Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. IX.—February, 1851.—Vol. II.

"No, no, no; I am not; I can not be, now you are here! Walter, we shall be late; we must dress to see your uncle. I am sober, indeed I am."

Fresh guests now arrived; the miserable husband locked his no less wretched wife in her room, and hastened to apologize for her unexpected illness.

Again he forgave her, and again she sinned: the greatest pang, the shame of detection, was over – the demon of drink was now ascendant. A puny wailing child was born, that child for whom the father had once so fondly hoped, but whose advent was now a fresh link in misery's chain. Even the babe paid the penalty of its mother's vice by its enfeebled frame, its neglected state; its earliest nutriment was poisoned. Rosa was soon debarred one of the holiest pleasures of maternity – her child was taken from her fever-laden breast. It became very ill; nature's voice was heard, the mother sacrificed her habits to her child. A new and celebrated physician was called in: he carefully examined the poor infant. "Strange," he said; "now, had this child been born in a less respectable sphere, I should say it was suffering from a drunken parent."

A muttered curse escaped from Walter, a cry from Rosa. The doctor looked at her more narrowly; in her watery eye and shaking hand he read the truth of his accusation. "You have killed the child, madam," he continued. "Be thankful it is your only one."

Could not that little pallid face, peeping from its shroud, the father's mighty grief, her own despair, her agony, as each toll of the funeral bell fell on her crushed brain, and seemed to repeat the physician's words – could not this check her mad career? No, all was blighted around her – she had not a hope left; she drank for oblivion.

And Walter? – alas! he now drank with her. He long struggled with his dreary discomforts at home, with the dull, companionless evenings, when his Rosa, that once highly-gifted creature, lay steeped in the coarsest Lethe, or would in wild intoxication hurl reproaches at him. He had taken the keys from her; she broke open the locks; she bribed the servants for drink; she parted from her valuables, even his books and plate, to procure the necessary stimulant; she made his disgrace and hers public. No friend could come to their house, such fearful scenes occasionally took place there: his home was blasted – drink became his solace. The wild orgies of their despair were indeed terrible: but I need not dwell on this repulsive theme; suffice it to say, Walter's affairs were now entirely neglected – he was soon irretrievably ruined.

The Lindsays made them a weekly allowance, for both were unfitted for any continuous exertion – they cumbered the earth. As soon as their pittance came in it was squandered in drink; and then they quarreled, and even fought. Rosa, the elegant, refined, graceful woman, fought with her husband for drink, and often bore evident traces of his violence. Her beauty had long since vanished; her features were red and bloated, her voice cracked, her person neglected; who would have believed that genius and high, noble, womanly feelings had once been hers! At last, in one of their furious encounters Walter struck her brutally; she fell bleeding at his feet. The sight sobered him and his cries raised their humble neighbors – (they had long since left their pleasant home, and were now in lodgings more suited to their circumstances). A crowd of screaming women filled the room, while he sat shivering in helpless imbecility.

"Ah, poor dear, her troubles are over now!" said the women. "See what you've done, you wretch! you cowardly wretch! – you've killed your poor wife; and a lady, too, as she was. But you'll hang for it, if there's justice to be had for love or money!"

The threat recalled his scattered senses: a razor lay near, its bright steel tempted him – one plunge, and all was over! A heavy fall disturbed the crowd around Rosa – her husband lay dead – a suicide.

She was slowly recovering her consciousness when the exclamations of those around told her there was still more to be dreaded; she hurriedly looked around: "Walter!" she shrieked; "my husband dead? – dead? I am unforgiven – he was angry with me – tell him to give me but one word, one look. Walter, you can not die thus!" She saw the self-inflicted wound: "Oh, God! Oh, God! I have been his bane through life: will the curse follow him to the other world?"

She is now mad, in an asylum. Thus ends the story of Rosa Lindsay. It may seem over-drawn: it is truth.

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

MAURICE TIERNAY, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE

(Continued from page 183.)

CHAPTER XXI. OUR ALLIES

I have spent pleasanter, but I greatly doubt if I ever knew busier days, than those I passed at the Bishop's Palace at Killala; and now, as I look back upon the event, I can not help wondering that we could seriously have played out a farce so full of absurdity and nonsense! There was a gross mockery of all the usages of war, which, had it not been for the serious interest at stake, would have been highly laughable and amusing.

