The ''Genius''

Chapter 16

"As I say," went on M. Charles, noting the address on Eugene"s card, "the opportunity for exhibition purposes is very limited and our charge is rather high. We have so many things we would like to exhibit--so many things we must exhibit. It is hard to say when the situation would permit--If you are interested I might come and see them sometime."

Eugene looked perturbed. Two hundred dollars! Two hundred dollars! Could he afford it? It would mean so much to him. And yet the man was not at all anxious to rent him the show room even at this price.

"I will come," said M. Charles, seeing his mood, "if you wish. That is what you want me to do. We have to be careful of what we exhibit here. It isn"t as if it were an ordinary show room. I will drop you a card some day when occasion offers, if you wish, and you can let me know whether the time I suggest is all right. I am rather anxious to see these scenes of yours. They are very good of their kind. It may be--one never can tell--an opportunity might offer--a week or ten days, somewhere in between other things."

Eugene sighed inwardly. So this was how these things were done. It wasn"t very flattering. Still, he must have an exhibition. He could afford two hundred if he had to. An exhibition elsewhere would not be so valuable. He had expected to make a better impression than this.

"I wish you would come," he said at last meditatively. "I think I should like the s.p.a.ce if I can get it. I would like to know what you think."

M. Charles raised his eyebrows.

"Very well," he said, "I will communicate with you."

Eugene went out.

What a poor thing this exhibiting business was, he thought. Here he had been dreaming of an exhibition at Kellners which should be brought about without charge to him because they were tremendously impressed with his work. Now they did not even want his pictures--would charge him two hundred dollars to show them. It was a great come down--very discouraging.

Still he went home thinking it would do him some good. The critics would discuss his work just as they did that of other artists. They would have to see what he could do should it be that at last this thing which he had dreamed of and so deliberately planned had come true. He had thought of an exhibition at Kellner"s as the last joyous thing to be attained in the world of rising art and now it looked as though he was near it. It might actually be coming to pa.s.s. This man wanted to see the rest of his work. He was not opposed to looking at them. What a triumph even that was!

CHAPTER VI.

It was some little time before M. Charles condescended to write saying that if it was agreeable he would call Wednesday morning, January 16th, at 10 A. M., but the letter finally did come and this dispelled all his intermediary doubts and fears. At last he was to have a hearing! This man might see something in his work, possibly take a fancy to it. Who could tell? He showed the letter to Angela with an easy air as though it were quite a matter of course, but he felt intensely hopeful.

Angela put the studio in perfect order for she knew what this visit meant to Eugene, and in her eager, faithful way was anxious to help him as much as possible. She bought flowers from the Italian florist at the corner and put them in vases here and there. She swept and dusted, dressed herself immaculately in her most becoming house dress and waited with nerves at high tension for the fateful ring of the door bell. Eugene pretended to work at one of his pictures which he had done long before--the raw jangling wall of an East Side street with its swarms of children, its shabby push-carts, its ma.s.s of eager, shuffling, pushing mortals, the sense of rugged ground life running all through it, but he had no heart for the work. He was asking himself over and over what M. Charles would think. Thank heaven this studio looked so charming! Thank heaven Angela was so dainty in her pale green gown with a single red coral pin at her throat. He walked to the window and stared out at Washington Square, with its bare, wind-shaken branches of trees, its snow, its ant-like pedestrians hurrying here and there. If he were only rich--how peacefully he would paint! M. Charles could go to the devil.

The door bell rang.

Angela clicked a b.u.t.ton and up came M. Charles quietly. They could hear his steps in the hall. He knocked and Eugene answered, decidedly nervous in his mind, but outwardly calm and dignified. M. Charles entered, clad in a fur-lined overcoat, fur cap and yellow chamois gloves.

"Ah, good morning!" said M. Charles in greeting. "A fine bracing day, isn"t it? What a charming view you have here. Mrs. Witla! I"m delighted to meet you. I am a little late but I was unavoidably detained. One of our German a.s.sociates is in the city."

He divested himself of his great coat and rubbed his hands before the fire. He tried, now that he had unbent so far, to be genial and considerate. If he and Eugene were to do any business in the future it must be so. Besides the picture on the easel before him, near the window, which for the time being he pretended not to see, was an astonishingly virile thing. Of whose work did it remind him--anybody"s? He confessed to himself as he stirred around among his numerous art memories that he recalled nothing exactly like it. Raw reds, raw greens, dirty grey paving stones--such faces! Why this thing fairly shouted its facts. It seemed to say: "I"m dirty, I am commonplace, I am grim, I am shabby, but I am life." And there was no apologizing for anything in it, no glossing anything over. Bang! Smash! Crack! came the facts one after another, with a bitter, brutal insistence on their so-ness. Why, on moody days when he had felt sour and depressed he had seen somewhere a street that looked like this, and there it was--dirty, sad, slovenly, immoral, drunken--anything, everything, but here it was. "Thank G.o.d for a realist," he said to himself as he looked, for he knew life, this cold connoisseur; but he made no sign. He looked at the tall, slim frame of Eugene, his cheeks slightly sunken, his eyes bright--an artist every inch of him, and then at Angela, small, eager, a sweet, loving, little woman, and he was glad that he was going to be able to say that he would exhibit these things.

"Well," he said, pretending to look at the picture on the easel for the first time, "we might as well begin to look at these things. I see you have one here. Very good, I think, quite forceful. What others have you?"

Eugene was afraid this one hadn"t appealed to him as much as he hoped it would, and set it aside quickly, picking up the second in the stock which stood against the wall, covered by a green curtain. It was the three engines entering the great freight yard abreast, the smoke of the engines towering straight up like tall whitish-grey plumes, in the damp, cold air, the sky lowering with blackish-grey clouds, the red and yellow and blue cars standing out in the sodden darkness because of the water. You could feel the cold, wet drizzle, the soppy tracks, the weariness of "throwing switches." There was a lone brakeman in the foreground, "throwing" a red brake signal. He was quite black and evidently wet.

"A symphony in grey," said M. Charles succinctly.

They came swiftly after this, without much comment from either, Eugene putting one canvas after another before him, leaving it for a few moments and replacing it with another. His estimate of his own work did not rise very rapidly, for M. Charles was persistently distant, but the latter could not help voicing approval of "After The Theatre," a painting full of the wonder and bustle of a night crowd under sputtering electric lamps. He saw that Eugene had covered almost every phase of what might be called the dramatic spectacle in the public life of the city and much that did not appear dramatic until he touched it--the empty canyon of Broadway at three o"clock in the morning; a long line of giant milk wagons, swinging curious lanterns, coming up from the docks at four o"clock in the morning; a plunging parade of fire vehicles, the engines steaming smoke, the people running or staring open-mouthed; a crowd of polite society figures emerging from the opera; the bread line; an Italian boy throwing pigeons in the air from a basket on his arm in a crowded lower West-side street. Everything he touched seemed to have romance and beauty, and yet it was real and mostly grim and shabby.

