*II*
In such manner it came to pass that, one day about the middle ofJanuary, I found myself sailing into Kinsale harbour, my ship havingaboard her many gentlemen that were voluntaries like myself, and someportion of the new levies for which the Lord Deputy had made petition. Istretched my ears for the sound of guns and the blast of war trumpets,but there was a great stillness and peace that smote me with dread ofill news. However, on coming to land, I discovered as much withdisappointment as with joy that the Spaniards had yielded themselves byarticles of capitulation a few days before, that the O'Neill had beenbeaten back from the English camp with sore discomfiture, and his menscattered to the four winds. Though I rejoiced in the good success ofthe Lord Deputy's arms, I was vexed that I had come too late to deal ablow against the Spaniard, more especially as I foresaw a weary campaignagainst the native rebels.
It fell out according to my expectation. The Lord Deputy, furnishedwith new supplies of men and munition, marched through the land,burning, wasting, harrowing without ruth, and hanging such chief rebelsas fell into his hands. As it ever is in war, they that suffered mostwere the poor peasantry of the country: and seeing daily theirlamentable estate, finding everywhere men dead of famine, insomuch thatin one day's journey we saw upwards of a thousand men lying unburied, myheart sickened of this work, and I thought to return home. Could I buthave looked into the future, I should have seen divers sorry experiencesthrough which it was my destiny to pass; but that which is to come ismercifully hid from us. I foresaw neither what I was to suffer, northat great blessing which Providence bestowed on me, whereby I have everregarded my going to Ireland as the most fortunate and happy event ofall that ever befell me.
That island is covered in every part with thick forest and vast swampsand bogs, from which arise exhalations exceeding noisome as well to thenative people as to our English. From camping oft on the borders ofsuch oozy fens I took an Irish ague, suffering sharp pains in all mylimbs, with shivering and vomiting, my teeth chattering, my headoppressed with ringing noises intolerable. So sore was I beset by thismost malignant distemper as that all my strength departed from me; Icould neither sit my horse nor march afoot, and was afflicted with sodesperate a languor and exhaustion that I believed myself nigh untodeath. Being in so dreadful a case, I must needs be left behind in asmall fort, that had lately been constructed to command a ford on theborder of O'Neill's country; and I am sure that when my companions shookmy hand and bade me farewell, none expected ever to see me in lifeagain. But by the mercy of God and the devotion of my servant (therewas no physician in that place) I recovered of my fever; and within tendays or so I felt myself ready to make a push towards the army that hadgone before.
We had learnt by scourers that our people were then distant some thirtymiles across the hills, intending to advance further towards the north.By this it was plain that I must needs hasten if I would come up withthem, and there was the more reason for this in that the hills wereknown to be the haunt and covert of rebels. But I had good hope that,being furnished with a noble horse, and accompanied with my stout andmettlesome servant, and three tall natives of the country, of provenloyalty, I might compass the journey of thirty miles in security. Iacknowledge that, having been occupied of late in hunting a brokenrabble, I held the enemy in lighter esteem than I ought; and when I lookback upon the matter, I feel some scorn of my recklessness, and deemthat in what befell me I had no more than my desert.
We set forth at daybreak one morning, one of the Irishmen leading us,and took our way into the hills. I knew somewhat of the trials andhardships of travel in Ireland, but they were as nought by comparisonwith that which I encountered that day. The country was covered withclose and almost impassable woods, intersected with watercourses ofdepth sufficient to render hazardous their crossing; and we pierced thewoods but to find ourselves in swamp or morass. I was by this time awareof the treacherous nature of these quaggy places; but in spite of allour heedfulness, and notwithstanding that three of us were natives wellskilled in their country's discommodities, we had ofttimes much ado tohold our course. Ever and anon we saw ourselves forced to go roundabout; and although our guide ordered our going with as diligentcarefulness as he might, many times we had need to quit our saddles andlend aid to our horses, to draw them from the deceitful mire of theswamps, in such sort that we made but poor going, and by the middle partof the day had accomplished a mere trifle of our journey.
As we were picking our steps thus gingerly over an expanse of spongyground, overhung by a low beetling cliff, there befell an accident uponwhich I cannot look back without a mortifying pang, seeing that I was,for all my thirty years, a veteran in war. In all our journey up tothat moment we had seen neither man nor any living thing save only thesmall animals of the woods, and some few wild cattle that smelt us afaroff, and vanished from our sight more quickly than eye could follow. Ona sudden, before we were aware, there descended upon us from the midstof the bushes on the rock aforesaid a thick shower of spears and stones.A fragment of rock smote upon my headpiece with such violence aswellnigh to stun me; and my horse, made frantic by the sudden onset andthe fierce cries of the men in ambush, swerved from the narrow trackwhereon we were riding, and carried me into the swamp. Dizzy with theshock, I lost my manage of the beast, which, plunging to regain hisfooting, cast me headlong from my saddle.
