The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Landleaguers, by Anthony Trollope
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Title: The Landleaguers
Author: Anthony Trollope
Release Date: December 4, 2009 [eBook #30606]
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LANDLEAGUERS***
E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
Transcriber's note:
In 1834, at age 19, Anthony Trollope became a junior clerk
in the British postal service. He did not get on well with
his superiors, and his career looked like a dead end. In
1841 he accepted an assignment in Ireland as an inspector,
remaining there for ten years. It was there that his civil
service career began to flourish. It was there, also, that
he began writing novels.
Several of Trollope's early novels were set in Ireland,
including _The Macdermots of Ballycloran_, his first
published novel, and _Castle Richmond_. Readers of those
early Irish novels can easily perceive Trollope's great
affection for and sympathy with the Irish people,
especially the poor.
In 1882 Ireland was in the midst of great troubles,
including boycotts and the near breakdown of law and
order. In May of that year Lord Frederick Cavendish, the
newly-appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Thomas
Burke, a prominent civil servant, were assassinated in
Dublin. The news stirred Trollope, despite his poor
health, to travel to Ireland to see for himself the state
of things. Upon his return to England he began writing
_The Landleaguers_. He made a second journey to Ireland
in August, 1882, to seek more material for his book. He
returned to England exhausted, but he continued writing.
He had almost completed the book when he suffered a stroke
on November 3, 1882. He never recovered, and he died on
December 6.
Trollope's second son, Henry, arranged for publication of
the almost finished novel. The reader should note Henry
Trollope's preface to Volume I and Postscript at the end
of the book.
Readers familiar with Trollope's early Irish novels
will be struck, as they read _The Landleaguers_, by his
bitterness at what was happening in Ireland in 1881 and
1882.
THE LANDLEAGUERS
by
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
In Three Volumes--VOL. I.
London
Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly
1883
[All rights reserved]
Charles Dickens and Evans,
Crystal Palace Press.
CONTENTS
Chapter
I. MR. JONES OF CASTLE MORONY.
II. THE MAN IN THE MASK.
III. FATHER BROSNAN.
IV. MR. BLAKE OF CARNLOUGH.
V. MR. O'MAHONY AND HIS DAUGHTER.
VI. RACHEL AND HER LOVERS.
VII. BROWN'S.
VIII. CHRISTMAS-DAY, 1880.
IX. BLACK DALY.
X. BALLYTOWNGAL.
XI. MOYTUBBER.
XII. "DON'T HATE HIM, ADA."
XIII. EDITH'S ELOQUENCE.
XIV. RACHEL'S CORRESPONDENCE.
XV. CAPTAIN YORKE CLAYTON.
XVI. CAPTAIN CLAYTON COMES TO THE CASTLE.
NOTE.
This novel was to have contained sixty chapters. My father had
written as much as is now published before his last illness. It will
be seen that he had not finished the forty-ninth chapter; and the
fragmentary portion of that chapter stands now just as he left it.
He left no materials from which the tale could be completed, and no
attempt at completion will be made. At the end of the third volume I
have stated what were his intentions with regard to certain people in
the story; but beyond what is there said I know nothing.
HENRY M. TROLLOPE.
THE LANDLEAGUERS.
CHAPTER I.
MR. JONES OF CASTLE MORONY.
In the year 1850 the two estates of Ballintubber and Morony were sold
to Mr. Philip Jones, under the Estates Court, which had then been
established. They had been the property of two different owners, but
lay conveniently so as to make one possession for one proprietor.
They were in the County Galway, and lay to the right and left of
the road which runs down from the little town of Headford to Lough
Corrib. At the time when the purchase was made there was no quieter
spot in all Ireland, or one in which the lawful requirements of
a landlord were more readily performed by a poor and obedient
tenantry. The people were all Roman Catholics, were for the most part
uneducated, and it may be said of them that not only were their souls
not their own, but that they were not ambitious even of possessing
their own bodies. Circumstances have changed much with them since
that date. Not only have they in part repudiated the power of the
priest as to their souls, but, in compliance with teaching which has
come to them from America, they claim to be masters also of their
bodies. Never were a people less fitted to exercise such dominion
without control. Generous, kindly, impulsive, and docile, they have
been willing to follow any recognised leader. When Philip Jones
bought the property that had belonged to the widow O'Dwyer--for
Ballintubber had for the last hundred years been the property of the
O'Dwyers--and Morony, which, had been an outlying town-land belonging
to the Hacketts for the last two centuries, he had at first been
looked down upon as a new comer. But all that had passed by, and Mr.
Jones was as much respected as though he had been an O'Jones from the
time of Queen Elizabeth. But now the American teaching had come up,
and things were different.
Mr. Jones had expended over £30,000 in purchasing the property, and
was congratulated by all men on having done well with his money.
There were some among his friends in England--and his friends were
all English--who had told him that he was incurring a great risk in
going into so distant and wild a country. But it was acknowledged
that he could not in England have obtained so good a return in
the way of rent. And it was soon found that the opportunities for
improving the property were many and close at hand. At the end of
ten years all men who knew Mr. Jones personally, or had seen the
increasing comforts of Morony Castle, declared that, as he liked the
kind of life, he had done uncommonly well for himself.
Nor had he done badly for his three married sisters, each of whom had
left £4,000 in his hands. All the circumstances of the Miss Jones's
as they had been, it will be here unnecessary to explain. Since
Philip had become owner of Morony Castle, each of them had married,
and the three brothers-in-law were equally well satisfied with the
investment of their money. It will, however, thus be understood that
the property did not belong entirely to Mr. Jones, and that the
brothers-in-law and their wives were part owners. Mr. Jones, however,
had been in possession of some other means, and had been able to use
capital in improving the estate. But he was an aspiring man, and
in addition to his money had borrowed something beyond. The sum
borrowed, however, had been so small and so well expended, as to have
created no sense of embarrassment in his mind.
When our story commences he was the father of four children. The
elder and the younger were boys, and two girls came between them.
In 1880, Frank, the elder, was two-and-twenty. The two girls who
followed close after were twenty and nineteen, and the youngest boy,
who was born after an interval of nearly ten years, was but ten years
old. Some years after the mother had died, and Mr. Jones had since
lived as a widower. It may be as well to state here that in 1880 he
was fifty-five years old.
When his wife had died, the nature of the man had apparently been
changed. Of all men he had been the most cheerful, the most eager,
and the most easily pleased. He had worked hard at his property, and
had loved his work. He knew every man and woman about the place, and
always had a word to say to them. He had had a sailing boat on the
lake, in which he had spent much of his time, but his wife had always
been with him. Since her death he had hardly put his foot within the
boat. He had lately become quick and short-tempered, but always with
a visible attempt to be kind to those around him. But people said
of him that since his wife had died he had shown an indifference to
the affairs of the world. He was anxious--so it was said--to leave
matters as much as possible to his son; but, as has been already
stated, his son was only twenty-two. He had formerly taken a great
pleasure in attending the assizes at Galway. He had been named as a
grand juror for the county, which he had indeed regarded as a great
compliment; but since his wife's death he had not once attended.
People said of him that he had become indifferent to the work of
his life, but in this they hardly spoke the truth. He had become
indifferent rather to what had been its pleasures. To that which his
conscience told him was its work, he applied himself with assiduity
enough. There were two cares which sat near his heart: first, that no
one should rob him; and secondly, that he should rob no one. It will
often be the case that the first will look after itself, whereas the
second will require careful watching. It was certainly the case with
Philip Jones that he was most anxious to rob no one. He was, perhaps,
a little too anxious that no one should rob him.
A few words must be said of his children. Frank, the eldest, was
a good-looking, clever boy, who had been educated at the Queen's
College, at Galway, and would have been better trained to meet the
world had circumstances enabled him to be sent to a public school
in England. As it was he thought himself, as heir to Morony Castle,
to be a little god upon earth; and he thought also that it behoved
his sisters and his brother, and the various dependents about the
place, to treat him as though he were a god. To his father he was
respectful, and fairly obedient in all matters, save one. As to that
one matter, from which arose some trouble, much will have to be said
as the story goes on.
The two girls were named Ada and Edith, and were, in form and figure,
very unlike each other. Ada, the eldest, was tall, fair-haired, and
very lovely. It was admitted in County Galway that among the Galway
lasses no girl exceeded Ada Jones in brightness of beauty. She was
sweet-tempered also, and gracious as she was lovely. But Edith did
not share the gifts, which the fairy had bestowed upon her sister, in
equal parts. She was, however, clever, and kind, and affectionate. In
all matters, within the house, she was ready to accept a situation
below her sister's; but this was not by her sister's doing. The
demigod of the family seemed to assume this position, but on Ada's
part there was no assumption. Edith, however, felt her infirmity.
Among girls this is made to depend more on physical beauty than on
other gifts, and there was no doubt that in this respect Edith was
the inferior. She was dark, and small of stature, not ungraceful in
her movements, or awkward in her person. She was black-haired, as had
been her mother's, and almost swarthy in her complexion, and there
was a squareness about her chin which robbed her face of much of its
feminine softness. But her eyes were very bright, and when she would
laugh, or say something intended to make another laugh, her face
would be brightened up with fun, good-humour, or wit, in a manner
which enabled no one to call her plain.
Of the younger boy, Florian, much will be said as the story goes
on; but what can be said of a boy who is only ten which shall be
descriptive and also interesting? He was small of his age, but clever
and sharp, and, since his mother's death, had been his father's
darling. He was beautiful to look at, as were all the children,
except poor Edith, but the neighbours declared that his education
had been much neglected. His father intended to send him to college
at Galway. A bright vision had for a short time flitted before the
father's eyes, and he had thought that he would have the boy prepared
for Winchester; but lately things had not gone quite so well at
Morony Castle, and that idea had passed by. So that it was now
understood that Florian Jones would follow his brother to Galway
College. Those who used to watch his ways would declare that the
professors of Galway College would have some trouble with him.
While the mother had lived no family had been more easily ruled than
that of the Jones's, but since her death some irregularities had gone
on. The father had made a favourite of the younger boy, and thereby
had done mischief. The eldest son, too, had become proud of his
position, and an attempt had been made to check him with a hard hand;
and yet much in the absolute working of the farm had been left to
him. Then troubles had come, in which Mr. Jones would be sometimes
too severe, and sometimes too lenient. Of the girls it must be
acknowledged that they were to be blamed for no fault after the first
blow had come. Everyone at Morony had felt that the great blow had
been the death of the mistress. But it must be confessed that other
things had happened shortly afterwards which had tended to create
disturbance. One of the family had declared that he intended to
become a Roman Catholic. The Jones's had been Protestants, the father
and mother having both come from England as Protestants. They were
not, therefore, Ultra-Protestants, as those will know who best
know Ireland. There had been no horror of a Catholic. According to
Mrs. Jones the way to heaven had been open to both Catholic and
Protestant, only it had suited her to say her prayers after the
Protestant fashion. The girls had been filled with no pious fury;
and as to Mr. Jones himself, some of the Protestant devotees in the
neighbourhood of Tuam had declared that he was only half-hearted in
the matter. An old clergyman, attached to the cathedral, and who had
been chaplain to Bishop Plunket, had been heard to declare that he
would rather have to deal with an avowed Papist.
But the one who had now declared himself as a convert,--I will say
pervert if my readers wish it,--was no other than our young friend
Florian. He came in one day and assured his sisters that he meant
to be a Roman Catholic. They only laughed at him, and told him that
he did not know what he was talking about. "Don't I though?" said
Florian. "I've had no end of an argument with Father Malachi, and
he's got the best o' me. I'm not going to church any more." When his
brother Frank was told, he threatened to "lick the young sinner."
"That's about the best can be said for you Protestants," said the
young imp. "You lick us when you're strong enough." But the father,
when he heard the tidings, declared that he would not have his son
molested. No doubt he would live to see his mistake. It was to be
hoped that he would do so. But there should be no compulsion. So
Master Florian remained for the present attached to his Catholic
propensities, and duly went to mass at Ballintubber. This had taken
place in the autumn of the year.
There had occurred a circumstance which may be called the beginning
of our story. It must first be told that Mr. Jones kept about four
hundred acres of the estate in his own hands, and had been held to
have done very well with it. A tract of this land lay down on Lough
Corrib, and had in former days produced almost nothing but rushes.
By means of drains and sluices, which had not been brought into use
without the expenditure of much capital, he had thoroughly fertilised
some eighty acres, where he grew large crops of hay, which he sent
across the lake to Galway, and fed his sheep on the after-grass with
great profit. But the care of the sluices had been a great labour,
and, latterly, a great trouble to Mr. Jones. He had looked for no
evil at the hands of his workmen, or tenants, or neighbours. But he
had been taught by experience to expect great carelessness. It was
when the rain had fallen in heavy quantities, and when the Lough was
full that the evil was chiefly expected. Late in the autumn there
came news up to the Castle, that the flood gates on the Ballintubber
marshes had now been opened, and that the entire eighty acres were
under water. Mr. Jones and his eldest son rushed down, and found
that it was impossible to do anything. They could only wait till the
waters had retreated, which would not take place for six months. The
entire crop for the next year had been destroyed. Then Mr. Jones
returned to the Castle stricken by a great blow, and was speechless
for the rest of the day.
When the news had been brought, the family had been together at the
breakfast table. The father and son had gone out together with the
teller of the story. But Ada and Edith and Florian were left at the
table. They all sat looking at each other till Edith was the first to
speak.
"Flory, what do you know of all this?"
"What should I know?" said Flory. The two sisters looked at him, and
each was aware that he did know something. Ada was not so quick as
Edith, but even she was aroused. And from this moment Edith began to
take the lead in managing her brother.
"You do," said Ada. "How was it done? Who did it--and why?"
"Sorrow a know, I know," said the boy.
"Flory, that is a lie," said Edith very solemnly, looking at him with
all her eyes.
"You've no right to say that," said Florian. "It's just because I've
turned Catholic, and it's all your spite." But the boy blushed ruby
red, and the colour told its own story.
As soon as the news had been announced, Edith had seen the boy's
countenance and had instantly watched him. His colour had not risen
at once; but his lower jaw had fallen, and his eyes had glanced
furtively round, and his whole frame had quivered. Then the rush of
blood had flown to his face, and the story had been told so that
Edith could read it. His first emotion had made it plain even to Ada.
"Flory, you know all about it," said Ada.
Edith got up and went across the room and knelt down at the boy's
side, leaning against his chair and looking up into his face. "Flory,
you may lie with your voice, but you cannot stifle your heart within
you. You have confessed the truth."
"I have not," said Flory; "I wasn't in it at all."
"Who says that you were in it? But you know."
"'Deed and I know nothin'." Now the boy began to cry. "You have no
right to say I did it. Why should I do the likes of that?"
"Where were you at four o'clock yesterday afternoon?" asked Edith.
"I was just out, up at the lodge yonder."
"Flory, I know that you have seen this thing done. I am as certain of
it as though I had been there myself."
"I haven't seen anything done--and I won't stay here to be questioned
this way," said the boy, feeling that his blushes would betray him,
and his incapacity to "lie square," as the Americans say.
Then the two sisters were left to talk over the matter together. "Did
you not see it in his face?" said Edith.
"Yes, I saw something. But you don't mean to say that he knew it was
to be done? That would make him a fiend."
"No; I don't think he knew it was to be done. But when Frank was
teasing him the other day about his Catholic nonsense, and saying
that he would not trust a Papist, Florian took the part of Pat
Carroll. If there be a man about the place who would do a base turn
to father, it's Pat Carroll. Now I know that Flory was down near the
lough yesterday afternoon. Biddy Ryan saw him. If he went on he must
have seen the water coming in."
"What shall we do?" asked Ada.
"Ah!--that's just it. What shall we do? If he could be made to tell
the truth, that would be best. But as he denies it, father will
believe him. Florian will say that we are spiting him because of his
religion."
"But, Edith, we must tell father." At last it was decided that Edith
should take the boy and talk to him. He was more prone to listen to
Edith than to Ada. Edith did find her brother, and talked to him for
an hour,--but in vain. He had managed to collect himself after his
past breakdown, and was better able to bear the examination to which
his sister put him, than at the first moment. He still blushed when
he was questioned; till he became dogged and surly. The interview
ended with repeated asseverations on Flory's part, that he knew
nothing of the meadows.
Mr. Jones and his eldest son returned to the house, having been
absent the entire day. "As sure as I am a living man, Pat Carroll has
been at the doing of it," said Frank.
"He cannot have done it alone," said Ada.
"There have been others in it."
"That has been the worst of it," said the father. "Of course I have
known since the beginning of the year, that that man would do any
devil's turn of work against me. But one man cannot do much."
"Too much! too much!" said Edith.
"One man can murder me, of course. But we haven't yet come to such a
state of things as that. Twelve months ago I thought there was not a
man about the place who would raise his hand to do me an ill turn. I
have done them many good turns in my time."
"You have, father," said Ada.
"Then this man came to me and said that because the tenants away in
County Mayo were not paying their rents, he could not pay his. And he
can sell his interest on his holding now for £150. When I endeavoured
to explain this to him, and that it was at my cost his interest in
the farm has been created, he became my enemy. I don't mind that; one
has to look for that. But that others should be joined in it, and
that there should be no one to say that they had seen it! There must
have been five pairs of hands at work, and twenty pairs of eyes must
have seen what the others were doing."
The two sisters looked at each other, but they said nothing. "I
suppose we shall work it out of them some day," said Frank.
"I suppose nothing of the kind," said the father. "There are eighty
acres of meadow lying under Lough Corrib this moment which will not
give a ton of hay next summer, or food for a sheep next autumn. The
pastures will be saturated, and sheep would perish with foot-rot
and fluke. Then money must be laid out again upon it, just that Mr.
Carroll may again wreak his vengeance." After that there was silence,
for the children felt that not a word could be spoken which would
comfort their father.
When they sat down to dinner, Mr. Jones asked after Florian. "He's
not well," said Edith.
"Florian not well! So there's another misfortune."
"His ill-health is rather ill-humour. Biddy will take care of him,
father."
"I do not choose that he should be looked after by Biddy in solitude.
I suppose that somebody has been teasing him."
"No, father," said Edith, positively.
"Has anyone been speaking to him about his religion?"
"Not a word," said Edith. Then she told herself that to hold her
tongue at the present moment would be cowardly. "Florian, father, has
misbehaved himself, and has gone away cross. I would leave him, if I
were you, till to-morrow."
"I know there is ill-will against him," said the father. All this was
ill-judged on behalf of Mr. Jones. Peter, the old butler, who had
lived in the family, was in the room. Peter, of course, was a Roman
Catholic, and, though he was as true as steel, it could not but be
felt that in this absurd contest he was on the side of the "young
masther."
Down in the kitchen the conversion of the "young masther" to the true
religion was a great affair, and Mr. Frank and the young ladies were
looked upon as hard-hearted and cruel, because they stood in the way
of this act of grace. Nothing more was said about Florian that night.
CHAPTER II.
THE MAN IN THE MASK.
Edith, before she went to bed that night, crept up to her brother's
bedroom and seated herself on the bedside. It was a little room which
Florian occupied alone, and lay at the back of the house, next to
that in which Peter slept. Here, as she sat on the bed, she could see
by a glance that young Florian feigned to be asleep.
"Flory, you are pretending to be asleep." Flory uttered a short
snore,--or rather snort, for he was not a good actor. "You may as
well wake up, because otherwise I shall shake you."
"Why am I to be shaked up in bed?"
"Because I want to speak to you."
"Why am I to be made to speak when I want to sleep?"
"Papa has been talking about you downstairs. He has come home from
Ballintubber, very tired and very unhappy, and he thinks you have
been made to go to bed without your supper because we have been
attacking you about religion. I have told him that nobody has said
a word to you."
"But you did."
"Not a word."
"You didn't tell him all that you told me--about letting in the
water?" This was asked in a tone of great anxiety.
"Not a word,--not as yet."
"And you won't? Mind, I tell you it's all untrue. What do I know
about letting in the water?"
"Who did it?"
"I'm not going to tell."
"You know, then?"
"No, I don't. But I'm not going to tell as though I knew it. You
don't care about it in your religion, but we Catholics don't like
telling lies."
"You saw nothing?"
"Whatever I saw I'm not to tell a lie about it."
"You've promised not, you mean?"
"Now, Edy, you're not going to trap me. You've got your own religion
and I've got mine. It's a great thing in our religion to be able to
hold your tongue. Father Malachi says it's one of the greatest trials
which a man has to go through."
"Then, Flory, am I to gather that you will say nothing further to
me?" Here the boy shook his head. "Because in that case I must tell
father. At any rate, he must be told, and if you do not tell him, I
shall."
"What is there to be told?"
"I shall tell him exactly what I saw,--and Ada. I saw,--we saw,--that
when the news came about the flood, you were conscious of it all.
If you will go to father and tell him the truth he will be but
very little angry with you. I don't suppose you had a hand in it
yourself."
"No!" shouted the boy.
"But I think you saw it, and that they made you swear an oath. Was
that not so?"
"No!" whispered the boy.
"I am sure it was so." Then the boy again plucked up his courage, and
declared with a loud voice, that it was not so.
That night before she retired to rest, Edith went to her father and
told him all that she had to say. She took Ada with her, and together
they used all their eloquence to make their father believe as they
believed.
"No," said Edith, "he has not confessed. But words drop from him
which make us sure that he knows who did it. I am certain that he saw
it done. I don't mean to say that he saw the whole thing. The water,
I suppose, was coming in all night."
"The whole night! While we were sleeping in our beds, the waters of
the lough were ruining me," said the father.
"But he saw enough to be able to tell you who did it."
"I know who did it. It was that ruffian Carroll."
"But father, you will want evidence."
"Am I to bring up my own boy to swear that he was there, witnessing
what was done, as the friend of my enemies? I do not believe that he
was there at all."
"If you question him, he will probably own to it. It will be better
to get at the truth and face it. He is only ten years old. You must
tell me the story of his pretended conversion."
"Why should it be pretended?" asked the father.
"Well; of his conversion," said Edith.
"I don't see what it has to do with it? Am I to put myself forward as
a bigoted Protestant? Florian has been foolish, but am I to say that
I am angry, where I am not angry--not specially angry."
"It will show the influence under which he has taken up Carroll's
side," said Edith.
"Or the influence under which he has been made to hold his tongue,"
said Ada.
"Just so," said Edith. "We do not think that he has made one with
your enemies in the matter. But he has seen them at work and has been
made to promise that he will hold his tongue. I don't suppose you
mean to let the affair slip by without punishing any one."
When the girls left him, Mr. Jones was by no means persuaded. As
far as he could ascertain from examination of the persons about the
locality, there was no one willing to state in evidence that he
had seen anything. The injury had been done in November, on a wet,
dreary, dull afternoon. He did learn that at half-past three the
meadows were in their usual condition. As to the sluices, the gates
of which had been pulled out and thrown away in twenty different
places, he could learn nothing; no one had seen a sluice gate
touched. As to Florian, and what Florian had been seen to do, he
had asked no question, because Florian's name had not then been
mentioned. But he had been struck by the awful silence of the people.
There were women there, living on the spot, with whose families
his family had been on the most kindly terms. When rheumatism
was rife,--and rheumatism down on the lough side had often been
rife--they had all come up to the Castle for port wine and solace. He
had refused them nothing,--he, or his dear wife, who had gone, or his
daughters; and, to give them their due, they had always been willing
to work for him at a moment's notice. He would have declared that no
man in Ireland was on better terms with his tenantry than he; and
now, because there had been a quarrel between him and that pestilent
fellow Carroll,--whom he had been willing to buy out from his bit
of land and let him go to America, so that they might all be at
peace,--could they all have turned against him and taken Carroll's
part? As far as he had been able to gather the feelings of the
people, from conversations with them, they had all acknowledged
Carroll to be wrong. He would have said that there was not one among
them who was not his friend rather than Carroll's. He was aware that
there had been ill-feeling about in other parts of the country. There
had been,--so he was told,--a few demagogues in Galway town, American
chiefly, who had come thither to do what harm they could; and he had
heard that there was discontent in parts of Mayo, about Ballyhaunis
and Lough Glinn; but where he lived, round Lough Corrib, there had
been no evil symptoms of such a nature. Now suddenly he found himself
as though surrounded by a nest of hornets. There were eighty acres of
his land under water, and no one would tell him how it was done, or
by whom.
And now, to make the matter worse, there had come upon him this
trouble with reference to his own boy. He would not believe the story
which his daughters had told him; and yet he knew within his heart
that they were infinitely the better worthy of credit. He believed in
them. He knew them to be good and honest and zealous on his behalf;
but how much better did he love poor Florian! And in this matter of
the child's change of religion, in which he had foolishly taken the
child's part, he could not but think that Father Malachi had been
most unkind to him; not that he knew what Father Malachi had done
in the matter, but Florian talked as though he had been supported
all through by the priest. Father Malachi had, in truth, done very
little. He had told the boy to go to his father. The boy had said
that he had done so, and that his father had assented. "But Frank and
the girls are totally against it. They have no sense of religion at
all." Then Father Malachi had told him to say his prayers, and come
regularly to mass.
Mr. Jones agreed with his daughters that it behoved him to punish the
culprit in this matter, but, nevertheless, he thought that it would
be better for him to let it go unpunished than to bring his boy
into collision with such a one as Pat Carroll. He twice talked the
matter over with Florian, and twice did so to no effect. At first he
threatened the young sinner, and frowned at him. But his frowns did
no good. Florian, if he could stand firm against his sister Edith,
was sure that he could do so against his father. Then Mr. Jones spoke
him fair, and endeavoured to explain to him how sad a thing it would
be if his boy were to turn against his own father and the interests
of the family generally.
"But I haven't," said Florian confidently.
"You should tell me what you saw on that afternoon."
"I didn't see anything," said Florian sulkily.
"I don't believe he knew anything about it," said Mr. Jones to Edith
afterwards. Edith could only receive this in silence, and keep her
own opinion to herself. Ada was altogether of her mind, but Frank at
last came round to his father's view. "It isn't probable," he said
to his sisters, "that a boy of his age should be able to keep such
a secret against four of us; and then it is most improbable that he
should have seen anything of the occurrence and not have come at once
to his father." But the girls held to their own opinion, till at last
they were told by Frank that they were two pig-headed nincompoops.
Things were going on in this way, and Mr. Jones was still striving to
find out evidence by which a case might be substantiated against Pat
Carroll, when that gentleman, one winter afternoon, was using his
eloquence upon Master Florian Jones. It was four o'clock, and the
darkness of the night was now coming on very quickly. The scene was
a cottage, almost in the town of Headford, and about two miles from
the nearest part of the Morony estate. In this cottage Carroll was
sitting at one side of a turf fire, while an old woman was standing
by the doorway making a stocking. And in this cottage also was
another man, whose face was concealed by an old crape mask, which
covered his eyes and nose and mouth. He was standing on the other
side of the fireplace, and Florian was seated on a stool in front of
the fire. Ever and anon he turned his gaze round on the mysterious
man in the mask, whom he did not at all know; and, in truth, he was
frightened awfully through the whole interview by the man in the
mask, who stood there by the fireside, almost close to Florian's
elbow, without speaking a word; nor did the old woman say much,
though it must be presumed that she heard all that was said.
"Faix, Mr. Flory, an' it's well for you you've come," said Carroll.
"Jist you sit steady there, 'cause it won't do the laist good in
life you're moving about where all the world'd see you." It was
thus that the boy was addressed by him, whom we may now call his
co-conspirator, and Carroll showed plainly, by his movements and by
the glances which he cast around him, that he understood perfectly
the dreadful nature of the business in which he was engaged. "You see
that jintl'man there?" And Carroll pointed to the man in the mask.
"I see him," said poor Florian, almost in tears.
"You'd better mark him, that's all. If he cotches a hould o'ye he'd
tear ye to tatthers, that's all. Not that he'd do ye the laist harum
in life if ye'd just hould yer pace, and say nothin' to nobody."
"Not a word I'll say, Pat."
"Don't! That's all about it. Don't! We knows,--he knows,--what
they're driving at down at the Castle. Sorra a word comes out of the
mouth o' one on 'em, but that he knows it." Here the man in the mask
shook his head and looked as horrible as a man in a mask can look.
"They'll tell ye that the father who owns ye ought to know all about
it. It's just him as shouldn't know."
"He don't," said Florian.
"Not a know;--an' if you main to keep yourself from being holed as
they holed Muster Bingham the other day away at Hollymount." The boy
understood perfectly well what was meant by the process of "holing."
The Mr. Bingham, a small landlord, who had been acting as his
own agent some twenty miles off, in the County of Mayo, had been
frightfully murdered three months since. It was the first murder that
had stained the quarrel which had now commenced in that part of the
country. Mr. Bingham had been unpopular, but he had had to deal with
such a small property, that no one had imagined that an attack would
be made on him. But he had been shot down as he was driving home from
Hollymount, whither he had gone to receive rent. He had been shot
down during daylight, and no one had as yet been brought to justice
for the murder. "You mind's Muster Bingham, Muster Flory; eh? He's
gone, and sorra a soul knows anything about it. It's I'd be sorry to
think you'd be polished off that way." Again the man in the mask made
signs that he was wide awake.
To tell the truth of Florian, he felt rather complimented in the
midst of all his horrors in being thus threatened with the fate of
Mr. Bingham. He had heard much about Mr. Bingham, and regarded him
as a person of much importance since his death. He was raised to
a level now with Mr. Bingham. And then his immediate position was
very much better than Bingham's. He was alive, and up to the present
moment,--as long as he held his tongue and told nothing,--he would
be regarded with friendly eyes by that terrible man in the mask. But,
through it all, there was the agonising feeling that he was betraying
them all at home. His father and Edith and Frank would not murder him
when they found him out, but they would despise him. And the boy knew
something,--he knew much of what was due by him to his father. At
this moment he was much in dread of Pat Carroll. He was in greater
dread of the man in the mask. But as he sat there, terrified by them
as they intended to terrify him, he was aware of all that courage
would demand from him. If he could once escape from that horrid
cabin, he thought that he might be able to make a clean breast and
tell everything. "It's I that'd be awful sorry that anything like
what happened Bingham, should happen to you, Muster Flory."
"Why wouldn't you; and I'd have done nothing against you?" said
Florian. He did feel that his conduct up to the present moment
deserved more of gratitude than of threats from Pat Carroll.
"You're to remimber your oath, Muster Flory. You're become one of us,
as Father Brosnan was telling you. You're not to be one of us, and
then go over among them schaming Prothestants."
"I haven't gone over among them,--only my father is one of them."
"What's yer father to do with it now you're a Catholic? Av you is
ever false to a Catholic on behalf of them Prothestants, though he's
twice yer own father, you'd go t' hell for it; that's where you'd be
going. And it's not only that, but the jintl'man as is there will
be sending you on the journey." Then Pat signified that he alluded
to the man in the mask, and the gentleman in the mask clenched his
fist and shook it,--and shook his head also. "You ask Father Brosnan
also, whether you ain't to be thrue to us Catholics now you're one
of us? It's a great favour as has been done you. You're mindful o'
that--ain't you?" Poor Flory said that he was mindful.
Here they were joined by another conspirator, a man whom Florian had
seen down by the sluices with Pat Carroll, and whom he thought he
remembered to have noticed among the tenants from the other side of
Ballintubber. "What's the chap up to now?" asked the stranger.
"He ain't up to nothin'," said Carroll. "We're only a cautioning of
him."
"Not to be splitting on yourself?"
"Nor yet on you," said Carroll.
"Sorra a word he can say agin me," said the stranger. "I wasn't in it
at all."
"But you was," said Florian. "I saw you pick the latch up and throw
it away."
"You've sharp eyes, ain't you, to be seeing what warn't there to be
seen at all? If you say you saw me in it, I'll have the tongue out of
your mouth, you young liar."
"What's the good of frightening the boy, Michael. He's a good boy,
and isn't a going to peach upon any of us."
"But I ain't a liar. He's a liar." This Florian said, plucking up
renewed courage from the kind words Pat Carroll had said in his
favour.
"Never mind," said Pat, throwing oil on the troubled waters. "We're
all frinds at present, and shall be as long as we don't split on
nobody."
"It's the meanest thing out,--that splitting on a pal," said the man
who had been called Michael. "It's twice worse when one does it to
one's father. I wouldn't show a ha'porth of mercy to such a chap as
that."
"And to a Catholic as peached to a Prothestant," said Carroll,
intending to signify his hatred of such a wretch by spitting on the
ground.
"Or to a son as split because his father was in question." Then
Michael spat twice upon the floor, showing the extremity of the
disgust which in such a case would overpower him.
"I suppose I may go now," said Florian. He was told by Pat Carroll
that he might go. But just at that moment the man in the mask, who
had not spoken a word, extemporised a cross out of two bits of burned
wood from the hearth, and put it right before Florian's nose; one
hand held one stick, and the other, the other. "Swear," said the man
in the mask.
"Bedad! he's in the right of it. Another oath will make it all the
stronger. 'That ye'll never say a word of this to mortial ears,
whether father or sister or brother, let 'em say what they will to
yer, s'help yer the Blessed Virgin.'"
"I won't then," said Florian, struggling to get at the cross to kiss
it.
"Stop a moment, me fine fellow," said Michael. "Nor yet to no one
else--and you'll give yourself up to hell flames av you don't keep
the blessed oath to the last day of your life. Now let him kiss it,
Pat. I wouldn't be in his shoes for a ten-pun note if he breaks that
oath."
"Nor I neither," said Pat. "Oh laws, no." Then Florian was allowed to
escape from the cabin. This he did, and going out into the dark, and
looking about him to see that he was not watched, made his way in at
the back door of a fairly large house which stood near, still in the
outskirts of the town of Headford. It was a fairly large house in
Headford; but Headford does not contain many large houses. It was
that in which lived Father Giles, the old parish priest of Tuam;--and
with Father Giles lived his curate, that Father Brosnan of whom
mention has above been made.
CHAPTER III.
FATHER BROSNAN.
There has come a change among the priests in Ireland during the last
fifty years, as has been natural. Among whom has there not come a
change in half a century? In England, statesmen are different, and
parsons, and judges, and peers. When an entire country has been left
unmoved by the outside world, so as to seem to have been left asleep
while others have been awake, the different classes will seem to
be the same at the end of every half century. A village lawyer in
Spain will be as was a village lawyer fifty years ago. But a parish
priest in Ireland will be an altered personage, because the country
generally has not been sleeping.
There used to be two distinct sorts of priests; of whom the elder,
who had probably been abroad, was the better educated; whereas the
younger, who was home-nurtured, had less to say for himself on
general topics. He was generally the more zealous in his religious
duties, but the elder was the better read in doctrinal theology. As
to the political question of the day, they were both apt to be on the
list against the Government, though not so with such violence as to
make themselves often obnoxious to the laws. It was natural that they
should be opposed to the Government, as long as the Protestant Church
claimed an ascendency over them. But their feelings and aspirations
were based then on their religious opinions. Now a set of men has
risen up, with whom opposition to the rulers of the country is
connected chiefly with political ideas. A dream of Home Rule has made
them what they are, and thus they have been roused into waking life,
by the American spirit, which has been imported into the country.
There is still the old difference between the elder and the younger
priests. The parish priest is not so frequently opposed to the law,
as is his curate. The parish priest is willing that the landlord
shall receive his rents, is not at least anxious, that he shall
be dispossessed of his land. But the curate has ideas of peasant
proprietors; is very hot for Home Rule, is less obedient to the
authority of the bishops than he was of yore, and thinks more of the
political, and less of the religious state of his country.
This variance of feeling might be seen in the three priests who have
been already mentioned in our story. Father Giles was the parish
pastor of Headford, in which position he had been for nearly forty
years. He was a man seventy years of age, in full possession of all
his faculties, very zealous in the well-being of his people, prone to
teach them that if they would say their prayers, and do as they were
bid by their betters, they would, in the long run, and after various
phases of Catholic well or ill-being, go to heaven. But they would
also have enough to eat in this world; which seemed to be almost more
prominent in Father Giles's teaching than the happy bliss of heaven.
But the older Father Giles became the more he thought of the good
things of this world, on behalf of his people, and the less he liked
being troubled with the political desires of his curate. He had gone
so far as to forbid Father Brosnan to do this, or to do that on
various occasions, to make a political speech here, or to attend
a demonstration there;--in doing which, or in not doing it, the
curate sometimes obeyed, but sometimes disobeyed the priest, thereby
bringing Father Giles in his old age into infinite trouble.
But Father Malachi, in the neighbouring parish of Ballintubber, ran
a course somewhat intermediate between these two. He, at the present
moment, had no curate who interfered with his happiness. There was,
indeed, a curate of Ballintubber--so named; but he lived away,
not inhabiting the same house with Father Malachi, as is usual in
Ireland; having a chapel to himself, and seldom making his way into
our part of the country. Father Malachi was a strong-minded man, who
knew the world. He, too, had an inclination for Home Rule, and still
entertained a jealousy against the quasi-ascendency of a Protestant
bishop; but he had no sympathy whatever with Father Brosnan. Ireland
for the Irish might be very well, but he did not at all want to have
Ireland for the Americans. Father Giles and Father Malachi certainly
agreed on one thing--that Brosnan was a great trouble.
If the conversion of Florian Jones was to be attributed to any
clerical influence, Father Brosnan was entitled to claim the good or
the evil done; but in truth very few polemical arguments had been
used on the occasion. The boy's head had been filled with the idea
of doing something remarkable, and he had himself gone to the priest.
When a Protestant child does go to a priest on such a mission, what
can the priest do but accept him? He is bound to look upon the
suppliant as a brand to be saved from the burning. "You stupid young
ass!" the priest may say to himself, apostrophising the boy; "why
don't you remain as you are for the present? Why do you come to
trouble me with a matter you can know nothing about?" But the priest
must do as his Church directs him, and the brands have to be saved
from the burning. Father Brosnan sent the boy to Father Malachi, and
Father Malachi told the lad to go to his terrestrial father. It was
this that Mr. Jones had expected, and there the boy was received as a
Catholic.
But to Father Brosnan the matter was much more important in its
political view. Father Brosnan knew the application as to his rent
which had been made by Pat Carroll to his landlord. He was of opinion
that no rent ought to be paid by any Irish tenant to any landlord--no
rent, at least, to a Protestant landlord. Wrath boiled within his
bosom when he heard of the answer which was given, as though Mr.
Jones had robbed the man by his refusal. Mr. Brosnan thought that
for the present a tenant was, as a matter of course, entitled to
abatement in his rent, as in a short time he must be entitled to his
land without paying any. He considered not at all the circumstances,
whether, as had been the case on certain properties in Mayo, all
money expended had been so expended by the tenant, or by the
landlord, as had been the case with Pat Carroll's land. That was an
injustice, according to Mr. Brosnan's theory; as is all property in
accordance with the teaching of some political doctors who are not
burdened with any.
It would have been unfair to Mr. Brosnan to say that he sympathised
with murderers, or that he agreed with those who considered that
midnight outrages were fair atonements; he demanded rights. He
himself would have been hot with righteous indignation, had such
a charge been made against him. But in the quarrel which was now
beginning all his sympathies were with the Carrolls at large, and
not with the Jones's at large. At every victory won by the British
Parliament his heart again boiled with indignation. At every
triumphant note that came over the water from America--which was
generally raised by the record of the dollars sent--he boiled, on
the other hand, with joy. He had gleams in his mind of a Republic.
He thought of a Saxon as an evil being. The Queen, he would say, was
very well, but she was better at a distance. The Lord-Lieutenant
was a British vanity, and English pomp, but the Chief Secretary
was a minister of the evil one himself. He believed that England
was enriched by many millions a year robbed from Ireland, and that
Ireland was impoverished to the same extent. He was a man thoroughly
disloyal, and at the same time thoroughly ignorant, altogether in
the dark as to the truth of things, a man who, whatever might be
his fitness for the duties of the priesthood, to which he had been
educated, had no capability of perceiving political facts, and no
honesty in teaching them. But it would have been unjust to him to say
that he was a murderer, or that he countenanced murder. To him it was
that young Florian now betook himself, and found him seated alone in
the back parlour in Father Giles's house. The old priest was out, and
Father Brosnan was engaged on some portion of clerical duties. To
give him his due, he performed those duties rigidly, and the more
rigidly when, in doing them, he obeyed the letter of the law rather
than the spirit. As Father Giles, in his idea of his duties, took
altogether the other side of the question, and, in thinking of the
spirit, had nearly altogether ignored the letter, it may be imagined
that the two men did not agree together very well. In truth, Father
Giles looked upon Father Brosnan as an ignorant, impertinent puppy,
whereas Father Brosnan returned the compliment by regarding Father
Giles as half an infidel, and almost as bad as a Protestant.
"Well, Master Florian," said the priest, "and how are things going
with you?"
"Oh! Father Brosnan, I'm in terrible throuble."
"What throuble's up now?"
"They're all agin me at home, and father's nearly as bad as any of
them. It's all along of my religion."
"I thought your father had given his consent?"
"So he has; but still he's agin me. And my two sisters are dead agin
me. What am I to do about Pat Carroll?"
"Just hould your tongue."
"They do be saying that because what Pat and the other boys did was
agin father's interest, I am bound to tell."
"You've given a promise?"
"I did give a promise."
"And you swore an oath," said the priest solemnly.
"I did swear an oath certainly."
"Then you must hould your tongue. In such a case as this I cannot
absolve you from your word. I don't know what it is that Pat Carroll
did." Here it must be admitted Father Brosnan did not stick to the
absolute truth. He did know what Pat Carroll had done. All Headford
knew that Mr. Jones's meadows had been flooded, and the priest must
have known that the present cause of trouble at Castle Morony,
was the injury thus done. Father Brosnan knew and approved of Pat
Carroll's enmity to the Jones family. But he was able to justify the
falsehood of his own heart, by stumbling over the degree of knowledge
necessary. There was a sense in which he did not know it. He need
not have sworn to it in a Court of Law. So he told himself, and so
justified his conscience. "You need not tell me," he went on to say
when the boy was proceeding to whisper the story, "I am not bound
to know what it is that Pat Carroll does, and what it is that your
father suffers. Do you go home, and keep your toe in your pump,
as they say, and come to me for confession a day or two before
Christmas. And if any of them say anything to you about your
religion, just sit quiet and bear it."
The boy was then dismissed, and went home to his father's home,
indifferent as to who might see him now, because he had come from the
priest's house. But the terror of that man in the mask still clung
to him; and mingled with that was the righteous fear, which still
struck cold to his heart, of the wicked injury which he was doing his
father. Boy though he was, he knew well what truth and loyalty, and
the bonds which should bind a family together, demanded from him. He
was miserable with a woe which he had not known how to explain to the
priest, as he thought of his terrible condition. At first Pat Carroll
and his friends had recommended themselves to him. He had, in truth,
only come on the scene of devastation down by the lough, by mere
accident. But he had before heard that Pat was an aggrieved man in
reference to his rent, and had taken it into his boyish heart to
sympathise with such sorrows. When Pat had got hold of him on the
spot, and had first exacted the promise of secrecy, Florian had given
it willingly. He had not expected to be questioned on the subject,
and had not attributed the importance to it which it had afterwards
assumed. He had since denied all knowledge of it, and was of course
burdened with a boy's fear of having to acknowledge the falsehood.
And now there had been added to it that awful scene in the cabin at
Headford, and on the top of that had come the priest's injunction.
"In such a case as this I cannot absolve you from your word." It was
so that the priest had addressed him, and there was something in it
that struck his young mind with awe. There was the man in the mask
tendering to him the oath upon the cross; and there had been Pat
Carroll assuring him of that man's wrath. Then there had come the
other stranger, speaking out angrily, and promising to him all evil,
were he to divulge a word.
Nevertheless, his conscience was so strong within him, that when he
reached the Castle he had almost made up his mind to tell his father
everything. But just as he was about to enter the Lodge gate, he was
touched on the arm by a female. "Master Florian," said the female,
"we is all in your hands." It was now dark night, and he could
not even see the woman's face. She seemed indeed to keep her face
covered, and yet he could see the gleam of her eyes. "You're one of
us now, Master Florian."
"I'm a Catholic, if you mean that."
"What else should I main? Would ye be unthrue to your own people?
Do ye know what would happen you if ye commit such a sin as that? I
tould them up there that you'd never bring down hell fire upon yer
head, by such a deed as that. It isn't what ye can do to him he'll
mind, I said, but the anger o' the Blessed Virgin. Worn't it thrue
for me what I said, Master Florian?" She held him in the dark, and he
could see the glimmer of her eyes, and hear the whisper of her voice,
and she frightened him with the fear of the world to come. As he
made his way up to the hall door, it was not the dread of the man in
the mask, so much as the fear inspired by this woman which made him
resolve that, come what come might, he must stick to the lie which he
had told.
After breakfast the next morning, his father summoned him into
his room. "Now," said Flory to himself, as he followed his father
trembling,--"now must I be true." By this he meant that he must be
true to his co-conspirators. If he were false to them, he would have
to incur the anger of the Blessed Virgin. How this should be made
to fall upon him, he did not in the least understand; but he did
understand that the Virgin as he had thought her, should be kind, and
mild, and gracious. He had never stopped to think whether the curse
as uttered by the woman, might or might not be true. Of loyalty to
his father he had thought much; but now he believed that it behoved
him to think more of loyalty to the Virgin, as defined by the woman
in the dark.
He followed his father into the magistrates' room, leaving his
brother and two sisters in the parlour. He was glad that none of
them were invited to accompany him, for he felt that his father was
more prone to believe him, than were either his sisters or even his
brother. "Florian," said his father, "you know, do you not, the
trouble to which I have been put about this man, Pat Carroll?"
"Yes, father; I know you have."
"And the terrible loss which I have incurred! Eighty acres are under
water. I suppose the miscreant will have cost me between £400 and
£500."
"As much as that?" said Florian, frightened by the magnitude of the
sum named.
"Indeed he will. It is hard to calculate the extent of the malignity
of a wicked man. Whether the barony will share the loss with me I
cannot yet say; but in either case the wickedness will be the same.
There is no word bad enough for it. It is altogether damnable;
and this is done by a man who calls me in question because of my
religion." Here the father paused, but Florian stood by without an
answer. If Pat Carroll was right in his religion, his father must be
wrong; and Florian thought that Pat Carroll was right. But he did
not see how the two things were joined together,--the opening of the
sluices, and the truth of Pat Carroll's religious convictions. "But
bad as the matter is as regards Pat Carroll, it is all as nothing in
reference to the accusation made against you." Here the father came
up, and laying his two hands on the boy's shoulders looked sadly into
his face. "I cannot believe that my own boy, my darling boy, has
joined in this evil deed against me!" Here the father ceased and
waited for his son to speak.
The son remembered the determination to which he had come, and
resolved to adhere to it. "I didn't," he said after a pause.
"I cannot believe it of you; and yet, your sisters who are as true as
steel, who are so good that I bless God morning and night that He in
His mercy has left me such treasures,--they believe it."
"They are against me because of my religion."
"No, Florian, not so; they disapprove of your change in religion, but
they are not brought to accuse you by such a feeling. They say that
they see it in your face."
"How can they see all that in my face?"
"That though you are lying persistently, you cannot hide from them
that you are lying. They are not only good girls, but they have very
sharp wits. A cleverer girl than Edith, or one better able to read
the truth of a boy's head, or even a man's, I have never known. I
hardly dare to put my own judgment against hers."
"In this case she knows nothing about it."
"But to me it is of such vital importance! It is not simply that your
evidence is needed to punish the man; I would let the man go and all
the evil that he has done me. But not for any money that I could name
would I entertain such an opinion of my son. Were I convinced at this
moment that you are innocent, I should be a happy man."
"Then you may, father."
"But your manner is against you. You do not answer me with that
appearance of frankness which I should have expected."
"Of course it all makes me very miserable. How can a fellow be frank
when he's suspected like this?"
"Florian, do you give me your most solemn assurance that you saw
nothing of this evil work while it was being perpetrated?"
"Yes, father."
"You saw nothing, and you knew nothing?"
"No, father."
"You have no reason to accuse Pat Carroll, except by what you have
heard?"