"I congratulate you, Mr. Witla," finally exclaimed M. Charles, moved by the ability of the man and feeling that caution was no longer necessary. "To me this is wonderful material, much more effective than the reproductions show, dramatic and true. I question whether you will make any money out of it. There is very little sale for American art in this country. It might almost do better in Europe. It ought to sell, but that is another matter. The best things do not always sell readily. It takes time. Still I will do what I can. I will give these pictures a two weeks" display early in April without any charge to you whatever." (Eugene started.) "I will call them to the attention of those who know. I will speak to those who buy. It is an honor, I a.s.sure you, to do this. I consider you an artist in every sense of the word--I might say a great artist. You ought, if you preserve yourself sanely and with caution, to go far, very far. I shall be glad to send for these when the time comes."

Eugene did not know how to reply to this. He did not quite understand the European seriousness of method, its appreciation of genius, which was thus so easily and sincerely expressed in a formal way. M. Charles meant every word he said. This was one of those rare and gratifying moments of his life when he was permitted to extend to waiting and unrecognized genius the a.s.surance of the consideration and approval of the world. He stood there waiting to hear what Eugene would say, but the latter only flushed under his pale skin.

"I"m very glad," he said at last, in his rather commonplace, off-hand, American way. "I thought they were pretty good but I wasn"t sure. I"m very grateful to you."

"You need not feel grat.i.tude toward me," returned M. Charles, now modifying his formal manner. "You can congratulate yourself--your art. I am honored, as I tell you. We will make a fine display of them. You have no frames for these? Well, never mind, I will lend you frames."

He smiled and shook Eugene"s hand and congratulated Angela. She had listened to this address with astonishment and swelling pride. She had perceived, despite Eugene"s manner, the anxiety he was feeling, the intense hopes he was building on the outcome of this meeting. M. Charles" opening manner had deceived her. She had felt that he did not care so much after all, and that Eugene was going to be disappointed. Now, when this burst of approval came, she hardly knew what to make of it. She looked at Eugene and saw that he was intensely moved by not only a sense of relief, but pride and joy. His pale, dark face showed it. To see this load of care taken off him whom she loved so deeply was enough to unsettle Angela. She found herself stirred in a pathetic way and now, when M. Charles turned to her, tears welled to her eyes.

"Don"t cry, Mrs. Witla," he said grandly on seeing this. "You have a right to be proud of your husband. He is a great artist. You should take care of him."

"Oh, I"m so happy," half-laughed and half-sobbed Angela, "I can"t help it."

She went over to where Eugene was and put her face against his coat. Eugene slipped his arm about her and smiled sympathetically. M. Charles smiled also, proud of the effect of his words. "You both have a right to feel very happy," he said.

"Little Angela!" thought Eugene. This was your true wife for you, your good woman. Her husband"s success meant all to her. She had no life of her own--nothing outside of him and his good fortune.

M. Charles smiled. "Well, I will be going now," he said finally. "I will send for the pictures when the time comes. And meanwhile you two must come with me to dinner. I will let you know."

He bowed himself out with many a.s.surances of good will, and then Angela and Eugene looked at each other.

"Oh, isn"t it lovely, Honeybun," she cried, half giggling, half crying. (She had begun to call him Honeybun the first day they were married.) "My Eugene a great artist. He said it was a great honor! Isn"t that lovely? And all the world is going to know it soon, now. Isn"t that fine! Oh dear, I"m so proud." And she threw her arms ecstatically about his neck.

Eugene kissed her affectionately. He was not thinking so much of her though as he was of Kellner and Son--their great exhibit room, the appearance of these twenty-seven or thirty great pictures in gold frames; the spectators who might come to see; the newspaper criticisms; the voices of approval. Now all his artist friends would know that he was considered a great artist; he was to have a chance to a.s.sociate on equal terms with men like Sargent and Whistler if he ever met them. The world would hear of him widely. His fame might go to the uttermost parts of the earth.

He went to the window after a time and looked out. There came back to his mind Alexandria, the printing shop, the Peoples" Furniture Company in Chicago, the Art Students League, the Daily Globe. Surely he had come by devious paths.

"Gee!" he exclaimed at last simply. "Smite and MacHugh"ll be glad to hear this. I"ll have to go over and tell them."

CHAPTER VII.

The exhibition which followed in April was one of those things which happen to fortunate souls--a complete flowering out before the eyes of the world of its feelings, emotions, perceptions, and understanding. We all have our feelings and emotions, but lack the power of self-expression. It is true, the work and actions of any man are to some degree expressions of character, but this is a different thing. The details of most lives are not held up for public examination at any given time. We do not see succinctly in any given place just what an individual thinks and feels. Even the artist is not always or often given the opportunity of collected public expression under conspicuous artistic auspices. Some are so fortunate--many are not. Eugene realized that fortune was showering its favors upon him.

When the time came, M. Charles was so kind as to send for the pictures and to arrange all the details. He had decided with Eugene that because of the vigor of treatment and the prevailing color scheme black frames would be the best. The princ.i.p.al exhibition room on the ground floor in which these paintings were to be hung was heavily draped in red velvet and against this background the different pictures stood out effectively. Eugene visited the show room at the time the pictures were being hung, with Angela, with Smite and MacHugh, Shotmeyer and others. He had long since notified Norma Whitmore and Miriam Finch, but not the latter until after Wheeler had had time to tell her. This also chagrined her, for she felt in this as she had about his marriage, that he was purposely neglecting her.

The dream finally materialized--a room eighteen by forty, hung with dark red velvet, irradiated with a soft, illuminating glow from hidden lamps in which Eugene"s pictures stood forth in all their rawness and reality--almost as vigorous as life itself. To some people, those who do not see life clearly and directly, but only through other people"s eyes, they seemed more so.

