedrooms?”

“A lady’s bedroom, citizen.”

“Ah, yes.”

A slight uneasiness clouded the open features of the Irishman. “A lady’s bedroom, and only a little while ago! That is not very pleasant, is it? Did you say you had no other chamber?”

“None, citizen, unless the Englishman cares to change with you, but you must arrange that yourself.”

And with a slight impatience the landlord moved towards the door.

“Well, it doesn’t do to be fussy. I will take the room,” smiled the Irishman, but he thought to himself: “It is rather dreary; it looks as if the place had been sacked.”

The apartment was large, but it seemed gloomy because of the height of the ceiling. A Chinese wallpaper with a green and blue pattern was damaged considerably and patched here and there with another fabric. The bed was old-fashioned, with four pillars, but entirely devoid of curtains or hangings. The furniture was covered with a light violet brocade, which seemed in many places to have been recently scrubbed. A mirror between the two windows was cracked, and a table by the bed, though richly gilt, had a broken leg. The curtains at the windows were of cheap grey drugget, and the whole room was stark and bleak.

But it was very difficult to find accommodation in Paris at all, and the young man had been particularly recommended to this hotel as being much the cleanest and most reasonable in price and most reputable in the company entertained. So he took the room and asked if his luggage might be brought up and if he might have a cabinet or closet for his servant.

Without replying, the landlord opened a door in the wall by the bed, which led into a small closet with silver silk panels on the walls. Sunk in the floor was an alabaster bath and above it a basin in the shape of a cockle shell was set in the wall. The faucets were of silver in the shape of fishes’ heads. This incongruous elegance surprised the Irishman.

“The lady’s cabinet de toilette, you perceive,” said the landlord. “But the citizen’s Negro,” he would not use the word servant, “can sleep there very well.”

“What was the name of the family who had this hotel—of the lady who used this room?”

“Aristocrats. Emigrés. What does it matter? They can be of no interest to the citizen or to me. I have to attend to my dinner.” And he added, taking a step back into the room, “It is not possible the citizen is interested in aristocrats and emigres?”

“No,” replied the Irishman, not out of fear but because it was the truth. “I have come to Paris because I am interested in the new methods of government adopted after your glorious revolution.”

“You will like the Englishman, then,” said the landlord who appeared a little mollified by this declaration. He brought out the thin book he carried under his arm and opened it:

“The citizen’s name, age, trade or business and purpose for being in Paris?” he added.

The traveller took the book, and placing it on the broken table by the bed, while the Frenchman held the candle, he filled in:

“Edward Fitzgerald, of Leinster House, Dublin. Age, twenty-nine years. Gentleman, of independent means.” This was not sufficient for the Frenchman.

“The police want to know more than that,” he said, peering over his guest’s shoulder. So with slight reluctance, the Irishman added: “In the parliament of Ireland for the county of Kildare. Son of James Fitzgerald, Duke of Leinster and of Amelia Lennox, Duchess of Leinster. Captain in His Majesty’s nineteenth regiment of foot.”

“There, is that enough for you and your police?”

He handed the book to the Frenchman, who looked at it with a dry curiosity.

“Your business in Paris? The citizen has forgotten to put that.”

“The citizen does not know it,” was the reply. “I will, if you please, interview your police, your generals, your deputies, what you will, myself, and explain to them that I am here to observe for myself the condition of affairs that is so variously reported in England.”

This silenced the Frenchman, who wrote the date, “Brumaire 23rd, 1st year of the Republic,” at the top of the page and withdrew, saying, “The ordinary is served in half an hour; if the citizen comes below he will find plenty of good company.”

When Edward Fitzgerald was alone he made a further inspection of the apartment, which, in a way he could not account for, repelled him. He thought: “To-morrow, I will look for something else. There must be some old coffee houses, or hotels or furnished rooms to be had for very little—after all, though the emigris are in the wrong, one cannot help pitying those who have lost everything. A woman’s room.”

His Negro, Tony, entered with the baggage, followed by a servant who brought a pallet and some blankets to make up a bed in the toilette closet.

“It is not a very cheerful place, Tony,” said Fitzgerald, “I think we will move to-morrow, but to-night we must make the best of it.”

He looked at the Negro with that profound compassion with which he never failed to regard him. The poor creature, who had saved his life during the American war, was hideous. Only the look of love and goodness in the dark eyes gave any charm to this grotesque face.

Fitzgerald kept the Negro with him out of gratitude and charity. He valued, and, in a sense, loved Tony, who was also involved with some half nightmare dream of his childhood, with the figure of a crouching slave that he had once observed in a tapestry, in France, he thought, very long ago, when the terror of the slave had seemed to enter into his own soul, terrifying him, and he could seldom look at Tony without recalling in some measure a touch of that past horror.