"No, father."
"Nor anyone else?"
"No, father." Then Mr. Jones stood silent, looking at his son.
And the more he looked the more he doubted him. When the boy had
uttered "No, father," for the last time, Mr. Jones felt almost
convinced--almost convinced that Edith was right. "You may go now,
Florian," he said. And the boy departed, fully convinced that his
father had disbelieved him.
CHAPTER IV.
MR. BLAKE OF CARNLOUGH.
Three or four days after the occurrences narrated in the last
chapter, Mr. Jones got on to his car and had himself driven down to
Carnlough, the seat of Mr. Thomas Blake, a gentleman living about two
miles the other side of Tuam. To reach Carnlough he had a journey to
make of about ten miles, and as he seldom went, in these days, so far
away from home, the fact of his going was known to all the household.
"Father is going to Carnlough," Florian said to Peter, the butler.
"What is he going for?"
"'Deed, then, Master Flory, who can tell that? Mr. Blake is a very
old friend of master's."
"But why is he going now? It isn't often he goes to Carnlough; and
when he does go, he is sure to say why."
"I shouldn't wonder af he's going to ax him as to how he shall get
rid of the waters."
"He knows that better than Mr. Blake can tell him."
"Or maybe he's going to inquire how he shall cotch a hould of Pat
Carroll."
It was evident, from the butler's answers, that all the world at
Morony Castle felt that at present Mr. Jones could engage himself on
no other subject than that of the flood.
"I wish father wouldn't think so much about the flood. After all,
what's £500? It won't ruin a man like my father."
But the butler showed by his visage that he regarded £500 as a
very serious matter, and that he was not at all astonished by the
occupation which it gave to his master's thoughts.
Mr. Blake, of Carnlough, was the first Irishman with whom Mr. Jones
had become acquainted in the County Galway. It was through his
instance, indeed, that the Morony and Ballintubber properties had
been bought, so that the acquaintance must have been well established
before the purchase had been made. Mr. Blake was a man of good
property, who, in former years, had always been regarded as popular
in the county. He was a Protestant, but had not made himself odious
to the Roman Catholics around him as an Orangeman, nor had he ever
been considered to be hard as a landlord. He thought, perhaps, a
little too much of popularity, and had prided himself a little
perhaps, on managing "his boys"--as he called the tenants--with
peculiar skill. Even still he could boast of his success, though
there had arisen some little difficulties as to rent over at
Carnlough; and, indeed, he was frightened lest some of the evil ways
which had begun to prevail in the neighbouring parts of County Mayo,
should make their way into County Galway.
Mr. Blake and Mr. Jones had been very intimate. It had been at Mr.
Blake's instance that Mr. Jones had been brought on to the Grand
Jury. But latterly they had not seen very much of each other. Mr.
Jones, since the death of his wife, did not go frequently to Galway,
and Carnlough was a long distance for a morning's drive. But on this
occasion Mr. Jones drove himself over simply with the view of making
a morning call. "Well, Jones, how are you;--and how are the girls,
and how is Frank, and how is that young pickle, Master Florian?"
These questions were answered by others of a similar nature. "How
are the girls, and how is Mrs. Blake, and what is going on here at
Carnlough?" There was no inquiry after the eldest son, for it was Mr.
Blake's misfortune that he had no male child to inherit his property.
"Faith, then, things ain't going on a bit too well," said Mr. Blake.
"Abatement, abatement, nothing but abatement! Nobody abates me
anything. I have to pay all family charges just the same as ever.
What would they say if I was to take away my wife and girls, shut
up Carnlough, and go and live in France? I could give them some
abatement then and be a richer man. But how would they like to have
Carnlough empty?"
"There's no danger of that, I think."
"Upon my word, I don't know. The girls are talking of it, and when
they begin to talk of a thing, I am very likely to do it. And Mrs.
Blake is quite ready."
"You wouldn't leave the country?"
"That's just it. I'll stay if they'll let me. If they'll pay me rent
enough to enable me to live here comfortably, I'll not desert them.
But if they think that I'm to keep up the place on borrowed money,
they'll find their mistake. I didn't mind ten per cent. for the last
two years, though I have taken to drinking whisky punch in my old
age, instead of claret and sherry. And I don't mind ten per cent. for
this year, though I am sorely in want of a young horse to carry me.
But if the ten per cent. is to go on, or to become twenty per cent.
as one blackguard hinted, I shall say good-bye to Carnlough. They may
fight it out then with Terry Daly as they can." Now, Terry Daly was
the well-known agent for the lands of Carnlough. "What has brought
you over here to-day?" asked Mr. Blake. "I can see with half an eye
that there is some fresh trouble."
"Indeed there is."
"I have heard what they did with your sluices. That's another trick
they've learnt out of County Mayo. When a landlord is not rich enough
to give them all that they want, they make the matter easier by doing
the best they can to ruin him. I don't think anything of that kind
has been done at Carnlough."
"There is worse than that," said Mr. Jones sorrowfully.
"The devil there is! They have not mutilated any of your cattle?"
"No, there is nothing of that kind. The only enemy I've got about the
place, as far as I know, is one Pat Carroll. It was he and others,
whom he paid to serve him, that have let the waters in upon the
meadows. Eighty acres are under water at this moment. But I can bear
that like a man. The worst of that is, that all the neighbours should
have seen him do it, and not one of them have come forward to tell
me."
"That is the worst," said Mr. Blake. "There must be some terrible
understanding among them, some compact for evil, when twenty men are
afraid to tell what one man has been seen to do. It's fearful to
think that the priests should not put a stop to it. How is Master
Florian getting on with his priest?"
"It's about him that I have come to speak to you," said Mr. Jones.
"About Florian?"
"Yes; indeed. When I tell you my story, I think you will understand
that I would tell it to no one but yourself in County Galway. I fear
that Florian saw the men at work upon the flood gates."
"And will he not tell the truth?"
"You must remember that I cannot say that I know anything. The boy
declares that he saw nothing; that he knows nothing. I have no
evidence; but his sisters are sure that it is so. Edith says that he
certainly was present when the gates were removed. She only judges
from his manner and his countenance."
"What made her suspect him?" asked Mr. Blake.
"Only that she saw him when the news was brought to us. Edith is
not ill-natured. She would not be prone to make a story against her
brother."
"If Edith says so, it is so," said Mr. Blake, who among all Edith's
admirers was one of the most ardent.
"I don't quite say that. I only mean to express my conviction that
she intends to get at the truth."
"I'll wager my life upon her," said Mr. Blake. "As to the
other;--well, you know, Jones, that he has turned Roman Catholic."
"That means nothing," said the distressed father. "He is only ten
years old. Of course he's a fool for his pains; but he would not on
that account do such a deed as this."
"I don't know. You must remember that he will be telling everything
to the priests."
"We have two priests about us," said Mr. Jones, "and I would trust
them in anything. There is Father Giles at Headford, and he is as
fair a man as any clergyman of our own could be. You cannot imagine
that he would give such advice to my boy?"
"Not Father Giles certainly," said the other man.
"Then down with us at Ballintubber there is Father Malachi."
"I know him too," said Mr. Blake. "He would not interfere with a boy
like Florian. Is there no one else? What curate lives with Father
Malachi?"
"There is none with him at Ballintubber. One Brosnan lives with
Father Giles."
"That man is a firebrand," said Mr. Blake. "He is a wretched
politician, always preaching up Home Rule."
"But I do not think that even he would teach a boy to deceive his own
father in such a matter as this."
"I am not sure," said Blake. "It is very difficult to get at the
vagaries of mind in such a man as Mr. Brosnan. But what do you intend
to do?"
"I have come to you for advice. But remember this:--in my present
frame of mind, the suspicion that I feel as to poor Florian is ten
times worse to me than the loss of all my meadows. If I could find
out Edith to have been wrong, I should be at once relieved of the
great trouble which sits heaviest at my heart."
"I fear that Edith is right," said Mr. Blake.
"You are prejudiced a little in her favour. Whatever she says you
will think right."
"You must weigh that, and take it for what it's worth," said Mr.
Blake. "We know that the boy has got himself into bad hands. You do
not suspect him of a desire to injure you?"
"Oh, no!" said the father.
"But he has seen these men do it, and now refuses to tell you. They
have terrified him."
"He is not a cowardly boy," said Mr. Jones, still standing up for his
son.
"But they have made him swear an oath that he will not tell. There
has been something of that sort. What does he say himself?"
"Simply that he knows nothing about it."
"But how does he say it? Does he look you in the face? A boy of that
kind may lie. Boys do--and girls also. When people say they don't,
they know nothing about it; but if it's worth one's while to look at
them one can generally tell when they're lying. I'm not a bit afraid
of a boy when he is lying,--but only of one who can lie as though he
didn't lie."
"I think that Florian is lying," said Mr. Jones slowly; "he does not
look me in the face, and he does not lie straightforward."
"Then Edith is right; and I am right when I swear by her."
"But what am I to do with him? If, as I suppose, he saw Pat Carroll
do the mischief, he must have seen others with him. If we knew who
were the lot, we could certainly get the truth out of some of them,
so as to get evidence for a conviction."
"Can't he be made to speak?" asked Mr. Blake.
"How can I make him? It will be understood all about Morony that
he has been lying. And I feel that it is thought that he has made
himself a hero by sticking to his lie. If they should turn upon him?"
Mr. Blake sat silent but made no immediate reply. "It would be better
for me to let the whole thing slide. If they were to kill him!"
"They would not do that. Here in County Galway they have not come
to that as yet. There is not a county in all Ireland in which such
a deed could be done," said Mr. Blake, standing up for his country.
"Are you to let this ruffian pass unpunished while you have the power
of convicting him? I think that you are bound to punish him. For the
sake of your country you are bound to do so."
"And the boy?" said Mr. Jones hoarsely.
"He is but ten years old, and will soon live it down. And the
disgrace of the lie will be drowned in the triumph of telling the
truth at last. We should all feel,--I should feel,--that he would
in such case deserve well, rather than ill, of his father and of me,
and of all of us. Besides you had some idea of sending him to school
in England." Here Mr. Jones shook his head, intending to indicate
that no such expensive step as that would be possible after the loss
incurred by the flooding of the eighty acres. "At any rate my advice
to you is to make him declare the truth. I think little harm of a
boy for lying, but I do think harm of those who allow a lie to pass
unnoticed." So saying Mr. Blake ended the meeting, and took Mr. Jones
away to see Mrs. Blake and the girls.
"I do suppose that father has gone to Carnlough, to consult with Mr.
Blake about this affair of the flood." It was thus that Ada spoke to
her brother Florian, when he came to her discussing the matter of
their father's absence.
"What can Mr. Blake know about it?" said Florian.
"I suppose he means to ask about you. It is quite clear, Florian,
that no one in the house believes you."
"Peter does."
"You mean that Peter thinks you are right to stand to the lie now you
have told it. More shame for Peter if he does."
"You wouldn't have a fellow go and put himself out of favour with all
the boys through the country? There is a horrible man that wears a
mask--" Then he remembered, and stopped himself. He was on closer
terms with Ada than with Edith, but not on terms so close as to
justify his whispering a word about the man in the mask.
"Where did you see the man in the mask?" asked Ada. "Who is the man
in the mask?"
"I don't know."
"But you know where you saw him. You must know that. What did the man
in the mask say to you?"
"I am not going to tell you anything about him," said the boy. "I
am not going to have my secrets got out of me in that way. It isn't
honest. Nobody but a Protestant would do it." So saying Florian left
his sister, with the tale of the man in the mask only half told.
CHAPTER V.
MR. O'MAHONY AND HIS DAUGHTER.
We must now turn to another personage in our story, and tell
our readers something of the adventures and conditions of this
gentleman;--something also of his daughter. The adventures of her
early life will occupy much of our time and many of our pages; and
though her father may not be so interesting as it is hoped that she
will become, still he was so peculiar in his modes of thought, and
so honest, though by no means wise, in his manner of thinking, as to
make his story also perhaps worth the telling.
Gerald O'Mahony was at the time of the flooding of Mr. Jones's
meadows not much more than forty years old. But he was already the
father of a daughter nearly twenty. Where he was born, from what
parents, or to what portion of Ireland his family belonged, no one
knew. He himself had been heard to declare a suspicion that his
father had come from County Kerry. But as he himself had been,
according to his own statement, probably born in the United States,
the county to which his father had belonged is not important. He had
been bred up as a Roman Catholic, but had long since thrown over all
the prejudices of his religion. He had married when he was quite
young, and had soon lost his wife. But in talking of her now he
always described her as an angel. But though he looked to be so young
as to be his daughter's brother, rather than her father, he had never
thought of marrying again. His daughter he declared was everything to
him. But those who knew him well said that politics were dearer to
him even than his daughter. Since he had been known in County Galway,
he had passed and repassed nearly a dozen times between New York and
Ireland; and his daughter had twice come with him. He had no declared
means, but he had never been known to borrow a shilling, or to leave
a bill unpaid. But he had frequently said aloud that he had no money
left, and that unless he returned to his own country he and his
daughter must be taken in by some poor-house. For Mr. O'Mahony, fond
as he was of Ireland, allowed no one to say that he was an Irishman.
But his troubles were apparently no troubles to him. He was always
good-humoured, and seemed always to be happy--except when in public,
when he was engaged upon politics. Then he would work himself up
to such a state of indignant anger as seemed to be altogether
antagonistic to good-humour. The position he filled,--or had
filled,--was that of lecturer on behalf of the United States. He had
lectured at Manchester, at Glasgow, at Liverpool, and lately all over
Ireland. But he had risen to such a height of wrath in advocating the
doctrine of Republicanism that he had been stopped by the police. He
had been held to have said things disrespectful of the Queen. This
he loudly denied. He had always, he said, spoken of the Queen's
virtues, her graces, and general fitness for her high office. He had
declared,--and this was true,--that of all kings and queens of whom
he had read in history she was the best. But, he had gone on to say
there should be no king or queen. The practice was an absurdity. The
reverence paid even to the high office was such as, in his idea,
degraded a man. Even in America, the Kotooing which took place before
the President's toe was to him an abomination. No man in accordance
with his theory should worship another man. Titles should only be
used as indicative of a man's trade or occupation. As one man was Mr.
General Grant, another man should be Mr. Bricklayer Green. He could
not do away with the Queen. But for the woman, he was quite disposed
to worship her. All women were to be worshipped, and it was a
privilege of a man to worship a woman. When a woman possessed so
many virtues as did the Queen of England, it became a man's duty to
worship them. But it was a woman whom he would worship, and not the
Queen. This was carried to such a length, and he was so eloquent on
the subject that the police were desired to interfere, and he was
made to hold his tongue,--at any rate as far as England and Ireland
were concerned.
He had made Galway a kind of centre home, attracted thither by the
friendship which his daughter had made with Ada and Edith Jones. For
though Ada and Edith were by no means Republican in their thoughts
and feelings, it had come to pass that they dearly loved the American
girl who was so. Rachel O'Mahony had frequently been at Morony
Castle, as had also her father; and Mr. Jones had taken delight in
controverting the arguments of the American, because, as he had said,
the American had been unselfish and true. But since his lecturing had
been stopped, it had become necessary that he should go elsewhere
to look for means of livelihood, and he had now betaken himself to
London for that purpose,--a circumstance which will be explained at
greater length as the story progresses.
Republicanism was not the only matter in his political creed to
which Gerald O'Mahony was devoted. Though he was no Irishman, as he
delighted to intimate, his heart was Irish; and during his various
visits to the country, he had filled his bosom with thoughts of
Irish wrongs. No educated man was ever born and bred in more utter
ignorance of all political truths than this amiable and philanthropic
gentleman. In regard to Ireland his theory was that the land should
be taken from the present proprietors, and divided among the peasants
who tilled it. When asked what should be done with the present
owners, he was quite ready with his answer: "Let them be paid for the
property by the State!" He would have no man injured to the extent
of a shilling. When asked where the State was to get the money, he
declared that that was a mere detail. States did get money. As for
the landlords themselves, with the money in their pockets, let them
emigrate to the United States, if they were in want of something
to do. As to the division of the land,--that he said would settle
itself. One man would have ten acres, and another fifty; but that
would be fair, because one man had been used to pay for ten, and
another to pay for fifty. As for the men who got no land in the
scramble he could see no injustice. The man who chanced to have been
a tenant for the last twelve months, must take the benefit of his
position. No doubt such man could sell his land immediately after he
got it, because Freedom of Sale was one of the points of his charter.
He could see the injustice of giving the land at a rent fixed by
the State, because the State has no right to interfere in ordinary
contracts between man and man. But if the land was to be given up
without any rent, then he could see no injustice. Thus, and thus
only, could Ireland be made to return to the beauty and the grace of
her original simplicity.
But on the wrongs arising from the want of Home Rule he was
warmer even than on those which the land question had produced.
"Why should Ireland be governed by a British Parliament, a
British Lord-Lieutenant, a British Chief-Secretary, a British
Commander-in-Chief, and trodden under foot by a British soldiery?
Why should Scotland be so governed, why should Wales, why should
Yorkshire?" Mr. Jones would reply, "Repeal the Unions; restore
the Heptarchy!" Mr. O'Mahony had but a confused idea of what the
Heptarchy had been. But he was sure that it would be for the benefit
of Ireland, that Irish knives should be made of Irish steel. "As
undoubtedly would have been the case if the question of protection
were to be left to an Irish Parliament to settle," said Mr. Jones.
"Heaven help the man who would want to cut his mutton. His best
chance would be that he would soon have no mutton to cut."
So the dispute was carried on with much warmth on one side, and with
many arguments on the other, but without any quarrelling. It was
impossible to quarrel with O'Mahony, who was thoroughly unselfish,
and desirous of no violence. When he had heard what had been done in
reference to Mr. Jones's meadows, and had been told of the suspected
conduct of Pat Carroll, he was as indignant as though he had himself
been a landed proprietor, or even an Orangeman. And on Mr. Jones's
part there was a desire to do justice to all around him, which came
within the capacity of O'Mahony's vision. He knew that Mr. Jones
himself was a fair-dealing, honest gentleman, and he could not,
therefore, quarrel with him.
There is a steamer running from the town of Galway, across Lough
Corrib, to the little village of Cong, on the Mayo side of the lake,
which stops and picks up passengers within a mile of Morony Castle.
From this, passengers are landed, so that the means of transit
between Galway and Mr. Jones's house are peculiarly easy. Up and down
by this steamer Ada and Edith Jones had frequently gone to visit
their friend, and as frequently that friend had come to visit them.
But unfortunately the steamer had been open to others besides the
young ladies, and Rachel O'Mahony had found a dearer friend than
either of the girls at Morony Castle. It had come to pass that Frank
Jones and Rachel O'Mahony had declared themselves to be engaged.
On no such ground as want of wealth, or want of family, or want of
education, had Mr. Jones based his objection to the match; but there
had been a peculiarity in the position of Rachel which had made him
hesitate. It was not that she was an American, but such an American!
It was not that he was a Republican, but such a Republican! And she
was more anxious to carry Frank away with her to the United States,
and to join him in a political partnership with her father, than to
come and settle herself down at the Castle. Thus there had arisen an
understanding on the part of the young people, that, though they were
engaged, they were engaged without the consent of the young man's
father. Rachel therefore was not to be brought to the Castle while
Frank was there. To all this Rachel's father had assented, in a
smiling indifferent manner, half intended to ridicule all who were
concerned. As it was not a question of politics, Mr. O'Mahony could
not work himself up to any anger, or apparently even to anxiety in
the matter. "Your young people,"--here he meant English and Irish
generally,--"are taught to think they should begin the world where we
leave it off."
"Your young people are just as fond of what money will buy as are
ours," said Mr. Jones.
"But they are fonder of one another, even, than of money. When they
love one another they become engaged. Then they marry. And as a rule
they don't starve. As a rule people with us seldom do starve. As for
making out an income for a young man to start with, that with us is
quite out of the question. Frank some day will have this property."
"That won't give him much of an income," said Mr. Jones, who since
the affair of the flood had become very despondent in reference to
the estate.
"Then he's as well off now as ever he will be, and might as well
marry the girl." But all this was said with no eagerness.
"They are merely boy and girl as yet," said Mr. Jones.
"I was married, and Rachel was born before I was Frank's age." So
saying, Mr. O'Mahony consented to come to Morony Castle, and bid them
adieu, without bringing his girl with him. This was hard upon Ada
and Edith, as Mr. Frank, of course, went into Galway as often as he
pleased, and made his adieu after his own fashion.
And there had come up another cause which had created further
objections to the marriage in Mr. Jones's mind. Mr. O'Mahony had
declared that as his lecturing was brought to an end by the police,
he must throw himself upon Rachel's capabilities for earning some
money. Rachel's capabilities had been often discussed at the Castle,
but with various feelings on the three sides into which the party had
formed themselves. All the Jones's were on one side, and declared
that the capability had better not be exercised. In this they were
probably wrong;--but it was their opinion. They had lived for many
years away from London. The children had so lived all their lives;
and they conceived that prejudices still existed which had now
been banished or nearly banished from the world. Mr. O'Mahony, who
formed another party, thought that the matter was one of supreme
indifference. As long as he could earn money by lecturing it was well
that he should earn it. It was always better that the men of a family
should work than the women; but, if the man's talent was of no use,
then it might be well to fall back upon the woman. He only laughed
at the existence of a prejudice in the matter. He himself had no
prejudices. He regarded all prejudices as the triumph of folly over
education.
But Rachel, who was the third party in the discussion, had a very
strong feeling of her own. She was of opinion that if the capability
in question existed, it ought to be exercised. On that subject,--her
possession of the capability,--she entertained, she said, strong
doubts. But if the capability existed it certainly ought to be used.
That was Rachel's opinion, expressed with all the vigour which she
knew how to throw into the subject.
This capability had already been exercised in New York, where it had
been efficacious, though the effect had not been great. She had been
brought up to sing, and great things had been promised of her voice.
An American manager had thought much of her performance, though she
had hitherto, he said, been young, and had not come to the strength
of her throat. But he had himself seen to her education, almost as
a child, and had been sure that sooner or later she would do great
things in the musical world. Mr. Mahomet M. Moss was the gentleman
in question, and he at present was in London. That such a voice as
Rachel O'Mahony's should be lost to the world, was to his thinking
a profanity, an indecency, an iniquity, a wasting of God's choicest
gifts, and an abomination not to be thought of; for Mr. Mahomet
M. Moss was in the affairs of his own profession a most energetic
gentleman. Rachel rather turned up her nose at Mr. Mahomet M. Moss;
but she was very anxious to go to London and to take her chance, and
to do something, as she said, laughing, just to keep her father's pot
a little on the boil;--but for Mr. Mahomet M. Moss she did not care
one straw. Mr. O'Mahony was therefore ready to start on the journey,
and had now come to Morony Castle to say farewell to his friend Mr.
Jones. "Are you sure about that fellow Moss?" said Mr. Jones.
"What do you call sure about him? He's as big a swindler, I guess, as
you shall find from here to himself."
"And are you going to put Rachel into his hands?"
"Well, I think so;--after a sort of fashion. He'll swindle her out of
three parts of what she earns;--but she'll get the fourth part. It's
always the way with a young girl when she's first brought out."
"I don't mean about money. Will you leave her conduct in his hands?"
"He'll be a clever chap who'll undertake to look after Rachel's
conduct. I guess she'll conduct herself mostly."
"You'll be there to be sure," said Mr. Jones.
"Yes, I shall be there; and she'll conduct me too. Very likely."
"But, Mr. O'Mahony,--as a father!"
"I know pretty well what you would be saying. Our young folk grow old
quicker a long sight than yours do. Now your girls here are as sweet
as primroses out of the wood. But Rachel is like a rose that has been
brought up to stand firm on its own bush. I'm not a bit afraid of
her. Nor yet is your son. She looks as though you might blow her away
with the breath from your mouth. You try her, and you'll find that
she'll want a deal of blowing."
"Does not a young girl lose something of the aroma of her youth by
seeing too much of the world too soon?"
"How old do you expect her to be when she's to die?"
"Rachel! How can I tell? She is only as yet entering upon life, and
her health seems to be quite confirmed."
"The best confirmed I ever knew in my life. She never has a day's
illness. Taking all the chances one way and another, shall we say
sixty?"
"More than that, I should think," said Mr. Jones.
"Say sixty. She may fall down a trap in the theatre, or be drowned in
one of your Cunarders."
"The Cunard steamers never drown anybody," said Mr. Jones.
"Well, then, a White Star--or any cockle-shell you may please to
name. We'll put her down for sixty as an average."
"I don't know what you are driving at," said Mr. Jones.
"She has lived a third of her life already, and you expect her to
know nothing, so that the aroma may still cling to her. Aroma does
very well for earls' daughters and young marchionesses, though as
far as I can learn, it's going out of fashion with them. What has an
American girl to do with aroma, who's got her bread to earn? She's
got to look to her conduct, and to be sharp at the same time. Mr.
Mahomet M. Moss will rob her of seventy-five cents out of every
dollar for the next twelve months. In three years' time he'll rob her
of nothing. Only that she knows what conduct means, he'd have to look
very sharp to keep his own."
"It is not natural," said Mr. Jones.
"But it's American. Marvels are not natural, and we are marvellous
people. I don't know much about aroma, but I think you'll find Rachel
will come out of the washing without losing much colour in the
process."
Then the two friends parted, and Mr. O'Mahony went back to Galway,
preparatory to his journey to London.
CHAPTER VI.
RACHEL AND HER LOVERS.
On the day following that of O'Mahony's return to Galway, he, and
his daughter, and Frank Jones were together at the Galway Station
preparatory to the departure of the O'Mahonys for Dublin and London.
"I guess you two have got something to say to each other, so I'll
leave you to yourselves," said the father.
"I guess we have," said Rachel, "so if you'll wait here we'll come
to you when the cars are fixed." So saying, Rachel put her hand on
her lover's arm and walked off with him along the platform. Rachel
O'Mahony had not been badly described when her father said of her
that she looked as though she might be blown away. She was very fair,
and small and frail to look at. Her father had also said of her that
her health was remarkably good,--"the best confirmed that he had ever
known in his life." But though this too, was true, she hardly looked
it. No one could have pointed out any sign of malady about her; only
one would have said that there was nothing of her. And the colour on
her face was so evanescent that he who watched her was inclined to
think that she herself was like her colour. And she moved as though
she was always on the vanishing point. "I'm very fond of eating," she
had been heard to say. "I know it's vulgar; but it's true." No doubt
she was fond of eating, but so is a sparrow. There was nothing she
would not attempt to do in the way of taking exercise. She would
undertake very long walks, and would then fail, and declare that
she must be carried home; but she would finally get through the
day's work better than another woman who appeared to have double her
strength. Her feet and hands were the tiniest little adjuncts to a
grown human body that could be seen anywhere. They looked at least to
be so. But they were in perfect symmetry with her legs and arms. "I
wish I were bigger," she had once been heard to say, "because I could
hit a man." The man to whom she alluded was Mr. Mahomet M. Moss.
"I sometimes want to hit a woman, but that would be such a small
triumph." And yet she had a pride in her little female fineries.
"Now, Frank," she had once said, "I guess you won't get another woman
in all Galway to put her foot into that boot; nor yet in New York
either."
"I don't think I could," said the enraptured Frank.
"You'd better take it to New York and try, and if you find the lady
you can bring her back with you."
Frank refused the commission, saying something of course very pretty
as to his mistress's foot. "Ten buttons! These only have eight," she
said, objecting to a present which her lover had just brought her.
"If I had ten buttons, and the gloves to fit me, I'd cut my arm off
and put it under a glass case. Lovers are sent out to do all possible
and impossible things in order to deserve their lady-loves. You shall
go and wander about till you find a glove with ten buttons to fit
me, then I'll consent to be Mrs.----Jones." By all of which little
manoeuvres Frank was charmed and oppressed to the last degree. When
she would call herself the "future Mrs.----Jones," he would almost
feel inclined to abandon both the name and the property. "Why not
be Mrs. Morony," Rachel would say, "or Mrs. Ballintubber? The
Ballintubber, of Ballintubber, would sound exquisitely, and then I
should always be called 'Madam.'"
Her beauty was all but perfect, as far as symmetry was concerned,
only that there was not enough of it; and for the perfection of
female beauty a tone of colour is, methinks, needed somewhat darker
than that which prevailed with Rachel O'Mahony. Her hair was so light
that one felt it rather than saw it, as one feels the sunlight. It
was soft and feathery, as is the under plumage on the wings of some
small tropical birds. "A lock of my hair!" she had once said to
Frank; "but it will all go into nothing. You should have paid your
vows to some girl who could give you a good lump of hair fit to stuff
a pillow with. If you have mine you will think in a few weeks that
the spiders have been there and have left their dust behind." But
she gave him the lock of hair, and laid it on his lips with her own
little hands.
There was not enough of her beauty. Even in touching her a lover
could not but feel that he had to deal with a little child. In
looking at her he could only look down upon her. It was not till
she spoke, and that her words came to his assistance, that he found
that he had to deal with one who was not altogether a child. "Mr.
Mahomet M. Moss declares his opinion that I shall be seen above the
gaslights. It was very civil and complimentary of Mahomet M. M. But
I mean to make myself heard. Mahomet M. M. did not seem to think of
this." Since Frank had known her she had taken every opportunity in
her power of belittling Mahomet M. M., as she was wont to call Mr.
Moss.
Frank Jones was, in truth, a handsome stalwart young man, clever
enough for the world, who thought a good deal of himself, and who
thought very much more of the girl whom he loved. It was chiefly
because he was absolutely unlike an American that Rachel O'Mahony
had come to love him. Who does not know the "got up" look of the
gentleman from the other side of the water, who seems to know himself
to be much better than his father, and infinitely superior to his
grandfather; who is always ready to make a speech on every occasion,
and who feels himself to be fit company for a Prime Minister as soon
as he has left school. Probably he is. Young Jones was not so; and it
was on account of this deficiency that Rachel prized him. "I'm not
like a young girl myself," she had said to her father, "but I do love
a jolly nice boy. With us at sixteen, they are all but decrepit old
men, and yet they are such little monkeys."
"For a little monkey, what do you think of yourself?" her father had
replied. But the conversation then had not gone any further.
"I know you'll be after me before long," Rachel said to Frank, as
they walked up and down the platform together.
"If I do, I shall ask you to marry me at once," he replied.
"I shall never do that without your father's leave."
"Is that the way they manage things in America?"
"It's the way I shall manage them here," said Rachel. "I'm in the
unfortunate position of having three papas to whom I must attend.
There is papa O'Mahony--"
"You will never be incommoded much by him," he replied.
"He is the least potent of the three, no doubt. Then there is papa
Jones. He is absolutely omnipotent in this matter. He would not let
me come down to Castle Morony for fear I should contaminate you all.
I obeyed without even daring to feel the slightest snub, and if I
were married to-morrow, I should kiss his toe in token of respect,
and with a great deal more affection than I should kiss your
half-bearded lips, sir." Here Frank got a hold of her hand beneath
his arm, and gave it a squeeze. "He is the real old-fashioned father
in the play, who is expected to come out at last with a hundred
thousand dollars and his blessing."
"And who is the third papa?"
"Don't you know? Mahomet M. Moss. He is the third papa--if only he
would consent to remain in that comparatively humble position." Here
Frank listened to her words with sharp ears, but he said nothing at
the moment. "Mahomet M. Moss is at any rate my lord and master for
the present."
"Not whilst I am alive," said Frank.
"But he is. There is no use in rebelling. You are not my lord and
master until you have gone through a certain ceremony. I wish you
were. Will that satisfy you?"
"There is something in the name of lord and master which a girl
shouldn't apply to anyone but to him who is to be her husband."
"Fiddlestick! Mr. Lord and Master that is to be, but is not as yet.
But he is, in many respects. I don't think, Frank, you can imagine
the horror I feel in reference to that vilest of human beings. I
shall carry a dagger with me, in order to have it ready for any
occasion."
"What does he do? You shall not go to be subjected to such danger and
such annoyance."
She turned round, and looked up into his face as with derision. "The
annoyance no doubt will be mine, Frank, and must be endured; the
danger will be his, I think. Nor shall I use the dagger that I spoke
of. I can look at him, and I can make him hear my voice, in spite of
the smallness of my stature. But there is no one in this world whom I
detest as I do that greasy Jew. It is not for what he does, but that
I simply detest him. He makes love to me."
"What!"
"Oh! he does. You needn't look like that. You needn't be a bit
jealous."
"I shall come over at once."
"And knock him on the head! You had better not do that, because we
want to make some money by his means. As a lover I can keep him at a
distance. I wish I could do so to you, Mr. Jones."
"Why do you wish to keep me at a distance?"
"Because you know how to be troublesome. It is much harder to
keep a lover at a distance when you really love him with all your
heart"--here she looked up into his face and squeezed his arm, and
nearly made him mad for the moment--"than a beast like that, who is
no better than a toad to you. There, do you see that ugly old man
there?" She pointed to a cross-looking old gentleman of sixty, who
was scolding a porter violently. "Why aren't you jealous of that
man?"
"You never saw him before."
"That's just the reason. He may be worth my affection, but I know
that that Mahomet M. M. is not. You begin with the most bitter hatred
on my part. I don't hate that old gentleman. I rather like him on
the whole, though he was so cross. At any rate he's not a greasy Jew.
Papa says that hating Jews is a prejudice. Loving you is a prejudice,
I suppose."
"My darling!"
"You can't suppose you are the best man I ever saw, can you?"
"It's a sort of thing we are not to reason about."
"Then it's a prejudice. I'm prejudiced against Mahomet M. M. I'm
equally prejudiced in favour of Mr. Jones, junior, of Ballintubber.
It's horrible to be troubled by the one."
"Well!"
"Well! There's nothing more coming, Mr. Jones. Only don't you come
over in any of your fits of jealousy, or you'll have to be sent back
again. You're not my lord and master--yet."
"I wish I were."
"So do I. What more do you want than that? I don't believe there's
another girl in New York would say as much to you,--nor yet in County
Galway."
"But what does he say to you?"
"Well; just the kind of things that you never say. And he certainly
never does the kind of things which you do; and that, Mr. Jones, is
an improvement. But papa is in a hurry, and I shouldn't wonder if the
train didn't go on in a quarter of an hour. I'll write to you about
Mahomet M. M.; and if I behave very badly, such as prodding him with
the dagger, or something of that sort, then I will let you know the
details. You can't do it here, so you may as well go." So saying,
she jumped into the carriage, and the train had started before Frank
Jones had begun to think whether he could do it there or no.
"He's a good fellow, take him all round," said Mr. O'Mahony, when the
carriages had left the station.
"As good as the rest of them."
"I think he is better."
"Of course we all think so of our own. Why should he be better than
any other young lady's Mr. Jones? I don't suppose he is better; but
we'll endeavour to believe that he is up to the average."
"Is that all that you've got to say for him, Rachel?"
"What! To you? Not exactly--if I am to speak the solid truth; which I
don't see why I should have to do, even to my own father. I do think
him above the average. I think him so much above the average as to
be the best of all. But why? Simply because I believe him when he
says he wants to marry me, and make me his companion for life. And
then there's an affinity between us which God certainly manages. Why
should I trust him in every detail of life with a perfect faith, and
not trust Mr. Mahomet M. Moss to the extent of half-a-crown? If he
were to ask me for everything I have in the world, I should give it
to him, without a thought except of his goodness in taking care of it
for me. I wouldn't let Mahomet M. Moss have a dollar of mine without
giving me his bond. Papa, there will be a row between me and Mr.
Mahomet M. Moss, and so it's well to put you on your guard."
"What sort of a row, my dear?"
"A very rowy row. I don't mean about dollars, for you'll have to
manage that just at first. When we have got into the running, I think
I shall have something to say on that subject too."
"What row do you mean?"
"He'll misbehave himself. He always does, more or less."
"The poor fellow can't open his mouth without your saying that he
misbehaves himself."
"That's quite true; he can't. He can't brush his hair, or tie his
cravat, or settle his pantaloons, without misbehaving himself. He
certainly can't look out of his eye without gross misbehaviour."
"What is he to do then?" said Mr. O'Mahony. "Nature has imbued him
with all these peculiarities, and you are fantastic to find fault
with him."
"Perhaps so--but then I am fantastic. When you've got a dirty coat
on, or Frank, I don't find fault with it; but when he's got a clean
coat, I writhe at him in my disgust. Yet, upon the whole, I like men
to have clean coats."
"But you haven't said how the row is to come."
"Because I don't know; but it will come. It won't be about his coat,
nor yet his hat, unless he puts it close down under my nose. My time,
as I understand, is to be at his disposal."
"There will be an agreement made as to all that."
"An agreement as to my performances. I quite understand that I must
be present at fixed times at the theatre, and that he must fix them.
That will not worry me; particularly if you will go to the theatre
with me."
"Of course I will do that when you want it."
"But he is to come to me with his beastly lessons. Am I to have no
relief from that?"
"The hours can be fixed."
"But they won't be fixed. There's no doubt that he understands his
trade. He can make me open my mouth and keep it open. And he can
tell me when I sing false or flat. Providence when she gave him that
horrid head of hair, did give him also the peculiarity of a fine ear.
I think it is the meanest thing out for a man to be proud of that. If
you can run a straight furrow with a plough it is quite as great a
gift."
"That is nonsense, my dear. Such an ear as Mr. Moss's is very rare."
"A man who can see exactly across an entire field is just as rare.
I don't see the difference. Nor when a woman sings do I respect her
especially because of her voice. When a man can write a poem like
Homer, or rule a country like Washington, there is something to
say for him. I shall tell him that I will devote one hour a day to
practising, and no more."
"That will settle the difficulty; if it be enough."
"But during that hour, there is to be no word spoken except what has
to do with the lessons. You'll bear me out in that?"
"There must be some give and take in regard to ordinary
conversation."
"You don't know what a beast he is, papa. What am I to do if he tells
me to my face that I'm a beautiful young woman?"
"Tell him that you are quite aware of the fact, but that it is a
matter you do not care to talk about."
"And then he'll simper. You do not know what a vile creature he can
be. I can take care of myself. You needn't be a bit afraid about
that. I fancy I could give him a slap on the face which would startle
him a little. And if we came to blows, I do believe that he would not
have a leg to stand upon. He is nearly fifty."
"My dear!"
"Say forty. But I do believe a good shove would knock him off his
nasty little legs. I used to think he wore a wig; but no hairdresser
could be such a disgrace to his profession to let such a wig as that
go out of his shop."
"I always regarded him as a good-looking young man," said Mr.
O'Mahony. Here Rachel shook her head, and made a terrible grimace.
"It's all fancy you know," continued he.
"I suppose it is. But if you hear that I have told him that I regard
him as a disgusting monkey, you must not be surprised." This was the
last conversation which Mr. O'Mahony and his daughter had respecting
Mahomet M. Moss, till they reached London.
CHAPTER VII.
BROWN'S.
When Mr. O'Mahony and his daughter stepped out of the train on the
platform at Euston Square, they were at once encountered by Mr.
Mahomet M. Moss. "Oh, dear!" ejaculated Miss O'Mahony, turning back
upon her father. "Cannot you get rid of him?" Mr. O'Mahony, without
a word of reply to his daughter, at once greeted Mr. Moss most
affectionately. "Yes, my bird is here--as you see. You have taken a
great deal of trouble in coming to meet us." Mr. Moss begged that the
trouble might be taken as being the greatest pleasure he had ever had
in his life. "Nothing could be too much to do for Miss O'Mahony." He
had had, he said, the wires at work, and had been taught to expect
them by this train. Would Miss O'Mahony condescend to take a seat in
the carriage which was waiting for her? She had not spoken a word,
but had laid fast hold of her father's arm. "I had better look after
the luggage," said the father, shaking the daughter off. "Perhaps
Mr. Moss will go with you," said she;--and at the moment she looked
anything but pleasant. Mr. Moss expressed his sense of the high
honour which was done him by her command, but suggested that she
should seat herself in the carriage. "I will stand here under this
pillar," she said. And as she took her stand it would have required
a man with more effrontery than Mr. Moss possessed, to attempt to
move her. We have seen Miss O'Mahony taking a few liberties with her
lover, but still very affectionate. And we have seen her enjoying the
badinage of perfect equality with her papa. There was nothing then
of the ferocious young lady about her. Young ladies,--some young
ladies,--can be very ferocious. Miss O'Mahony appeared to be one of
them. As she stood under the iron post waiting till her father and
Mr. Moss returned, with two porters carrying the luggage, the pretty
little fair, fly-away Rachel looked as though she had in her hand
the dagger of which she had once spoken, and was waiting for an
opportunity to use it.
"Is your maid here, Miss O'Mahony?" asked Mr. Moss.
"I haven't got a maid," said Rachel, looking at him as though she
intended to annihilate him.
They all seated themselves in the carriage with their small parcels,
leaving their luggage to come after them in a cab which Mr. Moss had
had allowed to him. But they, the O'Mahonys, knew nothing of their
immediate destination. It had been clearly the father's business to
ask; but he was a man possessed of no presence of mind. Suddenly the
idea struck Rachel, and she called out with a loud voice, "Father,
where on earth are we going?"
"I suppose Mr. Moss can tell us."
"You are going to apartments which I have secured for Miss O'Mahony
at considerable trouble," said Mr. Moss. "The theatres are all
stirring."
"But we are not going to live in a theatre."
"The ladies of the theatres find only one situation convenient.
They must live somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Strand. I have
secured two sitting-rooms and two bedrooms on the first floor,
overlooking the views at Brown's."
"Won't they cost money?" asked the father.
"Of course they will," said Rachel. "What fools we have been! We
intended to go to some inn for one night till we could find a fitting
place,--somewhere about Gower Street."
"Gower Street wouldn't do at all," said Mr. Moss. "The distance from
everything would be very great." Two ideas passed at that moment
through Rachel's mind. The first was that the distance might serve
to keep Mr. Moss out of her sitting-room, and the second was that
were she to succeed in doing this, she might be forced to go to
his sitting-room. "I think Gower Street would be found to be
inconvenient, Miss O'Mahony."
"Bloomsbury Square is very near. Here we are at the hotel. Now,
father, before you have anything taken off the carriages, ask the
prices."
Then Mr. Moss, still keeping his seat, made a little speech. "I think
if Miss O'Mahony would allow me, I would counsel her against too
rigid an economy. She will have heard of the old proverb,--'A penny
wise and a pound foolish.'"
"'Cut your coat according to your cloth,' I have heard of that too;
and I have heard of 'Burning a candle at both ends.'"
"'You shouldn't spoil your ship for a ha'porth of tar,'" said Mr.
Moss with a smile, which showed his idea, that he had the best of the
argument.
"It won't matter for one night," said Mr. O'Mahony, getting out of
the carriage. Half the packages had been already taken off the cab.
Rachel followed her father, and without attending to Mr. Moss got
hold of her father in the street. "I don't like the look of the house
at all, father, you don't know what the people would be up to. I
shall never go to sleep in this house." Mr. Moss, with his hat off,
was standing in the doorway, suffused, as to his face, with a bland
smile.
It may be as well to say at once that the house was all that an hotel
ought to be, excepting, perhaps, that the prices were a little high.
The two sitting-rooms and the two bedrooms--with the maid's room,
which had also been taken--did seem to be very heavy to Rachel, who
knew down to a shilling--or rather, to a dollar, as she would have
said--how much her father had in his pocket. Indefinite promises of
great wealth had been also made to herself; but according to a scale
suggested by Mr. Moss, a pound a night, out of which she would have
to keep herself, was the remuneration immediately promised. Then
a sudden thought struck Miss O'Mahony. They were still standing
discussing the price in one of the sitting-rooms, and Mr. Moss was
also there. "Father," she said, "I'm sure that Frank would not
approve."
"I don't think that he would feel himself bound to interfere," said
Mr. O'Mahony.
"When a young woman is engaged to a young man it does make a
difference," she replied, looking Mr. Moss full in the face.
"The happy man," said Mr. Moss, still bowing and smiling, "would
not be so unreasonable as to interfere with the career of his fair
_fiancée_."
"If we stay here very long," said Rachel, still addressing her
father, "I guess we should have to pawn our watches. But here we are
for the present, and here we must remain. I am awfully tired now, and
should so like to have a cup of tea--by ourselves." Then Mr. Moss
took his leave, promising to appear again upon the scene at eleven
o'clock on the following day. "Thank you," said Rachel, "you are very
kind, but I rather think I shall be out at eleven o'clock."
"What is the use of your carrying on like that with the man?" said
her father.
"Because he's a beast."
"My dear, he's not a beast. He's not a beast that you ought to treat
in that way. You'll be a beast too if you come to rise high in your
profession. It is a kind of work which sharpens the intellect, but is
apt to make men and women beasts. Did you ever hear of a prima donna
who thought that another prima donna sang better than she did?"
"I guess that all the prima donnas sing better than I do."
"But you have not got to the position yet. Mr. Moss, I take it, was
doing very well in New York, so as to have become a beast, as you
call him. But he's very good-natured."
"He's a nasty, stuck-up, greasy Jew. A decent young woman is insulted
by being spoken to by him."
"What made you tell him that you were engaged to Frank Jones?"
"I thought it might protect me--but it won't. I shall tell him next
time that I am Frank's wife. But even that will not protect me."
"You will have to see him very often."
"And very often I shall have to be insulted. I guess he does the same
kind of thing with all the singing girls who come into his hands."
"Give it up, Rachel."
"I don't mind being insulted so much as some girls do, you know. I
can't fancy an English girl putting up with him--unless she liked to
do as he pleased. I hate him;--but I think I can endure him. The only
thing is, whether he would turn against me and rend me. Then we shall
come utterly to the ground, here in London."
"Give it up."
"No! You can lecture and I can sing, and it's odd if we can't make
one profession or the other pay. I think I shall have to fight with
him, but I won't give it up. What I am afraid is that Frank should
appear on the scene. And then, oh law! if Mr. Moss should get one
blow in the eye!"
There she sat, sipping her tea and eating her toast, with her feet
upon the fender, while Mr. O'Mahony ate his mutton-chop and drank his
whisky and water.
"Father, now I'm coming back to my temper, I want something better
than this buttered toast. Could they get me a veal cutlet, or a bit
of cold chicken?"
A waiter was summoned.
"And you must give me a little bit of ham with the cold chicken. No,
father; I won't have any wine because it would get into my head, and
then I should kill Mr. Mahomet M. Moss."
"My dear," said her father when the man had left the room, "do you
wish to declare all your animosities before the waiter?"
"Well, yes, I think I do. If we are to remain here it will be better
that they should all know that I regard this man as my schoolmaster.
I know what I'm about; I don't let a word go without thinking of it."
Then again they remained silent, and Mr. O'Mahony pretended to go to
sleep--and eventually did do so. He devoted himself for the time to
Home Rule, and got himself into a frame of mind in which he really
thought of Ireland.
"The first flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea."
Why should she not be so? She had all the sentiment necessary,
all the poetry, all the eloquence, all the wit. And then when he
was beginning to think whether something more than sentiment and
eloquence were not necessary, he went to sleep.
But Rachel was not sleeping. Her thoughts were less stationary than
her father's, and her ideas more realistic. She had been told that
she could sing, and she had sung at New York with great applause. And
she had gone on studying, or rather practising, the art with great
diligence. She had already become aware that practice was more needed
than study. All, nearly all, this man could teach her was to open
her mouth. Nature had given her an ear, and a voice, if she would
work hard so as to use it. It was there before her. But it had seemed
to her that her career was clogged with the necessary burden of Mr.
Moss. Mr. Moss had got hold of her, and how should she get rid of
him? He was the Old Man of the Sea, and how should she shake him off?
And then there was present to her alone a vision of Frank Jones. To
live at Morony Castle and be Frank Jones's wife, would not that be
sweeter than to sing at a theatre under the care of Mr. Mahomet M.