For this reason Eugene"s exhibition of pictures was an astonishing thing to most of those who saw it. It concerned phases of life which in the main they had but casually glanced at, things which because they were commonplace and customary were supposedly beyond the pale of artistic significance. One picture in particular, a great hulking, ungainly negro, a positively animal man, his ears thick and projecting, his lips fat, his nose flat, his cheek bones prominent, his whole body expressing brute strength and animal indifference to dirt and cold, ill.u.s.trated this point particularly. He was standing in a cheap, commonplace East Side street. The time evidently was a January or February morning. His business was driving an ash cart, and his occupation at the moment ill.u.s.trated by the picture was that of lifting a great can of mixed ashes, paper and garbage to the edge of the ungainly iron wagon. His hands were immense and were covered with great red patched woolen and leather gloves--dirty, bulbous, inconvenient, one would have said. His head and ears were swaddled about by a red flannel shawl or strip of cloth which was knotted under his pugnacious chin, and his forehead, shawl and all, surmounted by a brown canvas cap with his badge and number as a garbage driver on it. About his waist was tied a great piece of rough coffee sacking and his arms and legs looked as though he might have on two or three pairs of trousers and as many vests. He was looking purblindly down the shabby street, its hard crisp snow littered with tin cans, paper, bits of slop and offal. Dust--gray ash dust, was flying from his upturned can. In the distance behind him was a milk wagon, a few pedestrians, a little thinly clad girl coming out of a delicatessen store. Over head were dull small-paned windows, some shutters with a few of their slats broken out, a frowsy headed man looking out evidently to see whether the day was cold.

Eugene was so cruel in his indictment of life. He seemed to lay on his details with bitter lack of consideration. Like a slavedriver lashing a slave he spared no least shade of his cutting brush. "Thus, and thus and thus" (he seemed to say) "is it." "What do you think of this? and this? and this?"

People came and stared. Young society matrons, art dealers, art critics, the literary element who were interested in art, some musicians, and, because the newspapers made especial mention of it, quite a number of those who run wherever they imagine there is something interesting to see. It was quite a notable two weeks" display. Miriam Finch (though she never admitted to Eugene that she had seen it--she would not give him that satisfaction) Norma Whitmore, William McConnell, Louis Deesa, Owen Overman, Paynter Stone, the whole ruck and rabble of literary and artistic life, came. There were artists of great ability there whom Eugene had never seen before. It would have pleased him immensely if he had chanced to see several of the city"s most distinguished social leaders looking, at one time and another, at his pictures. All his observers were astonished at his virility, curious as to his personality, curious as to what motive, or significance, or point of view it might have. The more eclectically cultured turned to the newspapers to see what the art critics would say of this--how they would label it. Because of the force of the work, the dignity and critical judgment of Kellner and Son, the fact that the public of its own instinct and volition was interested, most of the criticisms were favorable. One art publication, connected with and representative of the conservative tendencies of a great publishing house, denied the merit of the collection as a whole, ridiculed the artist"s insistence on shabby details as having artistic merit, denied that he could draw accurately, denied that he was a lover of pure beauty, and accused him of having no higher ideal than that of desire to shock the current ma.s.s by painting brutal things brutally.

