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If there was anything strange or inexplicable in the appearance of one of Maitland’s pretensions in an unfrequented and obscure part of the world, – if there was matter in it to puzzle the wise heads of squires, and make country intelligences look confused, – there is no earthly reason why any mystification should be practised with our reader. He, at least, is under our guidance, and to him we impart whatever is known to ourselves. For a variety of reasons, some of which this history later on will disclose, – others, the less imminent, we are free now to avow, – Mr. Norman Maitland had latterly addressed much of his mind to the political intrigues of a foreign country: that country was Naples. He had known it – we are not free to say how, at this place – from his childhood; he knew its people in every rank and class; he knew its dialect in all its idioms. He could talk the slang of the lazzaroni, and the wild patois of Calabria, just as fluently as that composite language which the King Ferdinand used, and which was a blending of the vulgarisms of the Chiaja with the Frenchified chit-chat of the Court. There were events happening in Italy which, though not for the moment involving the question of Naples, suggested to the wiser heads in that country the sense of a coming peril. We cannot, at this place, explain how or why Maitland should have been a sharer in these deeds; it is enough to say that he was one of a little knot who had free access to the palace, and enjoyed constant intercourse with the king, – free to tell him of all that went on in his brilliant capital of vice and levity, to narrate its duels, its defalcations, its intrigues, its family scandals and domestic disgraces, – to talk of anything and everything but one: not a word on politics was to escape them; never in the most remote way was a syllable to drop of either what was happening in the State, or what comments the French or English press might pass on it. No allusion was to escape on questions of government, nor the name of a minister to be spoken, except he were the hero of some notorious scandal. All these precautions could not stifle fear. The menials had seen the handwriting on the wall before Belshazzar’s eyes had fallen on it. The men who stood near the throne saw that it rocked already. There was but one theme within the palace, – the fidelity of the army; and every rude passage between the soldiery and the people seemed to testify to that faithfulness. Amongst those who were supposed to enjoy the sovereign confidence – for none in reality possessed it – was the Count Caffarelli, a man of very high family and large fortune; and though not in the slightest degree tinctured with Liberalism in politics, one of the very few Neapolitan nobles who either understood the drift, or estimated the force of the party of action. He foresaw the coming struggle, and boded ill of its result. With Mr. Maitland he lived in closest intimacy. The Italian, though older than the Englishman, had been his companion in years of dissipation. In every capital of Europe these two men had left traditions of extravagance and excess. They had an easy access to the highest circles in every city, and it was their pleasure to mix in all, even to the lowest Between them there had grown what, between such men, represented a strong friendship, – that is, either would readily have staked his life or his fortune; in other words, have fought a duel, or paid the play-debts of the other. Each knew the exact rules of honor which guided the conduct of the other, and knew, besides, that no other principles than these held any sway or influence over him.

Caffarelli saw that the Bourbon throne was in danger, and with it the fortunes of all who adhered to the dynasty. If all his prejudices and sympathies were with monarchy, these would not have prevented him from making terms with the revolution, if he thought the revolution could be trusted; but this was precisely what he did not, could not believe.

“Ceux qui sont Bleus restent Bleus” said the first Napoleon; and so Caffarelli assured himself that a canaille always would be a canaille. Philip Égalité was a case in point of what came of such concessions; therefore he decided it was better to stand by the monarchy, and that real policy consisted in providing that there should be a monarchy to stand by.

To play that mock game of popularity, the being cheered by the lazzaroni, was the extent of toleration to which the king could be persuaded. Indeed, he thought these vivas the hearty outburst of a fervent and affectionate loyalty; and many of his Ministers appeared to concur with him. Caffarelli, who was Master of the Horse, deemed otherwise, and confessed to Maitland that, though assassination was cheap enough in the quarter of Santa Lucia, there was a most indiscriminating indifference as to who might be the victim, and that the old Marquess of Montanara, the Prefect of the Palace, would not cost a carlino more than the veriest follower of Mazzini.