Moss? All the sweetness of a country life in a pleasant house by the
lake side, and a husband with her who would endure all the little
petulancy, and vagaries, and excesses of her wayward but affectionate
temper, all these things were present to her mind. And to be Mistress
Jones, who could look all the world in the face, this--as compared
with the gaslight of a theatre, which might mean failure, and could
only mean gaslight--this, on the present occasion, did tempt her
sorely. Her moods were very various. There were moments of her life
when the gaslight had its charm, and in which she declared to herself
that she was willing to run all the chances of failure for the hope
of success. There were moments in which Mr. Moss loomed less odious
before her eyes. Should she be afraid of Mr. Moss, and fly from
her destiny because a man was greasy? And to this view of her
circumstances she always came at last when her father's condition
pressed itself upon her. The house beside the lake was not her own as
yet, nor would it be her husband's when she was married.
Nor could there be a home for her father there as long as old Mr.
Jones was alive, nor possibly when his son should come to the throne.
For a time he must go to America, and she must go with him. She had
declared to herself that she could not go back to the United States
unless she could go back as a successful singer. For these reasons
she resolved that she would face Mr. Moss bravely and all his
horrors.
"If that gentleman comes here to-morrow at eleven, show him up here,"
she said to the waiter.
"Mr. Moss, ma'am?" the waiter asked.
"Yes, Mr. Moss," she answered in a loud voice, which told the man
much of her story. "Where did that piano come from?" she asked
brusquely.
"Mr. Moss had it sent in," said the man.
"And my father is paying separate rent for it?" she asked.
"What's that, my dear? What's that about rent?"
"We have got this piano to pay for. It's one of Erard's. Mr. Moss has
sent it, and of course we must pay till we have sent it back again.
That'll do." Then the man went.
"It's my belief that he intends to get us into pecuniary
difficulties. You have only got £62 left."
"But you are to have twenty shillings a day till Christmas."
"What's that?"
"According to what he says it will be increased after Christmas. He
spoke of £2 a day."
"Yes; if my singing be approved of. But who is to be the judge? If
the musical world choose to say that they must have Rachel O'Mahony,
that will be all very well. Am I to sing at twenty shillings a day
for just as long as Mr. Moss may want me? And are we to remain here,
and run up a bill which we shall never be able to pay, till they put
us out of the door and call us swindlers?"
"Frank Jones would help us at a pinch if we came to that difficulty,"
said the father.
"I wouldn't take a shilling from Frank Jones. Frank Jones is all the
world to me, but he cannot help me till he has made me his wife. We
must go out of this at the end of the first week, and send the piano
back. As far as I can make it out, our expenses here will be about
£17 10s. a week. What the piano will cost, I don't know; but we'll
learn that from Mr. Moss. I'll make him understand that we can't
stay here, having no more than twenty shillings a day. If he won't
undertake to give me £2 a day immediately after Christmas, we must go
back to New York while we've got money left to take us."
"Have it your own way," said Mr. O'Mahony.
"I don't mean to remain here and wake up some morning and find that I
can't stir a step without asking Mahomet M. M. for some money favour.
I know I can sing; I can sing, at any rate, to the extent of forty
shillings a day. For forty shillings a day I'll stay; but if I can't
earn that at once let us go back to New York. It is not the poverty I
mind so much, nor yet the debt, nor yet even your distress, you dear
old father. You and I could weather it out together on a twopenny
roll. Things would never be altogether bad with us as long as we are
together; and as long as we have not put ourselves in the power of
Mahomet M. M. Fancy owing Mr. Moss a sum of money which we couldn't
pay! Mahomet's 'little bill!' I would say to a Christian: 'All right,
Mr. Christian, you shall have your money in good time, and if you
don't it won't hurt you.' He wouldn't be any more than an ordinary
Christian, and would pull a long face; but he would have no little
scheme ready, cut and dry, for getting my body and soul under his
thumb."
"You are very unchristian yourself, my dear."
"I certainly have my own opinion of Mahomet M. M., and I shall tell
him to-morrow morning that I don't mean to run the danger."
Then they went to bed, and slept the sleep of the just. They ordered
breakfast at nine, so that, as Rachel said, the heavy mutton-chop
might not be sticking in her throat as she attempted to show off
before Mr. Moss on his arrival. But from eight till nine she passed
her time in the double employment of brushing her hair and preparing
the conversation as it was to take place between herself and Mr.
Moss. When a young lady boasts that she doesn't "let a word go
without thinking of it," she has to be careful in preparing her
words. And she prepared them now.
"There will be two of them against me," she said to herself as she
made the preparation. "There'll be the dear old governor, and the
governor that isn't dear. If I were left quite to myself, I think I
could do it easier. But then it might come to sticking a knife into
him."
"Father," she said, during breakfast, "I'm going to practise for half
an hour before this man comes."
"That means that I'm to go away."
"Not in the least. I shall go into the next room where the piano
lives, and you can come or not just as you please. I shall be
squalling all the time, and as we do have the grandeur of two rooms
for the present, you might as well use them. But when he comes we
must take care and see that matters go right. You had better leave
us alone at first, that I may sing to him. Then, when that's over,
do you be in waiting to be called in. I mean to have a little bit
of business with my trusted agent, manager, and parent in music,
'Mahomet M. M.'"
She went to the instrument, and practised there till half-past
eleven, at which hour Mr. Moss presented himself. "You'll want
to hear me sing of course," she said without getting up from the
music-stool.
"Just a bar or two to know how you have improved. But it is hardly
necessary. I see from the motion of your lips that you have been
keeping your mouth open. And I hear from the tone of your voice, that
it is all there. There is no doubt about you, if you have practised
opening your mouth."
"At any rate you shall hear, and if you will stand there you shall
see."
Then the music lesson began, and Mr. Moss proved himself to be an
adept in his art. Rachel did not in the least doubt his skill, and
obeyed him in everything as faithfully as she would have done, had he
been personally a favourite with her. "Allow me to express my great
delight and my strong admiration for the young débutante. As far as
Miss O'Mahony is concerned the word failure may be struck out of the
language. And no epithet should be used to qualify success, but one
in the most superlative degree. Allow me to--" And he attempted to
raise her hand to his lips, and to express his homage in a manner
certainly not unusual with gentlemen of his profession.
"Mr. Moss," said the young lady starting up, "there need be nothing
of that kind. There had better not. When a young woman is going to
be married to a young man, she can't be too careful. You don't know,
perhaps, but I'm going to be Mrs. Jones. Mr. Jones is apt to dislike
such things. If you'll wait half a moment, I'll bring papa in." So
saying she ran out of the room, and in two minutes returned, followed
by her father. The two men shook hands, and each of them looked as
though he did not know what he was expected to say to the other. "Now
then, father, you must arrange things with Mr. Moss."
Mr. Moss bowed. "I don't exactly know what I have got to arrange,"
said Mr. O'Mahony.
"We've got to arrange so that we shan't get into debt with Mr. Moss."
"There need not be the least fear in the world as to that," said Mr.
Moss.
"Ah; but that's just what we do fear, and what we must fear."
"So unnecessary,--so altogether unnecessary," said Mr. Moss,
expecting to be allowed to be the banker for the occasion. "If you
will just draw on me for what you want."
"But that is just what we won't do." Then there was a pause, and Mr.
Moss shrugged his shoulders. "It's as well to understand that at the
beginning. Of course this place is too expensive for us and we must
get out of it as soon as possible."
"Why in such a hurry?" said Mr. Moss raising his two hands.
"And we must send back the piano. It was so good of you to think of
it! But it must go back."
"No, no, no!" shouted Mr. Moss. "The piano is my affair. A piano more
or less for a few months is nothing between me and Erard's people.
They are only too happy."
"I do not in the least doubt it. Messrs. Erard's people are always
glad to secure a lady who is about to come out as a singer. But they
send the bill in at last."
"Not to you;--not to you."
"But to you. That would be a great deal worse, would it not, father?
We might as well understand each other."
"Mr. O'Mahony and I will understand each other very well."
"But it is necessary that Miss O'Mahony and you should understand
each other also. My father trusts me, and I cannot tell you how
absolutely I obey him."
"Or he you," said Mr. Moss laughing.
"At any rate we two know what we are about, sir. You will not find us
differing. Now Mr. Moss, you are to pay me twenty shillings a day."
"Till Christmas;--twenty shillings a night till Christmas."
"Of course we cannot live here on twenty shillings a day. The rooms
nearly take it all. We can't live on twenty shillings a day, anyhow."
"Then make it forty shillings immediately after the Christmas
holidays."
"I must have an agreement to that effect," said Rachel, "or we must
go back to Ireland. I must have the agreement before Christmas, or we
shall go back. We have a few pounds which will take us away."
"You must not speak of going away, really, Miss O'Mahony."
"Then I must have an agreement signed. You understand that. And
we shall look for cheaper rooms to-day. There is a little street
close by where we can manage it. But on the one thing we are
determined;--we will not get into debt."
CHAPTER VIII.
CHRISTMAS-DAY, 1880.
On Christmas-day Rachel O'Mahony wrote a letter to her lover at
Morony Castle:
Cecil Street, Christmas-day, 1880.
DEAREST FRANK,
You do love me, don't you? What's the use of my loving
you, and thinking that you are everything, only that you
are to love me? I am quite content that it should be so.
Only let it be so. You'll ask me what reason I have to be
jealous. I am not jealous. I do think in my heart that you
think that I'm--just perfect. And when I tell myself that
it is so, I lay myself back in my chair and kiss at you
with my lips till I am tired of kissing the space where
you ain't. But if I am wrong, and if you are having a good
time of it with Miss Considine at Mrs. McKeon's ball, and
are not thinking a bit of me and my kisses, what's the
use? It's a very unfair bargain that a woman makes with a
man. "Yes; I do love you," I say,--"but--" Then there's a
sigh. "Yes; I'll love you," you say--"if--" Then there's
a laugh. If I tell a fib, and am not worth having, you
can always recuperate. But we can't recuperate. I'm to go
about the world and be laughed at, as the girl that Frank
Jones made a fool of. Oh! Mr. Jones, if you treat me in
that way, won't I punish you? I'll jump into the lough
with a label round my neck telling the whole story. But I
am not a bit jealous, because I know you are good.
And now I must tell you a bit more of my history. We got
rid of that lovely hotel, paying £6 10s., when that just
earned £1. And I have brought the piano with me. The man
at Erard's told me that I should have it for £2 10s. a
month, frankly owning that he hoped to get my custom. "But
Mr. Moss is to pay nothing?" I asked. He swore that Mr.
Moss would have to pay nothing, and leave what occurred
between him and me. I don't think he will. £30 a year
ought to be enough for the hire of a piano. So here we
are established, at £10 a month--the first-floor, with
father's bedroom behind the sitting-room. I have the room
upstairs over the sitting-room. They are small stumpy
little rooms,--"but mine own." Who says--"But mine own?"
Somebody does, and I repeat it. They are mine own, at any
rate till next Saturday.
And we have settled this terrible engagement and signed
it. I'm to sing for Moss at "The Embankment" for four
months, at the rate of £600 a year. It was a Jew's
bargain, for I really had filled the house for a
fortnight. Fancy a theatre called "The Embankment"! There
is a nasty muddy rheumatic sound about it; but it's very
prettily got up, and the exits and entrances are also
good. Father goes with me every night, but I mean to let
him off the terrible task soon. He smiles, and says he
likes it. I only tell him he would be a child if he did.
They want to change the piece, but I shall make them
pay me for my dresses; I am not going to wear any other
woman's old clothes. It's not the proper way to begin,
you have to begin as a slave or as an empress. Of course,
anybody prefers to do the empress. They try, and then they
fail, and tumble down. I shall tumble down, no doubt; but
I may as well have my chance.
And now I'm going to make you say that I'm a beast. And
so I am. I make a little use of Mahomet M. M.'s passion
to achieve my throne instead of taking up at once with
serfdom. But I do it without vouchsafing him even the
first corner of a smile. The harshest treatment is all
that he gets. Men such as Mahomet M. will live on harsh
treatment for a while, looking forward to revenge when
their time comes. But I shall soon have made sure of my
throne, or shall have failed; and in either case shall
cease to care for Mahomet M. By bullying him and by
treating him as dust beneath my feet, I can do something
to show how proud I am, and how sure I am of success. He
offers me money--not paid money down, which would have
certain allurements. I shouldn't take it. I needn't
tell you that. I should like to have plenty of loose
sovereigns, so as to hire broughams from the yard, instead
of walking, or going in a 'bus about London, which is very
upsetting to my pride. Father and I go down to the theatre
in a hansom, when we feel ourselves quite smart. But it
isn't money like that which he offers. He wants to pay me
a month in advance, and suggests that I shall get into
debt, and come to him to get me out of it. There was some
talk of papa going to New York for a few weeks, and he
said he would come and look after me in his absence.
"Thank you, Mr. Moss," I said, "but I'm not sure I should
want any looking after, only for such as you." Those are
the very words I spoke, and I looked him full in the face.
"Why, what do you expect from me?" he said. "Insult," I
replied, as bold as brass. And then we are playing the
two lovers at "The Embankment." Isn't it a pretty family
history? He said nothing at the moment, but came back in
half an hour to make some unnecessary remarks about the
part. "Why did you say just now that I insulted you?"
he asked. "Because you do," I replied. "Never, never!"
he exclaimed, with most grotesque energy. "I have never
insulted you." You know, my dear, he has twenty times
endeavoured to kiss my hand, and once he saw fit to stroke
my hair. Beast! If you knew the sort of feeling I have for
him--such as you would have if you found a cockroach in
your dressing-case. Of course in our life young women have
to put up with this kind of thing, and some of them like
it. But he knows that I am going to be married, or at any
rate am engaged, Mr. Frank. I make constant use of your
name, telling everybody that I am the future Mrs. Jones,
putting such weight upon the Jones. With me he knows that
it is an insult; but I don't want to quarrel with him if
I can help it, and therefore I softened it down. "You hear
me say, Mr. Moss, that I'm an engaged young woman. Knowing
that, you oughtn't to speak to me as you do." "Why, what
do I say?" You should have seen his grin as he asked me;
such a leer of triumph, as though he knew that he were
getting the better of me. "Mr. Jones wouldn't approve
if he were to see it." "But luckily he don't," said my
admirer. Oh, if you knew how willingly I'd stand at a
tub and wash your shirts, while the very touch of his
gloves makes me creep all over with horror. "Let us have
peace for the future," I said. "I dislike all those
familiarities. If you will only give them up we shall
go on like a house on fire." Then the beast made an
attempt to squeeze my hand as he went out of the room.
I retreated, however, behind the table, and escaped
untouched on that occasion.
You are not to come over, whatever happens, until I tell
you. You ought to know very well by this time that I can
fight my battles by myself; and if you did come, there
would be an end altogether to the £200 which I am earning.
To give him his due, he's very punctual with his money,
only that he wants to pay me in advance, which I will
never have. He has been liberal about my dresses, telling
me to order just what I want, and have the bill sent in
to the costume manager. When I have worn them they become
the property of the theatre. God help any poor young woman
that will ever be expected to get into them. So now you
know exactly how I am standing with Mahomet M. M.
Poor father goes about to public meetings, but never is
allowed to open his mouth for fear he should say something
about the Queen. I don't mean that he is really watched,
but he promised in Ireland not to lecture any more if they
would let him go, and he wishes to keep his word. But I
fear it makes him very unhappy. He has, at any rate, the
comfort of coming home and giving me the lecture, which
he ought to have delivered to more sympathetic ears. Not
but what I do care about the people; only how am I to
know whether they ought to be allowed to make their own
petticoats, or why it is that they don't do so? He says
it's the London Parliament; and that if they had members
in College Green, the young women would go to work at
once, and make petticoats for all the world. I don't
understand it, and wish that he had someone else to
lecture to.
How are you getting on with all your own pet troubles? Is
the little subsiding lake at Ballintubber still a lake?
And what about poor Florian and his religion? Has he told
up as yet? I fear, I fear, that poor Florian has been
fibbing, and that there will be no peace for him or for
your father till the truth has been told.
Now, sir, I have told you everything, just as a young
woman ought to tell her future lord and master. You
say you ought to know what Moss is doing. You do know,
exactly, as far as I can tell you. Of course you wouldn't
like to see him, but then you have the comfort of knowing
that I don't like it either. I suppose it is a comfort,
eh, my bold young man? Of course you want me to hate the
pig, and I do hate him. You may be sure that I will get
rid of him as soon as I conveniently can. But for the
present he is a necessary evil. If you had a home to give
me, I would come to it--oh, so readily! There is something
in the glitter of a theatre--what people call the boards,
the gaslights, the music, the mock love-making, the
pretence of being somebody, the feeling of mystery which
is attached to you, and the feeling you have that you are
generally unlike the world at large--which has its charms.
Even your name, blazoned in a dirty playbill, without any
Mister or Mistress to guard you, so unlike the ways of
ordinary life, does gratify one's vanity. I can't say why
it should be so, but it is. I always feel a little prouder
of myself when father is not with me. I am Miss O'Mahony,
looking after myself, whereas other young ladies have to
be watched. It has its attractions.
But--but to be the wife of Frank Jones, and to look after
Frank's little house, and to cook for him his chicken and
his bacon, and to feel that I am all the world to him, and
to think--! But, oh, Frank, I cannot tell you what things
I think. I do feel, as I think them, that I have not been
made to stand long before the glare of the gas, and that
the time will certainly come when I shall walk about
Ballintubber leaning on your arm, and hearing all your
future troubles about rents not paid, and waters that have
come in.
Your own, own girl,
RACHEL O'MAHONY.
CHAPTER IX.
BLACK DALY.
Frank Jones received his letter just as he was about to leave
Castle Morony for the meet at Ballytowngal, the seat, as everybody
knows, of Sir Nicholas Bodkin. Ballytowngal is about two miles from
Claregalway, on the road to Oranmore. Sir Nicholas is known all
through the West of Ireland, as a sporting man, and is held in high
esteem. But there is, I think, something different in the estimation
which he now enjoys from that which he possessed twenty years ago.
He was then, as now, a Roman Catholic,--as were also his wife and
children; and, as a Roman Catholic, he was more popular with the
lower classes, and with the priests, who are their natural friends,
than with his brother grand-jurors of the country, who were, for the
most part, Protestants.
Sir Nicholas is now sixty years old, and when he came to the title at
thirty, he was regarded certainly as a poor man's friend. He always
lived on the estate. He rarely went up to Dublin, except for a
fortnight, when the hunting was over, and when he paid his respects
to the Lord Lieutenant. The house at Ballytowngal was said, in those
days, to be as well kept up as any mansion in County Galway. But the
saying came probably from those who were not intimate in the more
gloriously maintained mansions. Sir Nicholas had £5000 a year, and
though he did manage to pay his bills annually, spent every shilling
of it. He preserved his foxes loyally, and was quite as keen about
the fishing of a little river that he owned, and which ran down from
his demesne into Lough Corrib. He was particular also about his
snipe, and would boast that in a little spinney at Ballytowngal were
to be met the earliest woodcock found in the West of Ireland. He was
a thorough sportsman;--but a Roman Catholic--and as a Roman Catholic
he was hardly equal in standing to some of his Protestant neighbours.
He voted for Major Stackpoole, when Major Stackpoole stood for the
county on the Liberal interest, and was once requested to come
forward himself, and stand for the City as a Roman Catholic. This
he did not do, being a prudent man; but at that period, from twenty
to thirty years ago, he was certainly regarded as inferior to a
Protestant by many of the Protestant gentlemen of the country.
But things are changed now. Sir Nicholas's neighbours, such of them
at least that are Protestants, regard Sir Nicholas as equal to
themselves. They do not care much for his religion, but they know
that he is not a Home-Ruler, or latterly, since the Land League
sprang into existence, a Land Leaguer. He is, in fact, one of
themselves as a county gentleman, and the question of religion has
gone altogether into abeyance. Had you known the county thirty years
ago, and had now heard Sir Nicholas talking of county matters, you
would think that he was one of the old Protestants. It was so that
the rich people regarded him,--and so also the poor. But Sir Nicholas
had not varied at all. He liked to get his rents paid, and as long as
his tenants would pay them, he was at one with them. They had begun
now to have opinions of their own upon the subject, and he was at one
with them no longer.
Frank Jones had heard in Galway, that there was to be a difficulty
about drawing the Ballytowngal coverts. The hounds were to be
allowed to draw the demesne coverts, but beyond that they were to
be interrupted. Foxes seldom broke from Ballytowngal, or if they
did they ran to Moytubber. At Moytubber the hounds would probably
change,--or would do so if allowed to continue their sport in peace.
But at Moytubber the row would begin. Knowing this, Frank Jones was
anxious to leave his home in time, as he was aware that the hounds
would be carried on to Moytubber as quickly as possible. Black Daly
had sworn a solemn oath that he would draw Moytubber in the teeth of
every Home-Ruler and Land Leaguer in County Galway.
A word or two must be said descriptive of Black Daly, as he was
called, the master of the Galway hounds. They used to be called the
Galway blazers, but the name had nearly dropped out of fashion since
Black Daly had become their master, a quarter of a century since.
Who Black Daly was or whence he had come, many men, even in County
Galway, did not know. It was not that he had no property, but that
his property was so small, as to make it seem improbable that the
owner of it should be the master of the county hounds. But in truth
Black Daly lived at Daly's Bridge, in the neighbourhood of Castle
Blakeney, when he was supposed to be at home. And the house in which
he lived he had undoubtedly inherited from his father. But he was not
often there, and kept his kennels at Ahaseragh, five miles away from
Daly's Bridge. Much was not therefore known of Mr. Daly, in his own
house.
But in the field no man was better known, or more popular, if
thorough obedience is an element of popularity. The old gentry of
the county could tell why Mr. Daly had been put into his present
situation five-and-twenty years ago; but the manner of his election
was not often talked about. He had no money, and very few acres of
his own on which to preserve foxes. He had never done anything to
earn a shilling since he had been born, unless he may have been said
to have earned shillings by his present occupation. As he got his
living out of it, he certainly may have been said to have done so. He
never borrowed a shilling from any man, and certainly paid his way.
But if he told a young man that he ought to buy a horse the young
man certainly bought it. And if he told a young man that he must pay
a certain price, the young man generally paid it. But if the young
man were not ready with his money by the day fixed, that young man
generally had a bad time of it. Young men have been known to be
driven not only out of County Galway, but out of Ireland itself, by
the tone of Mr. Daly's voice, and by the blackness of his frown. And
yet it was said generally that neither young men nor old men were
injured in their dealings with Mr. Daly. "That horse won't be much
the worse for his splint, and he's worth £70 to you, because you can
ride him ten stone. You had better give me £70 for him." Then the
young man would promise the £70 in three months' time, and if he kept
his word, would swear by Black Daly ever afterwards. In this way Mr.
Daly sold a great many horses.
But he had been put into his present position because he hunted the
hounds, during the illness of a distant cousin, who was the then
master. The master had died, but the county had the best sport that
winter that it had ever enjoyed. "I don't see why I should not do
it, as well as another," Tom Daly had said. He was then known as Tom
Daly. "You've got no money," his cousin had said, the son of the old
gentleman who was just dead. It was well understood that the cousin
wished to have the hounds, but that he was thought not to have all
the necessary attributes. "I suppose the county means to pay for all
sport," said Tom. Then the hat went round, and an annual sum of £900
a year was voted. Since that the hounds have gone on, and the bills
have been paid; and Tom has raised the number of days' hunting to
four a week, or has lowered it to two, according to the amount of
money given. He makes no proposition now, but declares what he means
to do. "Things are dearer," he said last year, "and you won't have
above five days a fortnight, unless you can make the money up to
£1,200. I want £400 a day, and £400 I must have." The county had
then voted him the money in the plenitude of its power, and Daly had
hunted seven days a fortnight. But all the Galway world felt that
there was about to be a fall.
Black Daly was a man quite as dark as his sobriquet described him. He
was tall, but very thin and bony, and seemed not to have an ounce of
flesh about his face or body. He had large, black whiskers,--coarse
and jet black,--which did not quite meet beneath his chin. And he
wore no other beard, no tuft, no imperial, no moustachios; but when
he was seen before shaving on a morning, he would seem to be black
all over, and his hair was black, short, and harsh; and though black,
round about his ears it was beginning to be tinged with grey. He was
now over fifty years of age; but the hair on his head was as thick
as it had been when he first undertook the hounds. He had great dark
eyes in his head, deep down, so that they seemed to glitter at you
out of caverns. And above them were great, bushy eyebrows, every
hair of which seemed to be black, and harsh, and hard. His nose was
well-formed and prominent; but of cheeks he had apparently none.
Between his whiskers and his nose, and the corners of his mouth,
there was nothing but two hollow cavities. He was somewhat over six
feet high, but from his extraordinary thinness gave the appearance
of much greater height. His arms were long, and the waistcoat which
he wore was always long; his breeches were very long; and his boots
seemed the longest thing about him--unless his spurs seemed longer.
He had no flesh about him, and it was boasted of him that, in spite
of his length, and in spite of his height, he could ride under twelve
stone. Of himself, and of his doings, he never talked. They were
secrets of his own, of which he might have to make money. And no one
had a right to ask him questions. He did not conceive that it would
be necessary for a gentleman to declare his weight unless he were
about to ride a race. Now it was understood that for the last ten
years Black Daly had ridden no races.
He was a man of whom it might be said that he never joked. Though
his life was devoted in a peculiar manner to sport, and there may be
thought to be something akin between the amusements and the lightness
of life, it was all serious to him. Though he was bitter over it, or
happy; triumphant, or occasionally in despair--as when the money was
not forthcoming--he never laughed. It was all serious to him, and
apparently sad, from the first note of a hound in the early covert,
down to the tidings that a poor fox had been found poisoned near his
earth. He had much to do to find sport for the county on such limited
means, and he was always doing it.
He not only knew every hound in his pack, but he knew their ages,
their sires, and their dams; and the sires and the dams of most of
their sires and dams. He knew the constitution of each, and to what
extent their noses were to be trusted. "It's a very heavy scent
to-day," he would say, "because Gaylap carries it over the plough.
It's only a catching scent because the drops don't hang on the
bushes." His lore on all such matters was incredible, but he would
never listen to any argument. A man had a right to his own opinion;
but then the man who differed from him knew nothing. He gave out his
little laws to favoured individuals; not by way of conversation,
for which he cared nothing, but because it might be well that the
favoured individual should know the truth on that occasion.
As a man to ride he was a complete master of his art. There was
nothing which a horse could do with a man on his back, which Daly
could not make him do; and when he had ridden a horse he would know
exactly what was within his power. But there was no desire with him
for the showing off of a horse. He often rode to sell a horse, but
he never seemed to do so. He never rode at difficult places unless
driven to do so by the exigencies of the moment. He was always quiet
in the field, unless when driven to express himself as to the faults
of some young man. Then he could blaze forth in his anger with great
power. He was constantly to be seen trotting along a road when hounds
were running, because he had no desire to achieve for himself a
character for hard riding. But he was always with his hounds when he
was wanted, and it was boasted of him that he had ridden four days a
week through the season on three horses, and had never lamed one of
them. He was rarely known to have a second horse out, and when he did
so, it was for some purpose peculiar to the day's work. On such days
he had generally a horse to sell.
It is hardly necessary to say that Black Daly was an unmarried man.
No one who knew him could conceive that he should have had a wife.
His hounds were his children, and he could have taught no wife to
assist him in looking after them, with the constant attention and
tender care which was given to them by Barney Smith, his huntsman. A
wife, had she seen to the feeding of the numerous babies, would have
given them too much to eat, and had she not undertaken this care,
she would have been useless at Daly's Bridge. But Barney Smith was
invaluable; double the amount of work got usually from a huntsman
was done by him. There was no kennel man, no second horseman, no
stud-groom at the Ahaseragh kennels. It may be said that Black Daly
filled all these positions himself, and that in each Barney Smith
was his first lieutenant. Circumstances had given him the use of the
Ahaseragh kennels, which had been the property of his cousin, and
circumstances had not enabled him to build others at Daly's Bridge.
Gradually he had found it easier to move himself than the hounds. And
so it had come to pass that two rooms had been prepared for him close
to the kennels, and that Mr. Barney Smith gave him such attendance as
was necessary. Of strictly personal attendance Black Daly wanted very
little; but the discomforts of that home, while one pair of breeches
were supposed to be at Daly's Bridge, and the others at Ahaseragh,
were presumed by the world at large to be very grievous.
But the personal appearance of Mr. Daly on hunting mornings, was not
a matter of indifference. It was not that he wore beautiful pink
tops, or came out guarded from the dust by little aprons, or had his
cravat just out of the bandbox, or his scarlet coat always new, and
in the latest fashion, nor had his hat just come from the shop in
Piccadilly with the newest twist to its rim. But there was something
manly, and even powerful about his whole apparel. He was always the
same, so that by men even in his own county, he would hardly have
been known in other garments. The strong, broad brimmed high hat,
with the cord passing down his back beneath his coat, that had known
the weather of various winters; the dark, red coat, with long swallow
tails, which had grown nearly black under many storms; the dark, buff
striped waistcoat, with the stripes running downwards, long, so as to
come well down over his breeches; the breeches themselves, which were
always of leather, but which had become nearly brown under the hands
of Barney Smith or his wife, and the mahogany top-boots, of which the
tops seemed to be a foot in length, could none of them have been worn
by any but Black Daly. His very spurs must have surely been made for
him, they were in length and weight; and general strength of leather,
so peculiarly his own. He was unlike other masters of hounds in this,
that he never carried a horn; but he spoke to his hounds in a loud,
indistinct chirruping voice, which all County Galway believed to be
understood to every hound in the park.
One other fact must be told respecting Mr. Daly. He was a
Protestant--as opposed to a Roman Catholic. No one had ever known
him go to church, or speak a word in reference to religion. He was
equally civil or uncivil to priest and parson when priest or parson
appeared in the field. But on no account would he speak to either
of them if he could avoid it. But he had in his heart a thorough
conviction that all Roman Catholics ought to be regarded as
enemies by all Protestants, and that the feeling was one entirely
independent of faith and prayerbooks, or crosses and masses. For him
fox-hunting--fox-hunting for others--was the work of his life, and
he did not care to meddle with what he did not understand. But he
was a Protestant, and Sir Nicholas Bodkin was a Roman Catholic, and
therefore an enemy--as a dog may be supposed to declare himself a
dog, and a cat a cat, if called upon to explain the cause for the old
family quarrel.
Now there had come a cloud over his spirit in reference to the state
of his country. He could see that the quarrel was not entirely one
between Protestant and Catholic as it used to be, but still he could
not get it out of his mind, but that the old causes were producing in
a different way their old effects. Whiteboys, Terryalts, Ribbonmen,
Repeaters, Physical-Forcemen, Fenians, Home-Rulers, Professors of
Dynamite, and American-Irish, were, to his thinking, all the same.
He never talked much about it, because he did not like to expose his
ignorance; but his convictions were not the less formed. It was the
business of a Protestant to take rent, and of a Roman Catholic to pay
rent. There were certain deviations in this ordained rule of life,
but they were only exceptions. The Roman Catholics had the worst of
this position, and the Protestants the best. Therefore the Roman
Catholics were of course quarrelling with it, and therefore the Roman
Catholics must be kept down. Such had been Mr. Daly's general outlook
into life. But now the advancing evil of the time was about to fall
even upon himself, and upon his beneficent labours, done for the
world at large. It was whispered in County Galway that the people
were about to rise and interfere with fox-hunting! It may be imagined
that on this special day Mr. Daly's heart was low beneath his
black-striped waistcoat, as he rode on his way to draw the coverts at
Ballytowngal.
At the cross-roads of Monivea he met Peter Bodkin, the eldest son
of Sir Nicholas. Now Peter Bodkin had quarrelled long and very
bitterly with his father. Every acre of the property at Ballytowngal
was entailed upon him, and Peter had thought that under such
circumstances his father was not doing enough for him. The quarrel
had been made up, but still the evil rankled in Peter's bosom, who
was driven to live with his wife and family on £500 a year; and had
found himself hardly driven to keep himself out of the hands of the
Jews. His father had wished him to follow some profession, but this
had been contrary to Peter's idea of what was becoming. But though he
had only £500 a year, and five children, he did manage to keep two
horses, and saw a good deal of hunting.
And among all the hunting men in County Galway he was the one who
lived on the closest terms of intimacy with Black Daly. For, though
he was a Roman Catholic, his religion did not trouble him much; and
he was undoubtedly on the same side with Daly in the feuds that were
coming on the country. Indeed, he and Daly had entertained the same
feelings for some years; for, in the quarrels which had been rife
between the father and son, Mr. Daly had taken the son's part, as far
as so silent a man can be said to have taken any part at all.
"Well, Peter." "Well, Daly," were the greetings, as the two men met;
and then they rode on together in silence for a mile. "Have you heard
what the boys are going to do?" asked the master. Peter shook his
head. "I suppose there's nothing in it?"
"I fear there is."
"What will they do?" asked Mr. Daly.
"Just prevent your hunting."
"If they touch me, or either of the men, by God! I'll shoot some of
them." Then he put his hand into his pocket, as much as to explain a
pistol was there. After that the two men rode on in silence till they
came to the gates of Ballytowngal.
CHAPTER X.
BALLYTOWNGAL.
Daly, among other virtues, or vices, was famed for punctuality. He
wore a large silver watch in his pocket which was as true as the
sun, or at any rate was believed by its owner to be so. From Daly's
watch on hunting mornings there was no appeal. He always reached
the appointed meet at five minutes before eleven, by his watch, and
by his watch the hounds were always moved from their haunches at
five minutes past eleven. Though the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief
Secretary and the Lord Chancellor had been there, there would have
been no deviation. The interval of ten minutes he generally spent in
whispered confabulations with the earth-warners, secrets into which
no attendant horseman ever dived; for Black Daly was a mysterious
man, who did not choose to be inquired into as to his movements. On
this occasion he said not a word to any earth-warner, though two were
in attendance; but he sat silent and more gloomy than ever on his big
black horse, waiting for the minutes to pass by till he should be
able to run his hounds through the Ballytowngal coverts, and then
hurry on to Moytubber.
Mr. Daly's mind was, in truth, fixed upon Moytubber, and what would
there be done this morning. He was a simple-minded man, who kept his
thoughts fixed for the most part on one object. He knew that it was
his privilege to draw the coverts of Moytubber, and to hunt the
country around; and he felt also, after some gallant fashion, that
it was his business to protect the rights of others in the pursuit
of their favourite amusement. No man could touch him or either of
his servants in the way of violence without committing an offence
which he would be bound to oppose by violence. He was no lawyer, and
understood not at all the statutes as fixed upon the subject. If a
man laid a hand upon him violently, and would not take his hand off
again when desired, he would be entitled to shoot that man. Such was
the law, as in his simplicity and manliness he believed it to exist.
He was a man not given to pistols; but when he heard that he was to
be stopped in his hunting on this morning, and stopped by dastardly,
pernicious curs who called themselves Landleaguers, he went into
Ballinasloe, and bought himself a pistol. Black Daly was a sad,
serious man, who could not put up with the frivolities of life; to
whom the necessity of providing for that large family of children was
very serious; but he was not of his nature a quarrelsome man. But
now he was threatened on the tenderest point; and with much simpler
thought had resolved that it would be his duty to quarrel.
But just when he had spoken the word on which Barney and the
hounds were prepared to move, Sir Nicholas trotted up to him. Sir
Nicholas and all the sporting gentlemen of County Galway were there,
whispering with each other, having collected themselves in crowds
much bigger than usual. There was much whispering, and many opinions
had been given as to the steps which it would be well that the hunt
should take if interrupted in their sport. But at last Peter Bodkin
had singled out his father, and had communicated to him the fact of
Black Daly's pistol. "He'll use it, as sure as eggs are eggs," said
Peter whispering to his father.
"Then there'll be murder," said Sir Nicholas, who though a good
hunting neighbour had never been on very friendly terms with Mr.
Daly.
"When Tom Daly says he'll do a thing, he means to do it," said Peter.
"He won't be stopped by my calling it murder." Then Sir Nicholas
had quickly discussed the matter with sundry other sportsmen of the
neighbourhood. There were Mr. Persse of Doneraile, and Mr. Blake of
Letterkenny, and Lord Ardrahan, and Sir Jasper Lynch, of Bohernane.
During the ten minutes that were allowed to them, they put their
heads together, and with much forethought made Mr. Persse their
spokesman. Lord Ardrahan and Sir Jasper might have seemed to take
upon themselves an authority which Daly would not endure. And
Blake, of Letterkenny, would have been too young to carry with him
sufficient weight. Sir Nicholas himself was a Roman Catholic, and was
Peter's father, and Peter would have been in a scrape for having told
the story of the pistol. So Mr. Persse put himself forward. "Daly,"
he said, trotting up to the master, "I'm afraid we're going to
encounter a lot of these Landleaguers at Moytubber."
"What do they want at Moytubber? Nobody is doing anything to them."
"Of course not; they are a set of miserable ruffians. I'm sorry to
say that there are a lot of my tenants among them. But it's no use
discussing that now."
"I can only go on," said Daly, "as though they were in bed." Then he
put his hand in his pocket, and felt that the pistol was there.
Mr. Persse saw what he did, and knew that his hand was on the pistol.
"We have only a minute now to decide," he said.
"To decide what?" asked Daly.
"There must be no violence on our side." Daly turned round his
face upon him, and looked at him from the bottom of those two dark
caverns. "Believe me when I say it; there must be no violence on our
side."
"If they attempt to stop my horse?"
"There must be no violence on our side to bring us, or rather you, to
further grief."
"By God! I'd shoot the man who did it," said Daly.
"No, no; let there be no shooting. Were you to do so, there can be no
doubt that you would be tried by a jury and--"
"Hanged," said Daly. "May be so; I have got to look that in the face.
It is an accursed country in which we are living."
"But you would not encounter the danger in carrying out a trifling
amusement such as this?"
Daly again turned round and looked at him. Was this work of his life,
this employment on which he was so conscientiously eager, to be
called trifling? Did they know the thoughts which it cost him, the
hard work by which it was achieved, the days and nights which were
devoted to it? Trifling amusement! To him it was the work of his
life. To those around him it was the best part of theirs.
"I will not interfere with them," Daly said.
He alluded here to the enemies of hunting generally. He had not
hunted the country so long without having had many rows with many
men. Farmers, angry with him for the moment, had endeavoured to stop
him as he rode upon their land; and they had poisoned his foxes from
revenge, or stolen them from cupidity. He had borne with such men,
expressing the severity of his judgment chiefly by the look of his
eyes; but he had never quarrelled with them violently. They had been
contemptible people whom it would be better to look at than to shoot.
But here were men coming, or were there now, prepared to fight with
him for his rights. And he would fight with them, even though hanging
should be the end of it.
"I will not interfere with them, unless they interfere with me."
"Have you a pistol with you, Daly?" said Persse.
"I have."
"Then give it me."
"Not so. If I want to use a pistol it will be better to have it in my
own pocket than in yours. If I do not want to use it I can keep it
myself, and no one will be the wiser."
"Listen to me, Daly."
"Well, Mr. Persse?"
"Do not call me 'Mr. Persse,' as though you were determined to
quarrel with me. It will be well that you should take advice in this
matter from those whom you have known all your life. There is Sir
Nicholas Bodkin--"
"He may be one of them for all that I can tell," said Daly.
"Lord Ardrahan is not one of them. And Sir Jasper Lynch, and Blake
of Letterkenny, they are all there, if you will speak to them. In
such a matter as this it is not worth your while to get into serious
trouble. To you and me hunting is a matter of much importance; but
the world at large will not regard it as one in which blood should be
shed. They will come prepared to make themselves disagreeable, but if
there be bloodshed it will simply be by your hands. And think what an
injury you would do to your side of the question, and what a benefit
to theirs!"
"How so?"
"We are regarded as the dominant party, as gentlemen who ought to do
what is right, and support the laws."
"If I am attacked may I not defend myself?"
"No; not by a pistol carried loaded into a hunting-field. You would
have all the world against you."
Then the two men rode on silently together. The hounds were drawing
the woods of Ballytowngal, but had not found, and were prepared to go
on to Moytubber. But, according to the Galway custom, Barney Smith
was waiting for orders from his master. Daly now sat stock still upon
his horse for awhile, looking at the dark fringe of trees by which
the park was surrounded. He was thinking, as well as he knew how to
think, of the position in which he was placed. To be driven to go
contrary to his fixed purpose by fear was a course intolerable to
him. But to have done that which was clearly injurious to his party
was as bad. And this Persse to whom he had shown his momentary anger
by calling him Mr., was a man whom he greatly regarded. There was
no one in the field whose word would go further with him in hunting
matters. He had clearly been rightly chosen as a deputation. But
Daly knew that as he had gone to bed the previous night, and as he
had got up in the morning, and as he had trotted along by Monivea
cross-roads, and had met Peter Bodkin, every thought of his mind
had been intent on the pistol within his pocket. To shoot a man who
should lay hold of him or his horse, or endeavour to stop his horse,
had seemed to him to be bare justice. But he had resolved that he
would first give some spoken warning to the sinner. After that, God
help the man; for he would find no help in Black Tom Daly.
But now his mind was shaken by the admonitions of Mr. Persse. He
could not say of Mr. Persse as he had said, most unjustly, of Sir
Nicholas, that he was one of them. Mr. Persse was well-known as a
Tory and a Protestant, and an indefatigable opponent of Home-Rulers.
To Sir Nicholas, in the minds of some men, there attached a slight
stain of his religion. "I will keep the pistol in my pocket," said
Tom Daly, without turning his eyes away from the belt of trees.
"Had you not better trust it with me?" said Mr. Persse.
"No, I am not such an idiot as to shoot a man when I do not intend
it."
"Seeing how moved you are, I thought that perhaps the pistol might be
safer in my hands."
"No, the pistol shall remain with me." Then he turned round to join
Barney Smith, who was waiting for him up by the gate out of the
covert. But he turned again to say a word to Mr. Persse. "Thank you,
Persse, I am obliged to you. It might be inconvenient being locked up
before the season is over." Then a weird grin covered his face; which
was the nearest approach to laughter ever seen with Black Tom Daly.
From Ballytowngal to Moytubber was about a mile and a half. Some few,
during the conversation between Mr. Persse and the master, had gone
on, so that they might be the first to see what was in store for
them. But the crowd of horsemen had remained with their eyes fixed
upon Daly. He rode up to them and passed on without speaking a word,
except that he gave the necessary orders to Barney Smith. Then two
or three clustered round Mr. Persse, asking him whispered questions.
"It'll be all right," said Persse, nodding his head; and so the
_cortège_ passed on. But not a word was spoken by Daly himself,
either then or afterwards, except a whispered order or two given to
Barney Smith. Moytubber is a gorse covert lying about three hundred
yards from the road, and through it the horsemen always passed; on
other occasions it was locked. Now the gate had been taken off its
hinges and thrown back upon the bank; and Daly, as he passed into the
field, perceived that the covert was surrounded by a crowd.
CHAPTER XI.
MOYTUBBER.
"What's all this about?" said Tom as he rode up the covert side,
and addressing a man whose face he happened to know. He was one Kit
Mooney, a baker from Claregalway, who in these latter days had turned
Landleaguer. But he was one who simply thought that his bread might
be better buttered for him on that side of the question. He was not
an ardent politician; but few local Irishmen were so. Had no stirring
spirits been wafted across the waters from America to teach Irishmen
that one man is as good as another, or generally better, Kit Mooney
would never have found it out. Had not his zeal been awakened by the
eloquence of Mr. O'Meagher, the member for Athlone, who had just made
a grand speech to the people at Athenry, Kit Mooney would have gone
on in his old ways, and would at this moment have been touching his
hat to Tom Daly, and whispering to him of the fox that had lately
been seen "staling away jist there, Mr. Daly, 'fore a'most yer very
eyes." But Mr. O'Meagher had spent three glorious weeks in New York,
and, having practised the art of speaking on board the steamer as he
returned, had come to Athenry and filled the mind of Kit Mooney and
sundry others with political truth of the deepest dye. But the gist
of the truths so taught had been chiefly this:--that if a man did not
pay his rent, but kept his money in his pocket, he manifestly did
two good things; he enriched himself, and he so far pauperised the
landlord, who was naturally his enemy. What other teaching could be
necessary to make Kit understand,--Kit Mooney who held twenty acres
of meadow land convenient to the town of Claregalway,--that this
was the way to thrive in the world? "Rent is not known in America,
that great and glorious country. Every man owns the fields which he
cultivates. Why should you here allow yourself to be degraded by the
unmanly name of tenants? The earth which supports you should be as
free to you as the air you breathe." Such had been the eloquence of
Mr. O'Meagher; and it had stirred the mind of Kit Mooney and made
him feel that life should be recommenced by him under new principles.
Things had not quite gone swimmingly with him since, because Nicholas
Bodkin's agent had caused a sheriff's bailiff to appear upon the
scene, and the notion of keeping the landlord's rent in the pocket
had been found to be surrounded with difficulties. But the great
principle was there, and there had come another eloquent man, who had
also been in America; and Kit Mooney was now a confirmed Landleaguer.
"Faix thin, yer honour, it isn't much hunting the quality will see
this day out of Moytubber; nor yet nowhere round, av the boys are as
good as their word."
"Why should they not hunt at Moytubber?" said Mr. Daly, who, as he
looked around saw indeed ample cause why there should be no hunting.
He had thought as he trotted along the road that some individual
Landleaguer would hold his horse by the rein and cause him to stop
him in the performance of his duty; but there were two hundred
footmen there roaming at will through the sacred precincts of the
gorse, and Daly knew well that no fox could have remained there with
such a crowd around him.
"The boys are just taking their pleasure themselves this fine
Christmas morning," said Kit, who had not moved from the bank on
which he had been found sitting. "Begorra, you'll find 'em all out
about the counthry, intirely, Mr. Daly. They're out to make your
honour welcome. There is lashings of 'em across in Phil French's
woods and all down to Peter Brown's, away at Oranmore. There is not
a boy in the barony but what is out to bid yer honour welcome this
morning."
Kit Mooney could not have given a more exact account of what was
being done by "the boys" on that morning had he owned all those
rich gifts of eloquence which Mr. O'Meagher possessed. Tom Daly at
once saw that there was no need for shooting any culprit, and was
thankful. The interruption to the sport of the county had become much
more general than he had expected, and it was apparently so organised
as to have spread itself over all that portion of County Galway, in
which his hounds ran. "Bedad, Mr. Daly, what Kit says is thrue," said
another man whom he did not know. "You'll find 'em out everywhere.
Why ain't the boys to be having their fun?"
It was useless to allow a hound to go into the covert of Moytubber.
The crowd around was waiting anxiously to see the attempt made, so
that they might enjoy their triumph. To watch Black Tom drawing
Moytubber without a fox would be nuts to them; and then to follow the
hounds on to the next covert, and to the next, with the same result,
would afford them an ample day's amusement. But the Bodkins, and the
Blakes, and the Persses were quite alive to this, and so also was Tom
Daly. A council of war was therefore held, in order that the line of
conduct might be adopted which might be held to be most conducive to
the general dignity of the hunt.
"I should send the hounds home," said Lord Ardrahan. "If Mr. Daly
would call at my place and lunch, as he goes by, I should be most
happy."
Tom Daly, on hearing this, only shook his head. The shake was
intended to signify that he did not like the advice tendered, nor
the accompanying hospitable offer. To go home would be to throw down
their arms at once, and acknowledge themselves beaten. If beaten
to-day, why should they not be beaten on another day, and then what
would become of Tom Daly's employment? A sad idea came across his
mind, as he shook his head, warning him that in this terrible affair
of to-day, he might see the end of all his life's work. Such a
thought had never occurred to him before. If a crowd of disloyal
Roman Catholics chose to prevent the gentry in their hunting,
undoubtedly they had the power. Daly was slow at thinking, but an
idea when it had once come home to him, struck him forcibly. As
he shook his head at that moment he bethought himself, what would
become of Black Daly if the people of the county refused to allow his
hounds to run? And a second idea struck him,--that he certainly would
not lunch with Lord Ardrahan. Lord Ardrahan was, to his thinking,
somewhat pompous, and had been felt by Tom to expect that he, Tom,
should acknowledge the inferiority of his position by his demeanour.
