The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-05-21 00:00:00

Rtteratum

POETRY.

PARALLEL OF THE SEXES.

Man is daring, strong, presuming,
Woman weak, mild, unassuming;
Man in actions great and 'shining,
Woman suffers unrepining ;
Man is doomed abroad to roam,
Woman's 'vantage ground is home ;
In man's speeds convidion glows,
From woman's tongue persuasion flows;
To feeling heart man's claims are few,
Whilst woman's melts like solving dew;
Man would misery vert,
Woman sorrow cheer, divert;
Men po-sess a judgment chaste,
Women modesty and taste;
Of justice man's th' adopted child,
As woman is of mercy mild.

SELECTIONS.

A RIBBON DEED OF BLOOD.

(From Carleton's Trails and Stories of the Irish
Peasantry.)
The night was still stormy, but without rain; it was
rather dark, too, though not so as to prevent us from see-
ing the clouds careering swiftly through the air. The
dense curtain which had overhung and obscured the hori-
zon was now broken, and large sections of the sky were
clear, and thinly studded with stars that looked thin and
watery, as did indeed the whole firmament ; for in some
places black clouds were still visible, threatening a conti-
nuance of tempestuous weather. The road appeared
washed and gravelly ; every dike was full of yellow wa-
ter; and every little rivulet and larger stream dashed its
hoarse murmur in our ears ; every blast, too, was cold,
fierce, and wintry, sometimes driving us back to a stand
still, and again, when a turn in the road would bring it in
our backs, whirling us along for a few steps with involun-
tary rapidity. At length the fated dwelling became visi-
ble, and a short consultation was held in a sheltered place,
between the captain and the two parties who seemed so
eager for its destruction. Their fire-arms were now
loaded, and their bayonets and short pikes, the latter shod
and pointed with iron, were also got ready. The live coal
which was brought in the small pot had become extin-
guished ; but to remedy this, two or three persons from
a remote part of the county entered a cabin on the way-
side, and, under pretence of lighting their own and their
comrades' pipes, procured a coal of fire, for so they called
a lighted turf. From the time we left the chapel until
this moment a profound silence had been maintained, a
circumstance which, when I considered the number of
persons present, and the mysterious and dreaded object
of their journey, had a most appalling effect upon my
spirits.
At length we arrived within fifty perches of the house,
walkinc, in a compact body, and with as little noise as
possible; but it seemed as if the very elements had con-
spired to frustrate our design, for on advancing within
the shade of the farm-hedge, two or three persons found
themselves up to the middle in water, and on stooping to
ascertain more accurately the state of the place, we could
see nothing but one immense sheet of it—spread like a
lake over the meadows which surrounded the spot we
wished to reach.
Fatal night ! The very recollection of it, when asso-
ciated with the fearful tempests of the elements, grows, if
that were possible, more wild and revolting. Had we
been engaged in any innocent or benevolent enterprise,
there was something in our situation just then that had a
touch of interest in it to a mind imbued with a relish for
the savage beauties of nature. There we stood, about
a hundred and thirty in number, our dark forms bent for-
ward, peering into the dusky expanse of water, with its
dim gleams of reflected light, broken by the weltering of
the mimic waves into ten thousand fragments, whilst the
few stars that overhung it to the firmament appeared to
shoot through it in broken lines, and to be multiplied
fifty-fold in the gloomy mirror on which we gazed.
Over us was a stormy sky, and around us a darkness

through which we could only distinguish, in outline, the
nearest objects, whilst the wild wind swept strongly and
dismally upon us. When it was discovered that the com-
mon pathway to the house was inundated, we were about
to abandon our project and return home. The Captain,
however, stooped down low for a moment, and, almost
closing his eyes, looked along the surface of the waters ;
and then, raising himself very calmly, said, in his usual
quiet tone, " Ye needn't go back, boys, I've found a way;
jist follow me."
He immediately took a more circuitous direction, by
which we reached a causeway that had been raised for the
purpose of giving a free passage to and from the house,
during such inundations as the present. Along this we
had advanced more than half way, when we discovered a
breach in it, which, as afterwards appeared, had that night
been made by the strength of the flood. This, by means
of our sticks and pikes, we found to be about three feet
deep, and eight yards broad. Again we were at a loss how
to proceed, when the fe. tile brain of the Captain devised
a method of crossing it.

