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a St-ixsaato WOHHbihhi
YOL. I.
IN MEMORIAM—D. J, R,
nT RKT. ABEAM J. KTAN.
Thou art sleeping, Brother, sleeping
In thy lonely battle grave;
Shadows o’er the Past are creeping.
Death, the Iteaper, still is reaping,
Years have swept, and years are sweeping,
Many a memory from my keeping,
But I’m waiting still, and weeping.
For my Beautiful and Brave.
When the battle songs were chanted.
And war’s stirring tocsin pealed,
By those songs thy heart was haunted.
And thy spirit, proud, undaunted,
Clamored wildly—wildly pan bid:
•‘Mother! let my wish be granted;
I will ne’er be mocked and taunted
That I feared to meet our vaunted
Foemen on the bloody Held.”
•They are thronging, Mother, thronging
To a thousand fields of fame;
Let me go—'tis wrong and wronging
God and thru to crush this longing ;
On the moster roll of glory,
In my country’s future story,
< >n the field of battle gory,
I must consecrate my name.”
‘‘Mother, gird my sword around ms.
Kiss thy soldier-boy ‘good-bye.’ ”
In her arms sho wildly wound thee—
To thy birthiand’s cause sho bound thee—
With fond prayers and blessings crowned thee—
And she sobbed: “When foes surround thee,
If you fall, I’ll know they found thee.
Where the bravest love to die.”
At the altar of their nation,
Stood that mother and her sou;
He, the victim of oblation,
Panting for his immolation;
She, in priestess’ holy station,
Weeping words of consecration,
While God smiled his approbation,
Blessed the boy’s self-abnegation,
Cheered the mother’s desolation
When tho sacrifice was done.
Forth like many a noble other.
Went he, whispering soft and low:
“Good-byo—pray for me, my mother:
Sister! kiss me—farewell, brother;”
And he strove his grief to smother.
Forth, with footsteps firm and fearless,
And his parting gaze was tearless.
Though his heart was lone and cheerless.
Thus from all he loved to go.
I/O! yon flag of freedom flashing
In the sunny Southern sky !
On—to death and glory dashing ;
On—where swords are clanging, clashing :
On—where balls are crushing, crashing ;
On—’mid perils, dread, appalling
On—they’re falling, falling, falling ;
On—they’re growing fewer, fewer :
»>n—their hearts beat all the truer ;
On—on—on—no fear, no falter ;
On—though round the battle-altar
There were wounded victims moaning.
There were dying victims groaning ;
On—right on—death, danger braving :
Warring where their flag was waving.
And baptismal blood was laving.
With a tide of crimson water,
All that field of death and slaughter ;
On—still on—that bloody laver
Made them brave and made them braver :
On—with never a halt or waver ;
On—they're battling, bleeding, bounding.
While the glorious shout is sounding :
”We will win tho day or die.”
And they won it—routed—riven—
lieeled tho foeman's proud array ;
They had struggled long ami striven,
Blood iu torrents they had given,
But their ranks, dispersed and driven.
Fled, disgracefully, away.
Many a heart was lonely lying
There that would not throb again :
Some wore dead and some were dying ;
Some were silent—some were sighing ;
I bus to die—lone—unattended—
[ uvsept and unbefriended—
On that bloody battle plain.
When the twilight, sadly, slowly
Wrapped its mantle o’er them all!
o’er these thousands lying lowly
Hushed in silence deep and holy
There was one—his blood was llowing.
And his last of life was going—
And bis pulse faint—fainter beating
Told bis hours were few and fleeting ;
And his brow grew white and whiter.
And his eyes grew bright and brighter—
There he lay—like infant dreaming.
With his sword beside him gleaming :
For the hand in life that grasped it,
True to death—still fondly clasped it.
There his comrades found him lying
Mid the heaps of dead and dying ;
And the sternest there bent weeping
O’er that lonely sleeper sleeping.
rwas the midnight ; stars shone 'round him
In a shroud of glory bound him—
And they told us how they found him
Where the bravest love to fell.
!
Where the woods, like banners bending—
Draped in glory and in gloom—
There—when that sad night was ending.
And the faint, far dawn was blending
With the stars now fast descending—
There—they mute and mournful bore him—
With the stars and shadows o’er him—
There they laid him down, so tender ;
And the next day's sun and splendor
Hashed upon my brother’s tomb.
From the Hibernian Magazine.