Now such an idea as this was altogether in opposition to Tom's mode
of living. Even though the hounds were to be taken away from him, and
he were left at Daly's Bridge with the £200 a year which had come to
him from his father, he would make no such acknowledgment as that to
any gentleman in County Galway. So he shook his head, and said not a
word in answer to Lord Ardrahan.
"What do you propose to do, Daly?" demanded Mr. Persse.
"Go on and draw till night. There's a moon, and if we can find a fox
before ten, Barney and I will manage to kill him. Those blackguards
can't keep on with us." This was Daly's plan, spoken out within
hearing of many of the blackguards.
"You had better take my offer, and come to Ardrahan Castle," said his
lordship.
"No, my lord," said Daly, with the tone of authority which a master
of hounds always knows how to assume.
"I shall draw on. Barney, get the hounds together." Then he whispered
to Barney Smith that the hounds should go on to Kilcornan. Now
Kilcornan was a place much beloved by foxes, about ten miles distant
from Moytubber. It was not among the coverts appointed to be drawn
on that day, which all lay back towards Ahaseragh. At Kilcornan the
earths would be found to open. But it would be better to trot off
rapidly to some distant home for foxes, even though the day's sport
might be lost. Daly was very anxious that it should not be said
through the country that he had been driven home by a set of roughs
from any one covert or another. The day's draw would be known--the
line of the country, that is, which, in the ordinary course of
things, he would follow on that day. But by going to Kilcornan
he might throw them off his scent. So he started for Kilcornan,
having whispered his orders to Barney Smith, but communicating his
intentions to no one else.
"What will you do, Daly?" said Sir Jasper Lynch.
"Go on."
"But where will you go?" inquired the baronet. He was a man about
Daly's age, with whom Daly was on comfortable terms. He had no cause
for being crabbed with Sir Jasper as with Lord Ardrahan. But he did
not want to declare his purpose to any man. There is no one in the
ordinary work of his life so mysterious as a master of hounds. And
among masters no one was more mysterious than Tom Daly. And this,
too, was no ordinary day. Tom only shook his head and trotted on in
advance. His secret had been told only to Barney Smith, and with
Barney Smith he knew that it would be safe.
So they all trotted off at a pace much faster than usual. "What's up
with Black Tom now?" asked Sir Nicholas of Sir Jasper. "What's Daly
up to now?" asked Mr. Blake of Mr. Persse. They all shook their
heads, and declared themselves willing to follow their leader without
further inquiry. "I suppose he knows what he's about," said Mr.
Persse; "but we, at any rate, must go and see." So they followed him;
and in half an hour's time it became apparent that they were going to
Kilcornan.
But at Kilcornan they found a crowd almost equal to that which had
stopped them at Moytubber. Kilcornan is a large demesne, into which
they would, in the ordinary course, have made their entrance through
the lodge gate. At present they went at once to an outlying covert,
which was supposed to be especially the abode of foxes; but even
here, as Barney trotted up with his hounds, at a pace much quicker
than usual, they found that the ground before them had been occupied
by Landleaguers. "You'll not do much in the hunting way to-day,
Muster Daly," said one of the intruders. "When we heard you were
a-coming we had a little hunt of our own. There ain't a fox anywhere
about the place now, Muster Daly." Tom Daly turned round and sat on
his big black horse, frowning at the world before him; a sorrowful
man. What shall we do next? It does not behove a master of hounds
to seek counsel in difficulty from anyone. A man, if he is master,
should be sufficient to himself in all emergencies. No man felt this
more clearly than did Black Tom Daly. He had been ashamed of himself
once this morning, because he had taken advice from Mr. Persse. But
now he must think the matter out for himself and follow his own
devices.
It was as yet only two o'clock, but he had come on at a great pace,
taking much more out of his horse than was usual to him on such
occasions. But, sitting there, he did make up his mind. He would go
on to Mr. Lambert's place at Clare, and would draw the coverts, going
there as fast as the horse's legs would carry him. There he would
borrow two horses if it were possible, but one, at least, for Barney
Smith. Then he would draw back by impossible routes, to the kennels
at Ahaseragh. Men might come with him or might go; but to none would
he tell his mind. If Providence would only send him a fox on the
route, all things, he thought, might still be well with him. It would
be odd if he and Barney Smith, between them, were not able to give
an account of that fox when they had done with him. But if he should
find no such fox--if he, the master of the Galway hounds, should have
ridden backwards and forwards across County Galway, and have been
impeded altogether in his efforts by wretched Landleaguers, then--as
he thought--a final day would have to come for him.
He spoke no word to anyone, but he did go on just as he proposed to
himself. He drew Clare, but drew it blank; and then, leaving his own
horses, he borrowed two others for himself and Barney, and went on
upon his route. Before the day was over--or rather, before the night
was far advanced--he had borrowed three others, in his course about
the country, for himself and his servants. Quick as lightning he went
from covert to covert; but the conspiracy had been well arranged,
and a holiday for the foxes in County Galway was established for
that day. Some men were very stanch to him, going with him whither
they knew not, so that "poor dear Tom" might not be left alone; but
alone he was during the long evening of that day, as far as all
conversation went. He spoke to no one, except to Barney, and to him
only a few words; giving him a direction as to where he should go
next, and into what covert he should put the hounds. They, too, must
have been much surprised and very weary, as they dragged their tired
limbs to their kennel, at about eight o'clock. And Tom Daly's ride
across the country will long be remembered, and the exertions which
he made to find a fox on that day.
But it was all in vain. As Tom ate his solitary mutton-chop, and
drank his cold whisky and water, and then took himself to bed, he was
a melancholy man. The occupation of his life, he thought, was gone.
These reprobates, whom he now hated worse than ever, having learned
their powers to disturb the amusements of their betters, would never
allow another day's hunting in the county. He was aware now, though
he never had thought of it before, by how weak a hold his right of
hunting the country was held. He and his hounds could go into any
covert; but so also could any other man, with or without hounds. To
disturb a fox, three or four men would suffice; one would suffice
according to Tom's idea of a fox. The occupation of his life was
over.
Tom Daly was by nature a melancholy man. All County Galway knew that.
He was a man not given to many words, by no means devoted to sport
in the ordinary sense. It was a hard business that he had undertaken.
The work was in every sense hard, and the payment made was very
small. In fact no payment was made, other than that of his being
lifted into a position in which he was able to hold his head high
among gentlemen of property. What should he do with himself during
the remainder of his life, if hunting in County Galway was brought to
an end? He was an intent, eager man, whom it was hard to teach that
the occupations of his life were less worthy than those of other men.
But there had come moments of doubt as he had sat alone in his little
room at Ahaseragh and had meditated, whether the pursuit of vermin
was worthy all the energy which he had given to it.
"You may sell those brutes of yours now, and then perhaps you'll be
able to educate your children." So Sir Nicholas Bodkin had addressed
his eldest son, as they rode home together on that occasion.
"Why so?" Peter had asked, thinking more of the "brutes" alluded to
than of the children. He was accustomed to the tone of his father's
remarks, and cared for them not more than the ordinary son cares for
the expression of the ordinary father's ill humour. But now he knew
that some reference was intended to the interruption that had been
made in their day's sport, and was anxious to learn what his father
thought about it. "Why so?" he asked.
"Because you won't want them for this game any longer. Hunting is
done with in these parts. When a blackguard like Kit Mooney is able
to address such a one as Tom Daly after that fashion, anything that
requires respect may be said to be over. Hunting has existed solely
on respect. I had intended to buy that mare of French's, but I shan't
now."
"What does all that mean, Lynch?" said Mr. Persse to Sir Jasper, as
they rode home together.
"It means quarrelling to the knife."
"In a quarrel to the knife," said Mr. Persse, "all lighter things
must be thrown away. Daly had brought a pistol in his pocket as
you heard this morning. I have been thinking of it ever since; and,
putting two and two together, it seems to me to be almost impossible
that hunting should go on in County Galway."
CHAPTER XII.
"DON'T HATE HIM, ADA."
Among those who had gone as far as Mr. Lambert's, but had not
proceeded further, had been Frank Jones. He had heard and seen what
has been narrated, and was as much impressed as others with the
condition of the country. The populace generally--for so it had
seemed to be--had risen _en masse_ to put down the amusement of the
gentry, and there had been a secret conspiracy, so that they had been
able to do the same thing in different parts of the county. Frank, as
he rode back to Morony Castle, a long way from Mr. Lambert's covert,
was very melancholy in his mind. The persecution of Mahomet M. Moss
and of the Landleaguers together was almost too much for him.
When he got home his father also was melancholy, and the girls were
melancholy. "What sport have you had, Frank?" said the father. But he
asked the question in a melancholy tone, simply as being one which
the son expects on returning from hunting. In this expectation Mr.
Jones gave way. Frank shook his head, but did not utter a word.
"What do you mean by that?" asked the father.
"The whole country is in arms." This, no doubt, was an exaggeration,
as the only arms that had been brought to Moytubber on the occasion
had been the pistol in Tom Daly's pocket.
"In arms?" said Philip Jones.
"Well, yes! I call it so. I call men in arms, when they are prepared
to carry out any illegal purpose by violence, and these men have done
that all through the County Galway."
"What have they done?"
"You know where the meet was; well, they drew Ballytowngal, and found
no fox there. It was not expected, and nothing happened there. The
people did not come into old Nick Bodkin's demesne, but we had heard
by the time that we were there that we should come across a lot of
Landleaguers at Moytubber. There they were as thick as bees round the
covert, and there was one man who had the impudence to tell Tom Daly
that draw where he might, he would draw in vain for a fox to-day in
County Galway."
"Do you mean that there was a crowd?" asked Mr. Jones.
"A crowd! Yes, all Claregalway seemed to have turned out. Claregalway
is not much of a place, but everyone was there from Oranmore and from
Athenry, and half the town from Galway city." This certainly was an
exaggeration on the part of Frank, but was excused by his desire to
impress his father with the real truth in the matter. "I never saw
half such a number of people by a covert side. But the truth was
soon known. They had beat Moytubber, and kicked up such a row as the
foxes in that gorse had never heard before. And they were not slow in
obtaining their object."
"Their object was clear enough."
"They didn't intend that the hounds should hunt that day either at
Moytubber or elsewhere. Daly did not put his hounds into the covert
at all; but rode away as fast as his horse's legs could carry him to
Kilcornan."
"That must be ten miles at least," said his father.
"Twenty, I should think. But we rode away at a hand-gallop, leaving
the crowd behind us." This again was an exaggeration. "But when we
got to the covert at Kilcornan there was just the same sort of crowd,
and just the same work had been on foot. The men there all told us
that we need not expect to find a fox. A rumour had got about the
field by this time that Tom Daly had a loaded pistol in his pocket.
What he meant to do with it I don't know. He could have done no good
without a regular massacre."
"Did he show his pistol?"
"I didn't see it; but I do believe it was there. Some of the old
fogies were awfully solemn about it."
"What was the end of it all?" asked Edith, who together with her
sister was now listening to Frank's narrative.
"You know Mr. Lambert's place on the road towards Gort. It's a long
way off, and I'm a little out of my latitude there. But I went as far
as that, and found a bigger crowd than ever. They said that all Gort
was there; but Tom having drawn the covert, went on, and swore that
he wouldn't leave a place in all County Galway untried. He borrowed
fresh horses, and went on with Barney Smith as grim as death. He is
still drawing his covert somewhere."
It was thus that Frank Jones told the story of that day's hunting.
To his father's ears it sounded as being very ominous. He did not
care much for hunting himself, nor would it much perplex him if the
Landleaguers would confine themselves to this mode of operations. But
as he heard of the crowds surrounding the coverts through the county,
he thought also of his many acres still under water, by the operation
of a man who had taken upon himself to be his enemy. And the whole
morning had been spent in fruitless endeavours to make Florian tell
the truth. The boy had remained surly, sullen, and silent. "He will
tell me at last," Edith had said to her father. But her father had
said, that unless the truth were now told, he must allow the affair
to go by. "The time for dealing with the matter will be gone," he
had said. "Pat Carroll is going about the country as bold as brass,
and says that he will fix his own rent; whereas I know, and all the
tenants know, that he ought to be in Galway jail. There isn't a man
on the estate who isn't certain that it was he, with five or six
others, who let the waters in upon the meadows."
"Then why on earth cannot you make them tell?"
"They say that they only think it," said Edith.
"The very best of them only think it," said Ada.
"And there is not one of them," said Mr. Jones, "whom you could trust
to put into a witness-box. To tell the truth, I do not see what
right I have to ask them to go there. If I was to select a man,--or
two, how can I say to them, 'forget yourself, forget your wife and
children, encounter possible murder, and probable ruin, in order that
I may get my revenge on this man'?"
"It is not revenge but justice," said Frank.
"It would be revenge to their minds. And if it came to pass that
there was a man who would thus sacrifice himself to me, what must I
do with him afterwards? Were I to send him to America with money, and
take his land into my own hand, see what horrible things would be
said of me. The sort of witness I want to back up others, who would
then be made to come, is Florian."
"What would they do to him?" asked Edith.
"I could send him to an English school for a couple of years, till
all this should have passed by. I have thought of that."
"That, too, would cost money," said Ada.
"Of course it would cost money, but it would be forthcoming, rather
than that the boy should be in danger. But the feeling, to me, as
to the boy himself, comes uppermost. It is that he himself should
have such a secret in his bosom, and keep it there, locked fast, in
opposition to his own father. I want to get it out of him while he
is yet a boy, so that his name shall not go abroad as one who, by
such manifest falsehood, took part against his own father. It is the
injury done to him, rather than the injury done to me."
"He has promised his priest that he will not tell," said Edith,
making what excuse she could for her brother.
"He has not promised his priest," said Mr. Jones. "He has made no
promise to Father Malachi, of Ballintubber. If he has promised at all
it is to that pestilent fellow at Headford. The curate at Headford is
not his priest, and why should a promise made to any priest be more
sacred than one made to another, unless it were made in confession? I
cannot understand Florian. It seems as though he were anxious to take
part with these wretches against his country, against his religion,
and against his father. It is unintelligible to me that a boy of his
age should, at the same time, be so precocious and so stupid. I have
told him that I know him to be a liar, and that until he will tell
the truth he shall not come into my presence." Having so spoken the
father sat silent, while Frank went off to dress.
It was felt by them all that a terrible decision had been come to in
the family. A verdict had gone out and had pronounced Florian guilty.
They had all gradually come to think that it was so. But now the
judge had pronounced the doom. The lad was not to be allowed into his
presence during the continuance of the present state of things. In
the first place, how was he to be kept out of his father's presence?
And the boy was one who would turn mutinous in spirit under such a
command. The meaning of it was that he should not sit at table with
his father. But, in accordance with the ways of the family, he had
always done so. A separate breakfast must be provided for him, and
a separate dinner. Then would there not be danger that he should be
driven to look for his friends elsewhere? Would he not associate with
Father Brosnan, or, worse again, with Pat Carroll? "Ada," said Edith
that night as they sat together, "Florian must be made to confess."
"How make him?"
"You and I must do it."
"That's all very well," said Ada, "but how? You have been at him now
for nine months, and have not moved him. He's the most obstinate boy,
I think, that ever lived."
"Do you know, there is something in it all that makes me love him the
better?" said Edith.
"Is there? There is something in it that almost makes me hate him."
"Don't hate him, Ada--if you can help it. He has got some religious
idea into his head. It is all stupid."
"It is beastly," said Ada.
"You may call it as you please," said the other, "it is stupid and
beastly. He is travelling altogether in a wrong direction, and is
putting everybody concerned with him in immense trouble. It may be
quite right that a person should be a Roman Catholic--or that he
should be a Protestant; but before one turns from one to the other,
one should be old enough to know something about it. It is very
vexatious; but with Flory there is, I think, some idea of an idea. He
has got it into his head that the Catholics are a downtrodden people,
and therefore he will be one of them."
"That is such bosh," said Ada.
"It is so, to your thinking, but not to his. In loving him or hating
him you've got to love him or hate him as a boy. Of course it's
wicked that a boy should lie,--or a man, or a woman, or a girl; but
they do. I don't see why we are to turn against a boy of our own,
when we know that other boys lie. He has got a notion into his head
that he is doing quite right, because the priest has told him."
"He is doing quite wrong," said Ada.
"And now what are we to do about his breakfast? Papa says that he is
not to be allowed to come into the room, and papa means it. You and I
will have to breakfast with him and dine with him, first one and then
the other."
"But papa will miss us."
"We must go through the ceremony of a second breakfast and a second
dinner." This was the beginning of Edith's scheme. "Of course it's a
bore; all things are bores. This about the flood is the most terrible
bore I ever knew. But I'm not going to let Flory go to the devil
without making an effort to save him. It would be going to the devil,
if he were left alone in his present position."
"Papa will see that we don't eat anything."
"Of course he must be told. There never ought to be any secrets in
anything. Of course he'll grow used to it, and won't expect us to sit
there always and eat nothing. He thinks he's right, and perhaps he
is. Flory will feel the weight of his displeasure; and if we talk to
him we may persuade him."
This state of things at Morony Castle was allowed to go on with few
other words said upon the subject. The father became more and more
gloomy, as the floods held their own upon the broad meadows. Pat
Carroll had been before the magistrates at Headford, and had been
discharged, as all evidence was lacking to connect him with the
occurrence. Further effort none was made, and Pat Carroll went on in
his course, swearing that not a shilling of rent should be paid by
him in next March. "The floods had done him a great injury," he said
laughingly among his companions, "so that it was unreasonable to
expect that he should pay." It was true he had owed a half-year's
rent last November; but then it had become customary with Mr. Jones's
tenants to be allowed the indulgence of six months. No more at any
rate would be said about rent till March should come.
And now, superinduced upon this cause of misery, had come the tidings
which had been spread everywhere through the county in regard to the
Galway hunt. Tom Daly had gone on regularly with his meets, and had
not indeed been stopped everywhere. His heart had been gladdened by
a wonderful run which he had had from Carnlough. The people had not
interfered there, and the day had been altogether propitious. Tom had
for the moment been in high good humour; but the interruption had
come again, and had been so repeated as to make him feel that his
occupation was in truth gone. The gentry of the county had then held
a meeting at Ballinasloe, and had decided that the hounds should be
withdrawn for the remainder of the season. No one who has not ridden
with the hounds regularly can understand the effect of such an order.
There was no old woman with a turkey in her possession who did not
feel herself thereby entitled to destroy the fox who came lurking
about her poultry-yard. Nor was there a gentleman who owned a
pheasant who did not feel himself animated in some degree by the same
feeling. "As there's to be an end of fox-hunting in County Galway,
we can do what we like with our own coverts." "I shall go in for
shooting," Sir Nicholas Bodkin had been heard to say.
But Black Tom Daly sat alone gloomily in his room at Ahaseragh, where
it suited him still to be present and look after the hounds, and told
himself that the occupation of his life was gone. Who would want to
buy a horse even, now that the chief object for horses was at an end?
CHAPTER XIII.
EDITH'S ELOQUENCE.
Thus they lived through the months of January and February, 1881, at
Morony Castle, and Florian had not as yet told his secret. As a boy
his nature had seemed to be entirely altered during the last six
months. He was thoughtful, morose, and obstinate to a degree, which
his father was unable to fathom. But during these last two months
there had been no intercourse between them. It may almost be said
that no word had been addressed by either to the other. No further
kind of punishment had been inflicted. Indeed, the boy enjoyed a much
wider liberty than had been given to him before, or than was good for
him. For his father not only gave no orders to him, but seldom spoke
concerning him. It was, however, a terrible trouble to his mind, the
fact that his own son should be thus possessed of his own peculiar
secret, and should continue from month to month hiding it within
his own bosom. With Father Malachi Mr. Jones was on good terms, but
to him he could say nothing on the subject. The absurdity of the
conversion, or perversion, of the boy, in reference to his religion,
made Mr. Jones unwilling to speak of him to any Roman Catholic
priest. Father Malachi would no doubt have owned that the boy had
been altogether unable to see, by his own light, the difference
between the two religions. But he would have attributed the change
to the direct interposition of God. He would not have declared in so
many words that a miracle had been performed in the boy's favour, but
this would have been the meaning of the argument he would have used.
In fact, the gaining of a proselyte under any circumstances would
have been an advantage too great to jeopardise by any arguments in
the matter. The Protestant clergyman at Headford, in whose parish
Morony Castle was supposed to have been situated, was a thin, bigoted
Protestant, of that kind which used to be common in Ireland. Mr.
Armstrong was a gentleman, who held it to be an established fact
that a Roman Catholic must necessarily go to the devil. In all the
moralities he was perfect. He was a married man, with a wife and
six children, all of whom he brought up and educated on £250 a year.
He never was in debt; he performed all his duties--such as they
were--and passed his time in making rude and unavailing attempts to
convert his poorer neighbours. There was a union,--or poor-house--in
the neighbourhood, to which he would carry morsels of meat in his
pocket on Friday, thinking that the poor wretches who had flown in
the face of their priest by eating the unhallowed morsels, would then
have made a first step towards Protestantism. He was charitable, with
so little means for charity; he was very eager in his discourses,
in the course of which he would preach to a dozen Protestants for
three-quarters of an hour, and would confine himself to one subject,
the iniquities of the Roman Catholic religion. He had heard of
Florian's perversion, and had made it the topic on which he had
declaimed for two Sundays. He had attempted to argue with Father
Brosnan, but had been like a babe in his hands. He ate and drank of
the poorest, and clothed himself so as just to maintain his clerical
aspect. All his aspirations were of such a nature as to entitle him
to a crown of martyrdom. But they were certainly not of a nature to
justify him in expecting any promotion on this earth. Such was Mr.
Joseph Armstrong, of Headford, and from him no aid, or counsel, or
pleasant friendship could be expected in this matter.
The trouble of Florian's education fell for the nonce into Edith's
hands. He had hitherto worked under various preceptors; his father,
his sister, and his brother; also a private school at Galway for a
time had had the charge of him. But now Edith alone undertook the
duty. Gradually the boy began to have a way of his own, and to tell
himself that he was only bound to be obedient during certain hours of
the morning. In this way the whole day after twelve o'clock was at
his own disposal, and he never told any of the family what he then
did. Peter, the butler, perhaps knew where he went, but even to Peter
the butler, the knowledge was a trouble; for Peter, though a stanch
Roman Catholic, was not inclined to side with anyone against his own
master. Florian, in truth, did see more of Pat Carroll than he should
have done; and, though it would be wrong to suppose that he took a
part against his father, he no doubt discussed the questions which
were of interest to Pat Carroll, in a manner that would have been
very displeasing to his father. "Faix, Mr. Flory," Pat would say to
him, "'av you're one of us, you've got to be one of us; you've had a
glimmer of light, as Father Brosnan says, to see the errors of your
way; but you've got to see the errors of your way on 'arth as well
as above. Dragging the rint out o' the body and bones o' the people,
like hair from a woman's head, isn't the way, and so you'll have to
larn." Then Florian would endeavour to argue with his friend, and
struggle to make him understand that in the present complicated state
of things it was necessary that a certain amount of rent should go to
Morony Castle to keep up the expenses there.
"We couldn't do, you know, without Peter; nor yet very well without
the carriage and horses. It's all nonsense saying that there should
be no rent; where are we to get our clothes from?" But these
arguments, though very good of their kind, had no weight with Pat
Carroll, whose great doctrine it was that rent was an evil _per se_;
and that his world would certainly go on a great deal better if there
were no rent.
"Haven't you got half the land of Ballintubber in your hands?" said
Carroll. Here Florian in a whisper reminded Pat that the lands of
Ballintubber were at this moment under water, and had been put so by
his operation. "Why wouldn't he make me a statement when I asked for
it?" said Carroll, with a coarse grin, which almost frightened the
boy.
"Flory," said Edith to the boy that afternoon, "you did see the men
at work upon the sluices that afternoon?"
"I didn't," said Florian.
"We all believe that you did."
"But I didn't."
"You may as well listen to me this once. We all believe that you
did--papa and I, and Frank and Ada; Peter believes it; there's not a
servant about the place but what believes it. Everybody believes it
at Headford. Mr. Blake at Carnlough, and all the Blakes believe it."
"I don't care a bit about Mr. Blake," said the boy.
"But you do care about your own father. If you were to go up and
down to Galway by the boat, you would find that everybody on board
believes it. The country people would say that you had turned against
your father because of your religion. Mr. Morris, from beyond Cong,
was here the other day, and from what he said about the floods it was
easy to see that he believed it."
"If you believe Mr. Morris better than you do me, you may go your own
ways by yourself."
"I don't see that, Flory. I may believe Mr. Morris in this matter
better than I do you, and yet not intend to go my own ways by myself.
I don't believe you at all on this subject."
"Very well, then, don't."
"But I want to find out, if I can, what may be the cause of so
terrible a falsehood on your part. It has come to that, that though
you tell the lie, you almost admit that it is a lie."
"I don't admit it."
"It is as good as admitted. The position you assume is this: 'I
saw the gates destroyed, but I am not going to say so in evidence,
because it suits me to take part with Pat Carroll, and to go against
my own father.'"
"You've no business to put words like that into my mouth."
"I'm telling you what everybody thinks. Would your father treat you
as he does now without a cause? And are you to remain here, and to go
down and down in the world till you become such a one as Pat Carroll?
And you will have to live like Pat Carroll, with the knowledge in
everyone's heart that you have been untrue to your father. They are
becoming dishonest, false knaves, untrue to their promises, the very
scum of the earth, because of their credulity and broken vows; but
what am I to say of you? You will have been as false and perfidious
and credulous as they. You will have thrown away everything good to
gratify the ambition of some empty traitor. And you will have done it
all against your own father." Here she paused and looked at him. They
were roaming at the time round the demesne, and he walked on, but
said nothing. "I know what you are thinking of, Flory."
"What am I thinking of?"
"You're thinking of your duty; you are thinking whether you can bring
yourself to make a clean breast of it, and break the promises which
you have made."
"Nobody should break a promise," said he.
"And nobody should tell a lie. When one finds oneself in the
difficulty one has to go back and find out where the evil thing first
began."
"I gave the promise first," said Florian.
"No such promise should ever have been given. Your first duty in the
matter was to your father."
"I don't see that at all," said Florian. "My first duty is to my
religion."
"Even to do evil for its sake? Go to Father Malachi, and ask him."
"Father Malachi isn't the man to whom I should like to tell
everything. Father Brosnan is a much better sort of clergyman. He is
my confessor, and I choose to go by what he tells me."
"Then you will be a traitor to your father."
"I am not a traitor," said Florian.
"And yet you admit that some promise has been given--some promise
which you dare not own. You cannot but know in your own heart that
I know the truth. You have seen that man Carroll doing the mischief,
and have promised him to hold your tongue about it. You have not,
then, understood at all the nature or extent of the evil done. You
have not, then, known that it would be your father's duty to put
down this turbulent ruffian. You have promised, and having promised,
Father Brosnan has frightened you. He and Pat Carroll together have
cowed the very heart within you. The consequence is that you are
becoming one of them, and instead of moving as a gentleman on the
face of the earth, you will be such as they are. Tell the truth, and
your father will at once send you to some school in England, where
you will be educated as becomes my brother."
The boy now was sobbing in tears. He lacked the resolution to
continue his lie, but did not dare to tell the truth.
"I will," he whispered.
"What will you do?"
"I will tell all that I know about it."
"Tell me, then, now."
"No, Edith, not now," he said.
"Will you tell papa, then?" said Edith.
"Papa is so hard to me."
"Whom will you tell, and when?"
"I will tell you, but not now. I will first tell Father Brosnan that
I am going to do it; I shall not then have told the lie absolutely to
my priest."
On this occasion Edith could do nothing further with him; and,
indeed, the nature of the confession which she expected him to make
was such that it should be made to some person beyond herself. She
could understand that it must be taken down in some form that would
be presentable to a magistrate, and that evidence of the guilt of Pat
Carroll and evidence as to the possible guilt of others must not be
whispered simply into her own ears. But she had now brought him to
such a condition that she did think that his story would be told.
CHAPTER XIV.
RACHEL'S CORRESPONDENCE.
There was another cause of trouble at Morony Castle, which at the
present moment annoyed them much. Frank had received three or four
letters from Rachel O'Mahony, the purport of them all being to
explain her troubles with Mahomet M. M., as she called the man; but
still so as to prevent Frank from attempting to interfere personally.
"No doubt the man is a brute," she had said, "if a young lady,
without ceasing to be ladylike, may so describe so elegant a
gentleman. If not so, still he is a brute, because I can't declare
otherwise, even for the sake of being ladylike. But what you say
about coming is out of the question. You can't meddle with my affairs
till you've a title to meddle. Now, you know the truth. I'm going to
stick to you, and I expect you to stick to me. For certain paternal
reasons you want to put the marriage off. Very well. I'm agreeable,
as the folks say. If you would say that you would be ready to marry
me on the first of April, again I should be agreeable. You can
nowhere find a more agreeable young woman than I am. But I must be
one thing or the other."
Then he wrote to her the sort of love-letter which the reader can
understand. It was full of kisses and vows and ecstatic hopes but did
not name a day. In fact Mr. Jones, in the middle of his troubles, was
unable to promise an immediate union, and did not choose that his son
should marry in order that he might be supported by a singing girl.
But to this letter Frank added a request--or rather a command--that
he should be allowed to come over at once and see Mr. Mahomet. It was
no doubt true that his father was, for the minute, a little backward
in the matter of his income; but still he wanted to look after
Mahomet, and he wanted to be kissed.
You must not come at all, and I won't even see you if you
do. You men are always so weak, and want such a lot of
petting. Mahomet tried to kiss me last night when I was
singing to him before going to dress. I have to practise
with him. I gave him such a blow in the face that I don't
think he'll repeat the experiment, and I had my eyes about
me. You needn't be at all afraid of me but what I am
quick enough. He was startled at the moment, and I merely
laughed. I'm not going to give up £100 a month because
he makes a beast of himself; and I'm not going to call
in father as long as I can help it; nor do I mean to call
in your royal highness at all. I tell everybody that I'm
going to marry your royal highness, king Jones; there
isn't a bit of a secret about it. I talk of my Mr. Jones
just as if we were married, because it all comes easier to
me in that way. You will see that I absolutely believe in
you and I expect that you shall absolutely believe in me.
Send you a kiss! Of course I do; I am not at all coy of my
favours. You ask Mahomet also as to what he thinks of the
strength of my right arm. I examined his face so minutely
when I had to fall into his arms on the stage, and there I
saw the round mark of my fist, and the swelling all round
it. And I thought to myself as I was singing my devotion
that he should have it next time in his eye. But, Frank,
mark my words: I won't have you here till you can come to
marry me.
Frank did not go over, even on this occasion, as he was detained, not
only by his mistress's danger, but by his father's troubles. Florian
had almost, but had not quite, told the entire truth. He had said
that he had seen the sluices broken, but had not quite owned who had
broken them. He had declared that Pat Carroll had done "mischief,"
but had not quite said of what nature was the mischief which Carroll
had done. It was now March, and the hunting troubles were still going
on. The whole gentry in County Galway had determined to take Black
Tom Daly's part, and to carry him on through the contest. But the
effect of taking Black Tom Daly's part was to take the part against
which the Land Leaguers were determined to enrol themselves. For of
all men in the county, Black Tom was the most unpopular. And of all
men he was the most determined; with him it was literally a question
between God and Mammon. A man could not serve both. In the simplicity
of his heart, he thought that the Landleaguers were children of
Satan, and that to have any dealings with them, or the passage of
any kindness, was in itself Satanic. He said very little, but he
spent whole hours in thinking of the evil that they were doing. And
among the evils was the unparalleled insolence which they displayed
in entering coverts in County Galway. Now Frank Jones, who had not
hitherto been very intimate with Tom, had taken up his part, and was
fighting for him at this moment. Nevertheless the provocation to him
to go to London was very great, and he had only put it off till the
last coverts should be drawn on Saturday the 2nd of April. The hunt
had determined to stop their proceedings earlier than usual; but
still there was to be one day in April, for the sake of honour and
glory.
But in the latter days of March there came a third letter from Rachel
O'Mahony. Like the other letter it was cheerful, and high-spirited;
but still it seemed to speak of impending dangers, which Frank,
though he could not understand them, thought that he could perceive.
My present engagement is to go on till the end of July,
with an understanding that I am to have twenty guineas
a night, for any evening that I may be required to sing
in August. This your highness will perceive is a very
considerable increase, and at three nights a week might
afford an income on which your highness would perhaps
condescend to come and eat a potato, in the honour of
"ould" Ireland, till better times should come. That would
be the happy potato which would be the first bought for
such a purpose! But you must see that I cannot expect
a continuance of my present engagement as the head of
your royal highness' seraglio. I should have to look for
another Chancellor of the Exchequer, and should probably
find him. Mr. Mahomet M. Moss would hardly endure me
as being part of the properties belonging to your royal
highness.
And now I must tell you my own little news. Beelzebub has
taken a worse devil to himself, so that I am likely to be
trodden down into the very middle of the pit. I choose to
tell you because I won't have you think that I have ever
kept anything secret from you. If I describe the roars of
Mrs. Beelzebub to you, and her red claws, and her forky
tongue, and her fiery tail, it is not because I like her
as a subject of poetry, but because this special subject
comes uppermost; and you shall never say to me, why didn't
you tell me when you were introduced to Beelzebub's wife?
and assert, as men are apt to do, that you would not
have allowed me to make her acquaintance. Mrs. Beelzebub
appears on the stage as belonging to Mahomet but how they
have mixed it all up together among themselves, I do not
quite know. I do not think that they're in love with one
another, because she is not jealous of me. She is Madame
Socani in the plot, and a genuine American from New York;
but she can sing; she has a delicious soprano voice, soft
and powerful; but she has also a temper and temperament
such as no woman, nor yet no devil, ought to possess. Of
Monsieur Socani, or Signor Socani, or Herr Socani, I never
yet heard. But such men do not always make themselves
troublesome. I have to sing with her, and a woman you may
say would not be troublesome, but she and Mahomet between
them consider themselves competent to get me under their
thumb. I don't intend to be under their thumb. I intend
to be under nobody's thumb but yours; and the sooner the
better. Now you know all about it; but as you shall value
the first squeeze which you shall get when you do come,
don't come till your coming has been properly settled.
Then there was a fourth letter in which she described her troubles,
still humorously, and with some attempt at absolute comedy. But she
certainly wrote with a purpose of making him understand that she was
subjected to very considerable annoyance. She was still determined
not to call upon him for assistance; and she warned him that any
assistance whatever would be out of his power. A lover on the scene,
who could not declare his purpose of speedy marriage, would be worse
than useless. All that she saw plainly,--or at any rate declared that
she saw plainly, though she was altogether unable to explain it to
Frank Jones.
Mrs. Beelzebub is certainly the queen of the devils. I
remember when you read "Paradise Lost" to us at Morony
Castle, which I thought very dull. Milton arranged the
ranks in Pandemonium differently; but there has been a
revolution since that, and Mrs. Beelzebub has everything
just as she pleases. I am beginning to pity Mahomet, and
pity, they say, is akin to love. She urges him,--well,
just to make love to me. What reason there is between
them I don't know, but I am sure she wants him to get me
altogether into his hands. I'm not sure but what she is
Mahomet's own wife. This is a horrid kettle of fish, as
you will see. But I think I'll turn out to be head cook
yet. If God does not walk atop of the devils what's the
use of running straight? But I am sure he will, and the
more so because there is in truth no temptation.
She told me the other day to my face, that I was a fool.
"I know I am," said I demurely, "but why?" Then she came
out with her demand. It was very simple, and did not in
truth amount to much. I was to become just--mistress to
Mr. Moss.
Frank Jones, when he read this, crushed the paper up in his hand and
went upstairs to his bedroom, determined to pack up immediately.
But before he had progressed far, he got out the letter and read the
remainder.
"You," I said, "are an intimate acquaintance of Mr. Moss."
"I am his particular friend," she said, with that peculiar
New York aping of a foreign accent, which is the language
that was, I am sure, generally used by the devils.
"Ask him, with my best compliments," I said, "whether he
remembers the blow I hit him in the face. Tell him I can
hit much harder than that; tell him that he will never
find me unprepared, for a moment."
Now I have got another little bit of news for you.
Somebody has found out in New York that I am making
money. It is true, in a limited way. £100 a month is
something, and so they've asked papa to subscribe as
largely as he can to a grand Home-Rule, anti-Protestant,
hate-the-English, stars-and-stripes society. It is the
most loyal and beneficent thing out, and dear papa thinks
I can do nothing better with my wealth than bestow it
upon these birds of freedom. I have no doubt they are
all right, because I am an American-Irish, and have not
the pleasure of knowing Black Tom Daly. I have given
them £200, and am, therefore, at this moment, nearly
impecunious. On this account I do not choose to give up my
engagement--£100 a month, with an additional possibility
of twenty guineas a night when August shall be here. You
will tell me that after the mild suggestion made by Mrs.
Beelzebub, I ought to walk out of the house, and go back
to County Galway immediately. I don't think so. I am
learning every day how best to stand fast on my own feet.
I am earning my money honestly, and men and women here
in London are saying that in truth I can sing. A very
nice old gentleman called on me the other day from Covent
Garden, and, making me two low bows, asked whether I was
my own mistress some time in October next. I thought at
the moment that I was at any rate free from the further
engagement proposed by Mrs. Beelzebub, and told him that I
was free. Then he made me two lower bows, touched the tip
of my fingers, and said that he would be proud to wait
upon me in a few days with a definite proposal. This old
gentleman may mean twenty guineas a night for the whole
of next winter, or something like £250 a month. Think
of that, Mr. Jones. But how am I to go on in my present
impecunious position if I quarrel altogether with my bread
and butter? So now you know all about it.
Remember that I have told my father nothing as to Mrs.
Beelzebub's proposition. It is better not; he would disown
it, and would declare that I had invented it from vanity.
I do think that a woman in this country can look after
herself if she be minded so to do. I know that I am
stronger than Mr. Moss and Mrs. Beelzebub together. I do
believe that he will pay me his money, as he has always
done, and I want to earn my money. I have some little
precautions--just for a rainy day. I have told you
everything--everything, because you are to be my husband.
But you can do me no good by coming here, but may cause me
a peck of troubles. Now, good-bye, and God bless you. A
thousand kisses.
Ever your own,
R.
Tell everybody that I'm to be Mrs. Jones some day.
Frank finished packing up, and then told his father that he was going
off to Athenry at once, there to meet the night mail train up to
Dublin.
"Why are you going at once, in this sudden manner?" asked his father.
Frank then remembered that he could not tell openly the story of Mrs.
Beelzebub. Rachel had told him in pure simple-minded confidence, and
though he was prepared to disobey her, he would not betray her. "She
is on the stage," he said.
"I am aware of it," replied his father, intending to signify that his
son's betrothed was not employed as he would have wished.
"At the Charing Cross Opera," said the son, endeavouring to make the
best of it.
"Yes; at the Charing Cross Opera, if that makes a difference."
"She is earning her bread honestly."
"I believe so," said Mr. Jones, "I do believe so, I do think that
Rachel O'Mahony is a thoroughly good girl."
"I am sure of it," said Ada and Edith almost in the same breath.
"But not less on that account is the profession distasteful to me.
You do not wish to see your sisters on the stage?"
"I have thought of all that, sir," said Frank, "I have quite made up
my mind to make Rachel my wife, if it be possible."
"Do you mean to live on what she may earn as an actress?" Here Frank
remained silent for a moment. "Because if you do, I must tell you
that it will not become you as a gentleman to accept her income."
"You cannot give us an income on which we may live."
"Certainly not at this moment. With things as they are in Ireland
now, I do not know how long I may have a shilling with which to bless
myself. It seems to me that for the present it is your duty to stay
at home, and not to trouble Rachel by going to her in London."
"At this moment I must go to her."
"You have given no reason for your going." Frank thought of it, and
told himself that there was in truth no reason. His going would
be a trouble to Rachel, and yet there were reasons which made it
imperative for him to go. "Have you asked yourself what will be the
expense?" said his father.
"It may cost I suppose twelve pounds, going and coming."
"And have you asked yourself how many twelve pounds will be likely to
fall into your hands just at present? Is she in any trouble?"
"I had rather not talk about her affairs," said Frank.
"Is not her father with her?"
"I do not think he is the best man in the world to help a girl in
such an emergency." But he had not described what was the emergency.
"You think that a young man, who certainly will be looked on as the
young lady's lover, but by no means so certainly as the young lady's
future husband, will be more successful?"
"I do," said Frank, getting up and walking out of the room. He was
determined at any rate that nothing which his father could say should
stop him, as he had resolved to disobey all the orders which Rachel
had given him. At any rate, during that night and the following day
he made his way up to London.
CHAPTER XV.
CAPTAIN YORKE CLAYTON.
At this period of our story much had already been said in the outside
world as to flooding the meadows of Ballintubber. Like other outrages
of the same kind, it had not at first been noticed otherwise than in
the immediate neighbourhood; and though a terrible injury had been
inflicted, equal in value to the loss of five or six hundred pounds,
it had seemed as though it would pass away unnoticed, simply because
Mr. Jones had lacked evidence to bring it home to any guilty party.
But gradually it had become known that Pat Carroll had been the
sinner, and the causes also which had brought about the crime were
known. It was known that Pat Carroll had joined the Landleaguers in
the neighbouring county of Mayo with great violence, and that he had
made a threat that he would pay no further rent to his landlord. The
days of the no-rent manifestation had not yet come, as the obnoxious
Members of Parliament were not yet in prison; but no-rent was already
firmly fixed in the minds of many men, about to lead in the process
of time to "Arrears Bills," and other abominations of injustice. And
among those conspicuous in the West, who were ready to seize fortune
by the forelock, was Mr. Pat Carroll. In this way his name had come
forward, and inquiries were made of Mr. Jones which distressed him
much. For though he was ready to sacrifice his meadows, and his
tenant, and his rent, he was most unwilling to do it if he should be
called upon at the same time to sacrifice his boy's character for
loyalty.
There had been a man stationed at Castlerea for some months past, who
in celebrity had almost beaten the notorious Pat Carroll. This was
one Captain Yorke Clayton, who for nearly twelve months had been in
the County Mayo. It was supposed that he had first shown himself
there as a constabulary officer, and had then very suddenly been
appointed resident magistrate. Why he was Captain nobody knew. It
was the fact, indeed, that he had been employed as adjutant in a
volunteer regiment in England, having gone over there from the police
force in the north of Ireland. His title had gone with him by no
fault or no virtue of his own, and he had blossomed forth to the
world of Connaught as Captain Clayton before he knew why he was about
to become famous. Famous, however, he did become.
He had two attributes which, if Fortune helps, may serve to make any
man famous. They were recklessness of life and devotion to an idea.
If Fortune do not help, recklessness of life amidst such dangers
as those which surrounded Captain Clayton will soon bring a man to
his end, so that there will be no question of fame. But we see men
occasionally who seem to find it impossible to encounter death. It
is not at all probable that this man wished to die. Life seemed to
him to be pleasant enough: he was no forlorn lover; he had fairly
good health and strength; people said of him that he had small but
comfortable private means; he was remarkable among all men for his
good looks; and he lacked nothing necessary to make life happy.
But he appeared to be always in a hurry to leave it. A hundred men
in Mayo had sworn that he should die. This was told to him very
freely; but he had only laughed at it, and was generally called "the
woodcock," as he rode about among his daily employments. The ordinary
life of a woodcock calls upon him to be shot at; but yet a woodcock
is not an easy bird to hit.
Then there was his devotion to an idea! I will not call it loyalty,
lest I should seem to praise the man too vehemently for that which
probably was simply an instinct in his own heart. He lived upon his
hatred of a Landleaguer. It was probably some conviction on his own
part that the original Landleaguer had come from New York, which
produced this feeling. And it must be acknowledged of him with
reference to the lower order of Landleaguers that he did admit in
his mind a possibility that they were curable. There were to him
Landleaguers and Landleaguers; but the Landleaguer whom Captain Yorke
Clayton hated with the bitterest prejudice was the Landleaguing
Member of Parliament. Some of his worst enemies believed that he
might be detected in breaking out into illegal expressions of hatred,
or, more unfortunately still, into illegal acts, and that so the
Government might be compelled to dismiss him with disgrace. Others,
his warmest friends, hoped that by such a process his life might
be eventually saved. But for the present Captain Yorke Clayton had
saved both his character and his neck, to the great surprise both of
those who loved him and the reverse. He had lately been appointed
Joint Resident Magistrate for Galway, Mayo, and Roscommon, and had
removed his residence to Galway. To him also had Pat Carroll become
intimately known, and to him the floods of Ballintubber were a
peculiar case. It was one great desire of his heart to have Pat
Carroll incarcerated as a penal felon. He did not very often express
himself on this subject, but Pat Carroll knew well the nature of his
wishes. "A thundering bloody rapparee" was the name by which Carroll
delighted to call him. But Carroll was one who exercised none of that
control over his own tongue for which Captain Clayton was said to
be so conspicuous. During the last month Mr. Jones had seen Captain
Clayton more than once at Galway, and on one occasion he had come
down to Morony Castle attended by a man who was supposed to travel
as his servant, but who was known by all the world to be a policeman
in disguise. For Captain Clayton had been strictly forbidden by the
authorities of the Castle to travel without such a companion; and an
attempt had already been made to have him dismissed for disobedience
to these orders.
Captain Clayton, when he had been at Morony Castle, had treated Flory
with great kindness, declining to cross-question him at all. "I would
endeavour to save him from these gentlemen," he had said to his
father. "I don't quite think that we understand what is going on
within his mind;" but this had been before the conversation last
mentioned which had taken place between Flory and his sisters. Now he
was to come again, and make further inquiry, and meet half-a-dozen
policemen from the neighbourhood. But Florian had as yet but half
confessed, and almost hoped that Captain Clayton would appear among
them as his friend.
The girls, to tell the truth, had been much taken with the appearance
of the gallant Captain. It seems to be almost a shame to tell the
truth of what modest girls may think of any man whom they may chance
to meet. They would never tell it to themselves. Even two sisters
can hardly do so. And when the man comes before them, just for once
or twice, to be judged and thought of at a single interview, the
girl,--such as were these girls,--can hardly tell it to herself. "He
is manly and brave, and has so much to say for himself, and is so
good-looking, that what can any girl who has her heart at her own
disposal wish for better than such a lover?" It would have been quite
impossible that either of Mr. Jones's daughters could ever have so
whispered to herself. But was it not natural that such an unwhispered
thought should have passed through the mind of Ada--Ada the
beautiful, Ada the sentimental, Ada the young lady who certainly was
in want of a lover? "He is very nice, certainly," said Ada, allowing
herself not another word, to her sister.
"But what is the good of a man being nice when he is a 'woodcock'?"
said Edith. "Everybody says that his destiny is before him. I daresay
he is nice, but what's the use?"
"You don't mean to say that you think he'll be killed?" said Ada.
"I do, and I mean to say that if I were a man, it might be that I
should have to be killed too. A man has to run his chance, and if he
falls into such a position as this, of course he must put up with it.
I don't mean to say that I don't like him the better for it."
"Why does he not go away and leave the horrid country?" said Ada.
"Because the more brave men that go away the more horrid the country
will become. And then I think a man is always the happier if he has
something really to think of. Such a one as Captain Clayton does not
want to go to balls."
"I suppose not," said Ada plaintively, as though she thought it a
thousand pities that Captain Clayton should not want to go to balls.
"Such a man," said Edith with an air of firmness, "finds a woman when
he wants to marry, who will suit him,--and then he marries her. There
is no necessity for any balls there."
"Then he ought not to dance at all. Such a man ought not to want to
get married."
"Not if he means to be killed out of hand," said Edith. "The possible
young woman must be left to judge of that. I shouldn't like to marry
a 'woodcock,' however much I might admire him. I do think it well
that there should be such men as Captain Clayton. I feel that if I
were a man I ought to wish to be one myself. But I am sure I should
feel that I oughtn't to ask a girl to share the world with me. Fancy
marrying a man merely to be left a sorrowing widow! It is part of the
horror of his business that he shouldn't even venture to dance, lest
some poor female should be captivated."