" Boys," said he,-" of coorse you've all played at leap-
frog ; very well, strip and go in, a dozen of you, lean one
upon the back of another from this to the opposite bank,
where one must stand facing the outside man, both their
shoulders agin one another, that the outside man may be
supported. Then we can creep over you, an' a decent
bridge you'll be, any way."
This was the work of a few minutes, and in less than ten
we were all safely over.
_ _

Merciful Ireairen ! how I sicken at the recollection of
what is to follow ! On reaching the dry bank, we pro-
ceeded instantly, and in profound silence, to the house;
the r,aptain divided us intn,enn-tpaniao, and than aaQignad
to each division its proper station. The two parties who
had been so vindictive all the night, he kept about him-
self ; for of those who were present, they were only in his
confidence, and knew his nefarious purpose; their num-
ber was about fifteen. Having made these dispositions,
he, at the head of about five of them, approached the
house on the windy side, for the fiend possessed a cool-
ness which enabled him to seize upon every possible ad-
vantage. That he had combustibles about him was evi-
dent, for in less than fifteen minutes nearly one-half of
the house was enveloped in flames. On seeing this, the
others rushed over to the spot where he and his gang were
standing, and remonstrated earnestly, but in vain ; the
flames now burst forth with renewed violence, and as they
flung their strong light upon the faces of the foremost
group, I think hell itself could hardly present anything
more satanic than their countenances, now worked up
into a paroxysm of infernal triumph at their own revenge.
The Captain's look had lost all its calmness, every feature
started out into distinct malignity, the curve in his brow
was deep, and ran up to the root of the hair, dividing his
face into two segments, that did not seem to have been
designed for each other. His lips were half open, and the
corners of his month a little brought back on each side,
like those of a man expressing intense hatred and triumph
over an enemy who is in the death-struggle under his
grasp. His eye blazed from beneath his knit eye-brows
with a fire that seemed to be lighted up in the infernal
pit itself. It is unnecessary, and only painful, to describe
the rest of his gang ; demons might have been proud of
such horrible visages as they exhibited; for they worked
under all the power of hatred, revenge, and joy ; and
these passions blended into one terrible scowl, enough
almost to blast any human eye that would venture to look
upon it.
When the others attempted to intercede for the lives of
the inmates, there were at least fifteen guns and pistols
levelled at them.
" Another word," said the Captain, " an' you're a
corpse where you stand, or the first man who will dare to
spake for them ; no, no, it wasn't to spare them we came
here. •No mercy' is the pass-word for the night, an' by
the sacred oath I swore beyant in the chapel, any one
among yez that will attempt to show it, will find none at
my hand. Surround the house, boys, I tell ye, I her them
stirring. 'No quarther—no mercy,' is the ordher of the
Such was his command over these misguided creatures,
that in an instant there was a ring round the house to pre-
vent the escape of the unhappy inmates, should the raving
elements give them time to attempt it ; for none present
durst withdraw themselves from the scene; not only from
an apprehension of the Captain's present vengeance, or
that of his gang, but because they knew that even had
they then escaped, an early and certain death awaited
them from a quarter against which they had no means of
defence. The hour now was about half-past two o'clock.
Scarcely had the words escaped from the Captain's lips,
when one of the windows of the house was broken, and
a human head, having the hair in a blaze, was descried,

apparently a woman's, if one might judge from the pro-
fusion of burning tress s, and the softness of the tones,
notwithstanding that it called, or rather shrieked, aloud,
for help and mercy. The only reply to this was the
whoop from the Captain and his gang, of " No mercy—
MO mercy !" and that instant the former, and one of the
latter, rushed to the spot, and ere the action could be per-
ceived, the head was transfixed with a bayonet and a pike,
both having entered it together. The word " mercy" was
divided in tier mouth ; a short silence ensued, the head
hung down on the window, but was instantly tossed back
into the flames !
This action occasioned a cry of horror from all present,
except the aang and their leader, which startled and
enraged the latter so much; that he ran towards one of
them, and had his bayonet, now reeking with the blood of
its innocent victim, raised to plunge it in his body, when,
dropping the point, he said in a piercing whisper, that
hissed in the ears of all : " It's no use now, you know ;
if one's to hang, all will hang; so our safest way, you
persave, is to lave none of them to tell the story. You
may go now, if you wish ; but it won't save a hair of
your heads. You cowardly set ! I knew if I had tould
yez the sport, that none of you, except my own boys,
would come, so I jist played a thrick upon you ; but re-
mimber what you are sworn to, and stand to the oath ye
tuck."

Unhappily, notwithstanding the wetness of the preced-
ing weather, the materials of the house were extremely
combustible ; the whole building was now one body of
glowing flame, yet the shouts and shrieks within rose
awfully above its crackling and the voice of the storm,
for the winds once more blew in gusts, and with great
violence. The doors and windows were all torn open,
and such of those within as had escaped the flames rushed
-"towards them, for the purpose of further escape, and of
- claiming mercy at the hands of their destroyers ; but
whenever they appeared, the unearthly cry of " NO
MERCY" rung upon their ears for a moment, and for a
moment only, for they were flung back at the points of
the weapons which the demons had brought with them to
make the work of vengeance more certain.
As yet there were many persons in the house whose cry
for life was strong as despair, and who clung to it with all
the awakened powers of reason and instinct. The ear
of man could hear nothing so strongly calculated to stifle
the demon of cruelty and revenge within him, as the long