S CHAPTER XVI 1798 Lord Edward's Doom Approaching-His Portrait at this Date EVENTEEN hundred and ninety-eight—that hand, Lord Edward's doom close upon him. The winding-sheet, to the eyes of the seer, would have passed his heart and risen around his throat. And when I meet thee again, O King, It was not in Lord Edward's nature, even had he foreseen the fate that was awaiting him, to turn aside from it. He might be a weak man-in many respects he was undoubtedly not a strong one; but honour and loyalty were not weak within him, nor was his the want of strength which leads to the betrayal of a comrade or a cause. Evidence has already been quoted to show that, almost to the last, the Government, though troubled by no scruples with regard to his confederates, would gladly have seen themselves relieved from the odium attaching to whomsoever should lay hands upon a FitzGerald, and would willingly have afforded him every loophole for escape. But no dream of the possibility of availing himself of such chances of evasion would have crossed Lord Edward's mind. He loved life, indeed, and would fain have seen good days, but not at the cost of what was in his eyes a more important matter than life. As he had told his stepfather, he was pledged to the cause and he was pledged to the men; and to both he was unfalteringly true. Yet there must have been anxious moments at Kildare Lodge. Another baby was expected with the spring; and Pamela, in spite of the determination she had expressed to Madame de Genlis to remain in ignorance of her husband's political designs, cannot but have been aware to some degree of what was doing. Lady Sarah, indeed, writing shortly after Lord Edward's death, expressly states that his wife had never ceased attempting to use her influence for the purpose of persuading him of the ill effects of a revolution—" which she, poor soul, dreaded beyond all earthly evils"; and however imperfect was her information as to the extent and scope of the conspiracy, she must have known enough to have caused her to look back with vain regret to those happy earlier days when theory had not yet been reduced to practice, and Lord Edward, instead of preparing and organising rebellion, was tending his mother's flowers at Frescati. It is impossible, calling to mind the image of the charming, slight, légère child whose fate was linked with his, not to be sorry for her, as she entreated his friends to take care of him. No doubt they did their best. But there is a point beyond which the care of friends is of small avail, and in Lord Edward's case it was not far off. He was at this time in his thirty-fifth year, of middle height, or rather below it-he was not above five feet seven-and there would seem to have been something still boyish about the agile figure, the fresh colouring, and the elastic lightness of his tread. His eyes were grey, set under arched brows and shaded and softened by the long black lashes which remained in Moore's memory more than thirty years after the solitary occasion upon which he saw their owner. His hair was of so dark a brown as to incline to black. In manner-the description is that of the feathermerchant Murphy in whose house he was finally captured-he was "as playful and humble as a child, as mild and timid as a lady"; while a very different authority, his cousin Lord Holland, dwelling upon the charm which "fascinated his slightest acquaintance and disarmed the rancour of even his bitter opponents," describes his "gaiety of manner, without reserve but without intrusion," and his "careless yet inoffensive intrepidity both in conversation and in action." Such, outwardly, was the man who was to lead the |