"Mr. Witla," wrote this critic, "would no doubt be flattered if he were referred to as an American Millet. The brutal exaggeration of that painter"s art would probably testify to him of his own merit. He is mistaken. The great Frenchman w{rtf1macansicpg10000cocoartf824cocoasubrtf480 {fonttblf0fromanfcha.r.s.et77 Times-Roman;f1fromanfcha.r.s.et77 Times-Bold;f2fromanfcha.r.s.et77 Times-Italic; } {colortbl;red255green255blue255;red0green0blue238;} {info {t.i.tle The Dock and the Scaffold} {doccomm A free download from manybooks.net} {author Unknown} {*company manybooks.net}}deftab720 pardpardeftab720qlqnatural f0fs37fsmilli18750 cf0 pardpardeftab720sa400qlqnatural f1bfs75 cf0 The Dock and the Scaffold, by Unknown pardpardeftab720sa140qlqnatural f0b0fs37fsmilli18750 cf0 pardpardeftab720sa300qlqnatural cf0 The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Dock and the Scaffold, by Unknown This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net pardpardeftab720sa140qlqnatural cf0 pardpardeftab720sa300qlqnatural cf0 t.i.tle: The Dock and the Scaffold Author: Unknown Release Date: July 20, 2004 [eBook #12961] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOCK AND THE SCAFFOLD*** E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, William Flis, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team pardpardeftab720sa140qlqnatural cf0 pardpardeftab720sa300qlqnatural cf0 Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original ill.u.s.trations. See 12961-h.htm or 12961-h.zip: ( or ( pardpardeftab720sa140qlqnatural cf0 pardpardeftab720sa300qlqnatural cf0 THE DOCK AND THE SCAFFOLD The Manchester Tragedy and the Cruise of the Jacknell pardpardeftab720sa140qlqnatural cf0 pardpardeftab720sa300qlqnatural cf0 [Ill.u.s.tration: THE "ERIN"S HOPE" SALUTING THE GREEN FLAG.] pardpardeftab720sa140qlqnatural cf0 pardpardeftab720sa300qlqnatural cf0 "G.o.d SAVE IRELAND." "Far dearer the grave or the prison Illum"d by one patriot"s name, Than the trophies of all who have risen On liberty"s ruins to fame." MOORE pardpardeftab720sa140qlqnatural cf0 pardpardeftab720sa300qlqnatural cf0 The 23rd day of November, 1867, witnessed a strange and memorable scene in the great English city of Manchester. Long ere the grey winter"s morning struggled in through the crisp frosty air--long ere the first gleam of the coming day dulled the glare of the flaming gas jets, the streets of the Lancashire capital were all astir with bustling crowds, and the silence of the night was broken by the ceaseless footfalls and the voices of hurrying throngs. Through the long, dim streets, and past the tall rows of silent houses, the full tide of life eddied and poured in rapid current; stout burghers, closely m.u.f.fled and staff in hand; children grown prematurely old, with the hard marks of vice already branded on their features; young girls with flaunting ribbons and bold, flushed faces; pale-faced operatives, and strong men whose brawny limbs told of the t.i.tanic labours of the foundry; the clerk from his desk; the shopkeeper from his store; the withered crone, and the careless navvy, swayed and struggled through the living ma.s.s; and with them trooped the legions of want, and vice, and ignorance, that burrow and fester in the foetid lanes and purlieus of the large British cities: from the dark alleys where misery and degradation for ever dwell, and from reeking cellars and nameless haunts, where the twin demons of alcohol and crime rule supreme; from the gin-palace, and the beer-shop, and the midnight haunts of the tramp and the burglar, they came in all their repulsiveness and debas.e.m.e.nt, with the rags of wretchedness upon their backs, and the cries of profanity and obscenity upon their lips. Forward they rushed in a surging flood through many a street and byway, until where the narrowing thoroughfares open into the s.p.a.ce surrounding the New Bailey Prison, in that suburb of the great city known as the Borough of Salford, they found their further progress arrested. Between them and the ma.s.sive prison walls rose piles of heavy barricading, and the intervening s.p.a.ce was black with a dense body of men, all of whom faced the gloomy building beyond, and each of whom carried a special constable"s baton in his hand. The long railway bridge running close by was occupied by a detachment of infantry, and from the parapet of the frowning walls the muzzle of cannon, trained on the s.p.a.ce below, might be dimly discerned in the darkness. But the crowd paid little attention to these extraordinary appearances; their eyes were riveted on the black projection which jutted from the prison wall, and which, shrouded in dark drapery, loomed with ghastly significance through the haze. Rising above the scaffold, which replaced a portion of the prison wall, the outlines of a gibbet were descried; and from the cross-beam there hung three ropes, terminating in nooses, just perceptible above the upper edge of the curtain which extended thence to the ground. The grim excrescence seemed to possess a horrible fascination for the mult.i.tude. Those in position to see it best stirred not from their post, but faced the fatal cross-tree, the motionless ropes, the empty platform, with an untiring, insatiable gaze, that seemed pregnant with some terrible meaning, while the mob behind them struggled, and pushed, and raved, and fought; and the haggard hundreds of gaunt, diseased, stricken wretches, that vainly contested with the stronger types of ruffianism for a place, loaded the air with their blasphemies and imprecations. The day broke slowly and doubtfully upon the scene; a dense yellow, murky fog floated round the spot, wrapping in its opaque folds the hideous gallows and the frowning ma.s.s of masonry behind. An hour pa.s.sed, and then a hoa.r.s.e murmur swelled upwards from the glistening rows of upturned faces. The platform was no longer empty; three pinioned men, with white caps drawn closely over their faces, were standing upon the drop. For a moment the crowd was awed into stillness; for a moment the responses, "Christ, have mercy on us," "Christ, have mercy on us," were heard from the lips of the doomed men, towards whom the sea of faces were turned. Then came a dull crash, and the mob swayed backwards for an instant. The drop had fallen, and the victims were struggling in the throes of a horrible death. The ropes jerked and swayed with the convulsive movements of the dying men. A minute later, and the vibrations ceased--the end had come, the swaying limbs fell rigid and stark, and the souls of the strangled men had floated upwards from the cursed spot--up from the hateful crowd and the sin-laden atmosphere--to the throne of the G.o.d who made them. So perished, in the bloom of manhood, and the flower of their strength, three gallant sons of Ireland--so pa.s.sed away the last of the martyred band whose blood has sanctified the cause of Irish freedom. Far from the friends whom they loved, far from the land for which they suffered, with the scarlet-clad hirelings of England around them, and watched by the wolfish eyes of a brutal mob, who thirsted to see them die, the dauntless patriots, who, in our own day, have rivalled the heroism and shared the fate of Tone, Emmett, and Fitzgerald, looked their last upon the world. No prayer was breathed for their parting souls--no eye was moistened with regret amongst the mult.i.tude that stretched away in compact bodies from the foot of the gallows; the ribald laugh and the blasphemous oath united with their dying breath; and, callously as the Roman mob from the blood-stained amphitheatre, the English ma.s.ses turned homewards from the fatal spot. But they did not fall unhonoured or unwept. In the churches of the faithful in that same city, the sobs of mournful lamentation were mingled with the solemn prayers for their eternal rest, and, from thousands of wailing women and stricken-hearted men, the prayers for mercy, peace, and pardon, for the souls of MICHAEL O"BRIEN, WILLIAM PHILIP ALLEN, and MICHAEL LARKIN, rose upwards to the avenging G.o.d. Still less were they forgotten at home. Throughout the Irish land, from Antrim"s rocky coast to the foam-beaten headlands of Cork, the hearts of their countrymen were convulsed with pa.s.sionate grief and indignation, and, blended with the sharp cry of agony that broke from the nation"s lips, came the murmurs of defiant hatred, and the pledges of a bitter vengeance. Never, for generations, had the minds of the Irish people been more profoundly agitated--never had they writhed in such bitterness and agony of soul. With knitted brows and burning cheeks, the tidings of the b.l.o.o.d.y deed were listened to. The names of the martyred men were upon every lip, and the story of their heroism and tragic death was read with throbbing pulse and kindling eyes by every fireside in the land. It is to a.s.sist in perpetuating that story, and in recording for future generations the narrative which tells of how Allen, O"Brien, and Larkin died, that this narrative is written, and few outside the nation whose hands