Both Caffarelli and Maitland enjoyed secret sources of information. They were members of that strange league which has a link in every grade and class of Neapolitan society, and makes the very highest in station the confidant and the accomplice of the most degraded and the meanest This sect, called La Camorra, was originally a mere system of organized extortion, driving, by force of menace, an impost on every trade and occupation, and exacting its dues by means of agents well known to be capable of the greatest crimes. Caffarelli, who had long employed its services to assist him in his intrigues or accomplish his vengeances, was a splendid contributor to its resources. He was rich and munificent; he loved profusion, but he adored it when it could be made the mainspring of some dark and mysterious machinery. Though the Camorra was not in the remotest degree political, Caffarelli learned, through its agency, that the revolutionary party were hourly gaining strength and courage. They saw the growing discontent that spread abroad about the ruling dynasty, and they knew how little favor would be shown the Bourbons by the Western Powers, whose counsels had been so flatly rejected, and whose warnings despised. They felt that their hour was approaching, and that Northern Italy would soon hasten to their aid if the work of overthrow were once fairly begun. Their only doubts were lest the success, when achieved, should have won nothing for them. It may be as in Forty-eight, said they; we may drive the king out of Naples as we drove the Austrians out of Milan, and, after all, only be conquering a larger kingdom for the House of Savoy. Hence they hesitated and held back; nor were their fears causeless. For what had revolution poured forth its blood like water in Paris? To raise up the despotism of the Second Empire!

Caffarelli was in possession of all this; he knew what they hoped and wished and feared. The Camorra itself numbered many professed revolutionists (“Reds,” as they liked to be called) in its sect, but was itself untinctured by politics. The wily Count thought that it was a pity so good an organization should be wasted on mere extortion and robbery. There were higher crimes they might attain to, and grander interests they might subserve. Never, perhaps, was the world of Europe so much in the hands of a few powerful men. Withdraw from it, say, half a dozen, – one could name them at once, – and what a change might come over the Continent! Caffarelli was no assassin; but there are men, and he was one of them, that can trifle with great crimes, just as children play with fire; who can jest with them, laugh at them, and sport with them, till, out of mere familiarity, they forget the horror they should inspire and the penalty they enforce. He had known Orsini intimately, and liked him; nor did he talk of his memory with less affection that he had died beneath the guillotine. He would not himself engage in a crime that would dishonor his name; but he knew there were a great number of people in the world who could no more be punctilious about honor than about the linen they wore, – fellows who walked in rags and dined off garlic. Why should they stick at trifles? They had no noble escutcheons to be tarnished, no splendid names, no high lineage to be disgraced. In fact, there were crimes that became them, just as certain forms of labor suited them. They worked with their hands in each case. Amongst the Camorra he knew many such. The difficulty was to bring the power of the sect to bear upon the questions that engaged him. It would not have been difficult to make them revolutionists, – the one word “pillage” would have sufficed for that; the puzzle was how to make them royalists. Mere pay would not do. These fellows had got a taste for irregular gain. To expect to win them over by pay, or retain them by discipline, was to hope to convert a poacher by inviting him to a battue. Caffarelli had revolved the matter very long and carefully; he had talked it over scores of times with Maitland. They agreed that the Camorra had great capabilities, if one only could use them. Through the members of that league in the army they had learned that the troops, the long-vaunted reliance of the monarchy, could not be trusted. Many regiments were ready to take arms with the Reds; many more would disband and return to their homes. As for the navy, they declared there was not one ship’s company would stand by the Sovereign. The most well-affected would be neutral; none save the foreign legions would fight for the king. The question then was, to reinforce these, and at once, – a matter far more difficult than it used to be. Switzerland would no longer permit this recruitment. Austria would give none but her criminals. America, it was said, abounded in ardent adventurous spirits that would readily risk life in pursuit of fortune; but then the cause was not one which, by any ingenuity, could be made to seem that of liberty. Nothing then remained but Ireland. There there was bravery and poverty both; thousands, who had no fears and very little food, ready for any enterprise, but far readier for one which could be dignified as being the battle of the Truth and the cause of the Holy Father.