Whether it was the important functions of civil government, the details of police regulations, the imposition of contributions, the appointment of officers, or the arming of the volunteers, all was done with a pretentious affectation of order that was extremely ludicrous. The very institutions which were laughingly agreed at over night, as the wine went briskly round, were solemnly ratified in the morning, and, still more strange, apparently believed in by those whose ingenuity devised them; and thus the "Irish Directory," as we styled the imaginary government, the National Treasury, the Pension Fund, were talked of with all the seriousness of facts! As to the Commissariat, to which I was for the time attached, we never ceased writing receipts and acknowledgments for stores and munitions of war, all of which were to be honorably acquitted by the Treasury of the Irish Republic.

No people could have better fallen in with the humor of this delusion than the Irish. They seemed to believe every thing, and yet there was a reckless, headlong indifference about them which appeared to say, that they were equally prepared for any turn fortune might take, and if the worst should happen, they would never reproach us for having misled them. The real truth was – but we only learned it too late – all those who joined us were utterly indifferent to the great cause of Irish independence; their thoughts never rose above a row and a pillage. It was to be a season of sack, plunder, and outrage, but nothing more! That such were the general sentiments of the volunteers, I believe none will dispute. We, however, in our ignorance of the people and their language, interpreted all the harum-scarum wildness we saw as the buoyant temperament of a high-spirited nation, who, after centuries of degradation and ill-usage, saw the dawning of liberty at last.

Had we possessed any real knowledge of the country, we should at once have seen, that of those who joined us none were men of any influence or station. If, now and then, a man of any name strayed into the camp, he was sure to be one whose misconduct or bad character had driven him from associating with his equals; and, even of the peasantry, our followers were of the very lowest order. Whether General Humbert was the first to notice the fact I know not; but Charost, I am certain, remarked it, and even thus early predicted the utter failure of the expedition.

I must confess the "volunteers" were the least imposing of allies! I think I have the whole scene before my eyes this moment, as I saw it each morning in the Palace-garden.

The inclosure, which, more orchard than garden, occupied a space of a couple of acres, was the head-quarters of Colonel Charost; and here, in a pavilion formerly dedicated to hoes, rakes, rolling-stones, and garden tools, we were now established to the number of fourteen. As the space beneath the roof was barely sufficient for the Colonel's personal use, the officers of his staff occupied convenient spots in the vicinity. My station was under a large damson tree, the fruit of which afforded me, more than once, the only meal I tasted from early morning till late at night; not, I must say, from any lack of provisions, for the Palace abounded with every requisite of the table, but that, such was the pressure of business, we were not able to leave off work even for half-an-hour during the day.

A subaltern's guard of grenadiers, divided into small parties, did duty in the garden; and it was striking to mark the contrast between these bronzed and war-worn figures and the reckless, tatterdemalion host around us. Never was seen such a scare-crow set! Wild-looking, ragged wretches, their long, lank hair hanging down their necks and shoulders, usually barefooted, and with every sign of starvation in their features; they stood in groups and knots, gesticulating, screaming, hurraing, and singing, in all the exuberance of a joy that caught some, at least, of its inspiration from whisky.

It was utterly vain to attempt to keep order among them; even the effort to make them defile singly through the gate into the garden was soon found impracticable, without the employment of a degree of force that our adviser, Kerrigan, pronounced would be injudicious. Not only the men made their way in, but great numbers of women, and even children also; and there they were, seated around fires, roasting their potatoes in this bivouac fashion, as though they had deserted hearth and home to follow us.

Such was the avidity to get arms – of which the distribution was announced to take place here – that several had sealed the wall in their impatience, and as they were more or less in drink, some disastrous accidents were momentarily occurring, adding the cries and exclamations of suffering to the ruder chorus of joy and revelry that went on unceasingly.

The impression – we soon saw how absurd it was – the impression that we should do nothing that might hurt the national sensibilities, but concede all to the exuberant ardor of a bold people, eager to be led against their enemies, induced us to submit to every imaginable breach of order and discipline.

"In a day or two, they'll be like your own men; you'll not know them from a battalion of the line. Those fellows will be like a wall under fire."