2

When the Irishman descended into the public restaurant he found it well filled with a crowd who formed a strange gathering to one used to the splendour and formality of Dublin society.

Paris, since the execution of the King and the establishment of the Republic a few months before, had become the meeting place of all bold and impetuous spirits, who believed that this great nation, in defying all the traditions of Europe, had advanced mankind nearer the Millennium, of all those adventurers who loved excitement and all those scoundrels who believed that in a state of chaps they might find more to their advantage than would be possible in ordered society.

Edward Fitzgerald, lighthearted, enthusiastic, and thoroughly imbued with those new ideas which had been steadily growing in strength since they had been inaugurated by Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau, looked with interest at his strange companions.

The cheap tables and chairs and rough linen contrasted sharply with the splendid proportions of the room.

A few candles and oil lamps cast wavering shadows over the company, all men, with rough, curiously cut clothes, cropped hair and sashes of red, white and blue. All titles of courtesy or formality were abolished, every one was “brother,” “comrade,” “citizen.”

The atmosphere was full of excitement. There were English, American, and Irish present, and as far as possible all distinction of nationality was waived. Fitzgerald could not help a smile, which he felt instantly to be unworthy, at the thought that these odd creatures, who would have been laughed at in Dublin or London, represented the brotherhood of mankind. Though his own dress was as simple as possible it came from a good tailor, and though he wore no wig over his short, curly hair it was well dressed. His linen was immaculate and his shoes polished. He felt that all these details rather set him apart from the rest of the company and caused a good many glances, of by no means friendly curiosity, to be cast in his direction.

He had just begun his thin meat soup when a particularly dirty and disreputable-looking individual flung himself into the vacant chair the other side of the small table.

“Do you not,” he asked rudely, “find this poor accommodation? We are very rough here and that usually frightens away the sightseers.”

He spoke in a curious English with an accent that Fitzgerald did not know at all.

Not in the least affronted the Irishman replied pleasantly:

“I am not a sightseer.”

“Well, if you are not here out of curiosity what is your reason?”

“And yours for asking me?” said Fitzgerald, with an even more amiable smile.

“Oh, one is expected to be open in this society, no airs and no mysteries,” and then, without asking if his company was acceptable or not he ordered his supper to be brought.

There was something about the man—a force, a power, a candour—that attracted Fitzgerald though he was ugly and offensive in his manner.

“This does not turn your stomach, you are not squeamish?” he asked, turning his head in the direction of the other groups in the restaurant.

The air was now thick with coarse tobacco smoke, with the steam from the boiled meats that were being taken out of the soup and flung on to plates to be soused with vinegar, with stale fumes of cooking.

“No,” said Fitzgerald. “I have been through the American War, we did not live softly then. When it was over I travelled alone across the continent and lived with the Indians. I endured every kind of hardship and liked it.”

The Englishman glanced at him with a new respect.

“I should not have thought that,” he remarked grudgingly.

“I have been all over Europe, too,” continued Fitzgerald, “and not travelled in comfort. I have always been interested in the progress of mankind. Can you wonder that I am in Paris?”

“You fought in America, eh?” said the other, ignoring this. “A dirty business that. One of King George’s officers?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, you fought on the wrong side.”

“Sometimes I think so,” agreed the Irishman, with a frankness that appeared to surprise his companion, who asked him suspiciously “if he was still in the English army?”

“Yes, yes. But holding a commission does not quite destroy one’s wits or one’s power of reflection. Neither am I English, but Irish.”

“You think that there is a difference?”

The Englishman gulped down the large cup of coffee and milk before him, wiped his wet mouth with the back of his hand, and added vehemently:

“Ireland is a cruelly misgoverned, maltreated country. Whoever you are, sir, and you seem to have money and position, you should, instead of running over to Paris out of curiosity, stay at home and do what you can for your miserable countrymen. An Irishman,” he repeated; “well, I have not much respect for an Irishman who wears the uniform of King George.”

Fitzgerald flushed and sat silent. Not only the unaccustomed rudeness of the address, but the truth in the words stung him bitterly and he could not find an answer.

The Englishman considered him with a bold, not unfriendly interest. Fitzgerald was extremely elegant. He was of middle height and very slim. His dark, grey eyes were shaded by long, black lashes which gave him a look of great gentleness, but the expression of his face was open and amused.

“Your name?” the stranger rapped out.

“Edward Fitzgerald.”

“Ah, the Duke of Leinster’s brother?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I am Tom Paine, if that means anything to you.” The Irishman flushed with excited pleasure.

“The author of The Rights of Man?”

“The same, sir.”

“Then I am very happy to make your acquaintance.”

“Indeed! Then you are not of the party of your illustrious countryman, Edmund Burke, whose arguments I took the liberty of demolishing.”