"A girl might be captivated without dancing," said Ada.
"I don't mean to say that such a man should absolutely tie himself up
in a bag so that no poor female should run any possible danger, but
he oughtn't to encourage such risks. To tell the truth, I don't think
that Captain Clayton does."
Ada that afternoon thought a great deal of the position,--not, of
course, in reference to herself. Was it proper that such a man as
Captain Yorke Clayton should abstain from falling in love with
a girl, or even from allowing a girl to fall in love with him
because he was in danger of being shot? It was certainly a difficult
question. Was any man to be debarred from the pleasures, and
incidents, and natural excitements of a man's life because of the
possible dangers which might possibly happen to a possible young
woman? Looking at the matter all round, Ada did not see that the man
could help himself unless he were to be shut up in a bag, as Edith
had said, so as to prevent a young woman from falling in love with
him. Although he were a "woodcock," the thing must go on in its own
natural course. If misfortunes did come, why misfortunes must come.
It was the same thing with any soldier or any sailor. If she were to
fall in love with some officer,--for the supposition in its vague,
undefined form was admissible even to poor Ada's imagination,--she
would not be debarred from marrying him merely by the fact that he
would have to go to the wars. Of course, as regarded Captain Yorke
Clayton, this was merely a speculation. He might be engaged to some
other girl already for anything she knew;--"or cared," as she told
herself with more or less of truth.
Captain Yorke Clayton came down by the boat that afternoon to Morony
Castle, Frank Jones having started for London two or three days
before. He reached the pier at about four o'clock, accompanied by his
faithful follower, and was there met by Mr. Jones himself, who walked
up with him to the Castle. There was a short cut across the fields to
Mr. Jones's house; and as they left the road about a furlong up from
the pier, they were surrounded by the waters which Mr. Carroll had
let in upon the Ballintubber meadows.
"You won't mind my fellow coming with us?" said Captain Clayton.
"'Your fellow,' as you call him, is more than welcome. I came across
this way because some of Pat Carroll's friends may be out on the high
road. If they fire half-a-dozen rifles from behind a wall at your
luggage, they won't do so much harm as if they shot at yourself."
"There won't be any shooting here," said Clayton, shaking his head,
"he's not had time to get a stranger down and pay him. They always
require two or three days' notice for that work; and there isn't a
wall about the place. You're not giving Mr. Pat Carroll a fair chance
for his friends. I could dodge them always with perfect security by
myself, only the beaks up in Dublin have given a strict order. As
they pay for the pistols, I am bound to carry them." Then he lifted
up the lappets of his coat and waistcoat, and showed half-a-dozen
pistols stuck into his girdle. "Our friend there has got as many
more."
"I have a couple myself," said Mr. Jones, indicating their
whereabouts, and showing that he was not as yet so used to carry
them, as to have provided himself with a belt for the purpose.
Then they walked on, chatting indifferently about the Landleaguers
till they reached the Castle. "The people are not cowards," Captain
Clayton had said. "I believe that men do become cowards when they are
tempted to become liars by getting into Parliament. An Irishman of a
certain class does at any rate. But those fellows, if they were put
into a regiment, would fight like grim death. That man there," and he
pointed back over his shoulder, "is as brave a fellow as I ever came
across in my life. I don't think that he would hesitate a moment in
attacking three or four men armed with revolvers. And gold wouldn't
induce him to be false to me. But if Mr. Pat Carroll had by chance
got hold of him before he had come my way, he might have been the
very man to shoot you or me from behind a wall, with a bit of black
crape on his face. What's the reason of it? I love that man as my
brother, but I might have hated him as the very devil."
"The force of example, sir," said Mr. Jones, as he led the way into
the quiet, modern residence which rejoiced to call itself Morony
Castle.
"What are we to do about this boy?" said Mr. Jones, when they had
seated themselves in his study.
"Are you friends with him yet?"
"No; I declared to his sisters that I would not sit down to table
with him till he had told the truth, and I have kept my word."
"How does he bear it?"
"But badly," said the father. "It has told upon him very much. He
complains to his sister that I have utterly cast him off."
"It is the oddest case I ever heard of in my life," said the Captain.
"I suppose his change of religion has been at the bottom of it--that
and the machinations of the priest down at Headford. When we
recollect that there must have been quite a crowd of people looking
on all the while, it does seem odd that we should be unable to get a
single witness to tell the truth, knowing, as we do, that this lad
was there. If he would only name two who were certainly there, and
who certainly saw the deed done, that would be enough; for the people
are not, in themselves, hostile to you."
"You know he has owned that he did see it," said the father. "And
he has acknowledged that Pat Carroll was there, though he has never
mentioned the man's name. His sisters have told him that I will not
be satisfied unless I hear him declare that Pat Carroll was one of
the offenders."
"Let us have him in, sir, if you don't mind."
"Just as he is?"
"I should say so. Or let the young ladies come with him, if you do
not object. Which of them has been most with him since your edict
went forth?"
Mr. Jones declared that Edith had been most with her brother, and the
order went forth that Edith and Florian should be summoned into the
apartment.
Ada and Edith were together when the order came. Edith was to go down
and present herself before Captain Yorke Clayton.
"Mercy me!" said Edith jumping up, "I hope they won't shoot at him
through the window whilst I am there."
"Oh! Edith, how can you think of such a thing?"
"It would be very unpleasant if some assassin were to take my back
hair for Captain Clayton's brown head. They're very nearly the same
colour."
And Edith prepared to leave the room, hearing her brother's slow,
heavy step as he passed before the door.
"Won't you go first and brush your hair?" said Ada; "and do put a
ribbon on your neck."
"I'll do nothing of the kind. It would be a sheer manoeuvring to
entrap a man who ought to be safeguarded against all such female
wiles. Besides, I don't believe a bit that Captain Clayton would know
the difference between a young lady with or without a ribbon. What
evidence I can give;--that's the question."
So saying, Edith descended to her father's room.
She found Florian with his hand upon the door, and they both
entered the room. I have said that Captain Clayton was a remarkably
good-looking man, and I ought, perhaps, to give some explanation of
the term when first introducing him to the reader in the presence of
a lady who is intended to become the heroine of this story; but it
must suffice that I have declared him to be good-looking, and that
I add to that the fact that though he was thirty-five years old, he
did not look to be more than five-and-twenty. The two peculiarities
of his face were very light blue eyes, and very long moustachios.
"Florian and I have come to see the latter-day hero," said Edith
laughing as she entered the room; "though I know that you are so done
up with pistols that no peaceable young woman ought to come near
you." To this he made some sportive reply, and then before a minute
had passed over their heads he had taken Florian by the hand.
CHAPTER XVI.
CAPTAIN CLAYTON COMES TO THE CASTLE.
"Well, my boy, how are you?" asked the Captain.
"There's nothing particularly the matter with me," said Florian.
"I suppose all this is troubling you?"
"All what? You mean about Pat Carroll. Of course it's troubling me.
Nobody will believe a word that I say."
"But they do believe you now that you are telling the truth," said
Edith.
"Do you hold your tongue, miss," said the boy, "I don't see why you
should have so much to say about it."
"She has been your best friend from first to last," said the father.
"If it had not been for Edith I would have turned you out of the
house. It is terrible to me to think that a boy of mine should refuse
to say what he saw in such a matter as this. You are putting yourself
on a par with the enemies of your own family. You do not know it, but
you are nearly sending me to the grave." Then there was a long pause,
during which the Captain kept his eyes fixed on the boy's face. And
Edith had moved round so as to seat herself close to her brother, and
had taken his hand in hers.
"Don't, Edith," said the boy. "Leave me alone, I don't want to be
meddled with," and he withdrew his hand.
"Oh, Florian!" said the girl, "try to tell the truth and be a
gentleman, whether it be for you or against you, tell the truth."
"I'm not to mind a bit about my religion then?"
"Does your religion bid you tell a lie?" asked the Captain.
"I'm not telling a lie, I am just holding my tongue. A Catholic has a
right to hold his tongue when he is among Protestants."
"Even to the ruin of his father," suggested the Captain.
"I don't want to ruin papa. He said he was going to turn--to turn me
out of the house. I would go and drown myself in the lake if he did,
or in one of those big dykes which divide the meadows. I am miserable
among them--quite miserable. Edith never gives me any peace, day
or night. She comes and sits in my bedroom, begging me to tell the
truth. It ought to be enough when I say that I will hold my tongue.
Papa can turn me out to drown myself if he pleases. Edith goes on
cheating the words out of me till I don't know what I'm saying. If
I am to be brought up to tell it all before the judge I shan't know
what I have said before, or what I have not said."
"_Nil conscire tibi_," said the father, who had already taught his
son so much Latin as that.
"But you did see the sluice gates torn down, and thrown back into the
water?" said the Captain. Here Florian shook his head mournfully. "I
understood you to acknowledge that you had seen the gates destroyed."
"I never said as much to you," said the boy.
"But you did to me," said Edith.
"If a fellow says a word to you, it is repeated to all the world.
I never would have you joined with me in a secret. You are a great
deal worse than--, well, those fellows that you abuse me about. They
never tell anything that they have heard among themselves, to people
outside."
"Pat Carroll, you mean?" asked the Captain.
"He isn't the only one. There's more in it than him."
"Oh yes; we know that. There were many others in it besides Pat
Carroll, when they let the waters in through the dyke gates. There
must have been twenty there."
"No, there weren't--not that I saw."
"A dozen, perhaps?"
"You are laying traps for me, but I am not going to be caught. I
was there, and I did see it. You may make the most of that. Though
you have me up before the judge, I needn't say a word more than I
please."
"He is more obstinate," said his father, "than any rebel that you can
meet."
"But so mistaken," said the Captain, "because he can refuse to answer
us who are treating him with such tenderness and affection, who did
not even want to wound his feelings more than we can help, he thinks
that he can hold his peace in the same fashion, before the entire
court; and that he can do so, although he has owned that he knows the
men."
"I have never owned that," said the boy.
"Not to your sister?"
"I only owned to one."
"Pat Carroll?" said the Captain; but giving the name merely as a hint
to help the boy's memory.
But the boy was too sharp for him. "That's another of your traps,
Captain Clayton. If she says Pat Carroll, I can say it was Tim Brady.
A boy's word will be as good as a girl's, I suppose."
"A lie can never be as good as the truth, whether from a boy or
a girl," said the Captain, endeavouring to look him through and
through. The boy quavered beneath his gaze, and the Captain went on
with his questioning. "I suppose we may take it for granted that Pat
Carroll was there, and that you did see him?"
"You may take anything for granted."
"You would have to swear before a jury that Pat Carroll was there."
Then there was another pause, but at last, with a long sigh, the boy
spoke out. "He was there, and I did see him." Then he burst into
tears and threw himself down on the ground, and hid his face in his
sister's lap.
"Dear Flory," said she. "My own brother! I knew that you would
struggle to be a gentleman at last."
"It will all come right with him now," said the Captain. But the
father frowned and shook his head. "How many were there with him?"
asked the Captain, intent on the main business.
But Florian feeling that it would be as good to be hung for a sheep
as a lamb, and feeling also that he had at last cast aside all the
bonds which bound him to Pat Carroll and Father Brosnan,--feeling
that there was nothing left for him but the internecine enmity of his
old friends,--got up from the floor, and wiping away the tears from
his face, spoke out boldly the whole truth as he knew it. "It was
dark, and I didn't see them all. There were only six whom I could
see, though I know that there were many others round about among the
meadows whose names I had heard, though I do not remember them."
"We will confine ourselves to the six whom you did see," said the
Captain, preparing to listen quietly to the boy's story. The father
took out a pen and ink, but soon pushed it on one side. Edith again
got hold of the boy's hand, and held it within her own till his story
was finished.
"I didn't see the six all at once. The first whom I did see was Pat
Carroll, and his brother Terry, and Tim Brady. They were up there
just where the lane has turned down from the steamboat road. I had
gone down to the big sluice gates before anyone had noticed me, and
there were Tim and Terry smashing away at the gate hinges, up to
their middles in mud; and Pat Carroll was handing them down a big
crowbar. Terry, when he saw me, fell flat forward into the water, and
had to be picked out again."
"Did they say anything to threaten you?" said the Captain.
"Tim Brady said that I was all right, and was a great friend of
Father Brosnan's. Then they whispered together, and I heard Terry say
that he wouldn't go against anything that Father Brosnan might say.
Then Pat Carroll came and stood over me with the crowbar."
"Did he threaten you?"
"He didn't do it in a threatening way; but only asked me to be hand
and glove with them."
"Had you been intimate with this man before? asked the Captain.
"He had been very intimate with him," said the father. "All this
calamity has come of his intimacy. He has changed his religion and
ceased to be a gentleman." Here the boy again sobbed, but Edith still
squeezed his hand.
"What did you say?" asked the Captain, "when he bade you be hand and
glove with him?"
"I said that I would. Then they made the sign of a cross, and swore
me on it. And they swore me specially to say nothing up here. And
they swore me again when they met down at Tim Rafferty's house in
Headford. I intended to keep my word, and I think that you ought to
have let me keep it."
"But there were three others whom you saw," urged the Captain.
"There was Con Heffernan, and a man they call Lax, who had come from
Lough Conn beyond Castlebar."
"He's not a man of this county."
"I think not, though I had seen him here before. He has had something
to do with the Landleaguers up about Foxford."
"I think I have a speaking acquaintance with that Mr. Lax," said the
Captain; and everybody could perceive that the tone of his voice was
altered as he spoke about Mr. Lax. "And who was the sixth?"
"There was that old man, papa, whom they call Terry. But he wasn't
doing anything in particular."
"He is the greatest blackguard on the estate," said the father.
"But we will confine ourselves to the five," said the Captain, "not
forgetting Mr. Lax. What was Mr. Lax doing?"
"I can't remember what they were all doing. How is a fellow to
remember them all? There were those two at the hinges, and Pat
Carroll was there pulling his brother out of the water."
"Terry was Pat's brother?"
"They are brothers," said the father.
"And then they went on, and took no notice of me for a time. Lax came
up and scowled at me, and told me that if a word was said I should
never draw the breath of life again."
"But he didn't do anything?" asked the Captain.
"I don't remember. How is a fellow to remember after so many months?"
"Why didn't you tell the truth at the time?" said his father angrily.
Another tear stood in each of the poor boy's eyes, and Edith got
closer to him, and threw her left arm round his waist. "You are
spoiling him by being so soft with him," said the father.
"He is doing the best he can, Mr. Jones," said the Captain. "Don't be
harsh with him now. Well, Florian, what came next?"
"They bade me go away, and again made me swear another oath. It was
nearly dark then, and it was quite dark night before I got up to the
house. But before I went I saw that there were many others standing
idle about the place."
"Do you remember any particularly?"
"Well, there was another of the Carrolls, a nephew of Pat's; and
there was Tony Brady, Tim's brother. I can't at this moment say who
else there were."
"It would be as well to have as many as we do know, not to prosecute
them, but to ask them for their evidence. Three or four men will
often contradict each other, and then they will break down. I think
we have enough now. But you must remember that I have only questioned
you as your friend and as your father's friend. I have not taken down
a word that you have said. My object has been simply that we might
all act together to punish a vindictive and infamous outrage. Pat
Carroll has had nothing to get by flooding your father's meadows. But
because your father has not chosen to forgive him his rent, he has
thought fit to do him all the injury in his power. I fear that there
are others in it, who are more to blame even than Pat Carroll. But if
we can get hold of this gentleman, and also of his friend Mr. Lax, we
shall have done much."
Then the meeting was over for that evening, and Captain Clayton
retired to his own room. "You needn't mind following me here,
Hunter," he said to the policeman.
"I wouldn't be too sure, sir."
"You may be sure in Mr. Jones's house. And no one in the country has
any idea of committing murder on his own behalf. I am safe till they
would have had time to send for someone out of another county. But we
shall be back in Galway to-morrow." So saying, Hunter left his master
alone, and the Captain sat down to write an account of the scene
which had just taken place. In this he gave every name as the boy had
given it, with accuracy; but, nevertheless, he added to his little
story the fact that it had been related from memory.
Edith took her brother away into her own room, and there covered him
with kisses. "Why is papa so hard to me?" said the boy sobbing. Then
she explained to him as gently as she could, the grounds which had
existed for hardness on his father's part. She bade him consider how
terrible a thing it must be to a father, to have to think that his
own son should have turned against him, while the country was in such
a condition.
"It is not the flood, Flory, nor the loss of the meadows being under
water. It is not the injury that Pat Carroll has done him, or any of
the men whom Pat Carroll has talked into enmity. That, indeed, is
very dreadful. To these very men he has been their best friend for
many years. And now they would help in his ruin, and turn us and him
out as beggars upon the world, because he has not chosen to obey the
unjust bidding of one of them." Here the boy hung down his head, and
turned away his face. "But it is not that. All that has had no effect
in nigh breaking his heart. Money is but money. No one can bear its
loss better than our papa. Though he might have to starve, he would
starve like a gallant man; and we could starve with him. You and I,
Frank and Ada, would bear all that he could bear. But--" The boy
looked up into her face again, as though imploring her to spare him,
but she went on with her speech. "But that a son of his should cease
to feel as a gentleman should feel,--and a Christian! It is that
which moves him to be hard, as you call it. But he is not hard; he is
a man, and he cannot kiss you as a woman does;--as your sister does;"
here she almost smothered the boy with kisses, "but, Florian, it is
not too late; it is never too late while you still see that truth is
godlike, and that a lie is of all things the most devilish. It is
never too late while you feel what duty calls you to do." And again
she covered him with kisses, and then allowed him to go away to his
own room.
When Edith was alone she sat back in an easy-chair, with her feet on
the fender before the turf fire, and began to consider how things
might go with her poor brother. "If they should get hold of him, and
murder him!" she said to herself. The thought was very dreadful, but
she comforted herself with reflecting that he might be sent out of
the country, before the knowledge of what he had done should get
abroad. And then by means of that current of thought, which always
runs where it listeth, independent of the will of the thinker, her
ideas flew off to Captain Yorke Clayton. In her imagination she had
put down Captain Clayton as a possible lover for her sister. She
possessed a girlish intuition into her sister's mind which made her
feel that her sister would not dislike such an arrangement. Ada was
the beauty of the family, and was supposed, at any rate by Edith, to
be the most susceptible of the two sisters. She had always called
herself a violent old maid, who was determined to have her own way.
But no one had ever heard Ada speak of herself as an old maid. And
then as to that danger of which Ada had spoken, Edith knew that such
perils must be overlooked altogether among the incidents of life. If
it came to her would she refuse her hand to a man because his courage
led him into special perils? She knew that it would only be an
additional ground for her love. And of Ada, in that respect, she
judged as she did of herself. She knew that Ada thought much of manly
beauty, and her eyes told her that Captain Yorke Clayton was very
handsome. "If he were as black as Beelzebub," she said to herself, "I
should like him the better for it; but Ada would prefer a man to be
beautiful." She went to work to make a match in her own mind between
Ada and Captain Clayton; but the more she made it, the more she
continued to think--on her own behalf--that of all men she had
ever seen, this man had pleased her fancy most. "But Captain Yorke
Clayton, you were never more mistaken in all your life if you think
that Edith Jones has taken a fancy to your handsome physiognomy."
This she said in almost audible words. "But nevertheless, I do think
that you are a hero. For myself, I don't want a hero--and if I did, I
shouldn't get one." But the arrangements made in the house that night
were those which are customary for a favoured young man's reception
when such matters are left to the favouring young lady in the family.
When Mr. Jones found himself alone in his study, he began to think of
the confession which Florian had made. It had gradually come to pass
that he had been sure of the truth for some months, though he had
never before heard it declared by his son's lips. Since the day on
which he had called on Mr. Blake at Carnlough, he had been quite sure
that Edith was right. He was almost sure before. Now the truth was
declared exactly as she had surmised it. And what should he do with
the boy? He could not merely put him forward as a witness in this
case. Some reason must be given, why the truth had not been told
during the last six months. As he thought of this, he felt that the
boy had disgraced himself for ever.
And he thought of the boy's danger. He had rashly promised that the
boy should be sent to England out of harm's way; but he now told
himself that the means of doing so were further from him than ever;
and that he was daily becoming a poorer, if not a ruined man. Of the
rents then due to him, not a penny would, he feared, be paid.
END OF VOL. I.
Charles Dickens And Evans, Crystal Palace Press.
* * * * *
THE LANDLEAGUERS
by
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
In Three Volumes--VOL. II.
London
Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly
1883
Charles Dickens and Evans,
Crystal Palace Press.
CONTENTS
Chapter
XVII. RACHEL IS FREE.
XVIII. FRANK JONES HAS CEASED TO EXIST.
XIX. FIFTH AVENUE AND NEWPORT.
XX. BOYCOTTING.
XXI. LAX, THE MURDERER.
XXII. MORONY CASTLE IS BOYCOTTED.
XXIII. TOM DALY IS BOYCOTTED.
XXIV. "FROM THE FULL HEART THE MOUTH SPEAKS."
XXV. THE GALWAY BALL.
XXVI. LORD CASTLEWELL.
XXVII. HOW FUNDS WERE PROVIDED.
XXVIII. WHAT WAS NOT DONE WITH THE FUNDS.
XXIX. WHAT WAS DONE WITH THE FUNDS.
XXX. THE ROAD TO BALLYGLUNIN.
XXXI. THE GALWAY COURT HOUSE.
XXXII. MR. O'MAHONY AS MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT.
THE LANDLEAGUERS.
CHAPTER XVII.
RACHEL IS FREE.
Rachel O'Mahony found her position to be very embarrassing. She had
thought it out to the best of her ability, and had told herself that
it would be better for her not to acquaint her father with all the
circumstances. Had he been told the nature of the offer made to her
by Madame Socani, he would at once, she thought, have taken her away
from the theatre. She would have to abandon the theatre, at which she
was earning her money. This would have been very bad. There would
have been some lawsuit with Mahomet Moss, as to which she could not
have defended herself by putting Madame Socani into the witness-box.
There had been no third person present, and any possible amount of
lying would have been very easy to Madame Socani. Rachel was quick
enough, and could see at a moment all that lying could do against
her. "But he tried to kiss me," she would have had to say. Then she
could see how, with a shrug of his shoulders, her enemy would have
ruined her. From such a contest a man like Moss comes forth without
even a scratch that can injure him. But Rachel felt that she would
have been utterly annihilated. She must tell someone, but that
someone must be he whom she intended to marry.
And she, too, had not been quite prudent in all respects since she
had come to London. It had been whispered to her that a singer of
such pretensions should be brought to the theatre and carried home in
her private brougham. Therefore, she had spent more money than was
compatible with the assistance given to her father, and was something
in debt. It was indispensable to her that she should go on with her
engagement.
But she told her father that it was absolutely necessary that he
should go with her to the theatre every night that she sang. It
was but three nights a week, and the hours of her work were only
from eight till ten. He had, however, unfortunately made another
engagement for himself. There was a debating society, dramatic in
its manner of carrying on its business, at which three or four Irish
Home-Rulers were accustomed to argue among themselves, before a mixed
audience of Englishmen and Irishmen, as to the futility of English
government. Here Mr. O'Mahony was popular among the debaters, and was
paid for his services. Not many knew that the eloquent Irishman was
the father of the singer who, in truth, was achieving for herself a
grand reputation. But such was the case. A stop had been put upon his
lecturings at Galway; but no policeman in London seemed to be aware
that the Galway incendiary and the London debater were one and the
same person. So there came to him an opening for picking up a few
pounds towards their joint expenses.
"But why should you want me now, more than for the last fortnight?"
he said, contending for the use of his own time.
"Mr. Moss is disagreeable."
"Has he done anything new?" he asked.
"He is always doing things new--that is more beastly--one day than
the day before."
"He doesn't come and sing with you now at your own rooms."
"No; I have got through that, thank Heaven! To tell the truth,
father, I am not in the least afraid of Mr. Moss. Before he should
touch me you may be sure that he would have the worst of it."
"Of course I will do what you want," said her father; "but only if it
be not necessary--"
"It is necessary. Of course, I do not wish to be dragged up to the
police-court for sticking Mr. Moss in the abdomen. That's what it
would come to if we were left together."
"Do you mean to say that you require my presence to prevent anything
so disagreeable as that?"
"If they know, or if he knows that you're in the house, there will
be nothing of the kind. Can't you arrange your debates for the other
nights?"
So it was, in fact, settled. Everybody about the theatre seemed to be
aware that something was wrong. Mr. O'Mahony had not come back to be
constantly on the watch, like a Newfoundland dog, without an object.
To himself it was an intolerable nuisance. He suspected his daughter
not at all. He was so far from suspecting her that he imagined her
to be safe, though half-a-dozen Mosses should surround her. He could
only stand idle behind the scenes, or sit in her dressing-room and
yawn. But still he did it, and asked no further questions.
Then while all this was going on, the polite old gentleman from
Covent Garden had called at her lodgings in Cecil Street, and had
found both her and her father at home.
"Oh, M. Le Gros," she had said, "I am so glad that you should meet my
father here."
Then there was a multiplicity of bowing, and M. Le Gros had declared
that he had never had so much honour done him as in being introduced
to him who was about to become the father of the undoubted prima
donna of the day. At all which Mr. O'Mahony made many bows, and
Rachel laughed very heartily; but in the end an engagement was
proposed and thankfully accepted, which was to commence in the
next October. It did not take two minutes in the making. It was an
engagement only for a couple of months; but, as M. Le Gros observed,
such an engagement would undoubtedly lead to one for all time. If
Covent Garden could only secure the permanent aid of Mademoiselle
O'Mahony, Covent Garden's fortune would be as good as made. M. Le
Gros had quite felt the dishonesty of even suggesting a longer
engagement to mademoiselle. The rate of payment would be very much
higher, ve-ry, ve-ry, ve-ry much higher when mademoiselle's voice
should have once been heard on the boards of a true operatic theatre.
M. Le Gros had done himself the honour of being present on one or
two occasions at the Charing Cross little playhouse. He did believe
himself to have some small critical judgment in musical matters.
He thought he might venture--he really did think that he might
venture--to bespeak a brilliant career for mademoiselle. Then, with
a great many more bowings and scrapings, M. Le Gros, having done his
business, took his leave.
"I like him better than Mahomet M.," said Rachel to her father.
"They're both very civil," said Mr. O'Mahony.
"One has all the courtesy of hell! With the other it is--well, not
quite the manners of heaven. I can imagine something brighter even
than M. Le Gros; but it does very well for earth. M. Le Gros knows
that a young woman should be treated as a human being; and even his
blandishments are pleasant enough, as they are to take the shape of
golden guineas. As for me, M. Le Gros is quite good enough for my
idea of this world."
But on the next day, a misfortune took place which well-nigh
obliterated all the joy which M. Le Gros had produced. It was not
singing night, and Mr. O'Mahony had just taken up his hat to go away
to his debating society, when Frank Jones was announced. "Frank, what
on earth did you come here for?" These were the words with which the
lover was greeted. He had endeavoured to take the girl in his arms,
but she had receded from his embrace.
"Why, Rachel!" he exclaimed.
"I told you not to come. I told you especially that you were not to
come."
"Why did you tell him so?" said Mr. O'Mahony; "and why has he come?"
"Not one kiss, Rachel?" said the lover.
"Oh, kisses, yes! If I didn't kiss you father would think that we
had already quarrelled. But it may be that we must do so. When I had
told you everything, that you should rush up to London to look after
me--as though you suspected me!"
"What is there to suspect?" said the father.
"Nothing--I suspect nothing," said Frank. "But there were things
which made it impossible that I should not wish to be nearer. She was
insulted."
"Who insulted her?"
"The devil in the shape of a woman," said Rachel. "He takes that
shape as often as the other."
"Rachel should not be left in such hands," said Frank.
"My dear Mr. Jones, you have no right to say in what hands I shall be
left. My father and I have got to look after that between us. I have
told you over and over again what are my intentions in the matter.
They have been made in utter disregard of myself, and with the most
perfect confidence in you. You tell me that you cannot marry me."
"Not quite at present."
"Very well; I have been satisfied to remain as engaged to you; but I
am not satisfied to be subject to your interference."
"Interference!" he said.
"Well now; I'm going." This came from Mr. O'Mahony. "I've got to see
if I can earn a few shillings, and tell a few truths. I will leave
you to fight out your battles among you."
"There will be no battles," said Frank.
"I hope not, but I feel that I can do no good. I have such absolute
trust in Rachel, that you may be quite sure that I shall back her up
in whatever she says. Now, good-night," and with that he took his
leave.
"I am glad he has gone, because he would do us no good," said Rachel.
"You were angry with me just now because I spoke of interference. I
meant it. I will not admit of any interference from you." Then she
sat with her two hands on her knees, looking him full in the face.
"I love you with all my heart, and am ready to tell everyone that
I am to become your wife. They have a joke about it in the theatre
calling me Mrs. Jones; and because nobody believes what anybody says
they think you're a myth. I suppose it is queer that a singing girl
should marry Mr. Jones. I'm to go in the autumn to Covent Garden,
and get ever so much more money, and I shall still talk about Mr.
Jones,--unless you and I agree to break it off."
"Certainly not that," said he.
"But it is by no means certain. Will you go back to Ireland to-morrow
morning, and undertake not to see me again, until you come prepared
to marry me? If not we must break it off."
"I can hardly do that"
"Then," said she, rising from her chair, "it is broken off, and I
will not call myself Mrs. Jones any more." He too rose from his
chair, and frowned at her by way of an answer. "I have one other
suggestion to make," she said. "I shall receive next October what
will be quite sufficient for both of us, and for father too. Come and
bear the rough and the smooth together with us."
"And live upon you?"
"I should live upon you without scruple if you had got it. And then
I shall bear your interference without a word of complaint. Nay, I
shall thank you for it. I shall come to you for advice in everything.
What you say will be my law. You shall knock down all the Mosses for
me;--or lock them up, which would be so much better. But you must be
my husband."
"Not yet. You should not ask me as yet. Think of my father's
position. Let this one sad year pass by."
"Two--three, if there are to be two or three sad years! I will wait
for you till you are as grey as old Peter, and I have not a note left
in my throat. I will stick to you like beeswax. But I will not have
you here hanging about me. Do you think that it would not be pleasant
for me to have a lover to congratulate me every day on my little
triumphs? Do you think that I should not be proud to be seen leaning
always on your arm, with the consciousness that Mr. Moss would be
annihilated at his very first word? But when a year had passed by,
where should I be? No, Frank, it will not do. If you were at Morony
Castle things would go on very well. As you choose to assume to
yourself the right of interference, we must part."
"When you tell me of such a proposition as that made to you by the
woman, am I to say nothing?"
"Not a word;--unless it be by letter from Morony Castle, and then
only to me. I will not have you here meddling with my affairs. I
told you, though I didn't tell my father, because I would tell you
everything."
"And I am to leave you,--without another word?"
"Yes, without another word. And remember that from this moment I am
free to marry any man that may come the way."
"Rachel!"
"I am free to marry any man that may come the way. I don't say I
shall do so. It may take me some little time to forget you. But I am
free. When that has been understood between us I am sure you will
interfere no longer; you will not be so unkind as to force upon
me the necessity of telling the truth to all the people about the
theatre. Let us understand each other."
"I understand," said he, with the air of a much injured man.
"I quite know your position. Trusting to your own prospects, you
cannot marry me at present, and you do not choose to accept such
income as I can give you. I respect and even approve your motives.
I am living a life before the public as a singer, in which it is
necessary that I should encounter certain dangers. I can do so
without fear, if I be left alone. You won't leave me alone. You won't
marry me, and yet you won't leave me to my own devices;--therefore,
we had better part." He took her by the hand sorrowfully, as though
preparing to embrace her. "No, Mr. Jones," she said, "that is all
done. I kissed you when my father was here, because I was then
engaged to be your wife. That is over now, and I can only say
good-bye." So saying, she retired, leaving him standing there in her
sitting-room.
He remained for awhile meditating on his position, till he began to
think that it would be useless for him to remain there. She certainly
would not come down; and he, though he were to wait for her father's
return, would get no more favourable reply from him. He, as he had
promised, would certainly "back up" his daughter in all that she had
said. As he went down out of the room with that feeling of insult
which clings to a man when he has been forced to quit a house without
any farewell ceremony, he certainly did feel that he had been
ill-used. But he could not but acknowledge that she was justified.
There was a certain imperiousness about her which wounded his
feelings as a man. He ought to have been allowed to be dominant. But
then he knew that he could not live upon her income. His father would
not speak to him had he gone back to Morony Castle expressing his
intention of doing so.
CHAPTER XVIII.
FRANK JONES HAS CEASED TO EXIST.
To tell the truth, Rachel had a thorough good cry before she went to
bed that night. Though there was something hard, fixed, imperious,
almost manlike about her manner, still she was as soft-hearted as
any other girl. We may best describe her by saying that she was an
American and an actress. It was impossible to doubt her. No one
who had once known her could believe her to be other than she had
declared herself. She was loyal, affectionate, and dutiful. But there
was missing to her a feminine weakness, which of all her gifts is
the most valuable to an English woman, till she makes the mistake of
bartering it away for women's rights. We can imagine, however, that
the stanchest woman's-right lady should cry for her lost lover. And
Rachel O'Mahony cried bitterly for hers. "It had to be done," she
said, jumping up at last in her bedroom, and clenching her fist as
she walked about the chamber. "It had to be done. A girl situated as
I am cannot look too close after herself. Father is more like my son
than my father; he has no idea that I want anything done for me. Nor
do I want much," she said, as she went on rapidly taking the short
course of the room. "No one could say a word about me till I brought
my lover forward and showed him to the theatre. I think they did
believe him to be a myth; but a myth in that direction does no harm
till he appears in the flesh. They think that I have made an empty
boast about my Mr. Jones. The ugliest girl that ever came out may do
the same thing, and nobody ever thinks anything of it. A lover in the
clouds never does any harm, and now my lover is in the clouds. I know
that he has gone, and will never come to earth again. How much better
I love him because he would not take my offer. Then there would have
been a little contempt. And how could I expect him to yield to me in
everything, with this brute Moss insulting me at every turn? I do not
think he had the courage to send me that message, but still! What
could I do but tell Frank? And then what could Frank do but come? I
would have come, let any girl have bade me to stay away!" Here she
had imagined herself to be the lover, and not the girl who was loved.
"But it only shows that we are better apart. He cannot marry me, and
I cannot marry him. The Squire is at his wits' end with grief." By
"the Squire" Mr. Jones had been signified. "It is better as it is.
Father and the Squire ought never to have been brought together,--nor
ought I and Frank. I suppose I must tell them all at the theatre that
Mr. Jones belongs to me no longer. Only if I did so, they would think
that I was holding out a lure to Mahomet M. There's papa. I'll go
down and tell him all that need be told about it." So saying she
ascended to their sitting-room.
"Well, my dear, what did you do with Frank?"
"He has gone back to Ireland under the name of Mr. Jones."
"Then there was a quarrel?"
"Oh dear yes! there was safe to be a quarrel."
"Does it suit your book upon the whole?"
"Not in the least. You see before you the most wretched heroine that
ever appeared on the boards of any theatre. You may laugh, but it's
true. I don't know what I've got to say to Mr. Moss now. If he comes
forward in a proper manner, and can prove to me that Madame Socani
is not Madame Mahomet M. Moss, I don't know what I can do but accept
him. The Adriatic is free to wed another." Then she walked about the
room, laughing to prevent her tears.
"Did you hear anything about Castle Morony?"
"Not a word."
"Or the boy Florian?"
"Not a syllable;--though I was most anxious to ask the question. When
you are intent upon any matter, it does not do to go away to other
things. I should have never made him believe that he was to leave me
in earnest, had I allowed him to talk about Florian and the girls.
He has gone now. Well;--good-night, father. You and I, father, are
all in all to each other now. Not but what somebody else will come,
I suppose."
"Do you wish that somebody else should come, as you say?"
"I suppose so. Do not look so surprised, father. Girls very seldom
have to say what they really wish. I have done with him now. I had
him because I really loved him,--like a fool as I was. I have got
to go in for being a singing girl. A singing woman is better than a
singing girl. If they don't have husbands, they are supposed to have
lovers. I hope to have one or the other, and I prefer the husband.
Mr. Jones has gone. Who knows but what the Marquis de Carabas may
come next."
"Could you change so soon?"
"Yes;--immediately. I don't say I should love the Marquis, but I
should treat him well. Don't look so shocked, dear father. I never
shall treat a man badly,--unless I stick a knife into Mahomet M.
Moss. It would be best perhaps to get a singing marquis, so that the
two of us might go walking about the world together, till we had got
money enough to buy a castle. I am beginning to believe M. Le Gros. I
think I can sing. Don't you think, father, that I can sing?"
"They all say so."
"It is very good to have one about me, like you, who are not
enthusiastic. But I can sing, and I am pretty too;--pretty enough
along with my singing to get some fool to care for me. Yes; you may
look astonished. Over there in Galway I was fool enough to fall in
love. What has come of it? The man tells me that he cannot marry me.
And it is true. If he were to marry me what would become of you?"
"Never mind me," said her father.
"And what would become of him; and what would become of me? And what
would become of the dreadful little impediments which might follow?
Of course to me Frank Jones is the best of men. I can't have him;
and that is just all about it. I am not going to give up the world
because Frank Jones is lost. Love is not to be lord of all with me.
I shall steer my little boat among the shiny waters of the London
theatres, and may perhaps venture among the waves of Paris and
New York; but I shall do so always with my eyes open. Gas is the
atmosphere in which I am destined to glitter; and if a Marquis comes
in the way,--why, I shall do the best I can with the Marquis. I won't
bring you to trouble if I can help it, or anyone else with whom I
have to do. So good-night, father." Then she kissed his forehead,
and went up to bed leaving him to wonder at the intricacies of his
position.
He had that night been specially eloquent and awfully indignant as
to the wrongs done to Ireland by England. He had dealt with millions
of which Great Britain was supposed by him to have robbed her poor
sister. He was not a good financier, but he did in truth believe in
the millions. He had not much capacity for looking into questions of
political economy, but he had great capacity for arguing about them
and for believing his own arguments. The British Parliament was to
him an abomination. He read the papers daily, and he saw that the
number of votes on his side fell from sixty to forty, and thirty, and
twenty; and he found also that the twenty were men despised by their
own countrymen as well as Englishmen; that they were men trained to
play a false game in order to achieve their objects;--and yet he
believed in the twenty against all the world, and threw in his lot
without a scruple and without a doubt. Nor did he understand at all
the strength of his own words. He had been silenced in Ireland and
had rigorously obeyed the pledge that he had given. For he was a
man to whom personally his word was a bond. Now he had come over to
London, and being under no promise, had begun again to use the words
which came to him without an effort. As he would sweep back his long
hair from his brows, and send sparks of fire out of his eyes, he
would look to be the spirit of patriotic indignation; but he did not
know that he was thus powerful. To tell the truth,--and as he had
said,--to earn a few shillings was the object of his ambition. But
now, on this evening, three London policemen in their full police
uniform, with their fearful police helmets on, had appeared in the
room in which his dramatic associates had on this evening given way
to Gerald O'Mahony's eloquence. Nothing had been said to him; but as
he came home he was aware that two policemen had watched him. And he
was aware also that his words had been taken down in shorthand. Then
he had encountered his daughter, and all her love troubles. He had
heard her expound her views as to life, and had listened as she
had expressed her desire to meet with some Marquis de Carabas. She
had said nothing with which he could find fault; but her whole
views of life were absolutely different from his. According to his
ideas, there should be no Marquises, no singing girls making huge
fortunes--only singing girls in receipt of modest sums of money; and
that when dire necessity compelled them. There should be no gorgeous
theatres flaring with gas, and certainly no policemen to take down
men's words. Everything in the world was wrong,--except those twenty
Members of Parliament.
Three or four days after this, Rachel found that a report was abroad
at the theatre that she had dissolved her engagement with Mr. Jones.
At this time the three policemen had already expressed their opinion
about Mr. O'Mahony; but they, for the present, may be left in
obscurity. "_Est-il vrai que M. Jones n'existe plus?_" These words
were whispered to her, as she was dressing, by Madame Socani, while
Mr. O'Mahony had gone out to say a word to a police detective,
who had called to see him at the theatre. As Madame Socani was an
American woman, there was no reason why she should not have asked the
question in English--were it not that as it referred to an affair of
love it may be thought that French was the proper language.
"Mr. Jones isn't any more, as far as I am concerned," said Rachel,
passing on.
"Oh, he has gone!" said Madame Socani, following her into the slips.
They were both going on to the stage, but two minutes were allowed
to them, while Mahomet M. Moss declared, in piteous accents, the
woe which awaited him because Alberta,--who was personated by
Rachel,--had preferred the rustic Trullo to him who was by birth a
Prince of the Empire.
"Yes, Mr. Jones has gone, Madame,--as you are so anxious to know."
"But why? Can it be that there was no Mr. Jones?" Then Rachel flashed
round upon the woman. "I suppose there was no Mr. Jones?"
"_O, mio tesor._" These last three words were sung in a delicious
contralto voice by Elmira,--the Madame Socani of the occasion,--and
were addressed to the Prince of the Empire, who, for the last six
weeks, had been neglecting her charms. Rachel was furious at the
attack made upon her, but in the midst of her fury she rushed on to
the stage, and kneeling at the feet of Elmira, declared her purpose
of surrendering the Prince altogether. The rustic Trullo was quite
sufficient for her. "Go, fond girl. Trullo is there, tying up the
odoriferous rose." Then they all four broke out into that grand
quartette, in the performance of which M. Le Gros had formed that
opinion which had induced him to hold out such golden hopes to
Rachel. Rachel looked up during one of her grand shakes and saw Frank
Jones seated far back among the boxes. "Oh, he hasn't left London
yet," she said to herself, as she prepared for another shake.
"Your papa desires me to say with his kindest love, that he has had
to leave the theatre." This came from Mr. Moss when the piece was
ended.
He was dressed as princes of the empire generally do dress on the
stage, and she as the daughter of the keeper of the king's garden.
"So they tell me; very well. I will go home. I suppose he has had
business."
"A policeman I fear. Some little pecuniary embarrassment." A rumour
had got about the theatre that Mr. O'Mahony was overwhelmed with
money difficulties. Mr. Moss had probably overheard the rumour.
"I don't believe that at all. It's something political, more likely."
"Very likely, I don't know, I will see you to your house." And
Mahomet M. looked as though he were going to jump into the brougham
in the garments of the imperial prince.
"Mr. Moss, I can go very well alone;" and she turned round upon him
and stood in the doorway so as to oppose his coming out, and frowned
upon him with that look of anger which she knew so well how to
assume.
"I have that to say to you which has to be said at once."
"You drive about London with me in that dress? It would be absurd.
You are painted all round your eyes. I wouldn't get into a carriage
with you on any account."
"In five minutes I will have dressed myself."
"Whether dressed or undressed it does not signify. You know very
well that I would on no account get into a carriage with you. You
are taking advantage of me because my father is not here. If you
accompany me I will call for a policeman directly we get into the
street."
"Ah, you do not know," said Mr. Moss. And he looked at her exactly as
he had looked about an hour ago, when he was making love to her as
Trullo's betrothed.
"Here is my father," she said; for at that moment Mr. O'Mahony
appeared within the theatre, having made his way up from the door in
time to take his daughter home.
"Mr. O'Mahony," said Mr. Moss, "I shall do myself the honour of
calling to-morrow and seeing your daughter at her apartments in Gower
Street."
"You will see father too," said Rachel.
"I shall be delighted," said Moss. "It will give me the greatest
pleasure on earth to see Mr. O'Mahony on this occasion." So saying
the imperial prince made a low bow, paint and all, and allowed the
two to go down into the street, and get into the brougham.
Mr. O'Mahony at once began with his own story. The policeman who had
called for him had led him away round the corner into Scotland Yard,
and had there treated him with the utmost deference. Nothing could
be more civil to him than had been the officer. But the officer had
suggested to him that he had been the man who had said some rough
words about the Queen, in Galway, and had promised to abstain in
future from lecturing. "To this I replied," said he, "that I had
said nothing rough about the Queen. I had said that the Queen was as
nearly an angel on earth as a woman could be. I had merely doubted
whether there should be Queens. Thereupon the policeman shook his
head and declared that he could not admit any doubt on that question.
'But you wouldn't expect me to allow it in New York,' said I. 'You've
got to allow it here,' said he. 'But my pledge was made as to
Ireland,' said I. 'It is all written down in some magistrate's book,
and you'll find it if you send over there.' Then I told him that I
wouldn't break my word for him or his Queen either. Upon that he
thanked me very much for my civility, and told me that if I would
hurry back to the theatre I should be in time to take you home. If
it was necessary he would let me hear from him again. 'You will know
where to find me,' said I, and I gave him our address in Farringdon
Street, and told him I should be there to-morrow at half-past eight.
He shook hands with me as though I had been his brother;--and so here
I am."
Then she began to tell her story, but there did not seem to be much
of interest in it. "I suppose he'll come?" said Mr. O'Mahony.
"Oh, yes, he'll come."
"It's something about M. Le Gros," said he. "You'll find that he'll
abuse that poor Frenchman."
"He may save himself the trouble," said Rachel. Then they reached
Gower Street, and went to bed, having eaten two mutton-chops apiece.
On the next morning at eleven o'clock tidings were brought up
to Rachel in her bedroom that Mr. Moss was in the sitting-room
downstairs.
"Father is there?" exclaimed Rachel.
Then the girl, who had learned to understand that Mr. Moss was not
regarded as a welcome visitor, assured her that he was at the moment
entertained by Mr. O'Mahony. "He's a-telling of what the perlice said
to him in the City, but I don't think as the Jew gentleman minds
him much." From which it may be gathered that Rachel had not been
discreet in speaking of her admirer before the lodging-house servant.
She dressed herself, not in a very great hurry. Her father, she knew,
had no other occupation at this hour in the morning, and she did not
in the least regard how Mr. Moss might waste his time. And she had to
think of many things before she could go down to meet him. Meditating
upon it all, she was inclined to think that the interview was
intended as hostile to M. Le Gros. M. Le Gros would be represented,
no doubt, as a Jew twice more Jewish than Mr. Moss himself. But
Rachel had a strong idea that M. Le Gros was a very nice old French
gentleman. When he had uttered all those "ve-rys," one after another
with still increasing emphasis, Rachel had no doubt believed them
all. And she was taking great trouble with herself, practising every
day for two hours together, with a looking-glass before her on the
pianoforte, as Mr. Moss had made her quite understand that the
opening of her mouth wide was the chief qualification necessary to
her, beyond that which nature had done for her. Rachel did think it
possible that she might become the undoubted prima donna of the day,
as M. Le Gros had called her; and she thought it much more probable
that she should do so under the auspices of M. Le Gros, than those of
Mr. Moss. When, therefore, she went down at last to the sitting-room,
she did so, determined to oppose Mr. Moss, as bidding for her voice,
rather than as a candidate for her love. When she entered the room,
she could not help beginning with something of an apology, in that
she had kept the man waiting; but Mr. Moss soon stopped her. "It
does not signify the least in the world," he said, laying his hand
upon his waistcoat. "If only I can get this opportunity of speaking
to you while your father is present." Then, when she looked at the
brilliance of his garments, and heard the tones of his voice, she was
sure that the attack on this occasion was not to be made on M. Le
Gros. She remained silent, and sat square on her chair, looking at
him. A man must be well-versed in feminine wiles, who could decipher
under Rachel's manners her determination to look as ugly as possible
on the occasion. In a moment she had flattened every jaunty twist
and turn out of her habiliments, and had given to herself an air of
absolute dowdyism. Her father sat by without saying a word. "Miss
O'Mahony, if I may venture to ask a question, I trust you may not be
offended."
"I suppose not as my father is present," she replied.
"Am I right in believing the engagement to be over which bound you to
Mr.--Jones?"
"You are," said Rachel, quite out loud, giving another quite
unnecessary twist to her gown.
"That obstacle is then removed?"