are red with their blood, will deny that at least so much recognition is due to their courage, their patriotism, and their fidelity. In Ireland we know it will be welcomed; amongst a people by whom chivalry and patriotism are honoured, a story so touching and so en.o.bling will not be despised; and the race which guards with reverence and devotion the memories of Tone, and Emmett, and the Shea.r.s.es, will not soon surrender to oblivion the memory of the three true-hearted patriots, who, heedless of the scowling mob, unawed by the hangman"s grasp, died bravely that Sat.u.r.day morning at Manchester, for the good old cause of Ireland. Early before daybreak on the morning of November 11th, 1867, the policemen on duty in Oak-street, Manchester, noticed four broad-shouldered, muscular men loitering in a suspicious manner about the shop of a clothes dealer in the neighbourhood. Some remarks dropped by one of the party reaching the ears of the policemen, strengthened their impression that an illegal enterprise was on foot, and the arrest of the supposed burglars was resolved on. A struggle ensued, during which two of the suspects succeeded in escaping, but the remaining pair, after offering a determined resistance, were overpowered and carried off to the police station. The prisoners, who, on being searched, were found to possess loaded revolvers on their persons, gave their names as Martin Williams and John Whyte, and were charged under the Vagrancy Act before one of the city magistrates. They declared themselves American citizens, and claimed their discharge. Williams said he was a bookbinder out of work; Whyte described himself as a hatter, living on the means brought with him from America. The magistrate was about disposing summarily of the case, by sentencing the men to a few days" imprisonment, when a detective officer applied for a remand, on the ground that he had reason to believe the prisoners were connected with the Fenian conspiracy. The application was granted, and before many hours had elapsed it was ascertained that Martin Williams was no other than Colonel Thomas J. Kelly, one of the most prominent of the (O"Mahony-Stephens) Fenian leaders, and that John Whyte was a brother officer and co-conspirator, known to the circles of the Fenian Brotherhood as Captain Deasey. Of the men who had thus fallen into the clutches of the British government the public had already heard much, and one of them was widely known for the persistency with which he laboured as an organiser of Fenianism, and the daring and skill which he exhibited in the pursuit of his dangerous undertaking. Long before the escape of James Stephens from Richmond Bridewell startled the government from its visions of security, and swelled the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of their disaffected subjects in Ireland with rekindled hopes, Colonel Kelly was known in the Fenian ranks as an intimate a.s.sociate of the revolutionary chief. When the arrest at Fairfield-house deprived the organization of its crafty leader, Kelly was elected to the vacant post, and he threw himself into the work with all the reckless energy of his nature. If he could not be said to possess the mental ability or administrative capacity essential to the office, he was at least gifted with a variety of other qualifications well calculated to recommend him to popularity amongst the desperate men with whom he was a.s.sociated. Nor did he prove altogether unworthy of the confidence reposed in him. It is now pretty well known that the successful plot for the liberation of James Stephens was executed under the personal supervision of Colonel Kelly, and that he was one of the group of friends who grasped the hand of the Head Centre within the gates of Eichmond Prison on that night in November, "65, when the doors of his dungeon were thrown open. Kelly fled with Stephens to Paris, and thence to America, where he remained attached to the section of the Brotherhood which recognised the authority and obeyed the mandates of the "C.O.I.R." But the time came when even Colonel Kelly and his party discovered that Stephens was unworthy of their confidence. The chief whom they had so long trusted, and whose oath to fight on Irish soil before January, "67, they had seen so unblushingly violated, was deposed by the last section of his adherents, and Colonel Kelly was elected "Deputy Central Organiser of the Irish Republic," on the distinct understanding that he was to follow out the policy which Stephens had shrunk from pursuing. Kelly accepted the post, and devoted himself earnestly to the work. In America he met with comparatively little co-operation; the bulk of the Irish Nationalists in that country had long ranged themselves under the leadership of Colonel W.R. Roberts, an Irish gentleman of character and integrity, who became the President of the reconst.i.tuted organization; and the plans and promises of "the Chatham-street wing," as the branch of the brotherhood which ratified Colonel Kelly"s election was termed, were regarded, for the most part, with suspicion and disfavour. But from Ireland there came evidences of a different state of feeling. Breathless envoys arrived almost weekly in New York, declaring that the Fenian Brotherhood in Ireland were burning for the fray--that they awaited the landing of Colonel Kelly with feverish impatience--that it would be impossible to restrain them much longer from fighting--and that the arrival of the military leaders, whom America was expected to supply, would be the signal for a general uprising. Encouraged by representations like these, Colonel Kelly and a chosen body of Irish-American officers departed for Ireland in January, and set themselves, on their arrival in the old country, to arrange the plans of the impending outbreak. How their labours eventuated, and how the Fenian insurrection of March, "67, resulted, it is unnecessary to explain; it is enough for our purpose to state that for several months after that ill-starred movement was crushed, Colonel Kelly continued to reside in Dublin, moving about with an absence of disguise and a disregard for concealment which astonished his confederates, but which, perhaps, contributed in no slight degree to the success with which he eluded the efforts directed towards his capture. At length the Fenian organization in Ireland began to pa.s.s through the same changes that had given it new leaders and fresh vitality in America. The members of the organization at home began to long for union with the Irish Nationalists who formed the branch of the confederacy regenerated under Colonel Roberts; and Kelly, who, for various reasons, was unwilling to accept the new f2i regime f0i0 , saw his adherents dwindle away, until at length he found himself all but discarded by the Fenian circles in Dublin. Then he crossed over to Manchester, where he arrived but a few weeks previous to the date of his accidental arrest in Oak-street. The arrest of Colonel Kelly and his aide-de-camp, as the English papers soon learned to describe Deasey, was hailed by the government with the deepest satisfaction. For years they had seen their hosts of spies, detectives, and informers foiled and outwitted by this daring conspirator, whose position in the Fenian ranks they perfectly understood; they had seen their traps evaded, their bribes spurned, and their plans defeated at every turn; they knew, too, that Kelly"s success in escaping capture was filling his a.s.sociates with pride and exultation; and now at last they found the man whose apprehension they so anxiously desired a captive in their grasp. On the other hand, the arrests in Oak-street were felt to be a crushing blow to a failing cause by the Fenian circles in Manchester. They saw that Kelly"s capture would dishearten every section of the organization; they knew that the broad meaning of the occurrence was, that another Irish rebel had fallen into the clutches of the British government, and was about to be added to the long list of their political victims. It was felt by the Irish in Manchester, that to abandon the prisoners helplessly to their fate would be regarded as an act of submission to the laws which rendered patriotism a crime, and as an acceptance of the policy which left Ireland trampled, bleeding, and impoverished. There were hot spirits amongst the Irish colony that dwelt in the great industrial capital, which revolted from such a conclusion, and there were warm, impulsive hearts which swelled with a firm resolution to change the triumph of their British adversaries into disappointment and consternation. The time has not yet come when anything like a description of the midnight meetings and secret councils which followed the arrest of Colonel Kelly in Manchester can be written; enough may be gathered, however, from the result, to show that the plans of the conspirators were cleverly conceived and ably digested. On Wednesday, September 18th, Colonel Kelly and his companion were a second time placed in the dock of the Manchester Police Office. There is reason to