When I came to myself, I saw my horse in the hands of two kernes, asthey are named in that country--rude and ragged fellows, barefoot,half-naked, and armed with light darts and a long and deadly knife whichthey call a skene. These two were hauling upon my horse's bridle, tobring the scrambling beast upon the dry ground. One of my Irishmen laylike a senseless log, with a dart in his body; another and my servantwere overthrown, and the kernes were standing over them; the thirdIrishman, as I saw, had wheeled his horse, and was spurring along thetrack, I supposed to bring help. I made no doubt but that the rascals,when they had finished their work upon my followers, would deal likewisewith me, whom they had left hitherto, seeing me dazed and bewildered bymy fall.
But I perceived, after a brief space, that these ragged and unkemptcreatures took no step towards me, but stood at gaze, their fierce eyesglittering with I knew not what excitation of mind. I was still in mywonderment, bracing myself to withstand the assault which I supposedthey intended against me, when I came to a sudden knowledge of my truesituation. I lay upon a thin crust of earth overlying the yielding bog,and already I felt it sinking under my weight. I had not been so shorta time in the country but I knew in what extremity of peril I lay, andthis knowledge serving as a goad to my numbness, I strove to lift myselffrom the clammy embrace of the bog that was beginning to suck me down.
And now my mind was smitten with the fear of death, and I take no shamefrom the terror that beset me. A man may face his foes, and not quail,with a weapon in his hand; but to lie helpless in the clutch of an enemyagainst which neither weapon nor courage is of any avail is a conditionto turn the stoutest heart to water. I cried aloud to those kernes thatstood upon the bank, choosing rather to die swiftly by their knives thanto choke and smother in that slow torment. They did but mock me withjeers and horrid execrations, uttered in their barbarous tongue,[#] andtheir delight became doubly manifest when with every motion of myineffectual limbs I did but assist the bog. The more desperately Istrove to free myself, the more closely did the pitiless morass clingabout me and clog me, like to that loathly creature of which marinerstell, that winds innumerable tentacles about its living prey and digestsit to a jelly. Presently I could no more move my limbs, and when Isought to purchase succour from those that stood by, offering greatrewards whereby every one of those paupers might have become a pettyCroesus among his kind, they sat them down like spectators at a play, tofeast their eyes upon my agony, even as in ancient days the Romans sawwithout compassion the holy martyrs yield up their lives beneath theclaws of Nubian lions. And when I saw that neither promises norentreaties would prevail with the
m, by reason mayhap that they knew notwhat I said, I wrapped myself in despair and silence, endeavouring, as aChristian ought, to contemplate the inevitable end with quiet mind.
[#] It must be remembered that Englishmen of Christopher Rudd's timewere ignorant of the Irish civilization and literature which theirancestors had destroyed, and were even more apt than their descendantsto decry what they did not understand.--H.S.
THEY DID BUT MOCK ME WITH JEERS AND HORRID EXECRATIONS]
I had sunk wellnigh to my shoulder-blades, and as it were a mist washovering before my eyes, when the sound of a horse galloping awoke myslumbering senses, and I looked up, thinking to see my Irishmanreturning. The kernes had risen to their feet, and turned their backsupon me, and their vociferous clamour fell to a great silence. Andgazing beyond them, I saw, not my Irishman, but a young maiden, upon ahobby of the country, riding with loose rein at the very brink of thecliff above. Distraught and speechless, I gazed in amaze andwonderment, as this radiant creature brought her hobby to a stand on theheight over against me. She cast one glance at me, and I heard a voicelike a silver bell rung sharply, and at her words the kernes were set inmotion as they were puppets moved by invisible strings, and with oneconsent, yet sullenly, they hasted to obey her behests. Having loosedthe bridles of my servant's horse and of the maiden's hobby, they knitthem together, and one of the men cast this rope of leather upon the bogtowards me. Mustering my remnant strength I caught it, and passed itover my head and beneath my armpits, whereupon some few of the kerneslaid hold of it at the end, and with mighty hauling heaved me from myslimy bed. So strong was the embrace wherein I had been clasped that Icame to the bank in my stocking feet, having left my boots in thatravenous maw.
In this sorry plight my aspect was as filthy and foul as Odysseus whenhe showed himself to the maiden Nausicaa. My Nausicaa smiled uponviewing me, and when I could find no words wherewith to utter thegratitude of my swelling spirit, her lips parted, and that silvery voiceuttered words in my own tongue, which fell the more sweetly upon my earby reason of their quaintness of accent.
"I am troubled, sir," said she, "at this your incommodity, but no heraldannounced your coming, whereby we might furnish guides. Haply yourmessenger went astray?"
I perceived that she mocked me, but being too far spent to answer her inkind, I was content to relate briefly what had befallen me. She smiledagain, and said lightly--
"My kernes did what seemed good to them, at no man's bidding. I prayyou accept our hospitality, so that we can repair in some measure thecoldness of your welcome in this our country."
Then she turned upon the kernes that stood glooming by, and spake a fewwords to them in their own tongue; and after she had assured me thatthey would do me no harm, and bid me accompany them, she sped backtowards the quarter whence she had come, riding without bridle, a marvelto behold.