"Mr. Jones is removed, and has gone to Ireland." Then Mr. Moss sighed
deeply. "I can manage my singing very well without Mr.--Jones."
"Not a doubt. Not a doubt. And I have heard that you have made an
engagement in all respects beneficial with M. Le Gros, of Covent
Garden. M. Le Gros is a gentleman for whom I have a most profound
respect."
"So have I."
"Had I been at your elbow, it is possible that something better might
have been done; but two months;--they run by--oh, so quickly!"
"Quite so. If I can do any good I shall quickly get another
engagement."
"You will no doubt do a great deal of good. But Mr. Jones is now at
an end."
"Mr. Jones is at an end," said Rachel, with another blow at her gown.
"A singing girl like me does better without a lover,--especially if
she has got a father to look after her."
"That's as may be," said Mr. O'Mahony.
"That's as may be," said Mr. Moss, again laying his hand upon his
heart. The tone in which Mr. Moss repeated Mr. O'Mahony's words was
indicative of the feeling and poetry within him. "If you had a lover
such as is your faithful Moss," the words seemed to say, "no father
could look after you half so well."
"I believe I could do very well with no one to look after me."
"Of course you and I have misunderstood each other hitherto."
"Not at all," said Rachel.
"I was unaware at first that Mr. Jones was an absolute reality. You
must excuse me, but the name misled me."
"Why shouldn't a girl be engaged to a man named Jones? Jones is as
good a name as Moss, at any rate; and a deal more--" She had been
going to remark that Jones was the more Christian of the two, but
stopped herself.
"At any rate you are now free?" he said.
"No, I am not. Yes, I am. I am free, and I mean to remain so. Why
don't you tell him, father?"
"I have got nothing to tell him, my dear. You are so much better able
to tell him everything yourself."
"If you would only listen to me, Miss O'Mahony."
"You had better listen to him, Rachel."
"Very well; I will listen. Now go on." Then she again thumped
herself. And she had thumped her hair, and thumped herself all round
till she was as limp and dowdy as the elder sister of a Low Church
clergyman of forty.
"I wish you to believe, Miss O'Mahony, that my attachment to you is
most devoted." She pursed her lips together and looked straight out
of her eyes at the wall opposite. "We belong to the same class of
life, and our careers lie in the same groove." Hereupon she crossed
her hands before her on her lap, while her father sat speculating
whether she might not have done better to come out on the comic
stage. "I wish you to believe that I am quite sincere in the
expression which I make of a most ardent affection." Here again he
slapped his waistcoat and threw himself into an attitude. He was by
no means an ill-looking man, and though he was forty years old, he
did not appear to be so much. He had been a public singer all his
life, and was known by Rachel to have been connected for many years
with theatres both in London and New York. She had heard many stories
as to his amorous adventures, but knew nothing against his character
in money matters. He had, in truth, always behaved well to her in
whatever pecuniary transactions there had been between them. But he
had ventured to make love to her, and had done so in a manner which
had altogether disgusted her. She now waited till he paused for a
moment in his eloquence, and then she spoke a word.
"What about Madame Socani?"
CHAPTER XIX.
FIFTH AVENUE AND NEWPORT.
"What about Madame Socani?" Rachel, as she said this, abandoned for
the moment her look against the wall, and shook herself instantly
free of all her dowdiness. She flashed fire at him from her eyes, and
jumping up from her seat, took hold of her father by his shoulder. He
encircled her waist with his arm, but otherwise sat silent, looking
Mr. Moss full in the face. It must be acknowledged on the part of
Rachel that she was prepared to make her accusation against Mr. Moss
on perhaps insufficient grounds. She had heard among the people at
the theatre, who did not pretend to know much of Mr. Moss and his
antecedents, that there was a belief that Madame Socani was his wife.
There was something in this which offended her more grossly than
ever,--and a wickedness which horrified her. But she certainly knew
nothing about it; and Madame Socani's proposition to herself had come
to her from Madame Socani, and not from Mr. Moss. All she knew of
Madame Socani was that she had been on the boards in New York, and
had there made for herself a reputation. Rachel had on one occasion
sung with her, but it had been when she was little more than a child.
"What is Madame Socani to me?" said Mr. Moss.
"I believe her to be your wife."
"Oh, heavens! My wife! I never had a wife, Miss O'Mahony;--not yet!
Why do you say things so cruel to me?"
He, at any rate, she was sure, had sent her that message. She thought
that she was sure of his villainous misconduct to her in that
respect. She believed that she did know him to be a devil, whether he
was a married man or not.
"What message did you send to me by Madame Socani?"
"What message? None!" and again he laid his hand upon his waistcoat.
"He asked me to be--" But she could not tell her father of what
nature was the message. "Father, he is a reptile. If you knew all,
you would be unable to keep your hands from his throat. And now he
dares to come here and talk to me of his affection. You had better
bid him leave the room and have done with him."
"You hear what my daughter says, Mr. Moss."
"Yes, I hear her," answered the poor innocent-looking tenor. "But
what does she mean? Why is she so fierce?"
"He knows, father," said Rachel. "Have nothing further to say to
him."
"I don't think that I do quite know," said Mr. O'Mahony. "But you can
see, at any rate, Mr. Moss, that she does not return your feeling."
"I would make her my wife to-morrow," said Mr. Moss, slapping his
waistcoat once more. "And do you, as the young lady's papa, think
of what we two might do together. I know myself, I know my power.
Madame Socani is a jealous woman. She would wish to be taken into
partnership with me,--not a partnership of hearts, but of theatres.
She has come with some insolent message, but not from me;--ah, not
from me!"
"You never tried to kiss me? You did not make two attempts?"
"I would make two thousand if I were to consult my own heart."
"When you knew that I was engaged to Mr. Jones!"
"What was Mr. Jones to me? Now I ask your respectable parent, is
Miss Rachel unreasonable? When a gentleman has lost his heart in
true love, is he to be reproached because he endeavours to seize one
little kiss? Did not Mr. Jones do the same?"
"Bother Mr. Jones!" said Rachel, overcome by the absurdity of the
occasion. "As you observed just now, Mr. Jones and I are two. Things
have not turned out happily, though I am not obliged to explain all
that to you. But Mr. Jones is to me all that a man should be; you,
Mr. Moss, are not. Now, father, had he not better go?"
"I don't think any good is to be done, I really don't," said Mr.
O'Mahony.
"Why am I to be treated in this way?"
"Because you come here persevering when you know it's no good."
"I think of what you and I might do together with Moss's theatre
between us."
"Oh, heavens!"
"You should be called the O'Mahony. Your respectable papa should keep
an eye to your pecuniary interest."
"I could keep an eye myself for that."
"You would be my own wife, of course--my own wife."
"I wouldn't be anything of the kind."
"Ah, but listen!" continued Mr. Moss. "You do not know how the
profits run away into the pockets of _impresarios_ and lessees and
money-lenders. We should have it all ourselves. I have £30,000 of
my own, and my respectable parent in New York has as much more. It
would all be the same as ours. Only think! Before long we would have
a house on the Fifth Avenue so furnished that all the world should
wonder; and another at Newport, where the world should not be
admitted to wonder. Only think!"
"And Madame Socani to look after the furniture!" said Rachel.
"Madame Socani should be nowheres."
"And I also will be nowheres. Pray remember that in making all your
little domestic plans. If you live in the Fifth Avenue, I will live
in 350 Street; or perhaps I should like it better to have a little
house here in Albert Place. Father, don't you think Mr. Moss might go
away?"
"I think you have said all that there is to be said." Then Mr.
O'Mahony got up from his chair as though to show Mr. Moss out of the
room.
"Not quite, Mr. O'Mahony. Allow me for one moment. As the young
lady's papa you are bound to look to these things. Though the
theatre would be a joint affair, Miss O'Mahony would have her fixed
salary;--that is to say, Mrs. Moss would."
"I won't stand it," said Rachel getting up. "I won't allow any man to
call me by so abominable a name,--or any woman." Then she bounced out
of the room.
"It's no good, you see," said Mr. O'Mahony.
"I by no means see that so certain. Of course a young lady like your
daughter knows her own value, and does not yield all at once."
"I tell you it's no good. I know my own daughter."
"Excuse me, Mr. O'Mahony, but I doubt whether you know the sex."
The two men were very nearly of an age; but O'Mahony assumed the
manners of an old man, and Mr. Moss of a young one.
"Perhaps not," said Mr. O'Mahony.
"They have been my study up from my cradle," said Mr. Moss.
"No doubt."
"And I think that I have carried on the battle not without some
little _éclat_."
"I am quite sure of it."
"I still hope that I may succeed with your sweet daughter."
"Here the battle is of a different kind," not without a touch of
satire in the tone of his voice, whatever there might be in the words
which he used. "In tournaments of love, you have, I do not doubt,
been very successful; but here, it seems to me that the struggle is
for money."
"That is only an accident."
"But the accident rises above everything. It does not matter in the
least which comes first. Whether it be for love or money my daughter
will certainly have a will of her own. You may take my word that she
is not to be talked out of her mind."
"But Mr. Jones is gone?" asked Moss.
"But she is not on that account ready to transfer her affections
at a moment's notice. To her view of the matter there seems to be
something a little indelicate in the idea."
"Bah!" said Mr. Moss.
"You cannot make her change her mind by saying bah."
"Professional interests have to be considered," said Mr. Moss.
"No doubt; my daughter does consider her professional interests every
day when she practises for two hours."
"That is excellent,--and with such glorious effects! She has only now
got the full use of her voice. My G----! what could she not do if she
had the full run of Moss's Theatre! She might choose whatever operas
would suit her best; and she would have me to guide her judgment! I
do know my profession, Mr. O'Mahony. A lady in her line should always
marry a gentleman in mine; that is if she cares about matrimony."
"Of course she did intend to be married to Mr. Jones."
"Oh! Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones! I am sick of Mr. Jones. What could Mr.
Jones do? He is only a poor ruined Irishman. You must feel that Mr.
Jones was only in the way. I am offering her all that professional
experience and capital can do. What are her allurements?"
"I don't in the least know, Mr. Moss."
"Only her beauty."
"I thought, perhaps it was her singing."
"That joined," said Mr. Moss. "No doubt her voice and her beauty
joined together. Madame Socani's voice is as valuable,--almost as
valuable."
"I would marry Madame Socani if I were you."
"No! Madame Socani is,--well a leetle past her prime. Madame Socani
and I have known each other for twenty years. Madame Socani is aware
that I am attached to your daughter. Well; I do not mind telling you
the truth. Madame Socani and I have been on very intimate terms. I
did offer once to make Madame Socani my wife. She did not see her way
in money matters. She was making an income greater than mine. Things
have changed since that. Madame Socani is very well, but she is a
jealous woman. Madame Socani hates your daughter. Oh, heavens, yes!
But she was never my wife. Oh, no! A woman at this profession grows
old quicker than a man. And she has never succeeded in getting a
theatre of her own. She did try her hand at it at New York, but that
came to nothing. If Miss Rachel will venture along with me, we will
have 500,000 dollars before five years are gone. She shall have
everything that the world can offer--jewels, furniture, hangings!
She shall keep the best table in New York, and shall have her own
banker's account. There's no such success to be found anywhere
for a young woman. If you will only just turn it in your mind, Mr.
O'Mahony." Then Mr. Moss brushed his hat with the sleeve of his coat
and took his leave.
He had nearly told the entire truth to Mr. O'Mahony. He had never
married Madame Socani. As far as Madame Socani knew, her veritable
husband, Socani, was still alive. And it was not true that Mr. Moss
had sent that abominable message to Rachel. The message, no doubt,
had expressed a former wish on his part; but that wish was now in
abeyance. Miss O'Mahony's voice had proved itself to him to be worth
matrimony,--that and her beauty together. In former days, when he had
tried to kiss her, he had valued her less highly. Now, as he left the
room, he was fully content with the bargain he had suggested. Mr.
Jones was out of the way, and her voice had proved itself to his
judgment to be worth the price he had offered.
When her father saw her again he began meekly to plead for Mr. Moss.
"Do you mean to say, father," she exclaimed, "that you have joined
yourself to him?"
"I am only telling you what he says."
"Tell me nothing at all. You ought to know that he is an abomination.
Though he had the whole Fifth Avenue to offer to me I would not touch
him with a pair of tongs."
But she, in the midst of her singing, had been much touched by seeing
Frank Jones among the listeners in the back of one of the boxes. When
the piece was over there had come upon her a desire to go to him and
tell him that, in spite of all she had said, she would wait for him
if only he would profess himself ready to wait for her. There was not
much in it,--that a man should wait in town for two or three days,
and should return to the theatre to see the girl whom he professed to
regard. It was only that, but it had again stirred her love. She had
endeavoured to send to him when the piece was over; but he was gone,
and she saw him no more.
CHAPTER XX.
BOYCOTTING.
Frank Jones went back to County Galway, having caught a last glimpse
of his lady-love. But his lady-love could not very well make herself
known to him from the stage as she was occupied at the moment with
Trullo. And as he had left the theatre before her message had been
brought round, he did so with a bitter conviction that everything
between them was over. He felt very angry with her,--no doubt
unreasonably. The lady was about to make a pocketful of money; and
had offered to share it with him. He refused to take any part of
it, and declined altogether to incur any of the responsibilities of
marriage for the present. His father's circumstances too were of such
a nature as to make him almost hopeless for the future. What would he
have had her do? Nevertheless he was very angry with her.
As he made his way westward through Ireland he heard more and more of
the troubles of the country. He had not in fact been gone much more
than a week, but during that week sad things had happened. Boycotting
had commenced, and had already become very prevalent. To boycott
a man, or a house, or a firm, or a class of men, or a trade, or a
flock of sheep, or a drove of oxen, or unfortunately a county hunt,
had become an exact science, and was exactly obeyed. It must be
acknowledged that throughout the south and west of Ireland the
quickness and perfection with which this science was understood
and practised was very much to the credit of the intelligence of
the people. We can understand that boycotting should be studied in
Yorkshire, and practised,--after an experience of many years. Laying
on one side for the moment all ideas as to the honesty and expediency
of the measure, we think that Yorkshire might in half a century
learn how to boycott its neighbours. A Yorkshire man might boycott a
Lancashire man, or Lincoln might boycott Nottingham. It would require
much teaching;--many books would have to be written, and an infinite
amount of heavy slow imperfect practice would follow. But County Mayo
and County Galway rose to the requirements of the art almost in a
night! Gradually we Englishmen learned to know in a dull glimmering
way what they were about; but at the first whisper of the word all
Ireland knew how to ruin itself. This was done readily by people of
the poorer class,--without any gifts of education, and certainly
the immoderate practice of the science displays great national
intelligence.
As Frank Jones passed through Dublin he learned that Morony Castle
had been boycotted; and he was enough of an Irishman to know
immediately what was meant. And he heard, too, while in the train
that the kennels at Ahaseragh had been boycotted. He knew that with
the kennels would be included Black Daly, and with Morony Castle his
unfortunate father. According to the laws on which the practice was
carried on nothing was to be bought from the land of Morony Castle,
and nothing sold to the owners of it. No service was to be done for
the inhabitants, as far as the laws of boycotting might be made to
prevail. He learned from a newspaper he bought in Dublin that the
farm servants had all left the place, and that the maids had been
given to understand that they would encounter the wrath of the new
lords in the land if they made a bed for any Jones to lie upon.
As he went on upon his journey his imagination went to work to
picture to himself the state of his father's life under these
circumstances. But his imagination was soon outstripped by the
information which reached him from fellow-travellers. "Did ye hear
what happened to old Phil Jones down at Morony?" said a passenger,
who got in at Moate, to another who had joined them at Athlone.
"Divil a hear thin."
"Old Phil wanted to get across from Ballyglunin to his own place.
He had been down to Athenry. There was that chap who is always
there with a car. Divil a foot would he stir for Phil. Phil has had
some row with the boys there about his meadows, and he's trying to
prosecute. More fool he. A quiet, aisy-going fellow he used to be.
But it seems he has been stirred now. He has got some man in Galway
jail, and all the country is agin him. Anyways he had to foot it
from Ballyglunin to Headford, and then to send home to Morony for
his own car." In this way did Frank learn that his father had in
truth incurred boycotting severity. He knew well the old man who had
attended the Ballyglunin station with almost a hopeless desire of
getting a fare, and was sure that nothing short of an imperious edict
from the great Landleaguing authorities in the district, would have
driven him to the necessity of repudiating a passenger.
But when he had reached the further station of Ballinasloe he learned
sadder tidings in regard to his friend Tom Daly. Tom Daly had put no
man in prison, and yet the kennels at Ahaseragh had been burned to
the ground. This had occurred only on the preceding day; and he got
the account of what had happened from a hunting man he knew well.
"The hounds were out you know last Saturday week as a finish, and
poor Tom did hope that we might get through without any further
trouble. We met at Ballinamona, and we drew Blake's coverts without
a word. We killed our fox too and then went away to Pulhaddin gorse.
I'll be blest if all the county weren't there. I never saw the boys
swarm about a place so thick. Pulhaddin is the best gorse in the
county. Of course it was no use drawing it; but as we were going away
on the road to Loughrea the crowd was so thick that there was no
riding among them. Ever so many horsemen got into the fields to be
away from the crowd. But Tom wouldn't allow Barney and the hounds to
be driven from the road. I never saw a man look so angry in my life.
You could see the passion that was on him. He never spoke a word,
nor raised a hand, nor touched his horse with his spur; but he got
blacker and blacker, and would go on whether the crowd moved asunder
or not. And he told Barney to follow him with the hounds, which
Barney did, looking back ever and anon at the poor brutes, and giving
his instructions to the whips to see well after that they did not
wander. They threatened Barney scores of times with their sticks, but
he came on, funking awfully, but still doing whatever Tom told him. I
was riding just behind him among the hounds so that I could see all
that took place. At last a ruffian with his shillelagh struck Barney
over the thigh. I had not time to get to him; indeed I doubt whether
I should have done so, but Tom,--; by George, he saw out of the back
of his head. He turned round, and, without touching his horse with
spur or whip, rode right at the ruffian. If they had struck himself,
I think he would have borne it more easily."
"How did it end?"
"They said that the blackguard was hurt, but I saw him escape and get
away over the fence. Then they all set upon Tom, but by G---- it was
glorious to see the way in which he held his own. Out came that cross
of his, four foot and a half long, with a thong as heavy as a flail.
He soon had the road clear around him, and the big black horse you
remember, stood as steady as a statue till he was bidden to move
on. Then when he had the hounds, and Barney Smith and the whips
to himself,--and I was there--we all rode off at a fast trot to
Loughrea."
"And then?"
"We could do nothing but go home; the whole county seemed to be in a
ferment. At Loughrea we went away in our own directions, and poor Tom
with Barney Smith rode home to Ahaseragh. But not a word did he speak
to anyone, even to Barney; nor did Barney dare to speak a word to
him. He trotted all the way to Ahaseragh in moody silence, thinking
of the terrible ill that had been done him. I have known Tom for
twenty years, and I think that if he loves any man he loves me. But
he parted from me that day without a word."
"And then the kennels were set on fire?"
"Before I left Loughrea I heard the report, spread about everywhere,
that Tom Daly had recklessly ridden down three or four more poor
countrymen on the road. I knew then that some mischief would be in
hand. It was altogether untrue that he had hurt anyone. And he was
bound to interfere on behalf of his own servant. But when I heard
this morning that a score of men had been there in the night and had
burned the kennels to the ground, I was not surprised." Such was the
story that Frank Jones heard as to Tom Daly before he got home.
On reaching Ballyglunin he looked out for the carman, but he was not
there. Perhaps the interference with his task had banished him. Frank
went on to Tuam, which increased slightly the distance by road to
Morony. But at Tuam he found that Morony had in truth been boycotted.
He could not get a car for love or money. There were many cars there,
and the men would not explain to him their reasons for declining to
take him home; but they all refused. "We can't do it, Mr. Frank,"
said one man; and that was the nearest approach to an explanation
that was forthcoming. He walked into town and called at various
houses; but it was to no purpose. It was with difficulty that he
found himself allowed to leave his baggage at a grocer's shop, so
strict was the boycotting exacted. And then he too had to walk home
through Headford to Morony Castle.
When he reached the house he first encountered Peter, the butler.
"Faix thin, Mr. Frank," said Peter, "throubles niver comed in 'arnest
till now. Why didn't they allow Mr. Flory just to hould his pace and
say nothing about it to no one?"
"Why has all this been done?" demanded Frank.
"It's that born divil, Pat Carroll," whispered Peter. "I wouldn't be
saying it so that any of the boys or girls should hear me,--not for
my throat's sake. I am the only one of 'em," he added, whispering
still lower than before, "that's doing a ha'porth for the masther.
There are the two young ladies a-working their very fingers off down
to the knuckles. As for me, I've got it all on my shoulders." No
doubt Peter was true to his master in adversity, but he did not allow
the multiplicity of his occupations to interfere with his eloquence.
Then Frank went in and found his father seated alone in his
magistrate's room. "This is bad, father," said Frank, taking him by
the hand.
"Bad! yes, you may call it bad. I am ruined, I suppose. There are
twenty heifers ready for market next week, and I am told that not a
butcher in County Galway will look at one of them."
"Then you must send them on to Westmeath; I suppose the Mullingar
butchers won't boycott you?"
"It's just what they will do."
"Then send them on to Dublin."
"Who's to take them to Dublin?" said the father, in his distress.
"I will if there be no one else. We are not going to be knocked out
of time for want of two or three pairs of hands."
"There are two policemen here to watch the herd at night. They'd cut
the tails off them otherwise as they did over at Ballinrobe last
autumn. To whom am I to consign 'em in Dublin? While I am making new
arrangements of that kind their time will have gone by. There are
five cows should be milked morning and night. Who is to milk them?"
"Who is milking them?"
"Your sisters are doing it, with the aid of an old woman who has come
from Galway. She says she has not long to live, and with the help of
half-a-crown a day cares nothing for the Landleaguers. I wish someone
would pay me half-a-crown a day, and perhaps I should not care."
Then Frank passed on through the house to find his sisters, or Flory
as it might be. He had said not a word to his father in regard to
Florian, fearing to touch upon a subject which, as he well knew, must
be very sore. Had Florian told the truth when the deed was done, Pat
Carroll would have been tried at once, and, whether convicted or
acquitted, the matter would have been over long ago. In those days
Pat Carroll had not become a national or even a county hero. But now
he was able to secure the boycotting of his enemy even as far distant
as Ballyglunin or Tuam. In the kitchen he found Ada and Edith, who
had no comfort in these perilous days except when they could do
everything together. At the present moment they were roasting a
leg of mutton and boiling potatoes, which Frank knew were intended
especially for his own eating.
"Well, my girls, you are busy here," he said.
"Oh, yes, busy!" said Ada, who had put up her face to be kissed so as
not to soil her brother's coat by touching it with her hands. "How is
Rachel?"
"Rachel is pretty well, I believe. We will not talk of Rachel just at
present."
"Is anything wrong," asked Edith.
"We will not talk about her, not now. What is all this that has
happened here?"
"We are just boycotted," said Ada; "that's all."
"And you think that it's the best joke in the world?"
"Think it a joke!" said Edith.
"Why we have to be up every morning at five o'clock," said Ada; "and
at six we are out with the cows."
"It is no joke," said Edith, very seriously. "Papa is broken-hearted
about it. Your coming will be of the greatest comfort to us, if only
because of the pair of hands you bring. And poor Flory!"
"How has it gone with Flory?" he asked. Then Edith told the tale as
it had to be told of Florian, and of what had happened because of the
evidence he had given. He had come forward under the hands of Captain
Yorke Clayton and repeated his whole story, giving it in testimony
before the magistrates. He declared it all exactly as he had done
before in the presence of his father and his sister and Captain
Clayton. And he had sworn to it, and had had his deposition read to
him. He was sharp enough, and understood well what he was doing. The
other two men were brought up to support him,--the old man Terry and
Con Heffernan. They of course had not been present at the examination
of Flory, and were asked,--first one and then the other,--what they
knew of the transactions of the afternoon on which the waters had
been let in on the meadows of Ballintubber. They knew nothing at all,
they said. They "disremembered" whether they had been there on the
occasion, "at all, at all." Yes; they knew that the waters had been
in upon the meadows, and they believed that they were in again still.
They didn't think that the meadows were of much good for this year.
They didn't know who had done it, "at all, at all." People did be
saying that Mr. Florian had done it himself, so as to spite his
father because he had turned Catholic. They couldn't say whether Mr.
Florian could do it alone or not. They thought Mr. Florian and Peter,
the butler, and perhaps one other, might do it amongst them. They
thought that Yorke Clayton might perhaps have been the man to help
him. They didn't know that Yorke Clayton hadn't been in the county
at that time. They wished with all their hearts that he wasn't there
now, because he was the biggest blackguard they had ever heard tell
of.
Such was the story which was now told to Frank of the examination
which took place in consequence of Florian's confession. The results
were that Pat Carroll was in Galway jail, committed to take his trial
at the next assizes in August for the offence which he had committed;
and that Florian had been bound over to give evidence. "What does
Florian do with himself?" his brother asked.
"I am afraid he is frightened," said Ada.
"Of course he is frightened," said her sister. "How should he not
be frightened? These men have been telling him for the last six
months that they would surely murder him if he turned round and gave
evidence against them. Oh, Frank, I fear that I have been wrong in
persuading him to tell the truth."
"Not though his life were sacrificed to-morrow. To have kept the
counsels of such a ruffian as that against his own father would have
been a disgrace to him for ever. Does not my father think of sending
him to England?"
"He says that he has not the money," said Edith.
"Is it so bad as that with him?"
"I am afraid it is very bad,--bad at any rate, for the time coming.
He has not had a shilling of rent for this spring, and he has to pay
the money to Mrs. Pulteney and the others. Poor papa is sorely vexed,
and we do not like to press him. He suggested himself that he would
send Florian over to Mr. Blake's; but we think that Carnlough is not
far enough, and that it would be unfair to impose such a trouble on
another man."
"Could he not send him to Mrs. Pulteney?" Now Mrs. Pulteney was a
sister of Mr. Jones.
"He does not like to ask her," said Edith. "He thinks that Mrs.
Pulteney has not shown herself very kind of late. We are waiting till
you speak to him about it."
"But what does Florian do with himself?" he asked.
"You will see. He does little or nothing, but roams about the house
and talks to Peter. He did not even go to mass last Sunday. He says
that the whole congregation would accuse him of being a liar."
"Does he not know that he has done his duty by the lie he has told?"
"But to go alone among these people!" said Ada.
"And to hear their damnable taunts!" said Edith. "It is very hard
upon him. I think it is papa's idea to keep him here till after the
trial in August, and then, if possible, to send him to England. There
would be the double journey else, and papa thinks that there would be
no real danger till his evidence had been given."
Then Frank went out of the house and walked round the demesne, so
that he might think at his ease of all the troubles of his family.
CHAPTER XXI.
LAX, THE MURDERER.
Frank Jones found his brother Florian alone in the butler's pantry,
and was told that Peter was engaged in feeding the horses and
cleaning out the stables. "He's mostly engaged in that kind of work
now," said Florian.
"Who lays the tablecloth?" asked Frank.
"I do; or Edith; sometimes we don't have any tablecloth, or any clean
knives and forks. Perhaps they'll have one to-day because you have
come."
"I wouldn't give them increased trouble," said Frank.
"Papa told them to put their best foot forward because you are here.
I don't think he minds at all about himself. I think papa is very
unhappy."
"Of course he's unhappy, because they have boycotted him. How should
he not be unhappy."
"It's worse than that," whispered Florian.
"What can be worse?"
"If you'll come with me I'll tell you. I don't want to say it here,
because the girls will hear me;--and that old Peter will know
everything that's said."
"Come out into the grounds, and take a turn before dinner." At this
Florian shook his head. "Why not, Flory."
"There are fellows about," said Flory.
"What fellows?"
"The very fellows that said they'd kill me. Do you know that fellow
Lax? He's the worst of them."
"But he doesn't live here."
"All the same, I saw him yesterday."
"You were out then, yesterday?"
"Not to say out," said Flory. "I was in the orchard just behind the
stables; and I could see across into the ten-acre piece. There, at
the further side of the field, I saw a fellow, who I am sure was Lax.
Nobody walks like him, he's got that quick, suspicious way of going.
It was just nearly dark; it was well-nigh seven, and I had been with
Peter in the stables, helping to make up the horses, and I am sure it
was Lax."
"He won't come near you and me on the broad walk," said Frank.
"Won't he? You don't know him. There are half-a-dozen places there
where he could hit us from behind the wall. Come up into your room,
and I'll tell you what it is that makes papa unhappy." Then Frank
led the way upstairs to his bedroom, and Florian followed him. When
inside he shut the door, and seated himself on the bed close to his
brother. "Now I'll tell you," said he.
"What is it ails him?"
"He's frightened," said Florian, "because he doesn't wish me to
be--murdered."
"My poor boy! Who could wish it?" Here Florian shook his head. "Of
course he doesn't wish it."
"He made me tell about the meadow gates."
"You had to tell that, Flory."
"But it will bring them to murder me. If you had heard them make me
promise and had seen their looks! Papa never thought about that till
the man had come and worked it all out of me."
"What man?"
"The head of the policemen, Yorke Clayton. Papa was so fierce upon me
then, that he made me do it."
"You had to do it," said Frank. "Let things go as they might, you had
to do it. You would not have it said of you that you had joined these
ruffians against your father."
"I had sworn to Father Brosnan not to tell. But you care nothing for
a priest, of course."
"Nothing in the least."
"Nor does father. But when I had told it all at his bidding, and
had gone before the magistrates, and they had written it down, and
that man Clayton had read it all and I had signed it, and papa had
seen the look which Pat Carroll had turned upon me, then he became
frightened. I knew that that man Lax was in the room at the moment. I
did not see him, but I felt that he was there. Now I don't go out at
all, except just into the orchard and front garden. I won't go even
there, as I saw Lax about the place yesterday. I know that they mean
to murder me."
"There will be no danger," said Frank, "unless Carroll be convicted.
In that case your father will have you sent to a school in England."
"Papa hasn't got the money; I heard him tell Edith so. And they
wouldn't know how to carry me to the station at Ballyglunin. Those
boys from Ballintubber would shoot at me on the road. It's that that
makes papa so unhappy."
Then they all went to dinner with a cloth laid fair on the table, for
Frank, who was as it were a stranger. And there were many inquiries
made after Rachel and her theatrical performances. Tidings as to her
success had already reached Morony, and wonderful accounts of the
pecuniary results. They had seen stories in the newspapers of the
close friendship which existed between her and Mr. Moss, and hints
had been given for a closer tie. "I don't think it is likely," said
Frank.
"But is anything the matter between you and Rachel?" asked Edith.
At that moment Peter was walking off with the leg of mutton, and Ada
had run into the kitchen to fetch the rice pudding, which she had
made to celebrate her brother's return. Edith winked at her brother
to show that all questions as to the tender subject should be
postponed for the moment.
"But is it true," said Ada, "that Rachel is making a lot of money?"
"That is true, certainly," said her brother.
"And that she sings gloriously?"
"She always did sing gloriously," said Edith. "I was sure that Rachel
was intended for a success."
"I wonder what Captain Yorke Clayton would think about her," said
Ada. "He does understand music, and is very fond of young ladies who
can sing. I heard him say that the Miss Ormesbys of Castlebar sang
beautifully; and he sings himself, I know."
"Captain Clayton has something else to do at present than to watch
the career of Miss O'Mahony in London." This was said by their
father, and was the first word he had spoken since they had sat down
to dinner. It was felt to convey some reproach as to Rachel; but why
a reproach was necessary was not explained.
Peter was now out of the room, and the door was shut.
"Rachel and I have come to understand each other," said Frank. "She
is to have the spending of her money by herself, and I by myself am
to enjoy life at Morony Castle."
"Is this her decision?" asked Edith.
It was on Frank's lips to declare that it was so; but he remembered
himself, and swallowed down the falsehood unspoken.
"No," he said; "it was not her decision. She offered to share it all
with me."
"And you?" said his father.
"Well, I didn't consent; and so we arranged that matters should be
brought to an end between us."
"I knew what she would do," said Ada.
"Just what she ought," said Edith. "Rachel is a fine girl. Nothing
else was to be expected from her."
"And nothing else was possible with you," said their father. And so
that conversation was brought to an end.
On the next day Captain Clayton came up the lake from Galway, and
was again engaged,--or pretended to be engaged,--in looking up for
evidence in reference to the trial of Pat Carroll. Or it might be
that he wanted to sun himself again in the bright eyes of Ada Jones.
Again he brought Hunter, his double, with him, and boldly walked from
Morony Castle into Headford, disregarding altogether the loaded guns
of Pat Carroll's friends. In company with Frank he paid a visit to
Tom Lafferty in his own house at Headford. But as he went there he
insisted that Frank should carry a brace of pistols in his trousers'
pockets. "It's as well to do it, though you should never use them, or
a great deal better that you should never use them. You don't want to
get into all the muck of shooting a wretched, cowardly Landleaguer.
If all the leaders had but one life among them there would be
something worth going in for. But it is well that they should believe
that you have got them. They are such cowards that if they know
you've got a pistol with you they will be afraid to get near enough
to shoot you with a rifle. If you are in a room with fellows who see
that you have your hand in your trousers' pocket, they will be in
such a funk that you cow half-a-dozen of them. They look upon Hunter
and me as though we were an armed company of policemen." So Frank
carried the pistols.
"Well, Mr. Lafferty, how are things going with you to-day?"
"'Deed, then, Captain Clayton, it ain't much as I'm able to say for
myself. I've the decentry that bad in my innards as I'm all in the
twitters."
"I'm sorry for that, Mr. Lafferty. Are you well enough to tell me
where did Mr. Lax go when he left you this morning?"
"Who's Mr. Lax? I don't know no such person."
"Don't you, now? I thought that Mr. Lax was as well-known in Headford
as the parish priest. Why, he's first cousin to your second cousin,
Pat Carroll."
"'Deed and he ain't then;--not that I ever heard tell of."
"I've no doubt you know what relations he's got in these parts."
"I don't know nothin' about Terry Lax."
"Except that his name is Terry," said the Captain.
"I don't know nothin' about him, and I won't tell nothin' either."
"But he was here this morning, Mr. Lafferty?"
"Not that I know of. I won't say nothin' more about him. It's as bad
as lying you are with that d----d artful way of entrapping a fellow."
Here Terry Carroll, Pat's brother, entered the cabin, and took off
his hat, with an air of great courtesy. "More power to you, Mr.
Frank," he said, "it's I that am glad to see you back from London.
These are bad tidings they got up at the Castle. To think of Mr.
Flory having such a story to tell as that."
"It's a true story at any rate," said Frank.
"Musha thin, not one o' us rightly knows. It's a long time ago, and
if I were there at all, I disremember it. Maybe I was, though I
wasn't doing anything on me own account. If Pat was to bid me, I'd do
that or any other mortal thing at Pat's bidding."
"If you are so good a brother as that, your complaisance is likely
to bring you into trouble, Mr. Carroll. Come along, Jones, I've
got pretty nearly what I wanted from them." Then when they were in
the street, he continued speaking to Frank. "Your brother is right,
though I wouldn't have believed it on any other testimony than one
of themselves. That man Lax was here in the county yesterday. A more
murderous fellow than he is not to be found in Connaught; and he's
twice worse than any of the fellows about here. They will do it for
revenge, or party purposes. He has a regular tariff for cutting
throats. I should not wonder if he has come here for the sake of
carrying out the threats which they made against your poor brother."
"Do you mean that he will be murdered?"
"We must not let it come to that. We must have Lax up before the
magistrate for having been present when they broke the flood gates."
"Have you got evidence of that?"
"We can make the evidence serve its purpose for a time. If we can
keep him locked up till after the trial we shall have done much. By
heavens, there he is!"
As he spoke the flash of a shot glimmered across their eyes, and
seemed to have been fired almost within a yard of them; but they were
neither of them hit. Frank turned round and fired in the direction
from whence the attack had come, but it was in vain. Clayton did
bring his revolver from out his pocket, but held his fire. They were
walking in a lane just out of the town that would carry them by a
field-path to Morony Castle, and Clayton had chosen the path in order
that he might be away from the public road. It was still daylight
though it was evening, and the aggressor might have been seen had he
attempted to cross their path. The lane was, as it were, built up on
both sides with cabins, which had become ruins, each one of which
might serve as a hiding-place. Hunter was standing close to them
before another word was spoken.
"Did you see him?" demanded Clayton.
"Not a glimpse; but I heard him through there, where the dead leaves
are lying." There were a lot of dead leaves strewed about, some of
which were in sight, within an enclosure separated from them by a low
ruined wall. On leaving this the Captain was over it in a moment, but
he was over it in vain. "For God's sake, sir, don't go after him in
that way," said Hunter, who followed close upon his track. "It's no
more than to throw your life away."
"I'd give the world to have one shot at him," said Clayton. "I don't
think I would miss him within ten paces."
"But he'd have had you, Captain, within three, had he waited for
you."
"He never would have waited. A man who fires at you from behind a
wall never will wait. Where on earth has he taken himself?" And
Clayton, with the open pistol in his hand, began to search the
neighbouring hovels.
"He's away out of that by this time," said Hunter.
"I heard the bullet pass by my ears," said Frank.
"No doubt you did, but a miss is as good as a mile any day. That a
fellow like that who is used to shooting shouldn't do better is a
disgrace to the craft. It's that fellow Lax, and as I'm standing on
the ground this moment I'll have his life before I've done with him."
Nothing further came from this incident till the three started on
their walk back to Morony Castle. But they did not do this till they
had thoroughly investigated the ruins. "Do you know anything of the
man?" said Frank, "as to his whereabouts? or where he comes from?"
Then Clayton gave some short account of the hero. He had first come
across him in the neighbourhood of Foxford near Lough Conn, and had
there run him very hard, as the Captain said, in reference to an
agrarian murder. He knew, he said, that the man had received thirty
shillings for killing an old man who had taken a farm from which a
tenant had been evicted. But he had on that occasion been tried and
acquitted. He had since that lived on the spoils acquired after the
same fashion. He was supposed to have come originally from Kilkenny,
and whether his real name was or was not Lax, Captain Clayton did not
pretend to say.
"But he had a fair shot at me," said Captain Clayton, "and it shall
go hard with me but I shall have as fair a one at him. I think it was
Urlingford gave the fellow his birth. I doubt whether he will ever
see Urlingford again."
So they walked back, and by the time they had reached the Castle
were quite animated and lively with the little incident. "It may be
possible," said the Captain to Mr. Jones, "that he expected my going
to Headford. It certainly was known in Galway yesterday, that I was
to come across the lake this morning, and the tidings may have come
up by some fellow-traveller. He would drop word with some of the
boys at Ballintubber as he passed by. And they might have thought it
likely that I should go to Headford. They have had their chance on
this occasion, and they have not done any good with it."
CHAPTER XXII.
MORONY CASTLE IS BOYCOTTED.
The men seemed to make a good joke of the afternoon's employment,
but not so the young ladies. In the evening they had a little music,
and Captain Clayton declared that the Miss Ormesbys were grand
performers. "And I am told that they are lovely girls," said Ada.
"Well, yes; lovely is a very strong word."
"I'd rather be called lovely than anything," said Ada.
"Now, Captain Clayton," said Edith, "if you wish for my respect,
don't fall into the trap which Ada has so openly laid for you."
"I meant nothing of the kind," said Ada. "I hope that Captain Clayton
knows me better. But, Captain Clayton, you don't mean that you'll
walk down to the boat to-morrow?"
"Why not? He'll never have the pluck to fire at me two days running.
And I doubt whether he'll allow me so fair a chance of seeing him."
"I wonder how you can sleep at night, knowing that such a man as this
is always after your life."
"I wonder whether he sleeps at night, when he thinks such a man as
I am after his life. And I allow him, to boot, all his walks and
hiding-places." Then Ada began to implore him not to be too rash.
She endeavoured to teach him that no good could come from such
foolhardiness. If his life was of no value to himself, it was of
great value to others;--to his mother, for instance, and to his
sister. "A man's life is of no real value," said the Captain, "until
he has got a wife and family--or at any rate, a wife."
"You don't think the wife that is to be need mind it?" said Edith.
"The wife that is to be must be in the clouds, and in all
probability, will never come any nearer. I cannot allow that a man
can be justified in neglecting his duties for the sake of a cloudy
wife."
"Not in neglecting absolute duties," said Ada, sadly.
"A man in my position neglects his duty if he leaves a stone unturned
in pursuit of such a blackguard as this. And when a man is used to
it, he likes it. There's your brother quite enjoyed being shot at,
just as though he were resident magistrate; at any rate, he looked as
though he did."
So the conversation went on through the evening, during the whole of
which poor Florian made one of the party. He said very little, but
sat close to his sister Edith, who frequently had his hand in her
own. The Captain constantly had his eye upon him without seeming to
watch him, but still was thinking of him as the minutes flew by.
It was not that the boy was in danger; for the Captain thought the
danger to be small, and that it was reduced almost to nothing as long
as he remained in the house,--but what would be the effect of fear on
the boy's mind? And if he were thus harassed could he be expected to
give his evidence in a clear manner? Mr. Jones was not present after
dinner, having retired at once to his own room. But just as the girls
had risen to go to bed, and as Florian was preparing to accompany
them, Peter brought a message saying that Mr. Jones would be glad to
see Captain Clayton before he went for the night. Then the Captain
got up, and bidding them all farewell, followed Peter to Mr. Jones's
room. "I shall go on by the early boat," he said as he was leaving
the room.
"You'll have breakfast first, at any rate," said Ada. The Captain
swore that he wouldn't, and the girls swore that he should. "We never
let anybody go without breakfast," said Ada.
"And particularly not a man," said Edith, "who has just been shot at
on our behalf," But the Captain explained that it might be as well
that he should be down waiting for the boat half an hour at any rate
before it started.
"I and Hunter," said he, "would have a fair look out around us there,
so that no one could get within rifle shot of us without our seeing
them, and they won't look out for us so early. I don't think much
of Mr. Lax's courage, but it may be as well to keep a watch when it
can be so easily done." Then Ada went off to her bed, resolving that
the breakfast should be ready, though it was an hour before the boat
time. The boat called at the wharf at eight in the morning, and the
wharf was three miles distant from the house. She could manage to
have breakfast ready at half-past six.
"Ada, my girl," said Edith, as they departed together, "don't you
make a fool of that young man."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Didn't you tell me that a man who has to be shot at ought not to be
married; and didn't he say that he would leave his future wife up
among the clouds?"
"He may leave her where he likes for me," said Ada. "When a man is
doing so much for us oughtn't he to have his breakfast ready for him
at half-past six o'clock?" There was no more then said between them
on that subject; but Edith resolved that as far as boiling the water
was concerned, she would be up as soon as Ada.
When the Captain went into Mr. Jones's room he was asked to sit down,
and had a cigar offered to him. "Thanks, no; I don't think I'll
smoke. Smoking may have some sort of effect on a fellow's hand.
There's a gentleman in these parts who I should be sorry should owe
his life to any little indulgence of that sort on my behalf."
"You are thinking of the man who fired at you?"
"Well, yes; I am. Not that I shall have any chance at him just
at present. He won't come near me again this visit. The next
that I shall hear from him will be from round some corner in
the neighbourhood of Galway. I think I know every turn in that
blackguard's mind."
"Have you been speaking to Florian about him, Captain Clayton?"
"Not a word."
"Nor has his brother?"
"I think not."
"What am I to do about the poor boy?" said the anxious father.
"Because of his fear about this very man?"
"He is only a boy, you know."
"Of course he is only a boy. You've no right to expect from him the
pluck of a man. When he is as old as his brother he'll have his
brother's nerve. I like to see a man plucky under fire when he is not
used to it. When you've got into the way of it, it means nothing."
"What am I do about Florian? There are four months before the
assizes. He cannot remain in the house for four months."
"What would he be at the end of it?" said the Captain. "That is what
we have to think of."
"Would it alter him?"
"I suppose it would,--if he were here with his sister, talking of
nothing but this wretched man, who seems to haunt him. We have to
remember, Mr. Jones, how long it was before he came forward with his
story."
"I think he will be firm with it now."
"No doubt,--if he had to tell it out in direct evidence. When he is
there in the court telling it, he will not think much of Mr. Lax,
nor even of Pat Carroll, who will be in the dock glaring at him;
nor would he think much of anything but his direct story, while a
friendly barrister is drawing it out of him; but when it comes to his
cross-examination, it will be different. He will want all his pluck
then, and all the simplicity which he can master. You must remember
that a skilful man will have been turned loose on him with all the
ferocity of a bloodhound; a man who will have all the cruelty of Lax,
but will have nothing to fear; a man who will be serving his purpose
all round if he can only dumbfound that poor boy by his words and
his looks. A man, when he has taken up the cause of these ruffians,
learns to sympathise with them. If they hate the Queen, hate the
laws, hate all justice, these men learn to hate them too. When they
get hold of me, and I look into the eyes of such a one, I see there
my bitterest enemy. He holds Captain Yorke Clayton up to the hatred
of the whole court, as though he were a brute unworthy of the
slightest mercy,--a venomous reptile, against whom the whole country
should rise to tear him in pieces. And I look round and see the same
feeling written in the eyes of them all. I found it more hard to get
used to that than to the snap of a pistol; but I have got used to it.
Poor Florian will have had no such experience. And there will be no
mercy shown to him because he is only a boy. Neither sex nor age is
supposed to render any such feeling necessary to a lawyer. A lawyer
in defending the worst ruffian that ever committed a crime will
know that he is called upon to spare nothing that is tender. He is
absolved from all the laws common to humanity. And then poor Florian
has lied." A gloomy look of sad, dull pain came across the father's
brow as he heard these words. "We must look it in the face, Mr.
Jones."
"Yes, look it all in the face."
"He has repeated the lie again and again for six months. He has been
in close friendship with these men. It will be made out that he has
been present at all their secret meetings. He has been present at
some of them. It will be very hard to get a jury to convict on his
evidence if it be unsupported."
"Shall we withdraw him?" asked Mr. Jones.
"You cannot do it. His deposition has been sworn and put forward in
the proper course. Besides it is his duty and yours,--and mine," he
added. "He must tell his story once again, and must endure whatever
torment the law-rebels of the court have in store for him. Only it
will be well to think what course of treatment may best prepare him
for the trial. You should treat him with the greatest kindness."
"He is treated kindly."
"But you, I think, and his sisters and his brother should endeavour
to make him feel that you do not think harshly of him because of
the falsehoods he has told. Go out with him occasionally." Here Mr.
Jones raised his eyebrows as feeling surprised at the kind of counsel
given. "Put some constraint on yourself so as to make him feel by the
time he has to go into court with you that he has a friend with him."
"I trust that he always feels that," said Mr. Jones.
They went on discussing the matter till late at night, and Captain
Clayton made the father understand what it was that he intended. He
meant that the boy should be made to know that his father was to him
as are other fathers, in spite of the lie which he had told, and of
the terrible trouble which he had caused by telling it. But Mr. Jones
felt that the task imposed upon him would be almost impossible. He
was heavy at heart, and unable to recall to himself his old spirits.
He had been thoroughly ashamed of his son, and was not possessed of
that agility of heart which is able to leap into good-humour at once.
Florian had been restored to his old manner of life; sitting at table
with his father and occasionally spoken to by him. He had been so
far forgiven; but the father was still aware that there was still
a dismal gap between himself and his younger boy, as regarded that
affectionate intercourse which Captain Clayton recommended. And yet
he knew that it was needed, and resolved that he would do his best,
however imperfectly it might be done.
On the next morning the Captain went his way, and did ample homage to
the kindly exertions made on his behalf by the two girls. "Now I know
you must have been up all night, for you couldn't have done it all
without a servant in the house."