ASM OF THE OLDEN TIME,
| CONCLUDED.]
Wholly occupied with his wife, Herbert
paid no attention to tho sergeant’s guard
that stood at tho tent door under arms.
When at length lie perceived them, he
flew into a frenzy of passion, asking them
how they dared stand thus in his pre
sence ?- and ended by ordering “the
caitiffs who could thus treat a woman to
get out of his sight presently.”
But the orderly remained unmoved.
Were his hands free at the moment, Her
bert would have unquestionably run him
through for presuming to disobey his or
ders, such was the irritated state of his
feelings, Bufc he could uaa leave the
shrinking, still unconscious, being that
clung to him for support. Stamping his
foot in a rage, he demanded what he
wanted, or why he remained there?
“Pris’ner, sir,” was the sergeant’s
laconic reply, as he mechanically touched
his hat.
‘ What prisoner ?”
“The woman, sir.”
“Heavens and earth 1 do you mean to
j drive me mad, man ?” and the soldier
recoiled for an instant at the voice and
look of his officer,
“Can’t help it, sir—gen’ral’s orders.
Woman came to the camp three times,
sir—supposed to be a spy, and ordered
to be hanged.”
“Hanged 1” In a second his burthen
was laid on the camp-bed, and the ser
geant laid prostrate by a blow that would
have almost felled an ox.
The guard now interposed ; and from
them he learned that the party iu question
had been several times seen to leave the
city, in defiance of Sir Hardress Waller’s
orders. Twice already she had been
flogged back, but she came out again that
day at noon, and was by the general or
ders sentenced to execution. The soldier
added that an old rebel, calling himself
her father, when he heard of the sentence,
offered himself in her stead; hut Sir
Hardress ordered him to he instantly
flogged back. “She was to have been
hanged,” he continued, “at sunset, but
she broke loose from them and ran to
ward his tent as he had seen.”
“Touch not a hair of her head, on your
peril,” exclaimed Herbert as the corporal
concluded, and kissing the pallid lips of
his wife, he rushed out of the tent to
seek the genetal, just as returning con
sciousness revealed to Eily the name of
her deliverer.
“Walter, my own dear husband. Oh !
come hack, don’t leave me,” were the last
words he heard as he flew toward the tent
of the commander-in-chief, more like a
maniac than anything else.
“By the hones of St. Pancras, he’s
either mad, or she is,” said a tall weaver
from Lambeth, who wore the badge of a
lance-corporal.
“Ay, is he, and sore wrathful to boot,”
replied his rear rank man, with a grin—
he was a butcher from Newgate. “But
w T e are the sufferers, and shall, I fear, be
late for supper. The gallows, however,
is ready to hand, thank God, and we shall
make short work of it when the captain
returns.”
I lie name of God on the lips of such a
1 nilßcr eant, and on such an occasion,
■AUGUSTS, GA., yVLPRIL 11, 1868.
makes us almost shudder. But, reader,
these were Cromwellian times, and such
were Cromwellian customs.
Herbert found Ireton and his second in
command seated at the supper table—and
hell could not have unchained two such
incarnate demons on that same evening.
The object ol his visit was soon explained.
But it seemed only to supply subject of
mirth to his superior officers.
“Pooh, pooh! man,” said the eom
mander-in-chief, “you are, I fear, grown
quite a papist, too soft-hearted entirely.
I wonder how you would act had you
been at the battue in Drogheda or Wex
ford ?” and Ireton sipped his hock with a
devilish leer.
“But, general, she is my wife,” gasped
Herbert.
% “Folly, man !” rejoined Waller ; “no
faith to be kept with heretics, you know,
and all these Irish are such. You will
easily find another, I trow you, when we
sack the city one of these fine days.”
Herbert heeded not the coarse jest of
the speaker, but, turning to the general,
implored him to turn a serious ear to a
matter on which the happiness of his life
depended. But Ireton seemed inclined
to laugh it off as an excellent joke.