believe that means had previously been found of acquainting them with the plans of their friends outside, but this hypothesis is not necessary to explain the coolness and f2i sang froid f0i0 with which they listened to the proceedings before the magistrate. Hardly had the prisoners been put forward, when the Chief Inspector of the Manchester Detective Force interposed. They were both, he said, connected with the Fenian rising, and warrants were out against them for treason-felony. "Williams," he added, with a triumphant air, "is Colonel Kelly, and Whyte, his confederate, is Captain Deasey." He asked that they might again be remanded, an application which was immediately granted. The prisoners, who imperturbably bowed to the detective, as he identified them, smilingly quitted the dock, and were given in charge to Police Sergeant Charles Brett, whose duty it was to convey them to the borough gaol. The van used for the conveyance of prisoners between the police office and the gaol was one of the ordinary long black boxes on wheels, dimly lit by a grating in the door and a couple of ventilators in the roof. It was divided interiorly into a row of small cells at either side, and a pa.s.sage running the length of the van between; and the practice was, to lock each prisoner into a separate cell, Brett sitting in charge on a seat in the pa.s.sage, near the door. The van was driven by a policeman; another usually sat beside the driver on the box; the whole escort thus consisting of three men, carrying no other arms than their staves; but it was felt that on the present occasion a stronger escort might be necessary. The magistrates well knew that Kelly and Deasey had numerous sympathisers amongst the Irish residents in Manchester, and their apprehensions were quickened by the receipt of a telegram from Dublin Castle, and another from the Home Office in London, warning them that a plot was on foot for the liberation of the prisoners. The magistrates doubted the truth of the information, but they took precautions, nevertheless, for the frustration of any such enterprise. Kelly and Deasey were both handcuffed, and locked in separate compartments of the van; and, instead of three policemen, not less than twelve were entrusted with its defence. Of this body, five sat on the box-seat, two were stationed on the step behind, four followed the van in a cab, and one (Sergeant Brett) sat within the van, the keys of which were handed in to him through the grating, after the door had been locked by one of the policemen outside. There were, in all, six persons in the van: one of these was a boy, aged twelve, who was being conveyed to a reformatory; three were women convicted of misdemeanours; and the two Irish-Americans completed the number. Only the last-mentioned pair were handcuffed, and they were the only persons whom the constables thought necessary to lock up, the compartments in which the other persons sat being left open. At half-past three o"clock the van drove off, closely followed by the cab containing the balance of the escort. Its route lay through some of the princ.i.p.al streets, then through the suburbs on the south side, into the borough of Salford, where the county gaol is situated. In all about two miles had to be traversed, and of this distance the first half was accomplished without anything calculated to excite suspicion being observed; but there was mischief brewing, for all that, and the crisis was close at hand. Just as the van pa.s.sed under the railway arch that spans the Hyde-road at Bellevue, a point midway between the city police office and the Salford gaol, the driver was suddenly startled by the apparition of a man standing in the middle of the road with a pistol aimed at his head, and immediately the astonished policeman heard himself called upon, in a loud, sharp voice, to "pull up." At the spot where this unwelcome interruption occurred there are but few houses; brick-fields and clay-pits stretch away at either side, and the neighbourhood is thinly inhabited. But its comparative quiet now gave way to a scene of bustle and excitement so strange that it seems to have almost paralysed the spectators with amazement. The peremptory command levelled at the driver of the van was hardly uttered, when a body of men, numbering about thirty, swarmed over the wall which lined the road, and, surrounding the van, began to take effectual measures for stopping it. The majority of them were well-dressed men, of powerful appearance; a few carried pistols or revolvers in their hands, and all seemed to act in accordance with a preconcerted plan. The first impulse of the policemen in front appears to have been to drive through the crowd, but a shot, aimed in the direction of his head brought the driver tumbling from his seat, terror-stricken but unhurt; and almost at the same time, the further progress of the van was effectually prevented by shooting one of the horses through the neck. A scene of indescribable panic and confusion ensued; the policemen scrambled hastily to the ground, and betook themselves to flight almost without a thought of resistance. Those in the cab behind got out, not to resist the attack, but to help in running away; and in a few minutes the strangers, whose object had by this time become perfectly apparent, were undisputed masters of the situation. Pickaxes, hatchets, hammers, and crow-bars were instantly produced, and the van was besieged by a score stout pairs of arms, under the blows from which its sides groaned, and the door cracked and splintered. Some clambered upon the roof, and attempted to smash it in with heavy stones; others tried to force an opening through the side; while the door was st.u.r.dily belaboured by another division of the band. Seeing the Fenians, as they at once considered them, thus busily engaged, the policemen, who had in the first instance retreated to a safe distance, and who were now reinforced by a large mob attracted to the spot by the report of firearms, advanced towards the van, with the intention of offering some resistance; but the storming party immediately met them with a counter-movement. Whilst the attempt to smash through the van was continued without pause, a ring was formed round the men thus engaged, by their confederates, who, pointing their pistols at the advancing crowd, warned them, as they valued their lives, to keep off. Gaining courage from their rapidly-swelling numbers, the mob, however, continued to close in round the van, whereupon several shots were discharged by the Fenians, which had the effect of making the Englishmen again fall back in confusion. It is certain that these shots were discharged for no other purpose than that of frightening the crowd; one of them did take effect in the heel of a bystander, but in every other case the shots were fired high over the heads of the crowd. While this had been pa.s.sing around the van, a more tragic scene was pa.s.sing inside it. From the moment the report of the first shot reached him, Sergeant Brett seems to have divined the nature and object of the attack. "My G.o.d! its these Fenians," he exclaimed. The noise of the blows showered on the roof and sides of the van was increased by the shrieks of the female prisoners, who rushed frantically into the pa.s.sage, and made the van resound with their wailings. In the midst of the tumult a face appeared at the grating, and Brett heard himself summoned to give up the keys. The a.s.sailants had discovered where they were kept, and resolved on obtaining them as the speediest way of effecting their purpose. "Give up the keys, or they will shoot you," exclaimed the women; but Brett refused. The next instant he fell heavily backwards, with the hot blood welling from a bullet-wound in the head. A shot fired into the key-hole, for the purpose of blowing the lock to pieces, had taken effect in his temple. The terror-stricken women lifted him up, screaming "he"s killed." As they did so, the voice which had been heard before called out to them through the ventilator to give up the keys. One of the women then took them from the pocket of the dying policeman, and handed them out through the trap. The door was at once unlocked, the terrified women rushed out, and Brett, weltering in blood, rolled out heavily upon the road. Then a pale-faced young man, wearing a light overcoat, a blue tie, and a tall brown hat, who had been noticed taking a prominent part in the affray, entered the van, and unlocked the compartments in which Kelly and Deasey were confined. A hasty greeting pa.s.sed between them, and then the trio hurriedly joined the band outside. "I told you, Kelly, I would die before I parted with you," cried the young man who had unlocked the doors; then, seizing Kelly by the arm, he helped him across the road, and over the wall, into the brick-fields beyond. Here he was taken charge of by others of the party, who hurried with him across the country, while a similar office was performed for Deasey, who, like Colonel Kelly, found himself hampered to some extent by the handcuffs on his