Such and such like were the assurances we were listening to all day, and it would have been like treason to the cause to have refused them credence.

Perhaps, I might have been longer a believer in this theory, had I not perceived signs of a deceptive character in these, our worthy allies; many who, to our faces, wore nothing but looks of gratitude and delight, no sooner mixed with their fellows than their downcast faces and dogged expression betrayed some inward sense of disappointment.

One very general source of dissatisfaction arose from the discovery, that we were not prepared to pay our allies! We had simply come to arm and lead them, to shed our own blood, and pledge our fortunes in their cause; but we certainly had brought no military chest to bribe their patriotism, nor stimulate their nationality; and this, I soon saw, was a grievous disappointment.

In virtue of this shameful omission on our part, they deemed the only resource was to be made officers, and thus crowds of uneducated, semi-civilized vagabonds were every hour assailing us with their claims to the epaulet. Of the whole number of these, I remember but three who had ever served at all; two were notorious drunkards, and the third a confirmed madman, from a scalp wound he had received when fighting against the Turks. Many, however, boasted high-sounding names, and were, at least so Kerrigan said, men of the first families in the land.

Our general-in-chief, saw little of them while at Killala, his principal intercourse being with the Bishop and his family; but Colonel Charost soon learned to read their true character, and from that moment conceived the most disastrous issue to our plans. The most trustworthy of them was a certain O'Donnel, who, although not a soldier, was remarked to possess a greater influence over the rabble volunteers than any of the others. He was a young man of the half-squire class, an ardent and sincere patriot, after his fashion; but that fashion, it must be owned, rather partook of the character of class-hatred and religious animosity than the features of a great struggle for national independence. He took a very low estimate of the fighting qualities of his countrymen, and made no secret of declaring it.

"You would be better without them altogether," said he one day to Charost; "but if you must have allies, draw them up in line, select one third of the best, and arm them."

"And the rest?" asked Charost.

"Shoot them," was the answer.

This conversation is on record, indeed I believe there is yet one witness living to corroborate it.

I have said that we were very hard worked; but I must fain acknowledge that the real amount of business done was very insignificant, so many were the mistakes, misconceptions, and interruptions, not to speak of the time lost by that system of conciliation, of which I have already made mention. In our distribution of arms there was little selection practiced or possible. The process was a brief one, but it might have been briefer.

Thomas Colooney, of Banmayroo, was called, and not usually being present, the name would be passed on, from post to post, till it swelled into a general shout of Colooney.

"Tom Colooney, you're wanted; Tom, run for it, man, there's a price bid for you! Here's Mickey, his brother, maybe he'll do as well."

And so on; all this accompanied by shouts of laughter, and a running fire of jokes, which, being in the vernacular, was lost to us.

At last the real Colooney was found, maybe eating his dinner of potatoes, maybe discussing his poteen with a friend – sometimes engaged in the domestic duties of washing his shirt or his small-clothes, fitting a new crown to his hat, or a sole to his brogues – whatever his occupation, he was urged forward by his friends, and the public, with many a push, drive, and even a kick, into our presence, where, from the turmoil, uproar, and confusion, he appeared to have fought his way by main force, and very often, indeed, this was literally the fact, as his bleeding nose, torn coat, and bare head attested.

"Thomas Colooney – are you the man?" asked one of our Irish officers of the staff.

"Yis, yer honor, I'm that same!"

"You've come here, Colooney, to offer yourself as a volunteer in the cause of your country?"

Here a yell of "Ireland for ever!" was always raised by the bystanders, which drowned the reply in its enthusiasm, and the examination went on:

"You'll be true and faithful to that cause till you secure for your country the freedom of America and the happiness of France? Kiss the cross. Are you used to fire-arms?"

"Isn't he? – maybe not! I'll be bound he knows a musket from a mealy pratie!"

Such and such like were the comments that rang on all sides, so that the modest "Yis, sir" of the patriot was completely lost.

"Load that gun, Tom," said the officer.

Here Colooney, deeming that so simple a request must necessarily be only a cover for something underhand – a little clever surprise or so – takes up the piece in a very gingerly manner, and examines it all round, noticing that there is nothing, so far as he can discover, unusual nor uncommon about it.

"Load that gun, I say."