Driven to desperation, the brave soldier,
who never before feared or supplicated
any man, sank on his knees, and, with
tears of agony, besought him to cancel
Waller s iniquitous sentence, lie even
asked him to do so in memory of the act
by which, at the risk of his own life, he
saved his at Naseby. And Ireton seem
ed almost inclined to relent, and hope be
gan to brighten in the heart of the sup
pliant, when a whisper from Waller to
the general blasted them forever. He
had himself iu person given the order for
execution, and his callous heart was too
obdurate to feel compunction even for a
bad act. Summoning an orderly, he
gave him some instructions in an under
tone ; and Herbert was directed by his
commander-in-chief to make his report
of the progress of the trenches under his
command in the King’s Island. This was
but a feint to turn his attention from the
main object of his visit. Ilis report was,
however, quickly made, and as there was
no other pretext for detaining him, he
arose to depart. There was something
more than fiendish in the laugh of Hard
ress Waller as he wished him safe home,
and a good night/s rest.
That night, a heart-broken man knelt
beneath the gibbet erected on the green
sward in front of King John’s castle.
For him all earthly happiness was now
over ; and there, in the presence of the
pale moon that looked silently on his
sorrow, that cold October night, he vowed
eternal fealty to his wife in heaven, eter
nal hatred to her murderers. There was
a strange admixture of reverence and irre
ligion, ot love and hatred, in his feelings
and sentiments, no doubt; hut the camp
ot Cromwell was but an indifferent school
for the culture of Christian ethics. Be
sides, his brain was, for the time, astray
from sonow and outraged feeling; he
followed but the dictates of human pas
sion, unrestrained by either reason or re
ligion. ILs heart and his hopes were al
ready buried in tho grave that was soon
to close over the remains of his first and
only love ; and, from that night out,
though his life was a long and a chequer
ed one, he was never known to smile, till
he became an inmate of the monastery
where wo found him at the commence
ment of our narrative.
The remainder of the siege wasa blank
chapter in his life. By nature a soldier,
he got through his duties fearlessly, but
mechanically, without the slightest feeling
of interest in any enterprise in which he
had a share. To him defeat or victory
was a matter of utter indifference ; and it
was in this mood he entered the fallen
city, as the sun was sinking, on the 27th
of October, IGol, and took up his quar
ters with Ireton, in the old Dutch-gabled
house which is still standing, and adjoins
the Tholsel in Mary street. It is more
than probable that his reason would have
altogether succumbed beneath the terri
ble shock it had sustained, were it not for
some new incidents that now occurred
to awaken it for a time to activity.
By sunrise, on the 29th, the Cromwel
lian garrison beat to arms. It was the
signal for the assemblage of the Irish
troops in the old cathedral of St. Mary’s,
where, in accordance with the third article
of capitulation, they were to lay down
their arms. It was not Fennelfs fault
that they escaped the fate of the soldiers
and women of Drogheda and Wexford.
He had done his work of treachery well;
and we cannot venture to say what his
feelings were when he beheld his brave
hut ill-fat eel countrymen assembled round
the altar to deposit at its rails tho weapons
they had so long and so gallantv wielded
in the cause of one who was afterwards to
despoil their children of their lawful
heritage, and sanction its appropriation by
the murderers of his father. Ah ! no
Irishman can ever forget the ingratitude
of the second Charles. But Walter Her
bert thought little of the ceremony gone
through that morning in the old church
of the O’Briens till all was over. As the
disarmed garrison marched down the
long aisle of the cathedral many of them
dropped dead—it might have been of
the plague, or it might have been of a
luoken Heart. Among uic ocaa were
two whose faces Ire had net looked on for
years—Terence and Donat O’Brien, his
wife’s brothers. The sight awakened a
new thought within him—that of his
child whom he had not yet seen—and but
few’ moments elapsed ere he was standing
in front of the old corner-house opposite
the church of St. Nicholas. But its ap
pearance was sadly changed since last
he saw it. Galde and chimney bore
evident marks of the enemy’s cannon,
while all around wore an air of desolation
and sorrow. He looked up into one well
remembered window, but no fragrant
geraniums were now there, as of old ; no
lark carolled the cheering song he so often
listened to, with pleasure, some nine
years before; balcony, and shutter, and
curtain had disappeared. The whole
house seemed in mourning. Even his
knock rang through the house as through
a sepulchre—so he thought Twice he
repeated it; and, at length, an aged head
peered cautiously through a dormer win
dow, and asked who was there. Ilis an
swer quickly brought down the old do
mestic ; but a flood of tears was her only
welcome, as she opened the door and ad
mitted him. She had been the nurse of
Eily and her brothers in childhood, and
partly his own in sickness; and was now
the survivor of all her old heart loved ;
of all, save one, a blue-eyed, curly-headed
hoy, who now hid behind her, evidently
scared at the presence of a visitor in that
desolate dwelling. A few words of
greeting on the part of old Winny or
Winifred assured him that he was known
and welcome ; and a few words of fond
ness addressed to the child soon restored
his confidence. He was even, ere long,
seated contentedly on his father’s knee,
playing with his sword-buckle—for that
fair-headed, blue-eyed hoy was the only
child of Eily O’Brien and Walter Her
bert. And as lie gazed with pride on his
beautiful hoy, new hope and anew sense
of duty sprang up within him. He felt
that there was even yet something to live
for. To protect that half-orphan child
and his sorrowing grandsire would from
that moment he the sole duty of his life,
the sole solace of existence; and to this
he pledged himself in Eily’s little room,
to which he ascended with his youthful
companion, who, at his nurse’s bidding,
now called him father, and twined his
little hands round his neck as he kissed
him. The sudden roll of drums at length
announced to him that it was time to de
part, and, fondly embracing his child once
more, he hurried out of the house. He
would never have left it did he then hut
know that in so doing he was bidding his
boy farewell for ever.
