The Tithe-Proctor: The Works of William Carleton, Volume TwoCarleton, William
General
The Tithe-Proctor: The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two
Carleton, William
Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
well-charged blunderbusses, as levelled every man of them with the
earth. A moment's pause ensued, and the door was again filled with new
aspirants for “fame in the cannon's mouth,” who, however, fared as badly
as the preceding batch. During this time the assailing party had been
busy with crowbars and other instruments, in making several breaches in
the yard walls. At length they succeeded in opening entrances in three
different places at the same time, and thus in a few minutes several
hundred men were precipitated into the yard. And now commenced the work
of death 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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