An Irish legion, some five or six thousand devout Catholics and valiant soldiers, was a project that the Minister of War at once embraced. His Excellency saw Maitland on it, and talked over the whole plan. Maitland was himself to direct all its operations. Caffarelli would correspond with him from Naples, and, in case of any complication or difficulty, shroud the Minister from attack. Ample funds would be provided. The men could be engaged as laborers upon some great public work, and forwarded in small drafts to a convenient port. Arms could be easily procured from Liège. Officers could be readily obtained, either Irish or Poles or Hungarians, who could speak English. In a word, all the details had been well discussed and considered; and Maitland, on arriving in London, had again talked over the project with wise and crafty heads, whose prudent counsels showed him how little fit he was, personally, to negotiate directly with the Irish peasant, and how imperative above all things it was to depute this part of his task to some clever native, capable of employing the subordinates he needed. “Hide yourself,” said they, “in some out-of-the-way spot in Wales or Scotland; even the far North of Ireland will do; remain anywhere near enough to have frequent communication with your agent, but neither be seen nor known in the plot yourself. Your English talk and your English accent would destroy more confidence than your English gold would buy.”

Such an agent was soon found, – a man admirably adapted in many respects for the station. He had been an adventurer all his life; served with the French in Austria, and the Austrians in the Banat; held an independent command of Turks during the Crimean War; besides, episodically, having “done a little,” as he called it, on the Indian frontier with the Yankees; and served on the staff of Rosas, at La Plata; all his great and varied experiences tending to one solitary conviction, that no real success was ever to be attained in anything except by means of Irishmen; nor could order, peace, and loyalty be ever established anywhere without their assistance. If he was one of the bravest men living, he was one of the most pushing and impertinent. He would have maintained a point of law against the Lord Chancellor, and contested tactics with a Marshal of France. He thought himself the ornament of any society he entered, and his vanity, in matters of intellect, was only surpassed by his personal conceit. And now one word as to his appearance. With the aid of cleverly constructed boots he stood five feet four, but was squarely, stoutly built, broad in the chest, and very bow-legged; his head was large, and seemed larger from a mass of fiery red hair, of which he was immensely vain as the true Celtic color; he wore great whiskers, a moustache, and chin-tuft; but the flaming hue of these seemed actually tamed and toned down beside his eyes, which resembled two flaring carbuncles. They were the most excitable, quarrelsome, restless pair of orbs that ever beamed in a human head. They twinkled and sparkled with an incessant mischief, and they darted such insolent glances right and left as seemed to say, “Is there any one present who will presume to contradict me?”

His boundless self-conceit would have been droll if it had not been so offensive. His theory was this: all men detested him; all women adored him. Europe had done little better than intrigue for the last quarter of a century what country could secure his services. As for the insolent things he had said to kings and emperors, and the soft speeches that empresses and queens had made to himself, they would fill a volume. Believe him, and he had been on terms of more than intimacy in every royal palace of the Continent. Show the slightest semblance of doubt in him, and the chances were that he ‘d have had you “out” in the morning.

Amongst his self-delusions, it was one to believe that his voice and accent were peculiarly insinuating. There was, it is true, a certain slippery insincerity about them, but the vulgarity was the chief characteristic; and his brogue was that of Leinster, which, even to Irish ears, is insufferable.

Such was, in brief, the gentleman who called himself Major M’Caskey, Knight-Commander of various Orders, and C.S. in the Pope’s household, – which, interpreted, means Cameriere Secreto, – a something which corresponds to gentleman-in-waiting. Maitland and he had never met. They had corresponded freely, and the letters of the Major had by no means made a favorable impression upon Maitland, who had more than once forwarded extracts from them to the committees in London, pettishly asking, “if something better could not be found than the writer of this rubbish.” And yet, for the work before him, “the writer of this rubbish” was a most competent hand. He knew his countrymen well, – knew how to approach them by those mingled appeals to their love of adventure and love of gain; their passion for fighting, for carelessness, for disorder; and, above all, that wide uncertainty as to what is to come, which is, to an Irishman’s nature, the most irresistible of all seductions. The Major had established committees – in other words, recruiting-depots – in several county towns; had named a considerable number of petty officers; and was only waiting Maitland’s orders whether or not he should propose the expedition to adventurous but out-at-elbows young fellows of a superior station, – the class from which officers might be taken. We have now said enough of him and the project that engaged him to admit of our presenting him to our readers in one of his brief epistles. It was dated, —

“Castle Dubbow, August – , 18 – .