wrists. The main body of those who had shared in the a.s.sault occupied themselves with preventing the fugitives from being pursued; and not until Kelly, Deasy, and their conductors had pa.s.sed far out of sight, did they think of consulting their own safety. At length, when further resistance to the mob seemed useless and impossible, they broke and fled, some of them occasionally checking the pursuit by turning round and presenting pistols at those who followed. Many of the fugitives escaped, but several others were surrounded and overtaken by the mob. And now the "chivalry" of the English nature came out in its real colours. No sooner did the cowardly set, whom the sight of a revolver kept at bay while Kelly was being liberated, find themselves with some of the Irish party in their power, than they set themselves to beat them with savage ferocity. The young fellow who had opened the van door, and who had been overtaken by the mob, was knocked down by a blow of a brick, and then brutally kicked and stoned, the only Englishman who ventured to cry shame being himself a.s.saulted for his display of humanity. Several others were similarly ill-treated; and not until the blood spouted out from the bruised and mangled bodies of the prostrate men, did the valiant Englishmen consider they had sufficiently tortured their helpless prisoners. Meanwhile, large reinforcements appeared on the spot; police and military were despatched in eager haste in pursuit of the fugitives; the telegraph was called into requisition, and a description of the liberated Fenians flashed to the neighbouring towns; the whole detective force of Manchester was placed on their trail, and in the course of a few hours thirty-two Irishmen were in custody, charged with having a.s.sisted in the attack on the van. But of Kelly or Deasey no trace was ever discovered; they were seen to enter a cottage not far from the Hyde-road, and leave it with their hands unfettered, but all attempts to trace their movements beyond this utterly failed. While the authorities in Manchester were excitedly discussing the means to be adopted in view of the extraordinary event, Brett lay expiring in the hospital to which he had been conveyed. He never recovered consciousness after receiving the wound, and he died in less than two hours after the fatal shot had been fired. Darkness had closed in around Manchester before the startling occurrence that had taken place in their midst became known to the majority of its inhabitants. Swiftly the tidings flew throughout the big city, till the whisper in which the rumour was first breathed swelled into a roar of astonishment and rage. Leaving their houses and leaving their work, the people rushed into the streets, and trooped towards the newspaper offices for information. The rescue of Colonel Kelly and death of Sergeant Brett were described in thousands of conflicting narratives, until the facts almost disappeared beneath the ma.s.s of inventions and exaggerations, the creations of excitement and panic, with which they were overloaded. Meanwhile, the police, maddened by resentment and agitation, struck out wildly and blindly at the Irish. They might not be able to recapture the escaped Fenian leaders, but they could load the gaols with their countrymen and co-religionists; they might not be able to apprehend the liberators of Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasey, but they could glut their fury on members of the same nationality; and this they did most effectually. The whole night long the raid upon the Irish quarter in Manchester was continued; houses were broken into, and their occupants dragged off to prison, and flung into cells, chained as though they were raging beasts. Mere Irish were set upon in the streets, in the shops, in their homes, and hurried off to prison as if the very existence of the empire depended on their being subjected to every kind of brutal violence and indignity. The yell for vengeance filled the air; the cry for Irish blood arose upon the night-air like a demoniacal chorus; and before morning broke their fury was to some extent appeased by the knowledge that sixty of the proscribed race--sixty of the hated Irish--were lying chained within the prison cells of Manchester. Fifteen minutes was the time occupied in setting Kelly free--only fifteen minutes--but during that short s.p.a.ce of time an act was accomplished which shook the whole British Empire to its foundation. From the conspiracy to which this daring deed was traceable the English people had already received many startling surprises. The liberation of James Stephens and the short-lived insurrection that filled the snow-capped hills with hardy fugitives, six months before, had both occasioned deep excitement in England; but nothing that Fenianism had yet accomplished acted in the same bewildering manner on the English mind. In the heart of one of their largest cities, in the broad daylight, openly and undisguisedly, a band of Irishmen had appeared in arms against the Queen"s authority, and set the power and resources of the law at defiance. They had rescued a co-conspirator from the grasp of the government, and slain an officer of the law in the pursuit of their object. Within a few minutes" walk of barracks and military dep"99ts,--in sight of the royal ensign that waved over hundreds of her Majesty"s defenders, a prison van had been stopped and broken open, and its defenders shot at and put to flight. Never had the English people heard of so audacious a proceeding--never did they feel more insulted. From every corner of the land the cry swelled, up for vengeance fierce and prompt. Victims there should be; blood--Irish blood--the people f2i would f0i0 have; nor were they willing to wait long for it. It might be that, falling in hot haste, the sword of Justice might strike the innocent, and not the guilty; it might be that, in the thirst for vengeance, the restraints of humanity would be forgotten; but the English nature, now thoroughly aroused, cared little for such considerations. It was Irishmen who had defied and trampled on their power; the whole Irish people approved of the act; and it mattered little who the objects of their fury might be, provided they belonged to the detested race. The prisoners, huddled together in the Manchester prisons, with chains round their limbs, might not be the liberators of Colonel Kelly--the slayers of Brett might not be amongst them; but they were Irishmen, at any rate, and so they would answer the purpose. Short shrift was the cry. The ordinary forms of law, the maxims of the Const.i.tution, the rules of judicial procedure, the proprieties of social order and civilization, might be outraged and discarded, but speedy vengeance should, at all hazards, be obtained: the hangman could not wait for his fee, nor the people for their carnival of blood; and so it was settled that, instead of being tried at the ordinary Commission, in December, a Special Commission should be issued on the spot for the trial of the accused. On Thursday, the 25th of October, the prisoners were brought up for committal, before Mr. Fowler, R.M., and a bench of brother magistrates. Some of the Irishmen arrested in the first instance had been discharged--not that no one could be found to swear against them (a difficulty which never seems to have arisen in these cases) but that the number of witnesses who could swear to their innocence was so great, that an attempt to press for convictions in their cases would be pertain to jeopardize the whole proceedings. The following is a list of the prisoners put forward, the names being, as afterwards appeared, in many cases fict.i.tious:-- William O"Mara Allen, Edward Sh.o.r.e, Henry Wilson, William Gould, Michael Larkin, Patrick Kelly, Charles Moorhouse, John Brennan, John Bacon, William Martin, John F. Nugent, James Sherry, Robert McWilliams, Michael Maguire, Thomas Maguire, Michael Morris, Michael Bryan, Michael Corcoran, Thomas Ryan, John Carroll, John Cleeson, Michael Kennedy, John Morris, Patrick Kelly, Hugh Foley, Patrick Coffey, Thomas Kelly, and Thomas Scally. It forms no part of our purpose to follow out the history of the proceedings in the Manchester court on the 25th of September and the following days: but there are some circ.u.mstances in connection with that investigation which it would be impossible to pa.s.s over without comment. It was on this occasion that the extraordinary sight of men being tried in chains was witnessed, and that the representatives of the English Crown came to sit in judgment on men still innocent in the eyes of the law, yet manacled like convicted felons. With the blistering irons clasped tight round their wrists the Irish prisoners stood forward, that justice--such justice as tortures men first and tries them afterwards--might be administered to them. "The police considered the precaution necessary," urged the magistrate, in reply to the scathing denunciations of the unprecedented outrage which fell from the lips of Mr. Ernest Jones, one of the prisoners" counsel. The police