“I am of no man’s party or policy so far, sir,” replied Fitzgerald. “One can understand Mr. Burke’s point of view. One would not have the Queen hurt, nor the King either. But the principle of the thing...”

“Bah! The King or the Queen or the gentlewomen or the gentlemen!” interrupted Paine derisively. “Are you going to make an omelette without breaking any eggs? This business is not for those who are chicken-hearted, sir.”

“No, one understands. But it is difficult to avoid some compassion, perhaps, even,” added Fitzgerald boldly, “remorse.”

“That is because you belong to their caste. You are an aristocrat and can not understand. I, sir, am a working man, a stay maker, a tobacco dealer. I have a right to speak for the people, but you...”

“Yes?” the Irishman caught him up. “Who have I the right to speak for?”

“Your own class. Better stay in it, eh? What good can you do? Not at least while you are half and half. In King George’s army and running over to Paris to meddle with us! You know, sir, perhaps, that I am deputy for the Pas de Calais.”

Half amused, Fitzgerald nodded.

“A Duke’s brother,” continued Paine. “A pity! I like you. What are you doing with a finger in this pie?”

“I am very much a younger son,” replied. Fitzgerald seriously. “I’ve always had these ideas. I do not, when I can avoid it, use any courtesy title that may be mine. I have never leant on my brother’s influence. What position I have in the army is due to my own merit and the usual luck of war.”

“Ah, very well,” said Paine, with a grin, “but I suppose you don’t sit for a rotten borough in that farcical parliament of yours in Dublin?”

Fitzgerald flushed again, this time deeply.

“I did not want to take it,” he exclaimed in chagrin, “but it’s difficult to go against the head of one’s family.” He spoke with real vexation and Paine laughed.

“There, you see, I put my finger on the spot! You belong to them. Member of your brother’s pocket borough. First of Athy then of Kildare.”

“I tried to do some good in the parliament. Even if I got my seat corruptly that doesn’t prevent me from speaking out.”

“It’s no use speaking out in the Irish parliament,” said Paine brutally. “I doubt if it’s any use speaking out in Ireland at all.”

“There are bold, intelligent men amongst us,” replied the Irishman warmly, “who have for years been demanding our liberties.”

“In what terms do they demand them?” asked Paine, leaning across the soiled cloth.

“In what terms should they demand them?” asked Fitzgerald.

“In terms of war,” said Paine, suddenly. Leaning back in his chair he shouted for another cup of coffee.

“Rebellion,” breathed Fitzgerald, half to himself. “Well, I and others have thought of it.”

“But a risk, eh?” Paine turned his ugly face on him briskly. “For men like you, possible ruin. You’ve a great deal to lose. It’s hard, I know. Well, let it all go by, Mr. Fitzgerald. Stay among your own class. That’s my advice.”

“There are other Englishmen and other Irishmen in Paris?” asked Fitzgerald, quietly ignoring this.

“There are several. Some of them, I dare say, known to you. They are none of them aristocrats. You know it is rather perilous for an aristocrat to be in Paris now. You, Mr. Fitzgerald, might any moment be arrested as a suspect.”

“I suppose I am protected by my commission in the English army.”

“Well, if you like to take that sort of protection it doesn’t show you very strongly in sympathy with those republican ideas you affect to assume.”

Very patiently, still ignoring these sneers and the abrupt ill manner, Edward Fitzgerald asked:

“Who are some of these Irishmen?”

“Well, there is Mr. Wolfe Tone, he is a friend of General Hoche and of Carnot, my fellow deputy. Tone is an extraordinary man,” Paine said. “He has no end of energy and enthusiasm, he works day and night.”

“For what cause?”

“For the liberty of Ireland. That is not my concern, but perhaps it should be yours.”

Without waiting for a reply, Paine jerked a dirty thumb over his shoulder. “There’s another Irishman at that table in the corner if you can see him through the smoke—the fellow in the green coat.”

Fitzgerald, glancing across the room, saw a very stout, athletic young man, better dressed than most of the company. His red hair was cut in a heavy fringe which came to his eyebrows and gave his thick-set features a slightly ferocious expression.

He was talking in a very voluble, self-assertive manner but there was something about his personality that seemed very vaguely familiar to Fitzgerald.

“Who is he?”

“I cannot tell you.” Paine shrugged bluntly. “He may be, for all I know, an English spy. Many of these fellows are here incognito. They lead a quite successful life in Dublin and no one knows where they go when they run over to Paris. Calls himself, I believe, Mr. Smith—that is a very convenient name usually adopted by those who do not wish their identity known.”

“If you knew me better,” said Fitzgerald, “you would find it really amusing to suppose that I might be a spy. On the contrary, I, too, risk something in being here. No doubt it is extremely imprudent of me, but I am not used to count the cost.”