"How dare you belittle our establishment!" said Ada. "What do you
think of Peter? Is Peter nobody? And it was poor Florian who boiled
the kettle. I really don't know whether we should not get on better
altogether without servants than with them." The breakfast was eaten
both by the Captain in the parlour and by Hunter in the kitchen in
great good humour. "Now, my fine fellow," said the former, "have
you got your pistols ready? I don't think we shall want them this
morning, but it's as well not to give these fellows a chance." Hunter
was pleased by being thus called into council before the young
ladies, and they both started in the highest good humour. Captain
Clayton, as he went, told himself that Ada Jones was the prettiest
girl of his acquaintance. His last sentimental affinity with the
youngest Miss Ormesby waxed feeble and insipid as he thought of Ada.
Perhaps Edith, he said to himself, is the sharpest of the two, but
in good looks she can't hold a candle to her sister. So he passed on,
and with his myrmidon reached Galway, without incurring any
impediment from Mr. Lax.
In the course of the morning, Mr. Jones sent for Florian, and
proposed to walk out with him about the demesne. "I don't think there
will be any danger," he said. "Captain Clayton went this morning, and
the people don't know yet whether he has gone. I think it is better
that you should get accustomed to it, and not give way to idle
fears." The boy apparently agreed to this, and got his hat. But he
did not leave the shelter of the house without sundry misgivings. Mr.
Jones had determined to act at once upon the Captain's advice, and
had bethought himself that he could best do so by telling the whole
truth to the boy. "Now, Florian, I think it would be as well that you
and I should understand each other." Florian looked up at him with
fearful eyes, but made no reply. "Of course I was angry with you
while you were hesitating about those ruffians."
"Yes; you were," said Florian.
"I can quite understand that you have felt a difficulty."
"Yes, I did," said Florian.
"But that is all over now."
"If they don't fire at me it is over, I suppose, till August."
"They shan't fire at you. Don't be afraid. If they fire at you, they
must fire at me too." The father was walking with his arm about the
boy's neck. "You, at any rate, shall incur no danger which I do not
share. You will understand--won't you--that my anger against you is
passed and gone?"
"I don't know," said the boy.
"It is so,--altogether. I hope to be able to send you to school in
England very soon after the trial is over. You shall go to Mr. Monro
at first, and to Winchester afterwards, if I can manage it. But we
won't think of Winchester just at present. We must do the best we can
to get a good place for you on your first going into the school."
"I am not afraid about that," said Florian, thinking that at the time
when the school should have come all the evils of the trials would
have been passed away and gone.
"All the same you might come and read with me every morning for an
hour, and then for an hour with each of your sisters. You will want
something to do to make up your time. And remember, Florian, that
all my anger has passed away. We will be the best of friends, as in
former days, so that when the time shall have come for you to go into
court, you may be quite sure that you have a friend with you there."
To all this Florian made very little reply; but Mr. Jones remembered
that he could not expect to do much at a first attempt. Weary as the
task would be he would persevere. For the task would be weary even
with his own son. He was a man who could do nothing graciously which
he could not do _con amore_. And he felt that all immediate warm
liking for the poor boy had perished in his heart. The boy had
made himself the friend of such a one as Pat Carroll, and in his
friendship for him had lied grossly. Mr. Jones had told himself
that it was his duty to forgive him, and had struggled to perform
his duty. For the performance of any deed necessary for the boy's
security, he could count upon himself. But he could not be happy in
his company as he was with Edith. The boy had been foully untrue to
him--but still he would do his best.
CHAPTER XXIII.
TOM DALY IS BOYCOTTED.
When the time came round, Frank Jones started for Ballinasloe, with
his father's cattle and with Peter to help him. They did succeed in
getting a boy to go with them, who had been seduced by a heavy bribe
to come down for the purpose from Ballinasloe to Morony Castle. As he
had been used to cattle, Peter's ignorance and Frank's also were of
less account. They drove the cattle to Tuam, and there got them on
the railway, the railway with its servants being beyond the power of
the boycotters. At Ballinasloe they could not sell the cattle, as the
name of Mr. Jones of Morony had become terribly notorious throughout
County Galway. But arrangements had been made to send them to a
salesman up in Dublin, and from Ballinasloe they had gone under the
custody of Peter and the boy. No attempt was made absolutely to harm
the beasts, or even to stop them in the streets. But throughout the
town it seemed to be perfectly understood that they were the property
of Philip Jones of Morony Castle, and that Philip Jones had been
boycotted by the League. The poor beasts were sent on to Dublin
without a truss of hay among them, and even Frank himself was refused
a meal at the first inn at which he had called. He did afterwards
procure accommodation; but he heard while in the house, that the
innkeeper was threatened for what he had done. Had it not been that
Peter had brought with him a large basket of provisions for himself
and the boy, they, too, would have been forced to go on dinnerless
and supperless to Dublin.
Frank, on his way back home, resolved that he would call on Mr. Daly
at Daly's Bridge, near Castle Blakeney. It was Daly's wont to live
at Daly's Bridge when the hounds were not hunting, though he would
generally go four or five times a week from Daly's Bridge to the
kennels. To Castle Blakeney a public car was running, and the public
car did not dare, or probably did not wish, to boycott anyone. He
walked up to the open door at Daly's Bridge and soon found himself in
the presence of Black Tom Daly. "So you are boycotted?" said Tom.
"Horse, foot, and dragoons," said Frank.
"What's to come of it, I wonder?" Tom as he said this was sitting at
an open window making up some horse's drug to which was attached some
very strong odour. "I am boycotted too, and the poor hounds, which
have given hours of amusement to many of these wretches, for which
they have not been called upon to pay a shilling. I shall have to
sell the pack, I'm afraid," said Tom, sadly.
"Not yet, I hope, Mr. Daly."
"What do you mean by that? Who's to keep them without any
subscription? And who's to subscribe without any prospect of hunting?
For the matter of that who's to feed the poor dumb brutes? One pack
will be boycotted after another till not a pack of hounds will be
wanted in all Ireland."
"Has the same thing happened to any other pack?" asked Frank.
"Certainly it has. They turned out against the Muskerry; and there's
been a row in Kildare. We are only at the beginning of it yet."
"I don't suppose it will go on for ever," said Frank.
"Why don't you suppose so? What's to be the end of it all? Do you see
any way out of it?--for I do not. Does your father see his way to
bringing those meadows back into his hands? I'm told that some of
those fellows shot at Clayton the other day down at Headford. How are
we to expect a man like Clayton to come forward and be shot at in
that fashion? As far as I can see there will be no possibility for
anyone to live in this country again. Of course it's all over with
me. I haven't got any rents to speak of, and the only property I
possess is now useless."
"What property?" asked Frank.
"What property?" rejoined Tom in a voice of anger. "What property?
Ain't the hounds property, or were property a few weeks ago? Who'll
subscribe for next year? We had a meeting in February, you know, and
the fellows put down their names the same as ever. But they can't be
expected to pay when there will be no coverts for them to draw. The
country can do nothing to put a stop to this blackguardism. When
they've passed this Coercion Bill they're going to have some sort
of Land Bill,--just a law to give away the land to somebody. What's
to come of the poor country with such men as Mr. Gladstone and Mr.
Bright to govern it? They're the two very worst men in the whole
empire for governing a country. Martial law with a regiment in each
county, and a strong colonel to carry it out,--that is the only
way of governing left us. I don't pretend to understand politics,
but every child can see that. And you should do away with the
constituencies, at any rate for the next five years. What are you to
expect with such a set of men as that in Parliament,--men whom no one
would speak to if they were to attempt to ride to hounds in County
Galway. It makes me sick when I hear of it."
Such were Tom Daly's sad outlooks into the world. And sad as they
were, they seemed to be justified by circumstances as they operated
upon him. There could be no hunting in County Galway next session
unless things were to change very much for the better. And there was
no prospect of any such change. "It's nonsense talking of a poor
devil like me being ruined. You ask me what property I have got."
"I don't think I ever asked that," said Frank.
"It don't matter. You're quite welcome. You'll find eight or nine
pair of leather breeches in that press in there. And round about the
room somewhere there are over a dozen pair of top-boots. They are the
only available property I have got. They are paid for, and I can do
what I please with them. The four or five hundred acres over there on
the road to Tuam are mostly bog, and are strictly entailed so that I
cannot touch them. As there is not a tenant will pay the rent since
I've been boycotted it doesn't make much matter. I have not had a
shilling from them for more than twelve months; and I don't suppose
I ever shall see another. The poor hounds are eating their heads off;
as fine a pack of hounds as any man ever owned, as far as their
number goes. I can't keep them, and who'll buy them? They tell me I
must send them over to Tattersall's. But as things are now I don't
suppose they'll pay the expense. I don't care who knows it, but I
haven't three hundred pounds in the world. And I'm over fifty years
of age. What do you think of that as the condition for a man to be
brought to?"
Frank Jones had never heard Daly speak at such length before, nor had
he given him credit for so much eloquence. Nor, indeed, had anyone
in the County of Galway heard him speak so many words till this
misfortune had fallen upon him. And he would still be silent and
reserved with all except a few hunting men whom he believed to be
strongly influenced by the same political feeling as he was himself.
Here was he boycotted most cruelly, but not more cruelly than was Mr.
Jones of Morony Castle. The story of Florian Jones had got about the
county, and had caused Mr. Jones to be pitied greatly by such men as
Tom Daly. "His own boy to turn against him!" Tom had said. "And to
become a Papist! A boy of ten years old to call himself a Papist, as
if he would know anything about it. And then to lie,--to lie like
that! I feel that his case is almost worse than mine." Therefore he
had burst out with his sudden eloquence to Frank Jones, whom he had
liked. "Oh, yes! I can send you over to Woodlawn Station. I have
got a horse and car left about the place. Here's William Persse of
Galway. He's the stanchest man we have in the county, but even he can
do nothing."
Then Mr. Persse rode into the yard,--that Mr. Persse who, when the
hounds met at Ballytowngal, had so strongly dissuaded Daly from using
his pistol. He was a man who was reputed to have a good income, or at
any rate a large estate,--though the two things at the present moment
were likely to have a very various meaning. But he was a man less
despondent in his temperament than Tom Daly, and one that was likely
to prevail with Tom by the strength of his character. "Well, Tom,"
said Persse, as he walked into the house, "how are things using you
now? How are you, Jones? I'm afraid your father is getting it rather
hot at Morony Castle."
"They've boycotted us, that's all."
"So I understand. Is it not odd that some self-appointed individual
should send out an edict, and that suddenly all organised modes of
living among people should be put a stop to! Here's Tom not allowed
to get a packet of greaves into his establishment unless he sends to
Dublin for it."
"Nor to have it sent over here," said Tom, "unless I'll send my own
horse and cart to fetch it. And every man and boy I have about the
place is desired to leave me at the command of some d----d O'Toole,
whose father kept a tinker's shop somewhere in County Mayo, and whose
mother took in washing."
There was a depth of scorn intended to be conveyed by all this,
because in Daly's estimation County Mayo was but a poor county to
live in, as it had not for many a year possessed an advertised pack
of fox-hounds. And the O'Tooles were not one of the tribes of Galway,
or a clan especially esteemed in that most aristocratic of the
western counties.
"Have all the helpers gone?"
"I haven't asked them to stay; but unless they have stayed of their
own accord I have just shaken hands with them. It's all that one
gentleman can do to another when he meets him."
"Mr. Daly is talking of selling the hounds," said Frank Jones.
"Not quite yet, Tom," said Mr. Persse. "You mustn't do anything in a
hurry."
"They'll have to starve if they remain here," said the master of
hounds.
"I have come over here to say a word about them. I don't suppose this
kind of thing will last for ever, you know."
"Can you see any end to it?" said the other.
"Not as yet I can't, except that troubles when they come generally
do have an end. We always think that evils will last for ever,--and
blessings too. When two-year-old ewes went up to three pound ten at
Ballinasloe, we thought that we were to get that price for ever, but
they were soon down to two seventeen six; and when we had had two
years of the potato famine, we thought that there would never be
another potato in County Galway. For the last five years we've had
them as fine at Doneraile as ever I saw them. Nobody is ever quite
ruined, or quite has his fortune made."
"I am very near the ruin," said Tom Daly.
"I would struggle to hold on a little longer yet," said the other.
"How many horses have you got here and at Ahaseragh?"
"There are something over a dozen," said Tom. "There may be
fifteen in all. I was thinking of sending a draught over to
Tattersall's next week. There are some of them would not be worth a
five-and-twenty-pound note when you got them there!"
"Well, now I'll tell you what I propose. You shall send over
four or five to be summered at Doneraile. There is grass enough
there, and though I can't pay my debts, my credit is good at the
corn-chandler's." Black Tom, as he heard this, sat still looking
blacker than ever. He was a man who hated to have a favour offered
to him. But he could bear the insult better from Persse of Doneraile
than from anyone else in the county. "I've talked the matter over
with Lynch--"
"D---- Lynch," said Daly. He didn't dislike Sir Jasper, but Sir
Jasper did not stand quite so high in his favour as did Mr. Persse of
Doneraile.
"You needn't d---- anybody; but just listen to me. Sir Jasper says
that he will take three, and Nicholas Bodkin will do the same."
"They are both baronets," said Daly. "I hate a man with a handle to
his name; he always seems to me to be stuck-up, as though he demanded
something more than other people. There is that Lord Ardrahan--"
"A very good fellow too. Don't you be an ass. Lord Ardrahan has
offered to take three more."
"I knew it," said Tom.
"It's not as though any favour were offered or received. Though the
horses are your own property, they are kept for the services of the
hunt. We all understand very well how things are circumstanced at
present."
"How do you think I am to feed my hounds if you take away the horses
which they would eat?" said Daly, with an attempt at a grim joke.
But after the joke Tom became sad again, almost to tears, and he
allowed his friend to make almost what arrangements he pleased for
distributing both hounds and horses among the gentry of the hunt.
"And when they are gone," said he, "I am to sit here alone with
nothing on earth to do. What on earth is to become of me when I have
not a hound left to give a dose of physic to?"
"We'll not leave you in such a sad strait as that," said Mr. Persse.
"It will be sad enough. If you had had a pack of hounds to look after
for thirty summers, you wouldn't like to get rid of them in a hurry.
I'm like an old nurse who is sending her babies out, or some mother,
rather, who is putting her children into the workhouse because she
cannot feed them herself. It is sad, though you don't see it in that
light."
Frank Jones got home to Castle Morony that night full of sorrow and
trouble. The cattle had been got off to Dublin in their starved
condition, but he, as he had come back, had been boycotted every yard
of the way. He could get in no car, nor yet in all Tuam could he
secure the services of a boy to carry his bag for him. He learned in
the town that the girls had sent over to purchase a joint of meat,
but had been refused at every shop. "Is trade so plentiful?" asked
Frank, "that you can afford to do without it?"
"We can't afford to do with it," said the butcher, "if it's to come
from Morony Castle."
CHAPTER XXIV.
"FROM THE FULL HEART THE MOUTH SPEAKS."
Ada was making the beds upstairs, and Edith was churning the butter
down below in the dairy, when a little bare-footed boy came in with a
letter.
"Please, miss, it's from the Captain, and he says I'm not to stir out
of this till I come back with an answer."
The letter was delivered to Edith at the dairy door, and she saw that
it was addressed to herself. She had never before seen the Captain's
handwriting, and she looked at it somewhat curiously. "If he's
to write to one of us it should be to Ada," she said to herself,
laughing. Then she opened the envelope, which enclosed a large square
stout letter. It contained a card and a written note, and on the card
was an invitation, as follows: "The Colonel and Officers of the West
Bromwich Regiment request the pleasure of the company of Mr. Jones,
the Misses Jones, and Mr. Francis Jones to a dance at the Galway
Barracks, on the 20th of May, 1881. Dancing to commence at ten
o'clock."
Then there was the note, which Edith read before she took the card
upstairs.
"My dear Miss Jones," the letter began. Edith again looked at the
envelope and perceived that the despatch had been certainly addressed
to herself--Miss Edith Jones; but between herself and her sister
there could be no jealousy as to the opening of a letter. Letters for
one were generally intended for the other also.
I hope you will both come. You ought to do so to show
the county that, though you are boycotted, you are not
smashed, and to let them understand that you are not
afraid to come out of the house although certain persons
have made themselves terrible. I send this to you instead
of to your sister, because perhaps you have a little
higher pluck. But do tell your father from me that I think
he ought, as a matter of policy, to insist on your both
coming. You could come down by the boat one day and return
the next; and I'll meet you, for fear your brother should
not be there.--Yours very faithfully,
YORKE CLAYTON.
I have got the fellows of the West Bromwich to entrust the
card to me, and have undertaken to see it duly delivered.
I hope you'll approve of my Mercury. Hunter says he
doesn't care how often he's shot at.
It was, in the first place, necessary to provide for the Mercury,
because even a god cannot be sent away after the performance of such
a journey without some provisions; and Edith, to tell the truth,
wanted to look at the ball all round before she ventured to express
an opinion to her sister and father. Her father, of course, would
not go; but should he be left alone at Morony Castle to the tender
mercies of Peter? and should Florian be left also without any woman's
hands to take charge of him? And the butter, too, was on the point of
coming, which was a matter of importance. But at last, having pulled
off her butter-making apron and having duly patted the roll of
butter, she went upstairs to her sister.
"Ada," she said, "here is such a letter;" and she held up the letter
and the card.
"Who is it from?"
"You must guess," said Edith.
"I am bad at guessing, I cannot guess. Is it Mr. Blake of Carnlough?"
"A great deal more interesting than that."
"It can't be Captain Clayton," said Ada.
"Out of the full heart the mouth speaks. It is Captain Clayton."
"What does he say, and what is the card? Give it me. It looks like an
invitation."
"Then it tells no story, because it is an invitation. It is from the
officers of the West Bromwich regiment; and it asks us to a dance on
the 20th of May."
"But that's not from Captain Clayton."
"Captain Clayton has written,--to me and not to you at all. You will
be awfully jealous; and he says that I have twice as much courage as
you."
"That's true, at any rate," said Ada, in a melancholy tone.
"Yes; and as the officers want all the girls at the ball to be at
any rate as brave as themselves, that's a matter of great importance.
He has asked me to go with a pair of pistols at my belt; but he is
afraid that you would not shoot anybody."
"May I not look at his letter?"
"Oh, no! That would not be at all proper. The letter is addressed to
me, Miss Edith Jones. And as it has come from such a very dashing
young man, and pays me particular compliments as to my courage, I
don't think I shall let anybody else see it. It doesn't say anything
special about beauty, which I think uncivil. If he had been writing
to you, it would all have been about feminine loveliness of course."
"What nonsense you do talk, Edith."
"Well, there it is. As you will read it, you must. You'll be awfully
disappointed, because there is not a word about you in it."
Then Ada read the letter. "He says he hopes we shall both come."
"Well, yes! Your existence is certainly implied in those words."
"He explains why he writes to you instead of me."
"Another actual reference to yourself, no doubt. But then he goes on
to talk of my pluck."
"He says it's a little higher than mine," said Ada, who was
determined to extract from the Captain's words as much good as was
possible, and as little evil to herself.
"So it is; only a little higher pluck! Of course he means that I
can't come near himself."
"You wouldn't pretend to?" asked Ada.
"What! to be shot at like him, and to like it. I don't know any girl
that can come quite up to that. Only if one becomes quite cock-sure,
as he is, that one won't be hit, I don't see the courage."
"Oh, I do!"
"But now about this ball?" said Edith. "Here we are, lone damsels,
making butter in our father's halls, and turning down the beds in the
lady's chamber, unable to buy anything because we are boycotted, and
with no money to buy it if we were not. And we can't stir out of the
house lest we should be shot, and I don't suppose that such a thing
as a pair of gloves is to be got anywhere."
"I've got gloves for both of us," said Ada.
"Put by for a rainy day. What a girl you are for providing for
difficulties! And you've got silk stockings too, I shouldn't wonder."
"Of course I have."
"And two ball dresses, quite new?"
"Not quite new. They are those we wore at Hacketstown before the
flood."
"Good gracious! How were Noah's daughters dressed? Or were they
dressed at all?"
"You always turn everything into nonsense," said Ada, petulantly.
"To be told I'm to wear a dress that had touched the heart of a
patriarch, and had perhaps gone well nigh to make me a patriarch's
bride! But taking it for granted that the ball dresses with all their
appurtenances are here, fit to win the heart of a modern Captain
instead of an old patriarch, is there no other reason why we should
not go?"
"What reason?" asked Ada, in a melancholy tone.
"There are reasons. You go to papa, and see whether he has not
reasons. He will tell you that every shilling should be saved for
Florian's school."
"It won't take many shillings to go to Galway. We couldn't well write
to Captain Clayton and tell him that we can't afford it."
"People keep those reasons in the background," said Edith, "though
people understand them. And then papa will say that in our condition
we ought to be ashamed to show our faces."
"What have we done amiss?"
"Not you or I perhaps," said Edith; "but poor Florian. I am
determined,--and so are you,--to take Florian to our very hearts, and
to forgive him as though this thing had never been done. He is to
us the same darling boy, as though he had never been present at the
flood gates; as though he had had no hand in bringing these evils to
Morony Castle. You and I have been angry, but we have forgiven him.
To us he is as dear as ever he was. But they know in the county what
it was that was done by Florian Jones, and they talk about it among
themselves, and they speak of you and me as Florian's sisters. And
they speak of papa as Florian's father. I think it may well be that
papa should not wish us to go to this ball."
Then there came a look of disappointment over Ada's face, as though
her doom had already been spoken. A ball to Ada, and especially a
ball at Galway,--a coming ball,--was a promise of infinite enjoyment;
but a ball with Captain Yorke Clayton would be heaven on earth. And
by the way in which this invitation had come he had been secured as a
partner for the evening. He could not write to them, and especially
call upon them to come without doing all he could to make the evening
pleasant for them. She included Edith in all these promises of
pleasantness. But Edith, if the thing was to be done at all, would
do it all for Ada. As for the danger in which the man passed his
life, that must be left in the hands of God. Looking at it with great
seriousness, as in the midst of her joking she did look at these
things, she told herself that Ada was very lovely, and that this man
was certainly lovable. And she had taken it into her imagination that
Captain Clayton was certainly in the road to fall in love with Ada.
Why should not Ada have her chance? And why should not the Captain
have his? Why should not she have her chance of having a gallant
lovable gentleman for a brother-in-law? Edith was not at all prepared
to give the world up for lost, because Pat Carroll had made himself a
brute, and because the neighbours were idiots and had boycotted them.
It must all depend upon their father, whether they should or should
not go to the ball. And she had not thought it prudent to appear too
full of hope when talking of it to Ada; but for herself she quite
agreed with the Captain that policy required them to go.
"I suppose you would like it?" she said to her sister.
"I always was fond of dancing," replied Ada.
"Especially with heroes."
"Of course you laugh at me, but Captain Clayton won't be there as an
officer; he's only a resident magistrate."
"He's the best of all the officers," said Edith with enthusiasm. "I
won't have our hero run down. I believe him to have twice as much
in him as any of the officers. He's the gallantest fellow I know. I
think we ought to go, if it's only because he wants it."
"I don't want not to go," said Ada.
"I daresay not; but papa will be the difficulty."
"He'll think more of you than of me, Edith. Suppose you go and talk
to him."
So it was decided; and Edith went away to her father, leaving Ada
still among the beds. Of Frank not a word had been spoken. Frank
would go as a matter of course if Mr. Jones consented. But Ada,
though she was left among the beds, did not at once go on with her
work; but sat down on that special bed by which her attention was
needed, and thought of the circumstances which surrounded her. Was it
a fact that she was in love with the Captain? To be in love to her
was a very serious thing,--but so delightful. She had been already
once,--well, not in love, but preoccupied just a little in thinking
of one young man. The one young man was an officer, but was now in
India, and Ada had not ventured even to mention his name in her
father's presence. Edith had of course known the secret, but Edith
had frowned upon it. She had said that Lieutenant Talbot was no
better than a stick, although he had £400 a year of his own. "He'd
give you nothing to talk about," said Edith, "but his £400 a year."
Therefore when Lieutenant Talbot went to India, Ada Jones did not
break her heart. But now Edith called Captain Clayton a hero, and
seemed in all respects to approve of him; and Edith seemed to think
that he certainly admired Ada. It was a dreadful thing to have to
fall in love with a woodcock. Ada felt that if, as things went on,
the woodcock should become her woodcock, the bullet which reached his
heart would certainly pierce her own bosom also. But such was the way
of the world. Edith had seemed to think that the man was entitled to
have a lady of his own to love; and if so, Ada seemed to think that
the place would be one very well suited to herself. Therefore she was
anxious for the ball; and at the present moment thought only of the
difficulties to be incurred by Edith in discussing the matter with
her father.
"Papa, Captain Clayton wants us to go to a ball at Galway," it was
thus that Edith began her task.
"Wants you to go a ball! What has Captain Clayton to do with you
two?"
"Nothing on earth;--at any rate not with me. Here is his letter,
which speaks for itself. He seems to think that we should show
ourselves to everybody around, to let them know that we are not
crushed by what such a one as Pat Carroll can do to us."
"Who says that we are crushed?"
"It is the people who are crushed that generally say so of
themselves. There would be nothing unusual under ordinary
circumstances in your daughters going to a ball at Galway."
"That's as may be."
"We can stay the night at Mrs. D'Arcy's, and she will be delighted
to have us. If we never show ourselves it would be as though we
acknowledged ourselves to be crushed. And to tell the truth, papa, I
don't think it is quite fair to Ada to keep her here always. She is
very beautiful, and at the same time fond of society. She is doing
her duty here bravely; there is nothing about the house that she will
not put her hand to. She is better than any servant for the way she
does her work. I think you ought to let her go; it is but for the one
night."
"And you?" asked the father.
"I must go with her, I suppose, to keep her company."
"And are not you fond of society?"
"No;--not as she is. I like the rattle very well just for a few
minutes."
"And are not you beautiful?" he asked.
"Good gracious, no! Don't be such a goose, papa."
"To me you are quite as lovely as is Ada."
"Because you are only a stupid, old papa," but she kissed him as she
said it. "You have no right to expect to have two beauties in the
family. If I were a beauty I should go away and leave you, as will
Ada. It's her destiny to be carried off by someone. Why not by some
of these gallant fellows at Galway? It's my destiny to remain at
home; and so you may know what you have got to expect."
"If it should turn out to be so, there will be one immeasurable
comfort to me in the midst of all my troubles."
"It shall be so," said she, whispering into his ear. "But, papa, you
will let us go to this ball in Galway, will you not? Ada has set her
heart upon it." So the matter was settled.
The answer to Captain Clayton, sent by Edith, was as follows; but
it was not sent till the boy had been allowed to stuff himself with
buttered toast and tea, which, to such a boy, is the acme of all
happiness.
Morony Castle, 8th of May, 1881.
DEAR CAPTAIN CLAYTON,
We will both come, of course, and are infinitely obliged
to you for the trouble you have taken on our behalf. Papa
will not come, of course. Frank will, no doubt; but he is
out after a salmon in the Hacketstown river. I hope he
will get one, as we are badly off for provisions. If he
cannot find a salmon, I hope he will find trout, or we
shall have nothing for three days running. Ada and I think
we can manage a leg of mutton between us, as far as the
cooking goes, but we haven't had a chance of trying our
hands yet. Frank, however, will write to the officers by
post. We shall sleep the night at Mrs. D'Arcy's, and can
get there very well by ourselves. All the same, we shall
be delighted to see you, if you will come down to the
boat.
Yours very truly,
EDITH JONES.
I must tell you what Ada said about our dresses, only pray
don't tell any of the officers. Of course we had to have a
consultation about our frocks, because everything in the
shops is boycotted for us. "Oh," said Ada, "there are the
gauze dresses we wore at Hacketstown _before the flood!_"
Only think of Ada and I at a ball with the Miss Noahs,
four or five thousand years ago.
Frank consented to go of course, but not without some little
difficulty. He didn't think it was a time for balls. According to his
view of things ginger should be no longer hot in the mouth.
"But why not?" said Edith. "If a ball at any time is a good thing,
why should it be bad now? Are we all to go into mourning, because
Mr. Carroll has so decreed? For myself I don't care twopence for the
ball. I don't think it is worth the ten shillings which it will cost.
But I am all for showing that we don't care so much for Mr. Carroll."
"Carroll is in prison," said Frank.
"Nor yet for Terry Lax, or Tim Brady, or Terry Carroll, or Tony
Brady. The world is not to be turned away from its proper course by
such a scum of men as that. Of course you'll do as a brother should
do, and come with us."
To this Frank assented, and on the next day went out for another
salmon, thinking no more about the party at Galway.
But the party at Galway was a matter of infinite trouble and infinite
interest to the two girls. Those dresses which had been put by from
before the flood were brought forth, and ironed, and re-ribboned, and
re-designed, as though the fate of heroes and heroines depended upon
them. And it was clearly intended that the fate of one hero and of
one heroine should depend on them, though nothing absolutely to that
effect was said at present between the sisters. It was not said, but
it was understood by both of them that it was so; and each understood
what was in the heart of the other. "Dear, dear Edith," said Ada.
"Let them boycott us as they will," said Edith, "but my pet shall
be as bright as any of them." There was a ribbon that had not been
tossed, a false flower that had on it something of the bloom of
newness. A faint offer was made by Ada to abandon some of these
prettinesses to her sister, but Edith would have none of them. Edith
pooh-poohed the idea as though it were monstrous. "Don't be a goose,
Ada," she said; "of course this is to be your night. What does it
signify what I wear?"
"Oh, but it does;--just the same as for me. I don't see why you are
not to be just as nice as myself."
"That's not true, my dear."
"Why not true? There is quite as much depends on your good fortune as
on mine. And then you are so much the cleverer of the two."
Then when the day for the ball drew near, there came to be some more
serious conversation between them.
"Ada, love, you mean to enjoy yourself, don't you?"
"If I can I will. When I go to these things I never know whether they
will lead to enjoyment or the reverse. Some little thing happens so
often, and everything seems to go wrong."
"They shouldn't go wrong with you, my pet."
"Why not with me as well as with others?"
"Because you are so beautiful to look at. You are made to be queen of
a ball-room; not a London ball-room, where everything, I take it, is
flash and faded, painted and stale, and worn out; but down here in
the country, where there is some life among us, and where a girl may
be supposed to be excited over her dancing. It is in such rooms as
this that hearts are won and lost; a bid made for diamonds is all
that is done in London."
"I never was at a London ball," said Ada.
"Nor I either; but one reads of them. I can fancy a man really caring
for a girl down in Galway. Can you fancy a man caring for a girl?"
"I don't know," said Ada.
"For yourself, now?"
"I don't think anybody will ever care much for me."
"Oh, Ada, what a fib. It is all very pretty, your mock modestly, but
it is so untrue. A man not love you! Why, I can fancy a man thinking
that the gods could not allow him a greater grace than the privilege
of taking you in his arms."
"Isn't anyone to take you in his arms, then?"
"No, no one. I am not a thing to be looked at in that light. I mean
eventually to take to women's rights, and to make myself generally
odious. Only I have promised to stick to papa, and I have got to do
that first. You;--who will you stick to?"
"I don't know," said Ada.
"If I were to suggest Captain Yorke Clayton? If I were to suppose
that he is the man who is to have the privilege?"
"Don't, Edith."
"He is my hero, and you are my pet, and I want to bring you two
together. I want to have my share in the hero; and still to keep a
share in my pet. Is not that rational?"
"I don't know that there is anything rational in it all," said Ada.
But still she went to bed well pleased that night.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE GALWAY BALL.
When the 20th of May came, the three started off together for Galway,
happy in spite of their boycotting. The girls at least were happy,
though Frank was still somewhat sombre as he thought of the edict
which Rachel O'Mahony had pronounced against him. When the boat
arrived at the quay at Galway, Captain Clayton, with one of the
officers of the West Bromwich, was there to meet it. "He is a wise
man," whispered Edith to Ada, "he takes care to provide for number
one."
"I don't see that at all," said Ada.
"That brave little warrior, who is four feet and a half high, is
intended for my escort. Two is company and three is none. I quite
agree as to that." Then they left the boat, and Edith so arranged the
party that she was to walk between the small warrior and her brother,
whereas Ada followed with Captain Clayton. In such straits of
circumstances a man always has to do what he is told. Presence of
mind and readiness is needful, but the readiness of a man is never
equal to that of a woman. So they went off to Mrs. D'Arcy's house,
and Ada enjoyed all the little preliminary sweets of the Captain's
conversation. The words that were spoken all had reference to Edith
herself; but they came from the Captain and were assuredly sweet.
"And it's really true that you are boycotted?" Mrs. D'Arcy asked.
"Certainly it's true."
"And what do they do to you? Do all the servants leave you?"
"Unless there be any like Peter who make up their minds to face the
wrath of Landleaguers. Peter has lived with us a long time, and has
to ask himself whether it will be best for him to stay or go."
"And he stays? What a noble fellow," said Mrs. D'Arcy.
"What would he do with himself if he didn't stay?" said Edith. "I
don't suppose they'd shoot him, and he gets plenty to eat. The girls
who were in the house and the young men about the place had friends
of their own living near them, so they thought it better to go.
Everybody of course does what is best for himself. And Peter, though
he has suited himself, is already making a favour of it. Papa told
him only yesterday that he might go himself if he pleased. Only
think, we had to send all the horses last week into Galway to be
shod;--and then they wouldn't do it, except one man who made a
tremendous favour of it, and after doing it charged double."
"But won't they sell you anything at Tuam?"
"Not a ha'porth. We couldn't get so much as soap for house-washing,
unless Mrs. Blake had stood by us and let us have her soap. Ada and
I have to do every bit of washing about the place. I do think well
of Peter because he insists on washing his own shirts and stockings.
Unfortunately we haven't got a mangle, and we have to iron the sheets
if we want them to look at all nice. Ada's sheets and mine, and
Florian's, are only just rough pressed. Of course we get tea and
those things down from Dublin. Only think of the way in which the
tradespeople are ruining themselves. Everything has to go to Dublin
to be sold: potatoes and cattle, and now butter. Papa says that
they won't pay for the carriage. When you come to think of it, this
boycotting is the most ruinous invention on both sides. When poor
Florian declared that he would go to mass after he had first told the
story about Pat Carroll, they swore they would boycott the chapel if
he entered the door. Not a single person would stay to receive the
mass. So he wouldn't go. It was not long after that when he became
afraid to show his face outside the hall-door."
"And yet you can come here to this ball?" said Mrs. D'Arcy.
"Exactly so. I will go where I please till they boycott the very
roads from under my feet. I expect to hear soon that they have
boycotted Ada and me, so that no young man shall come and marry us.
Of course, I don't understand such things, but it seems to me that
the Government should interfere to defend us."
When the evening came, and the witching hour was there, Ada and Edith
appeared at the barracks as bright as their second-hand finery could
make them. They had awarded to them something of especial glory as
being boycotted heroines, and were regarded with a certain amount of
envy by the Miss Blakes, Miss Bodkins, Miss Lamberts, Miss Ffrenchs,
and Miss Parsons of the neighbourhood. They had, none of them, as yet
achieved the full honours of boycotting, though some of them were
half-way to it. The Miss Ffrenchs told them how their father's sheep
had been boycotted, the shepherd having been made to leave his place.
The Miss Blakes had been boycotted because their brother had been
refused a car. And the Bodkins of Ballytowngal were held to have been
boycotted _en masse_ because of the doings at Moytubber gorse. But
none of them had been boycotted as had been the Miss Jones'; and
therefore the Miss Jones' were the heroines of the evening.
"I declare it is very nice," Ada said to her sister that night, when
they got home to Mrs. D'Arcy's, "because it got for us the pick of
all the partners."
"It got for you one partner, at any rate," said Edith, "either the
boycotting or something else." Edith had determined that it should be
so; or had determined at any rate that it should seem to be so. In
her resolution that the hero of the day should fall in love with her
sister, she had almost taught herself to think that the process had
already taken place. It was so natural that the bravest man should
fall in love with the fairest lady, that Edith took it for granted
that it already was so. She too in some sort was in love with her own
sister. Ada to her was so fair, so soft, so innocent, so feminine and
so lovable, that her very heart was in the project,--and the project
that Ada should have the hero of the hour to herself. And yet she too
had a heart of her own, and had told herself in so many words, that
she herself would have loved the man,--had it been fitting that she
should burden him with such a love. She had rejected the idea as
unfitting, impossible, and almost unfeminine. There was nothing in
her to attract the man. The idea had sprung up but for a moment, and
had been cast out as being monstrous. There was Ada, the very queen
of beauty. And the gallant hero was languishing in her smiles. It was
thus that her imagination carried her on, after the notion had once
been entertained. At the ball Edith did in fact dance with Captain
Clayton quite as often as did Ada herself, but she danced with him,
she said, as the darling sister of his supposed bride. All her talk
had been about Ada,--because Edith had so chosen the subject. But
with Ada the conversation had all been about Edith, because the
Captain had selected the subject.
We all know how a little party is made up on such occasions. Though
the party dance also with other people on occasions, they are there
especially to dance with each other. An interloper or two now and
again is very useful, so as to keep up appearances. The little
warrior whom Edith had ill-naturedly declared to be four feet and a
half high, but who was in truth five feet and a half, made up the
former. Frank did not do much dancing, devoting himself to thinking
of Rachel O'Mahony. The little man, who was a distinguished officer
named Captain Butler, of the West Bromwich, had a very good time of
it, dancing with Ada when Captain Clayton was not doing so. "The
greatest brick I ever saw in my life!"--it was thus Captain Butler
afterwards spoke of Edith, "but Ada is the girl for me, you know."
Had Edith heard this, which she could not do, because she was then on
the boat going back to Morony Castle, she would have informed Captain
Butler that Ada was not the girl for him; but Captain Clayton, who
heard the announcement made, did not seem to be much disturbed by it.
"It was a very nice party, Mrs. D'Arcy," said Edith the next morning.
"Was there a supper?"
"There was plenty to eat and drink, if you mean that, but we did not
waste our time sitting down. I hate having to sit down opposite to a
great ham when I am in the full tide of my emotions."
"There were emotions then?"
"Of course there were. What's the good of a ball without them? Fancy
Captain Butler and no emotions, or Captain Clayton! Ask Ada if there
were not. But as far as we were concerned, it was I who had the best
of it. Captain Butler was my special man for the evening, and he had
on a beautiful red jacket with gold buttons. You never saw anything
so lovely. But Captain Clayton had just a simple black coat. That is
so ugly, you know."
"Is Captain Clayton Ada's special young man?"
"Most particularly special, is he not, Ada?"
"What nonsense you do talk, Edith. He is not my special young man at
all. I'm afraid he won't be any young woman's special young man very
long, if he goes on as he does at present. Do you hear what he did
over at Ardfry? There was some cattle to be seized for rent, and all
the people on that side of the country were there. Ever so many shots
were fired, and poor Hunter got wounded in his shoulder."
"He just had his skin raised," said Edith.
"And Captain Clayton got terribly mauled in the crowd. But he
wouldn't fire a pistol at any of them. He brought some ringleader
away prisoner,--he and two policemen. But they got all the cattle,
and the tenants had to buy them back and pay their rent. When we try
to seize cattle at Ballintubber they are always driven away to County
Mayo. I do think that Captain Clayton is a real hero."
"Of course he is, my dear; that's given up to him long ago,--and to
you."
In the afternoon they went home by boat, and Frank made himself
disagreeable by croaking. "Upon my word," he said, "I think that this
is hardly a fit time for giving balls."
"Ginger should not be hot in the mouth," said Edith.
"You may put it in what language you like, but that is about what I
mean. The people who go to the balls cannot in truth afford it."
"That's the officers' look out."
"And they are here on a very sad occasion. Everything is going to
ruin in the country."
"I won't be put down by Pat Carroll," said Edith. "He shall not be
able to boast to himself that he has changed the natural course of my
life."
"He has changed it altogether."
"You know what I mean. I am not going to yield to him or to any of
them. I mean to hold my own against it as far as I can do so. I'll go
to church, and to balls, and I'll visit my friends, and I'll eat my
dinner every day of my life just as though Pat Carroll didn't exist.
He's in prison just at present, and therefore so far we have got the
best of him."
"But we can't sell a head of cattle without sending it up to Dublin.
And we can't find a man to take charge of it on the journey. We can't
get a shilling of rent, and we hardly dare to walk about the place
in the broad light of day lest we should be shot at. While things
are in this condition it is no time for dancing at balls. I am so
broken-hearted at the present moment that but for my father and for
you I would cut the place and go to America."
"Taking Rachel with you?" said Edith.
"Rachel just now is as prosperous as we are the reverse. Rachel would
not go. It is all very well for Rachel, as things are prosperous with
her. But here we have the reverse of prosperity, and according to my
feelings there should be no gaiety. Do you ever realise to yourself
what it is to think that your father is ruined?"
"We ought not to have gone," said Ada.
"Never say die," said Edith, slapping her little hand down on the
gunwale of the boat. "Morony Castle and Ballintubber belong to papa,
and I will never admit that he is ruined because a few dishonest
tenants refuse to pay their rents for a time. A man such as Pat
Carroll can do him an injury, but papa is big enough to rise above
that in the long run. At any rate I will live as becomes papa's
daughter, as long as he approves and I have the power." Discussing
these matters they reached the quay near Morony Castle, and Edith as
she jumped ashore felt something of triumph in her bosom. She had at
any rate succeeded in her object. "I am sure we were right to go,"
she whispered to Ada.
Their father received them with but very few words; nor had Florian
much to say as to the glories of the ball. His mind was devoted at
present to the coming trial. And indeed, in a more open and energetic
manner, so was the mind of Captain Clayton. "This will be the last
holiday for me," he had said to Edith at the ball, "before the great
day comes off for Patrick Carroll, Esq. It's all very well for a man
once in a way, but there should not be too much of it."
"You have not to complain deeply of yourself on that head."
"I have had my share of fun in the world," he said; "but it grows
less as I grow older. It is always so with a man as he gets into his
work. I think my hair will grow grey very soon, if I do not succeed
in having Mr. Carroll locked up for his life."
"Do you think they will convict him?"
"I think they will? I do think they will. We have got one of the
men who is ready to swear that he assisted him in pulling down the
gates."
"Which of the men?" she asked.
"I will tell you because I trust you as my very soul. His own
brother, Terry, is the man. Pat, it seems, is a terrible tyrant
among his own friends, and Terry is willing to turn against him, on
condition that a passage to America be provided for him. Of course
he is to have a free pardon for himself. We do want one man to
corroborate your brother's evidence. Your brother no doubt was not
quite straight at first."
"He lied," said Edith. "When you and I talk about it together, we
should tell the simple truth. We have pardoned him his lie;--but he
lied."
"We have now the one man necessary to confirm his testimony."
"But he is the brother."
"No doubt. But in such a case as this anything is fair to get at the
truth. And we shall employ no falsehoods. This younger Carroll was
instigated by his brother to assist him in the deed. And he was seen
by your brother to be one of those who assisted. It seems to me to be
quite right."
"It is very terrible," Edith said.
"Yes; it is terrible. A brother will have to swear against a brother,
and will be bribed to do it. I know what will be said to me very
well. They have tried to shoot me down like a rat; but I mean to get
the better of them. And when I shall have succeeded in removing Mr.
Pat Carroll from his present sphere of life, I shall have a second
object of ambition before me. Mr. Lax is another gentleman whom I
wish to remove. Three times he has shot at me, but he has not hit me
yet."
From that time forth there had certainly been no more dances for
Captain Clayton. His mind had been altogether devoted to his work,
and amidst that work the trial of Pat Carroll had stood prominent.
"He and I are equally eager, or at any rate equally anxious;" he
had said to Edith, speaking of her brother, when he had met her
subsequent to the ball. "But the time is coming soon, and we shall
know all about it in another six weeks." This was said in June, and
the trial was to take place in August.
CHAPTER XXVI.
LORD CASTLEWELL.
The spring and early summer had worn themselves away in London, and
Rachel O'Mahony was still singing at the Embankment Theatre. She and
her father were still living in Cecil Street. The glorious day of
October, which had been fixed at last for the 24th, on which Rachel
was to appear on the Covent Garden boards, was yet still distant, and
she was performing under Mr. Moss's behests at a weekly stipend of
£15, to which there would be some addition when the last weeks of the
season had come about, the end of July and beginning of August. But,
alas! Rachel hardly knew what she would do to support herself during
the dead months from August to October. "Fashionable people always go
out of town, father," she said.
"Then let us be fashionable."
"Fashionable people go to Scotland, but they won't take one in there
without money. We shan't have £50 left when our debts are paid. And
£50 would do nothing for us."
"They've stopped me altogether," said Mr. O'Mahony. "At any rate
they have stopped the money-making part of the business. They have
threatened to take the man's license away, and therefore that place
is shut up."
"Isn't that unjust, father?"
"Unjust! Everything done in England as to Ireland is unjust. They
carried an Act of Parliament the other day, when in accordance with
the ancient privileges of members it was within the power of a dozen
stalwart Irishmen to stop it. The dozen stalwart Irishmen were there,
but they were silenced by a brutal majority. The dozen Irishmen were
turned out of the House, one after the other, in direct opposition to
the ancient privileges; and so a Bill was passed robbing five million
Irishmen of their liberties. So gross an injustice was never before
perpetrated--not even when the bribed members sold their country and
effected the accursed Union."
"I know that was very bad, father, but the bribes were taken by
Irishmen. Be that as it may, what are we to do with ourselves next
autumn?"
"The only thing for us is to seek for assistance in the United
States."
"They won't lend us £100."
"We must overrun this country by the force of true liberal opinion.
The people themselves will rise when they have the Americans to lead
them. What is wanted now are the voices of true patriots loud enough
to reach the people."
"And £100," said she, speaking into his ear, "to keep us alive from
the middle of August to the end of October."
"For myself, I have been invited to come into Parliament. The County
of Cavan will be vacant."
"Is there a salary attached?"
"One or two leading Irish members are speaking of it," said Mr.
O'Mahony, carried away by the grandeur of the idea, "but the amount
has not been fixed yet. And they seem to think that it is wanted
chiefly for the parliamentary session. I have not promised because I
do not quite see my way. And to tell the truth, I am not sure that it
is in Parliament that an honest Irishman will shine the best. What's
the good when you can be silenced at a moment's notice by the word
of some mock Speaker, who upsets all the rules of his office to put
a gag upon a dozen men. When America has come to understand what it
is that the lawless tyrant did on that night when the Irishmen were
turned out of the House, will she not rise in her wrath, and declare
that such things shall no longer be?" All this occurred in Cecil
Street, and Rachel, who well understood her father's wrath, allowed
him to expend in words the anger which would last hardly longer than
the sound of them.
"But you won't be in Parliament for County Cavan before next August?"
she asked.
"I suppose not."
"Nor will the United States have risen in their wrath so as to have
settled the entire question before that time?"
"Perhaps not," said Mr. O'Mahony.
"And if they did I don't see what good it would do to us as to
finding for us the money that we want."
"I am so full of Ireland's wrongs at this moment, and with the manner
in which these policemen interfered with me, that I can hardly bring
myself to think of your autumn plans."
"What are yours?" she asked.
"I suppose we should always have money enough to go to America. In
America a man can at any rate open his mouth."
"Or a woman either. But according to what M. Le Gros says, in England
they pay better at the present moment. Mr. Moss has offered to lend
me the money; but for myself I would sooner go into an English
workhouse than accept money from Mr. Moss which I had not earned."
In truth, Rachel had been very foolish with her money, spending it
as though there were no end to the source from which it had come,
and her father had not been more prudent. He was utterly reckless
in regard to such considerations, and would simply declare that he
was altogether indifferent to his dinner, or to the new hat he had
proposed to buy for himself when the subject was brought under his
notice. He had latterly become more eager than ever as to politics,
and was supremely happy as long as he was at liberty to speak before
any audience those angry words which had however been, unfortunately
for him, declared to be treasonable. He had, till lately, been taught
to understand that the House of Commons was the only arena on which
such permission would be freely granted,--and could be granted of
course only to Members of the House. Therefore the idea had entered
his head that it would suit him to become a member,--more especially
as there had arisen a grand scheme of a salary for certain Irish
members of which he would be one. But even here the brutality of
England had at last interfered, and men were not to be allowed to say
what they pleased any longer even in the House of Commons. Therefore
Mr. O'Mahony was much disturbed; and although he was anxious to
quarrel with no one individually, not even the policemen who arrested
him, he was full of indignant wrath against the tyranny of England
generally.