considered it necessary, though within the courthouse no friend of the accused could dare to show his face--though the whole building bristled with military and with policemen, with their revolvers ostentatiously displayed;--necessary, though every approach to the courthouse was held by an armed guard, and though every soldier in the whole city was standing to arms;--necessary there, in the heart of an English city, with a dense population thirsting for the blood of the accused, and when the danger seemed to be, not that they might escape from custody--a flight to the moon would be equally practicable--but that they might be butchered in cold blood by the angry English mob that scowled on them from the galleries of the court house, and howled round the building in which they stood. In vain did Mr. Jones protest, in scornful words, against the brutal indignity--in vain did he appeal to the spirit of British justice, to ancient precedent and modern practice--in vain did he inveigh against a proceeding which forbad the intercourse necessary between him and his clients--and in vain did he point out that the prisoners in the dock were guiltless and innocent men according to the theory of the law. No arguments, no expostulations would change the magistrate"s decision. Amidst the applause of the cowardly set that represented the British public within the courthouse, he insisted that the handcuffs should remain on; and then Mr. Jones, taking the only course left to a man of spirit under the circ.u.mstances, threw down his brief and indignantly quitted the desecrated justice hall. Fearing the consequences of leaving the prisoners utterly undefended, Mr. Cottingham, the junior counsel for the defence, refrained from following Mr. Jones"s example, but he, too, protested loudly, boldly, and indignantly against the cowardly outrage, worthy of the worst days of the French monarchy, which his clients were being subjected to. The whole investigation was in keeping with the spirit evinced by the bench. The witnesses seemed to come for the special purpose of swearing point-blank against the hapless men in the dock, no matter at what cost to truth, and to take a fiendish pleasure in a.s.sisting in securing their condemnation. One of the witnesses was sure "the whole lot of them wanted to murder everyone who had any property;" another a.s.sured his interrogator in the dock that "he would go to see him hanged;" and a third had no hesitation in acknowledging the attractions which the reward offered by the government possessed for his mind. Men and women, young and old, all seemed to be possessed of but the one idea--to secure as much of the blood-money as possible, and to do their best to bring the hated Irish to the gallows. Of course, an investigation, under these circ.u.mstances, could have but one ending, and no one was surprised to learn, at its conclusion, that the whole of the resolute body of stern-faced men, who, manacled and suffering, confronted their malignant accusers, had been committed to stand their trial in hot haste, for the crime of "wilful murder." Of the men thus dealt with there are four with whose fate this narrative is closely connected, and whose names are destined to be long remembered in Ireland. They have won for themselves, by their courage, constancy, and patriotism, a fame that will never die; and through all future time they will rank beside the dauntless spirits that in days of darkness and disaster perished for the sacred cause of Ireland. Great men, learned men, prominent men they were not--they were poor, they were humble, they were unknown; they had no claim to the reputation of the warrior, the scholar, or the statesman; but they laboured, as they believed, for the redemption of their country from bondage; they risked their lives in a chivalrous attempt to rescue from captivity two men whom they regarded as innocent patriots, and when the forfeit was claimed, they bore themselves with the unwavering courage and single-heartedness of Christian heroes. Their short and simple annals are easily written, but their names are graven on the Irish heart, and their names and actions will be cherished in Ireland when the monumental piles that mark the resting-places of the wealthy and the proud have returned, like the bodies laid beneath them, to dust. William Philip Allen was born near the town of Tipperary, in April, 1848. Before he was quite three years old his parents removed to Bandon, County Cork, where the father, who professed the Protestant religion, received the appointment of bridewell-keeper. As young Allen grew up, he evinced a remarkable apt.i.tude for the acquirement of knowledge, and his studious habits were well known to his playmates and companions. He was a regular attendant at the local training-school for the education of teachers for the Protestant schools of the parish, but he also received instruction at the morning and evening schools conducted under Catholic auspices, in the same town. He was not a wild boy, but he was quick and impulsive,--ready to resent a wrong, but equally ready to forgive one; and his natural independence of spirit and manly disposition rendered him a favourite with all his acquaintances. The influence and example of his father did not prevent him from casting a wistful eye towards the ancient faith. His mother, a good pious Catholic, whose warmest aspiration was to see her children in the fold of the true church, encouraged this disposition by all the means in her power, and the result of her pious care shortly became apparent. A mission, opened in the town by some Catholic order of priests, completed the good work, which the prayers and the example of an affectionate mother had commenced; and young Allen, after regularly attending the religious services and exercises of the mission, became so much Impressed with the truth of the lectures and sermons he had listened to, that he formally renounced the alien religion, and was received by the respected parish priest of the town into the bosom of the Catholic Church. His only sister followed his example, while his brothers, four in number, remained in the Protestant communion. The subject of our sketch was apprenticed to a respectable master carpenter and timber merchant in Bandon, but circ.u.mstances highly creditable to the young convert induced the severance of the connection before his period of apprenticeship was expired, and we next find him working at his trade in Cork, where he remained for some six months, after which he returned to Bandon. He next crossed over to Manchester, at the request of some near relatives living there. Subsequently he spent a few weeks in Dublin, where he worked as builder"s clerk; and finally he revisited Manchester, where he had made himself numerous friends. It was in the summer of "67 that Allen last journeyed to Manchester. He was then little more than nineteen years old, but there is reason to believe that he had long before become connected with the Fenian conspiracy. In his ardent temperament the seeds of patriotism took deep and firm root, and the dangers of the enterprise to which the Fenians were committed served only to give it a fresh claim upon his enthusiastic nature. When Colonel Kelly quitted Dublin, and took up his quarters in Manchester, Allen was one of his most trusted and intimate a.s.sociates; and when the prison door grated behind the Fenian leader, it was Allen who roused his countrymen to the task of effecting his liberation. Allen had by this time grown into a comely young man of prepossessing appearance; he was a little over the middle height, well shaped, without presenting the appearance of unusual strength, and was always seen neatly and respectably dressed. His face was pale, and wore a thoughtful expression, his features, when in repose, wearing an appearance of pensiveness approaching to melancholy. His eyes were small, the eyelids slightly marked; a ma.s.s of dark hair cl.u.s.tered gracefully over a broad pale forehead, while the absence of any beard gave him a peculiarly boyish appearance. Gentle and docile in his calmer moments, when roused to action he was all fire and energy. We have seen how he bore himself during the attack on the prison van, for he it was whom so many witnesses identified as the pale-faced young fellow who led the attack, and whose prophetic a.s.surance that he would die for him, greeted Colonel Kelly on regaining his freedom. During the magisterial investigation he bore himself firmly, proudly, and, as the English papers would have it, defiantly. His glance never quailed during the trying ordeal. The marks of the brutality of his cowardly captors were still upon him, and the galling irons that bound his hands cut into his wrists; but Allen never winced for a moment, and he listened to the evidence of the sordid crew, who came to barter away his young life, with resolute mien. The triumph was with him. Out of the jaws of death he had rescued the leader whose freedom he considered essential to
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