The Tithe-Proctor. William Carleton
in earnest. The assailants were shot down in scores, while the upper windows of the house, from which the deadly firing was so ably kept up, received fifty discharges to the one that issued from them. The house was immediately surrounded, and guards of chosen faithful men were placed at its doors and lower windows, with strict orders to let no one, especially the “old fox,” escape, with the exception only of the women.
To add to the dreadful condition of the Bolands, the assailants had now succeeded in igniting the thatch of the dwelling-house, and it was immediately in a blaze. The Bolands and their tutor, ably served by their mother and sisters, still continued to deal death and destruction on the parties outside, without being yet fatigued or disabled. But at length the upper floor became too hot, and the old man, with his wife and daughters, retreated to the lower floor. The brothers and the tutor, however, remained above, but doing less execution, because, when the assailants saw the house on fire, they retreated outside the yard wall, excepting the guard who were placed round the house, and these stood so close to the walls that the party above had not power of injuring them, without fully exposing their own persons at the windows.
While both parties were thus in a fearful state of suspense, the burning roof of the house fell in on the three young men above, and immediately buried them for ever in its destructive flames. The assailing crowds set up a terrific shout of triumph. The floor above now began to crackle, and so dense was the smoke below, that the old man and the woman were in a state little short of suffocation. At last the Proctor became desperate, and opening one of the ground windows, and taking his poor wife by the hand, he attempted to throw himself and her out through it. No sooner, however, had they appeared at the window, than the old man was riddled with bullets from without, and thrown back into the now blazing room from which he had been endeavoring to escape.
The three young men and the old man being now destroyed, a voice in the rear of the crowd called out, in a fierce commanding them, to rescue the women at all hazards, whereupon the sledges were applied to the front door of the house; but while they were thus engaged, the young women unbarred the back door, and rushing out with their mother, uttering the most piercing shrieks, they ran into a stable which was near, before they could be laid hold of. Here, however, the two daughters were immediately seized on by order of the commander of the siege, Buck English, and carried out, but not violently, until they came to the stable-door, where the eldest daughter laid hold of the iron bolt staple of the door-post, and so desperately did she hold it, that she did not let it go till her shoulder was dislocated. They were both carried off then to the Galtee mountains, the usual resort of the Buck, who retained the eldest during pleasure. I forget what became of the younger girl, but the other became deranged, and in that melancholy state was subsequently taken into the “protection,” as it is called, of a certain banker of Limerick, who shot himself in that city, to my own knowledge, in 1815. * * *
The scene at the residence of the Bolands, on the morning after the attack, was truly horrifying. The remains of the four men, almost burned to cinders, were dug out of the still burning ruins, nor was the spectacle in the yard and on the neighboring road less frightful; from the multitude of dead bodies with which they were strewn; for most of their stranger assailants who were killed were left on the spot—the party not choosing to be seen carrying them off by daylight. But such of the people of the neighboring parishes as fell, were carried off by friends and acquaintances, and hid during that day, but buried at night at remote distances from their houses, in the newly-ploughed and in the wheat-sown fields. The inquest, &c, being over, the government and the gentry of the county offered a large reward for any information that would lead to the apprehension or knowledge of the actors, especially the commander, in this fearful tragedy. A strong military force was stationed in the neighborhood, and all the bad and suspicious characters of the district were taken up, and committed to gaol on suspicion. However, the original concocters of the murder made their escape, either to England or to the remote parts of Clare, Kerry, and Cork; whilst terror reigned throughout the whole County of Limerick among the farmers at seeing the numbers that were arrested, and the largeness of the reward.
One morning, as a well-known active magistrate of the county was sitting at his breakfast, a strange woman came to his door, and requested to see him on business of importance. He immediately called up two of his servant men, and ordered them to go to the door and see that the woman was really a woman, and that she had no arms about her. This was soon done, and the woman, a real one, was ushered into his worship's presence. She then told him—the room being first cleared of all other people—that, she was the wife of D—— A———, the brogue-maker of F——, that her husband was an honest, industrious man, who knew his own trade and business well, and who knew a great deal about the business of other people, too, and of what was going on in the country—that he was a man of upright and Christian principles, who would always feel it a conscientious duty to aid the laws of his country to preserve social order and punish crime—that he was not a man to be terrified or bribed by any amount of punishment or reward; but that if he were properly managed and kindly treated, he might be found able to give a good deal of useful information.
His worship had the good-natured poor woman taken good care of for that day—and at a late hour of the same night he took and put her comfortably sitting on a horse, behind one of his constables, and, surrounded by a strong military body, horse and foot, marched her in safety; she showing the way to her own house. They found honest Darby sitting by his fire, reading his prayer-book, and in great grief at the unaccountable absence of his wife. He was dreadfully agitated when he found himself arrested, and strongly protested that he was an honest, industrious tradesman, who knew nothing of the wickedness of the world; and wondered much what this was all about.
His worship advised him to be calm—that all should be well, but that he should accompany himself to his house. After Darby had spent several usefully employed days with his new friend, he was transmitted to Limerick gaol, with orders that he should be well treated, and be allowed to see his wife as often as she desired it. The wife soon found that it would be more convenient for her, and perhaps somewhat safer, to be living near her husband, and therefore went to reside in Limerick. The news of Darby's arrest caused no little alarm through the county, and it was soon whispered about that persons were now arrested, of whose participation in the Boland affair no human being could give any hint except himself alone. His wife's rooms became crowded every day with the wives, daughters, and sisters of the men arrested—and others not arrested, or suspected by any living being; money in hundreds of pounds was poured into her lap to purchase the ignorance, the silence, or the perjury of Darby—and every one went away apparently satisfied with Darby's promises through his faithful wife.
The assizes came down at last. Darby lost all recollection of any money but the large public reward, and on that occasion over twenty men were hanged chiefly on his evidence—though it was very difficult for the crown counsel to bring the poor reluctant man to the point; but when he did make a convicting admission, he took care that it should be a clincher, wrung from him, as he wished it to appear, by a cunning counsel. The gallows at Limerick continued for years after to be fed by Darby with victims for this crime; and several hundred were transported, or went into voluntary banishment on account of this fearful butchery. The writer of this knew well, and was at school with the secretary of the Court of Kilteely Hill.
CHAPTER I.—The Chapel Green of Esker Dearg.
The chapel of Esker Dearg, or the Red Ridge, was situated in a rich and well-cultivated country, that for miles about it literally teemed with abundance. The Red Ridge under which it stood was one of those long eminences, almost, if not altogether, peculiar to Ireland. It was, as the name betokens, a prolonged elevation that ran for nearly a mile and a half in a north-eastern direction without appearing to yield to, or be influenced by, the natural position or undulations of the country through which it went. The epithet of red which was attached to it, originated, according to popular tradition, in a massacre which had taken place upon it during one of the Elizabethan wars, others imputed it to a cause much more obvious and natural, viz., its peculiar appearance during all seasons of the