The beating to arms announced the
commencement of the mock trial of two
dozen individuals, whom Ireton had
already virtually sentenced to death, by
excluding them trom the protection guar
anteed to the remaining citizens in the
terms of capitulation. How readily would
Herbert have saved every one of them,
but his vote was only effective in one case,
that of the gallant Hugh O’Neil, the
city governor. The rest were condemned,
by a majority, to die; and it was not
without a tear lie beheld that long file of
brave and resolute men led forth to the
scaffold. Driest and layman, soldier and
citizen, were alike sacrificed, and for no
crime save that of loving and defending
their native land. And what English
man, thought he, would not readily
bo guilty of the same offence ? All
passed silently from the death-chamber;
all, save one, a venerable man, who, with
bather Woulfe, was arrested in the
lazar-house while administering the last
sacraments of the Church to its plague
stricken inmates, soon to lie deprived of
all spiritual ministry. Herbert thought
he recognized him, as he stood erect and
fearless in the council-hall, and hand
pointed toward heaven, summoning Ireton
to meet him, ere a month, at its judgment
bar. He had certainly seen him before,
l\nf dviaoprul pAi*p(A f ri r\ *4 nnt i qq
now, in purple. Nay, if he remembered
rightly, lie had beeu Eily’s confessor, and,
with the parish clergyman’s permission,
had married them privately iu the church
of St. Saviour, having first obtained a
promise, freely granted by Herbert, that
the children of that union, if such there
were, should be brought up in the religion
of the mother. What would he not have
done to preserve the life of that venera
ble, heavenly-looking man! The last of
Ircton’s victims was one whose presence
among the condemned he witnessed with
astonishment. He had seen him closeted
for hours with that same Ireton; and
knew him to have been promised lands
aud money for certain services to he ren
dered to the general. But treachery was
met with treachery; and Fennell, tho
traitor, ended his days on the same scaf
fold with Terence O’Brien, the bishop
and martyr.
The last guard wa9 relieved on the day
of execution—it was the eve of All-llal
lows—and the clock of the town-hall was
just chiming midnight as Herbert, who
was the officer of the night, commenced
his rounds. As he passed along, in
silence and alone, by the Dean’s Close,
on his way to the castle barracks, he was
suddenly stopped, at the head of an arch
ed passage, over which an oil lamp feebly
flickered, by an individual closely wrapped
up in a large, dark frieze over-coat. To
draw his sword was his first impulse; hut
a single glance at that wan face, whose
gaze was sadly fixed upon him, changed
Ins purpose in an instant. And, though
armed to the teeth, he trembled in pre
sence of that defenceless old man, and
stood in silence before him.
“Don’t you know me, Walter ?” said
the stranger.
“Alas! too well,” was his reply. “But
can l hope that you will ever forgive
me V *
“My creed toils me to forgive even my
enemies—but I believe you never meant
to he such”—and the old man extended
his hand to Herbert
They stood alone—with no eye upon
them save that of the all-seeing One, and,
in his presence, Walter tell on his knees,
protesting his purity of intention, and
asking the old man’s blessing. And
Conner O’Brien, for it was he, with head
uncovered, blessed the stranger for the
first time, and, raising him up, clasped
him to his bosom as his son—the husband
of his darling Eily, now sleeping with her
mother in Killely.
Herbert was about to respond, with a
No. 4.