“Sir, – I have the honor to report for your information that I yesterday enrolled in this town and neighborhood eighteen fine fellows for H. N. M. Two of them are returned convicts, and three more are bound over to come up for sentence at a future assizes, and one, whom I have named a corporal, is the notorious Hayes, who shot Captain Macon on the fair green at Ballinasloe. So you see there’s little fear that they’ll want to come back here when once they have attained to the style and dignity of Neapolitan citizens. Bounty is higher here by from sixteen to twenty shillings than in Meath; indeed, fellows who can handle a gun, or are anyways ready with a weapon, can always command a job from one of the secret clubs; and my experiences (wide as most men’s) lead me entirely to the selection of those who have shown any aptitude for active service. I want your permission and instruction to engage some young gentlemen of family and station, for the which I must necessarily be provided with means of entertainment. Tafel Gelt ist nicht Teufel’s Gelt, says the Austrian adage; and I believe a very moderate outlay, assisted by my own humble gifts of persuasion, will suffice. Séduction de M’Casky, was a proverb in the 8th Voltigeurs. You may ask a certain high personage in France who it was that told him not to despair on a particular evening at Strasbourg. A hundred pounds – better if a hundred and fifty – would be useful. The medals of his Holiness have done well, but I only distribute them in the lower ranks. Some titles would be very advisable if I am to deal with the higher class. Herewith you have a muster-roll of what has been done in two counties; and I say it without fear, not a man in the three kingdoms could have accomplished it but Miles M’Marmont could plan, but not execute; Masséna execute, but not organize; Soul could do none but the last. It is no vanity makes me declare that I combine all the qualities. You see me now ‘organizing;’ in a few days you shall judge me in the field; and, later on, if my convictions do not deceive me, in the higher sphere of directing the great operations of an army. I place these words in your hands that they may be on record. If M’Caskey falls, it is a great destiny cut off; but posterity will see that he died in the full conviction of his genius. I have drawn on you for thirty-eight, ten-and-six; and to-morrow will draw again for seventy-four, fifteen.

“Your note has just come. I am forced to say that its tone is not that to which, in the sphere I have moved, I have been accustomed. If I am to regard you as my superior officer, duty cries, ‘Submit.’ If you be simply a civilian, no matter how exalted, I ask explanation. The dinner at the Dawson Arms was necessary; the champagne was not excessive; none of the company were really drunk before ten o’clock; and the destruction of the furniture was a plaisanterie of a young gentleman from Louth who was going into holy orders, and might most probably not have another such spree in all his life again. Are you satisfied? If not, tell me what and where any other satisfaction may meet your wishes. You say, ‘Let us meet.’ I reply, ‘Yes, in any way you desire.’ You have not answered my demand – it was demand, not request – to be Count M’Caskey. I have written to Count Caffarelli on the subject, and have thoughts of addressing the king. Don’t talk to me of decorations. I have no room for them on the breast of my coat. I am forced to say these things to you, for I cannot persuade myself that you really know or understand the man you correspond with. After all, it took Radetzky a year, and Omar Pasha seventeen months, to arrive at that knowledge which my impatience, unjustly perhaps, complains that you have not attained to. Yet I feel we shall like each other; and were it not like precipitancy, I’d say, believe me, dear Maitland, very faithfully your friend,

“Miles M’Caskey.”

The answer to this was very brief, and ran thus: —

“Lyle Abbey, August.

“Sir, – You will come to Coleraine, and await my orders there, – the first of which will be to take no liberties of any kind with your obedient servant,

“Norman Maitland.

“Major M’Caskey, ‘The Dawson Arms, Castle Durrow.

“P. S. Avoid all English acquaintances on your road. Give yourself out to be a foreigner, and speak as little as possible.”