Rachel, when she could get no good advice from her father with
regard to her future funds, went back again to her singing. It
was necessary, at any rate, that she should carry out her present
arrangement with Mr. Moss, and she was sure at least of receiving
from him the money which she earned. But, alas! she could not
practise the economy which she knew to be necessary. The people at
the theatre had talked her into hiring a one-horse open carriage in
which she delighted to drive about, and in which, to tell the truth,
her father delighted to accompany her. She had thought that she could
allow herself this indulgence out of her £15 a week. And though she
paid for the indulgence monthly, that and their joint living nearly
consumed the stipend. And now, as her father's advice did not get
beyond the very doubtful salary which might accrue to him as the
future member for the County Cavan, her mind naturally turned itself
to other sources. From M. Le Gros, or from M. Le Gros' employers, she
was to receive £300 for singing in the two months before Christmas,
with an assurance of a greatly increased though hitherto unfixed
stipend afterwards. Personally she as yet knew no one connected with
her future theatrical home but M. Le Gros. Of M. Le Gros all her
thoughts had been favourable. Should she ask M. Le Gros to lend her
some small sum of money in advance for the uses of the autumn? Mr.
Moss had made to her a fixed proposition on the subject which she had
altogether declined. She had declined it with scorn as she was wont
to do all favours proffered by Mr. Moss. Mr. Moss had still been
gracious, and had smiled, and had ventured to express "a renewed
hope," as he called it, that Miss O'Mahony would even yet condescend
to look with regard on the sincere affection of her most humble
servant. And then he had again expatiated on the immense success in
theatrical life which would attend a partnership entered into between
the skill and beauty and power of voice of Miss O'Mahony on the one
side, and the energy, devotion, and capital of Mr. Moss on the other.
"Psha!" had been Rachel's only reply; and so that interview had been
brought to an end. But Rachel, when she came to think of M. Le Gros,
and the money she was desirous of borrowing, was afflicted by certain
qualms. That she should have borrowed from Mr. Moss, considering the
length of their acquaintance might not have been unnatural; but of M.
Le Gros she knew nothing but his civility. Nor had she any reason for
supposing that M. Le Gros had money of his own at his disposal; nor
did she know where M. Le Gros lived. She could go to Covent Garden
and ask for him there; but that was all.
So she dressed herself prettily--neatly, as she called it--and had
herself driven to the theatre. There, as chance would have it, she
found M. Le Gros standing under the portico with a gentleman whom she
represented to herself as an elderly old buck. M. Le Gros saw her and
came down into the street at once with his hat in his hand.
"M. Le Gros," said she, "I want you to do me a great favour, but I
have hardly the impudence to ask it. Can you lend me some money this
autumn--say £100?" Thereupon M. Le Gros' face fell, and his cheeks
were elongated, and his eyes were very sorrowful. "Ah, then, I see
you can't," she said. "I will not put you to the pain of saying so.
I ought not to have suggested it. My dealings with you have seemed to
be so pleasant, and they have not been quite of the same nature down
at 'The Embankment.'"
"My dear young lady--"
"Not another word; and I beg your pardon most heartily for having
given you this moment's annoyance."
"There is one of the lessees there," said M. Le Gros, pointing back
to the gentleman on the top of the steps, "who has been to hear
you and to look at you this two times--this three times at 'The
Embankment.' He do think you will become the grand singer of the
age."
"Who is the judicious gentleman?" asked Rachel, whispering to M. Le
Gros out of the carriage.
"He is Lord Castlewell. He is the eldest son of the Marquis of
Beaulieu. He have--oh!--lots of money. He was saying--ah! I must not
tell you what his lordship was saying of you because it will make you
vain."
"Nothing that any lord can say of me will make me vain," said Rachel,
chucking up her head. Then his lordship, thinking that he had been
kept long enough standing on the top of the theatre steps, lifted
his hat and came down to the carriage, the occupant of which he had
recognised.
"May I have the extreme honour of introducing Mademoiselle O'Mahony
to Lord Castlewell?" and M. Le Gros again pulled off his hat as
he made the introduction. Miss O'Mahony found that she had become
Mademoiselle as soon as she had drawn up her carriage at the front
door of the genuine Italian Opera.
"This is a pleasure indeed," said Lord Castlewell. "I am
delighted--more than delighted, to find that my friend Le Gros has
engaged the services of Mademoiselle O'Mahony for our theatre."
"But our engagement does not commence quite yet, I am sorry to say,"
replied Rachel. Then she prepared herself to be driven away, not
caring much for the combination of lord and lessee who stood in the
street speaking to her. A lessee should be a lessee, she thought, and
a lord a lord.
"May I do myself the honour of waiting upon you some day at 'The
Embankment,'" said the lord, again pulling off his hat.
"Oh! certainly," said Rachel; "I should be delighted to see you."
Then she was driven away, and did not know whether to be angry or not
in having given Lord Castlewell so warm a welcome. As a mere stray
lord there was no possible reason why he should call upon her; nor
for her why she should receive him. Though Frank Jones had been
dismissed, and though she felt herself to be free to accept any
eligible lover who might present himself, she still felt herself
bound on his behalf to keep herself free from all elderly theatrical
hangers-on, especially from such men when she heard that they were
also lords. But as she was driven away, she took another glance at
the lord, and thought that he did not look so old as when she had
seen him at a greater distance.
But she had failed altogether in her purpose of borrowing money from
M. Le Gros. And for his sake she regretted much that the attempt had
been made. She had already learned one or two details with reference
to M. Le Gros. Though his manners and appearance were so pleasant, he
was only a subaltern about the theatre; and he was a subaltern whom
this lord and lessee called simply Le Gros. And from the melancholy
nature of his face when the application for money was made to him,
she had learned that he was both good-natured and impecunious. Of
herself, in regard to the money, she thought very little at the
present moment. There were still six weeks to run, and Rachel's
nature was such that she could not distress herself six weeks in
advance of any misfortune. She was determined that she would not tell
her father of her failure. As for him, he would not probably say a
word further of their want of money till the time should come. He
confined his prudence to keeping a sum in his pocket sufficient to
take them back to New York.
As the days went on which were to bring her engagement at "The
Embankment" to an end, Rachel heard a further rumour about herself.
Rumours did spring up at "The Embankment" to which she paid very
little attention. She had heard the same sort of things said as to
other ladies at the theatre, and took them all as a matter of course.
Had she been asked, she would have attributed them all to Madame
Socani; because Madame Socani was the one person whom, next to Mr.
Moss, she hated the most. The rumour in this case simply stated that
she had already been married to Mr. Jones, and had separated from her
husband. "Why do they care about such a matter as that?" she said to
the female from whom she heard the rumour. "It can't matter to me as
a singer whether I have five husbands."
"But it is so interesting," said the female, "when a lady has a
husband and doesn't own him; or when she owns him and hasn't really
got him; it adds a piquancy to life, especially to theatrical life,
which does want these little assistances."
Then one evening Lord Castlewell did call upon her at "The
Embankment." Her father was not with her, and she was constrained by
the circumstances of the moment to see his lordship alone.
"I do feel, you know, Miss O'Mahony," he said, thus coming back
for the moment into everyday life, "that I am entitled to take an
interest in you."
"Your lordship is very kind."
"I suppose you never heard of me before?"
"Not a word, my lord. I'm an American girl, and I know very little
about English lords."
"I hope that you may come to know more. My special _métier_ in life
brings me among the theatres. I am very fond of music,--and perhaps a
little fond of beauty also."
"I am glad you have the sense, my lord, to put music the first."
"I don't know about that. In regard to you I cannot say which
predominates."
"You are at liberty at any rate to talk about the one, as you are
bidding for it at your own theatre. As to the other, you will excuse
me for saying that it is a matter between me and my friends."
"Among whom I trust before long I may be allowed to be counted."
The little dialogue had been carried on with smiles and good humour,
and Rachel now did not choose to interfere with them. After all she
was only a public singer, and as such was hardly entitled to the full
consideration of a gentlewoman. It was thus that she argued with
herself. Nevertheless she had uttered her little reprimand and had
intended him to take it as such.
"You are coming to us, you know, after the holidays."
"And will bring my voice with me, such as it is."
"But not your smiles, you mean to say."
"They are sure to come with me, for I am always laughing,--unless I
am roused to terrible wrath. I am sure that will not be the case at
Covent Garden."
"I hope not. You will find that you have come among a set who are
quite prepared to accept you as a friend." Here she made a little
curtsy. "And now I have to offer my sincere apologies for the little
proposition I am about to make." It immediately occurred to her that
M. Le Gros had betrayed her. He was a very civil spoken, affable,
kind old man; but he had betrayed her. "M. Le Gros happened to
mention that you were anxious to draw in advance for some portion of
the salary coming to you for the next two months." M. Le Gros had at
any rate betrayed her in the most courteous terms.
"Well, yes; M. Le Gros explained that the proposition was not _selon
les règles_, and it does not matter the least in the world."
"M. Le Gros has explained that? I did not know that M. Le Gros had
explained anything."
"Well, then, he looked it," said Rachel.
"His looks must be wonderfully expressive. He did not look it to me
at all. He simply told me, as one of the managers of the theatre, I
was to let you have whatever money you wanted. And he did whisper to
me,--may I tell you what he whispered?"
"I suppose you may. He seems to me to be a very good-natured kind of
man."
"Poor old Le Gros! A very good-natured man, I should say. He doesn't
carry the house, that's all."
"You do that." Then she remembered that the man was a lord. "I ought
to have said 'my lord,'" she said; "but I forgot. I hope you'll
excuse me--my lord."
"We are not very particular about that in theatrical matters; or,
rather, I am particular with some and not with others. You'll learn
all about it in process of time. M. Le Gros whispered that he thought
there was not the pleasantest understanding in the world between you
and the people here."
"Well, no; there is not,--my lord."
"Bother the lord,--just now."
"With all my heart," said Rachel, who could not avoid the little
bit of fun which was here implied. "Not but what the--the people
here--would find me any amount of money I chose to ask for. There are
people, you see, one does not wish to borrow money from. I take my
salary here, but nothing more. The fact is, I have not only taken it,
but spent it, and to tell the truth, I have not a shilling to amuse
myself with during the dull season. Mr. Moss knows all about it, and
has simply asked how much I wanted. 'Nothing,' I replied, 'nothing at
all; nothing at all.' And that's how I am situated."
"No debts?"
"Not a dollar. Beyond that I shouldn't have a dollar left to get out
of London with." Then she remembered herself,--that it was expedient
that she should tell this man something about herself. "I have got a
father, you know, and he has to be paid for as well as me. He is the
sweetest, kindest, most generous father that a girl ever had, and he
could make lots of money for himself, only the police won't let him."
"What do the police do to him?" said Lord Castlewell.
"He is not a burglar, you know, or anything of that kind."
"He is an Irish politician, isn't he?"
"He is very much of a politician; but he is not an Irishman."
"Irish name," suggested the lord.
"Irish name, yes; so are half the names in my country. My father
comes from the United States. And he is strongly impressed with
the necessity of putting down the horrid injustice with which the
poor Irish are treated by the monstrous tyranny of you English
aristocrats. You are very nice to look at."
"Thank you, Miss O'Mahony."
"But you are very bad to go. You are not the kind of horses I care to
drive at all. Thieves, traitors, murderers, liars."
"Goodness gracious me!" exclaimed the lord.
"I don't say anything for myself, because I am only a singing girl,
and understand nothing about politics. But these are the very
lightest words which he has at his tongue's end when he talks about
you. He is the most good-tempered fellow in the world, and you would
like him very much. Here is Mr. Moss." Mr. Moss had opened the door
and had entered the room.
The greeting between the two men was closely observed by Rachel, who,
though she was very imprudent in much that she did and much that she
said, never allowed anything to pass by her unobserved. Mr. Moss,
though he affected an intimacy with the lord, was beyond measure
servile. Lord Castlewell accepted the intimacy without repudiating
it, but accepted also the servility. "Well, Moss, how are you getting
on in this little house?"
"Ah, my lord, you are going to rob us of our one attraction," and
having bowed to the lord he turned round and bowed to the lady.
"You have no right to keep such a treasure in a little place like
this."
"We can afford to pay for it, you know, my lord. M. Le Gros came here
a little behind my back, and carried her off."
"Much to her advantage, I should say."
"We can pay," said Mr. Moss.
"To such a singer as Mademoiselle O'Mahony paying is not everything.
An audience large enough, and sufficiently intelligent to appreciate
her, is something more than mere money."
"We have the most intelligent audience in all London," Mr. Moss said
in defence of his own theatre.
"No doubt," said the lord. He had, during this little intercourse of
compliments, managed to write a word or two on a slip of paper, which
he now handed to Rachel--"Will £200 do?" This he put into her hand,
and then left her, saying that he would do himself the honour of
calling upon her again at her own lodgings, "where I shall hope," he
said, "to make the acquaintance of the most good-tempered fellow in
the world." Then he took his leave.
CHAPTER XXVII.
HOW FUNDS WERE PROVIDED.
Mr. Moss at this interview again pressed his loan of money upon poor
Rachel.
"You cannot get on, my dear young lady, in this world without money.
If you have spent your income hitherto, what do you mean to do till
the end of November? At Covent Garden the salaries are all paid
monthly."
There was something so ineffably low and greasy in his tone of
addressing her, that it was impossible to be surprised at the disgust
which she expressed for him.
"Mr. Moss, I am not your dear young lady," she said.
"Would that you were! We should be as happy as the day is long.
There would be no money troubles then." She could not fail to make
comparisons between him and the English nobleman who had just left
her, which left the Englishman infinitely superior; although, with
the few thoughts she had given to him, she had already begun to doubt
whether Lord Castlewell's morality stood very high. "What will you do
for money for the next three months? You cannot do without money,"
said Mr. Moss.
"I have already found a friend," said Rachel most imprudently.
"What! his lordship there?"
"I am not bound to answer any such questions."
"But I know; I can see the game is all up if it has come to that. I
am a fellow-workman, and there have been, and perhaps will be, many
relations between us. A hundred pounds advanced here or there must be
brought into the accounts sooner or later. That is honest; that will
bear daylight; no young lady need be ashamed of that; even if you
were Mrs. Jones you need not be ashamed of such a transaction."
"I am not Mrs. Jones," said Rachel in great anger.
"But if you were, Mr. Jones would have no ground of complaint, unless
indeed on the score of extravagance. But a present from this lord!"
"It is no present. It does not come from the lord; it comes from the
funds of the theatre."
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Moss. "Is that the little game with which
he attempts to cajole you? How has he got his hand into the treasury
of the theatre, so that he may be able to help you so conveniently?
You have not got the money yet, I suppose?"
"I have not got his money--which may be dangerous, or yours--which
would certainly be more so. Though from neither of you could the bare
money hurt me, if it were taken with an innocent heart. From you it
would be a distress, an annoyance, a blister. From him it would be
simply a loan either from himself or from the theatre with which he
is connected. I may be mistaken, but I have imagined that it would
come from the theatre; I will ascertain, and if it be not so, I will
decline the loan."
"Do you not know his character? nor his mode of living, nor his
dealing with actresses? You will not at any rate get credit for such
innocence when you tell the story. Why;--he has come here to call
upon you, and of course it is all over the theatre already that you
are his mistress. I came in here to endeavour to save you; but I fear
it is too late."
"Impudent scoundrel," said Rachel, jumping up and glaring at him.
"That is all very well, but I have endeavoured to save you. I would
believe none of them when they told me that you would not be my wife
because you were married to Mr. Jones. Nor would I believe them when
they have told me since that you were not fit to be the wife of
anyone." Rachel's hand went in among the folds of her dress, and
returned with a dagger in it. Words had been said to her now which
she swore to herself were unbearable. "Yes; you are in a passion
now;" and as he said so, he contrived to get the round table with
which the room was garnished between himself and her.
"It is true," she said, "your words have been so base that I am no
doubt angry."
"But if you knew it, I am endeavouring to save you. Imprudent as
you have been I still wish to make you my wife." Here Rachel in her
indignation spat upon the floor. "Yes; I am anxious to make you an
honest woman."
"You can make no woman honest. It is altogether beyond your power."
"It will be so when you have taken this lord's money."
"I have not at any rate taken yours. It is that which would disgrace
me. Between this lord and me there has been no word that could do
so."
"Will he make you his wife?"
"Wife! No. He is married for aught that I know. He has spoken to me
no word except about my profession. Nor shall you. Cannot a woman
sing without being wife to any man?"
"Ha, ha, yes indeed!"
She understood the scorn intended to be thrown on her line of life by
his words, and was wretched to think that he was getting the better
of her in conversation. "I can sing and I need no husband."
"It is common with the friends of the lord that they do not generally
rank very high in their profession. I have endeavoured to save you
from this kind of thing, and see the return that I get! You will,
however, soon have left us, and you will then find that to fill first
place at 'The Embankment' is better than a second or a third at
Covent Garden."
During these hot words on both sides she had been standing at a
pier-glass, arranging something in her dress intended to suit Moss's
fancy upon the stage,--Moss who was about to enact her princely
lover--and then she walked off without another word. She went through
her part with all her usual vigour and charm, and so did he. Elmira
also was more pathetic than ever, as the night was supposed to be
something special, because a royal duke and his young bride were in
the stage box. The plaudits given would have been tremendous only
that the building was so small, and the grand quartette became such a
masterpiece that there was half a column concerning it in the musical
corner of the next morning's _Daily Telephone_. "If that girl would
only go as I'd have her," said Mr. Moss to the most confidential of
his theatrical friends, "I'd make her Mrs. Moss to-morrow, and her
fame should be blazoned all over the world before twelve months had
gone as Madame Moussa."
But Rachel, though she was enabled so to overcome her rage as to
remember only her theatrical passion when she was on the stage, spent
the whole of the subsequent night in thinking over the difficulty
into which she had brought herself by her imprudence. She understood
to the full the meaning of all those innuendoes which Mr. Moss had
provided for her; and she knew that though there was in them not a
spark of truth as regarded herself, still they were so truth-like as
to meet with acceptance, at any rate from all theatrical personages.
She had gone to M. Le Gros for the money clearly as one of the
theatrical company with which she was about to connect herself. M.
Le Gros had, to her intelligence, distinctly though very courteously
declined her request. It might be well that the company would accede
to no such request; but M. Le Gros, in his questionable civility, had
told the whole story to Lord Castlewell, who had immediately offered
her a loan of £200 out of his own pocket. It had not occurred to her
in the moment in which she had first read the words in the presence
of Mahomet M. M. that such must necessarily be the case. Was it
probable that Lord Castlewell should on his own behalf recover from
the treasury of the theatre the sum of £200? And then the nature of
this lord's character opened itself to her eyes in all the forms
which Mr. Moss had intended that it should wear. A man did not lend
a young lady £200 without meaning to secure for himself some reward.
And as she thought of it all she remembered the kind of language
in which she had spoken of her father. She had described him as an
American in words which might so probably give this noble old _roué_
a false impression as to his character. And yet she liked the noble
old _roué_--liked him so infinitely better than she did Mr. Moss. M.
Le Gros had betrayed her, or had, perhaps, said words leading to her
betrayal; but still she greatly preferred M. Le Gros to Mr. Moss.
She was safe as yet with this lord. Not a sparkle of his gold had
she received. No doubt the story about the money would be spread
about from her own telling of it. People would believe it because she
herself had said so. But it was still within her power to take care
that it should not be true. She did what was usual on such occasions.
She abused the ill-feeling of the world which by the malignity of
its suspicions would not scruple to drag her into the depths of
misfortune, forgetting probably that her estimation of others was the
same as others of her. She did not bethink herself that had another
young lady at another theatre accepted a loan from an unmarried lord
of such a character, she would have thought ill of that young lady.
The world ought to be perfectly innocent in regard to her because
she believed herself to be innocent; and Mr. Moss in expressing the
opinions of others, and exposing to her the position in which she had
placed herself, had simply proved himself to be the blackest of human
beings.
But it was necessary that she should at once do something to
whitewash her own character in her own esteem. This lord had declared
that he himself would call, and she was at first minded to wait
till he did so, and then to hand back to him the cheque which she
believed that he would bring, and to assure him that under altered
circumstances it would not be wanted. But she felt that it would best
become her to write to him openly, and to explain the circumstances
which had led to his offering the loan. "There is nothing like being
straightforward," she said to herself, "and if he does not choose to
believe me, that is his fault." So she took up her pen, and wrote
quickly, to the following effect:
MY DEAR LORD CASTLEWELL,
I want to tell you that I do not wish to have the £200
which you were good enough to say that you would lend me.
Indeed I cannot take it under any circumstances. I must
explain to you all about it, if your lordship pleases. I
had intended to ask M. Le Gros to get the theatre people
to advance me some small sum on my future engagement, and
I had not thought how impossible it was that they should
do so, as of course I might die before I had sung a single
note. I never dreamed of coming to you, whose lordship's
name I had not even heard in my ignorance. Then M. Le Gros
spoke to you, and you came and made your proposition in
the most good-natured way in the world. I was such a fool
as not to see that the money must of course come from
yourself.
Mr. Moss has enlightened me, and has made me understand
that no respectable young woman would accept a loan of
money from you without blemish to her character. Mr. Moss,
whom I do not in the least like, has been right in this. I
should be very sorry if you should be taught to think evil
of me before I go to your theatre; or indeed, if I do not
go at all. I am not up to all these things, and I suppose
I ought to have consulted my father the moment I got your
little note. Pray do not take any further notice of it.
I am, very faithfully,
Your lordship's humble servant,
RACHEL O'MAHONY.
Then there was added a postscript: "Your note has just come and I
return the cheque." As chance would have it the cheque had come just
as Rachel had finished her letter, and with the cheque there had been
a short scrawl as follows: "I send the money as settled, and will
call to-morrow."
Whatever may have been Lord Castlewell's general sins among actresses
and actors, his feelings hitherto in regard to Miss O'Mahony had not
done him discredit. He had already heard her name frequently when he
had seen her in her little carriage before the steps of Covent Garden
Theatre, and had heard her sing at "The Embankment." Her voice and
tone and feeling had enchanted him as he had wont to be enchanted by
new singers of high quality, and he had been greatly struck by the
brightness of her beauty. When M. Le Gros had told him of her little
wants, he had perceived at once her innocence, and had determined to
relieve her wants. Then, when she had told him of her father, and
had explained to him the kind of terms on which they lived together,
he was sure that she was pure as snow. But she was very lovely, and
he could not undertake to answer for what feelings might spring up
in her bosom. Now he had received this letter, and every word of it
spoke to him in her favour. He took, therefore, a little trouble, and
calling upon her the next morning at her lodgings, found her seated
with Mr. O'Mahony.
"Father," she said, when the lord was ushered into the room, "this is
Lord Castlewell. Lord Castlewell, this is my father."
Then she sat down, leaving the two to begin the conversation as they
might best please. She had told her father nothing about the money,
simply explaining that on the steps of the theatre she had met the
lord, who was one of its proprietors.
"Lord Castlewell," said Mr. O'Mahony, "I am very proud," then he
bowed. "I know very little about stage affairs, but I am confident
that my daughter will do her duty to the best of her ability."
"Not more so than I am," said Lord Castlewell, upon which Mr.
O'Mahony bowed again. "You have heard about this little _contretemps_
about the money."
"Not a word," said Mr. O'Mahony, shaking his head.
"Nor of the terrible character which has been given you by your
daughter?"
"That I can well understand," said Mr. O'Mahony.
"She says that you wish to abolish all the English aristocracy."
"Most of them," said Mr. O'Mahony. "Peradventure ten shall be found
honest, and I will not destroy them for ten's sake; but I doubt
whether there be one."
"I should be grieved to think that you were the judge."
"And so should I," said Mr. O'Mahony. "It is so easy to utter curses
when no power accompanies the utterances. The Lord must have found it
uncomfortable in regard to Sodom. I can spit out all my fury against
English vices and British greed without suffering one pang at my
heart. What is this that you were saying about Rachel and her money?"
"She is in a little trouble about cash at the present moment."
"Not a doubt about it."
"And I have offered to lend her a trifle--£200 or so, just till she
can work it off up at the theatre there."
"Then there is one of the ten at any rate," said Mr. O'Mahony.
"Meaning me?" asked the lord.
"Just so. Lending us £200, when neither of us have a shilling in our
pocket, is a very good deed. Don't you think so, Rachel?"
"No," said Rachel. "Lord Castlewell is not a fit person to lend me
£200 out of his pocket, and I will not have it."
"I did not know," said Mr. O'Mahony.
"You never know anything, you are such a dear, innocent old father."
"There's an end of it then," said he, addressing himself to the lord.
He did not look in the least annoyed because his daughter had refused
to take the loan, nor had he shown the slightest feeling of any
impropriety when there was a question as to her accepting it.
"Of course I cannot force it upon you," said Lord Castlewell.
"No; a lord cannot do that, even in this country, where lords go for
so much. But we are not a whit the less obliged to your lordship.
There are proprieties and improprieties which I don't understand.
Rachel knows all about them. Such a knowledge comes to a girl
naturally, and she chooses either the one or the other, according to
her nature. Rachel is a dragon of propriety."
"Father, you are a goose," said Rachel.
"I am telling his lordship the truth. There is some reason why you
should not take the money, and you won't take it. I think it very
hard that I should not have been allowed to earn it."
"Why were you not allowed?" asked the lord.
"Lest the people should be persuaded to rise up against you
lords,--which they very soon would do,--and will do. You are right in
your generation. The people were paying twenty-five cents a night to
come and hear me, and so I was informed that I must not speak to them
any more. I had been silenced in Galway before; but then I had spoken
about your Queen."
"We can't endure that, you know."
"So I learn. She's a holy of holies. But I promised to say nothing
further about her, and I haven't. I was talking about your Speaker of
the House of Commons."
"That's nearly as bad," said Lord Castlewell, shaking his head.
"A second-rate holy of holies. When I said that he ought to obey
certain rules which had been laid down for his guidance, I was told
to walk out. 'What may I talk about?' I asked. Then the policeman
told me 'the weather.' Even an Englishman is not stupid enough to pay
twenty-five cents for that. I am only telling you this to explain why
we are so impecunious."
"The policeman won't prevent my lending you £200."
"Won't he now? There's no knowing what a policeman can't do in this
country. They are very good-natured, all the same."
Then Lord Castlewell turned to Rachel, and asked her whether her
suspicions would go so far as to interfere between him and her
father. "It is because I am a pretty girl that you are going to do
it," she said, frowning, "or because you pretend to think so." Here
the father broke out into a laugh, and the lord followed him. "You
had better keep your money to yourself, my lord. You never can have
used it with less chance of getting any return." This interview,
however, was ended by the acceptance of a cheque from Lord Castlewell
for £200, payable to the order of Gerald O'Mahony.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
WHAT WAS NOT DONE WITH THE FUNDS.
"She has taken his money all the same." This was said some weeks
after the transaction as described in the last chapter, and was
spoken by Madame Socani to Mr. Moss.
"How do you know?"
"I know very well. You are so infatuated by that young woman that you
will believe nothing against her."
"I am infatuated with her voice; I know what she is going to do in
the world. Old Barytone told me that he had never heard such a voice
from a woman's mouth since the days of Malibran; and if there is a
man who knows one voice from another, it is Barytone. He can taste
the richness of the instrument down to its lowest tinkling sound."
"And you would marry such a one as she for her voice."
"And she can act. Ah! if you could have acted as she does, it might
have been different."
"She has got a husband just the same as me."
"I don't believe it; but never mind, I would risk all that. And I
will do it yet. If you will only keep your toe in your pump, we will
have such a company as nothing that Le Gros can do will be able to
cut us down."
"And she is taking money from that lord."
"They all take money from lords," he replied. "What does it matter?
And she is as stout a piece of goods as ever you came across. She has
given me more impudence in the last eight months than ever I took
from any of them. And by Jupiter I never so much as got a kiss from
her."
"A kiss!" said Madame Socani with great contempt.
"And she has hit me a box on the cheek which I have had to put up
with. She has always got a dagger about her somewhere, to give a
fellow a prod in her passion." Here Mr. Moss laughed or affected to
laugh at the idea of the dagger. "I tell you that she would have it
into a fellow in no time."
"Then why don't you leave her alone? A little wizened monkey like
that!" It was thus that Madame Socani expressed her opinion of her
rival. "A creature without an ounce of flesh on her bones. Her voice
won't last long. It never does with those little mean made apes.
There was Grisi and Tietjens,--they had something of a body for a
voice to come out of. And here is this girl that you think so much
of, taking money hand over hand from the very first lord she comes
across."
"I don't believe a word of it," said the faithful Moss.
"You'll find that it is true. She will go away to some watering-place
in the autumn, and he'll be after her. Did you ever know him spare
one of them? or one of them, poor little creatures, that wouldn't
rise to his bait?"
"She has got her father with her."
"Her father! What is the good of fathers? He'll take some of the
money, that's all. I'll tell you what it is, Moss, if you don't drop
her you and I will be two."
"With all my heart, Madame Socani," said Moss. "I have not the
slightest intention of dropping her. And as for you and me, we can
get on very well apart."
But Madame Socani, though she would be roused by jealousy to make
this threat once a month, knew very well that she could not afford
to sever herself from Mr. Moss; and she knew also that Mr. Moss
was bound to show her some observance, or, at any rate, to find
employment for her as long as she could sing.
But Mr. Moss was anxious to find out whether any money arrangements
did or did not exist between Miss O'Mahony and the lord, and was
resolved to ask the question in a straightforward manner. He had
already found out that his old pupil had no power of keeping a secret
to herself when thus asked. She would sternly refuse to give any
reply; but she would make her refusal in such a manner as to tell the
whole truth. In fact, Rachel, among her accomplishments, had not the
power of telling a lie in such language as to make herself believed.
It was not that she would scruple in the least to declare to Mr.
Moss the very opposite to the truth in a matter in which he had, she
thought, no business to be inquisitive; but when she did so she had
no power to look the lie. You might say of her frequently that she
was a downright liar. But of all human beings whom you could meet she
was the least sly. "My dear child," the father used to say to her,
"words to you are worth nothing, unless it be to sing them. You can
make no impression with them in any other way." Therefore it was that
Mr. Moss felt that he could learn the truth from simply questioning
his pupil.
"Miss O'Mahony, may I say a few words to you?" So said Mr. Moss,
having knocked at the door of Rachel's sitting-room. He had some
months ago fallen into the habit of announcing himself, when he had
come to give her lessons, and would inform the servant that he would
take up his own name. Rachel had done what she could do to put an end
to the practice, but it still prevailed.
"Certainly, Mr. Moss. Was not the girl there to show you up?"
"No doubt she was. But such ceremony between us is hardly necessary."
"I should prefer to be warned of the coming of my master. I will see
to that in future. Such little ceremonies do have their uses."
"Shall I go down and make her say that I am here, and then come up
again?"
"It shall not be necessary, but you take a chair and begin!" Then Mr.
Moss considered how he had better do so. He knew well that the girl
would not answer kindly to such a question as he was desirous of
asking. And it might be that she would be very uncivil. He was by no
means a coward, but he had a vivid recollection of the gleam of her
dagger. He smiled, and she looked at him more suspiciously because of
his smile. He was sitting on a sofa opposite to her as she sat on a
music-stool which she had turned round, so as to face him, and he
fancied that he could see her right hand hide itself among the folds
of her dress. "Is it about the theatre?"
"Well, it is;--and yet it isn't."
"I wish it were something about the theatre. It always seems to come
more natural between you and me."
"I want you to tell me what you did at last about Lord Castlewell's
money."
"Why am I to tell you what I did?"
"For friendship."
"I do not feel any."
"That's an uncivil word to say, mademoiselle."
"But it's true. You have no business to ask me about the lord's
money, and I won't be questioned."
"It will be so deleterious to you if you accept it."
"I can take care of myself," she said, jumping off the chair. "I
shall have left this place now in another month, and shall utterly
disregard the words which anyone at your theatre may say of me. I
shall not tell you whether the lord has lent me money or not."
"I know he has."
"Very well. Then leave the room. Knowing as you do that I am living
here with my own father, your interference is grossly impertinent."
"Your father is not going with you, I am afraid." She rushed at the
bell and pulled it till the bell rope came down from the wire, but
nobody answered the bell. "Can it be possible that you should not be
anxious to begin your new career under respectable auspices?"
"I will not stand this. Leave the room, sir. This apartment is my
own."
"Miss O'Mahony, you see my hand; with this I am ready to offer at
once to place you in a position in which the world would look up to
you."
"You have done so before, Mr. Moss, and your doing so again is an
insult. It would not be done to any young lady unless she were on the
stage, and were thought on that account to be open to any man about
the theatre to say what he pleased to her."
"Any gentleman is at liberty to make any lady an offer."
"I have answered it. Now leave the room."
"I cannot do so until I have heard that you have not taken money from
this reprobate."
At the moment the door opened, and the reprobate entered the room.
"Your servant told me that Mr. Moss was here, and therefore I walked
up at once," said the reprobate.
"I am so much obliged to you," said Rachel. "Oh Lord Castlewell! I am
so much obliged to you. He tells me in the first place that you are a
reprobate."
"Never mind me," said the lord.
"I don't mind what he says of you. He declares that my character will
be gone for ever because you have lent my father some money."
"So it will," said Moss, who was not afraid to stand up to his guns.
"And how if she had accepted your offer?"
"No one would have thought of it. Come, my lord, you know the
difference. I am anxious only to save her."
"It is to her father I have lent the money, who explained to me the
somewhat cruel treatment he had received at the hands of the police.
I think you are making an ass of yourself, Mr. Moss."
"Very well, my lord; very well," said Mr. Moss. "All the world no
doubt will know that you have lent the money to the Irish Landleaguer
because of your political sympathy with him, and will not think for a
minute that you have been attracted by our pretty young friend here.
It will not suspect that it is she who has paid for the loan!"
"Mr. Moss, you are a brute," said the lord.
"Can't he be turned out of the room?" asked Rachel.
"Well, yes; it is possible," said the lord, who slowly prepared to
walk up and take some steps towards expelling Mr. Moss.
"It shall not be necessary," said Mahomet M. M. "You could not get me
out, but there would be a terrible row in the house, which could not
fail to be disagreeable to Miss O'Mahony. I leave her in your hands,
and I do not think I could possibly leave her in worse. I have wished
to make her an honest woman; what you want of her you can explain
to herself." In saying this Mr. Moss walked downstairs and left the
house, feeling, as he went, that he had got the better both of the
lord and of the lady.
With Mr. Moss there was a double motive, neither of which was very
bright, but both of which he followed with considerable energy. He
had at first been attracted by her good looks, which he had desired
to make his own--at the cheapest price at which they might be had
in the market. If marriage were necessary, so be it, but it might
be that the young lady would not be so exigeant. It was probably
the expression of some such feelings in the early days of their
acquaintance which had made him so odious to her. Then Frank Jones
had come forward; and like any good honest girl, in a position so
public, she had at once let the fact of Mr. Jones be made known, so
as to protect her. But it had not protected her, and Mr. Moss had
been doubly odious. Then, by degrees, he had become aware of the
value of her voice, and he perceived the charms that there were in
what he pictured to himself as a professional partnership as well as
a marriage. Various ideas floated through his mind, down even to the
creation of fresh names, grand married names, for his wife. And if
she could be got to see it in the light he saw it, what a stroke of
business they might do! He was aware that she expressed personal
dislike to him; but he did not think much of that. He did not in
the least understand the nature of such dislike as she exhibited.
He thought himself to be a very good-looking man. He was one of a
profession to which she also belonged. He had no idea that he was not
a gentleman but that she was a lady. He did not know that there were
such things. Madame Socani told him that this young woman was already
married to Mr. Jones, but had left that gentleman because he had no
money. He did not believe this; but in any case he would be willing
to risk it. The peril would be hers and not his. It was his object
to establish the partnership, and he did not even yet see any fatal
impediment to it.
This lord who had been trapped by her beauty, by that and by her
theatrical standing, was an impediment, but could be removed. He had
known Lord Castlewell to be in love with a dozen singers, partly
because he thought himself to be a judge of music, and partly simply
because he had liked their looks. The lord had now taken a fancy to
Miss O'Mahony, and had begun by lending her money. That the father
should take the money instead of the daughter, was quite natural
to his thinking. But he might still succeed in looking after Miss
O'Mahony, and rescuing the singer from the lord. By keeping a close
watch on her he must make it impossible for the lord to hold her.
Therefore, when he went away, leaving the lord and the singer
together, he thought that for the present he had got the better of
both.
"Why did he tell you that I was a reprobate?" said the lord, when he
found himself alone with the lady.
"Well, perhaps it was because you are one, my lord," said Rachel,
laughing. She would constantly remember herself, and tell herself
that as long as she called him by his title, she was protecting
herself from that familiarity which would be dangerous.
"I hope you don't think so."
"Gentlemen generally are reprobates, I believe. It is not disgraceful
for a gentleman to be a reprobate, but it is pleasant. The young
women I daresay find it pleasant, but then it is disgraceful. I do
not mean to disgrace myself, Lord Castlewell."
"I am sure you will not."
"I want you to be sure of it, quite sure. I am a singing girl; but I
don't mean to be any man's mistress." He stared at her as she said
this. "And I don't mean to be any man's wife, unless I downright love
him. Now you may keep out of my way, if you please. I daresay you
are a reprobate, my lord; but with that I have got nothing to do.
Touching this money, I suppose father has not got it yet?"
"I have sent it."
"You are to get nothing for it, but simply to have it returned,
without interest, as soon as I have earned it. You have only to say
the word and I will take care that father shall send it you back
again."
Lord Castlewell felt that the girl was very unlike others whom he
had known, and who had either rejected his offers with scorn or
had accepted them with delight. This young lady did neither. She
apparently accepted the proffered friendship, and simply desired him
to carry his reprobate qualities elsewhere. There was a frankness
about her which pleased him much, though it hardly tended to make him
in love with her. One thing he did resolve on the spur of the moment,
that he would never say a word to her which her father might not
hear. It was quite a new sensation to him, this of simple friendship
with a singer, with a singer whom he had met in the doubtful custody
of Mr. Moss; but he did believe her to be a good girl,--a good girl
who could speak out her mind freely; and as such he both respected
and liked her. "Of course I shan't take back the money till it
becomes due. You'll have to work hard for it before I get it."
"I shall be quite contented to do that, my lord." Then the interview
was over and his lordship left the room.
But Lord Castlewell felt as he went home that this girl was worth
more than other girls. She laughed at him for being a lord, but she
could accept a favour from him, and then tell him to his face that
he should do her no harm because she had accepted it. He had met
some terrible rebuffs in his career, the memory of which had been
unpleasant to him; and he had been greeted with many smiles, all of
which had been insipid. What should he do with this girl, so as to
make the best of her? The only thing that occurred to him was to
marry her! And yet such a marriage would be altogether out of his
line of life.
CHAPTER XXIX.
WHAT WAS DONE WITH THE FUNDS.
The £200 was not spent in a manner of which Lord Castlewell would
have altogether approved. About the end of August Mr. O'Mahony was
summoned back to Ireland, and was induced, at a meeting held at the
Rotunda, to give certain pledges which justified the advanced Irish
party in putting him forward as a new member for the County of Cavan.
The advanced Irish party had no doubt been attracted by the eloquence
he had exhibited both in Galway and in London, and by the patriotic
sentiments which he had displayed. He was known to be a Republican,
and to look for the formation of a Republic to American aid. He had
expressed most sincere scorn for everything English, and professed
ideas as to Irish property generally in regard to which he was
altogether ignorant of their meaning. As he was a sincerely honest
man, he did think that something good for his old country would be
achieved by Home Rule; though how the Home-Rulers would set to work
when Home Rule should be the law of the land, he had not the remotest
conception. There were many reasons, therefore, why he should be a
fit member for an Irish county. But it must be admitted that he would
not have been so unanimously selected had all the peculiarities of
his mind been known. It might be probable that he would run riot
under the lash of his leader, as others have done both before and
since, when he should come to see all the wiles of that strategy
which he would be called upon to support. And in such case the
quarrel with him would be more internecine than with other foes,
such as English members, Scotch members, Conservative Irish members,
and Liberal Irish members, not sworn to follow certain leaders. A
recreant one out of twenty friends would be regarded with more bitter
hatred than perhaps six hundred and thirty ordinary enemies. It
might be, therefore, that a time of tribulation was in store for Mr.
O'Mahony, but he did not consider these matters very deeply when the
cheers rang loud in the hall of the Rotunda; nor did he then reflect
that he was about to spend in an injudicious manner the money which
must be earned by Rachel's future work.
When Rachel had completed her engagement with Mr. Moss, it had been
intended that they should go down to Ambleside and there spend Lord
Castlewell's money in the humble innocent enjoyment of nature. There
had at that moment been nothing decided as to the County of Cavan. A
pork-butcher possessed of some small means and unlimited impudence
had put himself forward. But The Twenty had managed to put him
through his facings, and had found him to be very ignorant in his use
of the Queen's English. Now of late there had come up a notion that
the small party required to make up for the thinness of their members
by the strength of their eloquence. Practice makes perfect, and it is
not to be wondered at therefore if a large proportion of The Twenty
had become fluent. But more were wanted, and of our friend O'Mahony's
fluency there could be no doubt. Therefore he was sent for, and on
the very day of his arrival he proved to the patriotic spirits of
Dublin that he was the man for Cavan. Three days afterwards he went
down, and Cavan obediently accepted its man. With her father went
Rachel, and was carried through the towns of Virginia, Bailyborough,
and Ballyjamesduff, in great triumph on a one-horse car.
This occurred about the end of August, and Lord Castlewell's £200
was very soon spent. She had not thought much about it, but had been
quite willing to be the daughter of a Member of Parliament, if a
constituency could be found willing to select her father. She did not
think much of the duties of Parliament, if they came within the reach
of her father's ability. She did not in truth think that he could
under any circumstances do half a day's work. She had known what it
was to practise, and, having determined to succeed, she had worked
as only a singer can work who determines that she will succeed. Hour
after hour she had gone on before the looking-glass, and even Mr.
Moss had expressed his approval. But during the years that she had
been so at work, she had never seen her father do anything. She knew
that he talked what she called patriotic buncombe. It might be that
he would become a very fitting Member of Parliament, but Rachel had
her doubt. She could see, however, that the £200 quickly vanished
during their triumphant journeyings on the one-horse car. Everybody
in County Cavan seemed to know that there was £200 and no more to be
spent by the new member. There he was, however, Member of Parliament
for the County of Cavan, and his breast was filled with new
aspirations. Enmity, the bitterest enmity to everything English,
was the one lesson taught him. But he himself had other feelings.
What if he could talk over that Speaker, and that Prime Minister,
that Government generally, and all the House of Commons, and all
the House of Lords! Why should not England go her way and Ireland
hers,--England have her monarchy and Ireland her republic, but still
with some kind of union between them, as to the nature of which Mr.
O'Mahony had no fixed idea in his brain whatsoever. But he knew that
he could talk, and he knew also that he must now talk on an arena
for admission to which the public would not pay twenty-five cents or
more. His breast was much disturbed by the consideration that for all
the work which he proposed to do no wages were to be forthcoming.
But while Mr. O'Mahony was being elected Member of Parliament for
County Cavan, things were going on very sadly in County Galway.
Wednesday, the 31st of August, had been the day fixed for the trial
of Pat Carroll; and the month of August was quickly wearing itself
away. But during the month of August Captain Clayton found occasion
more than once to come into the neighbourhood of Headford. And though
Mr. Jones was of an opinion that his presence there was adequately
accounted for by the details of the coming trial, the two girls
evidently thought that some other cause might be added to that which
Pat Carroll had produced.
It must be explained that at this period Frank Jones was absent from
Morony Castle, looking out for emergency men who could be brought
down to the neighbourhood of Headford, in sufficient number to save
the crop on Mr. Jones's farm. And with him was Tom Daly, who had some
scheme in his own head with reference to his horses and his hounds.
Mr. Persse and Sir Jasper Lynch had been threatened with a wide
system of boycotting, unless they would give up Tom Daly's animals.
A decree had gone forth in the county, that nothing belonging to
the hunt should be allowed to live within its precincts. All the
bitterness and the cruelty and the horror arising from this order are
beyond the limit of this story. But it may be well to explain that at
the present moment Frank Jones was away from Castle Morony, working
hard on his father's behalf.
And so were the girls working hard--making the butter, and cooking
the meat, and attending to the bedrooms. And Peter was busy with them
as their lieutenant. It might be thought that the present was no time
for love-making, and that Captain Clayton could not have been in the
mood. But it may be observed that at any period of special toil in a
family, when infinitely more has to be done than at any other time,
then love-making will go on with more than ordinary energy. Edith
was generally to be found with her hair tucked tight off her face
and enveloped in a coarse dairymaid's apron, and Ada, when she ran
downstairs, would do so with a housemaid's dusting-brush at her
girdle, and they were neither of them, when so attired, in the
least afraid of encountering Captain Clayton as he would come out
from their father's room. All the world knew that they were being
boycotted, and very happy the girls were during the process. "Poor
papa" did not like it so well. Poor papa thought of his banker's
account, or rather of that bank at which there was, so to say, no
longer any account. But the girls were light of heart, and in the
pride of their youth. But, alas! they had both of them blundered
frightfully. It was Edith, Edith the prudent, Edith the wise, Edith,
who was supposed to know everything, who had first gone astray in
her blundering, and had taken Ada with her; but the story with its
details must be told.
"My pet," she said to her elder sister, as they were standing
together at the kitchen dresser, "I know he means to speak to you
to-day."
"What nonsense, Edith!"
"It has to be done some day, you know. And he is just the man to come
upon one in the time of one's dire distress. Of course we haven't got
a halfpenny now belonging to us. I was thinking only the other day
how comfortable it is that we never go out of the house because we
haven't the means to buy boots. Now Captain Clayton is just the man
to be doubly attracted by such penury."
"I don't know why a man is to make an offer to a girl just because he
finds her working like a housemaid."
"I do. I can see it all. He is just the man to take you in his arms
because he found you peeling potatoes."
"I beg he will do nothing of the kind," said Ada. "He has never said
a word to me, or I to him, to justify such a proceeding. I should at
once hit him over the head with my brush."
"Here he comes, and now we will see how far I understand such
matters."
"Don't go, Edith," said Ada. "Pray don't go. If you go I shall go
with you. These things ought always to come naturally,--that is if
they come at all."
It did not "come" at that moment, for Edith was so far mistaken that
Captain Clayton, after saying a few words to the girls, passed on
out of the back-door, intent on special business. "What a wretched
individual he is," said Edith. "Fancy pinning one's character on
the doings of such a man as that. However, he will be back again
to dinner, and you will not be so hard upon him then with your
dusting-brush."
Before dinner the Captain did return, and found himself alone with
Edith in the kitchen. It was her turn on this occasion to send up
whatever meal in the shape of dinner Castle Morony could afford.
"There you have it, sir," she said, pointing to a boiled neck of
mutton, which had been cut from the remains of a sheep sent in to
supply the family wants.
"I see," said he. "It will make a very good dinner,--or a very bad
one, according to circumstances, as they may fall out before the
dinner leaves the kitchen."
"Then they will have to fall out very quickly," said Edith. But the
colour had flown to her face, and in that moment she had learned to
suspect the truth. And her mind flew back rapidly over all her doings
and sayings for the last three months. If it was so, she could never
forgive herself. If it was so, Ada would never forgive her. If it was
so, they two and Captain Yorke Clayton must be separated for ever.
"Well; what is it?" she said, roughly. The joint of meat had fallen
from her hands, and she looked up at Captain Clayton with all the
anger she could bring into her face.
"Edith," he said, "you surely know that I love you."
"I know nothing of the kind. There can be no reason why I should know
it,--why I should guess it. It cannot be so without grievous wrong on
your part."
"What wrong?"
"Base wrong done to my sister," she answered. Then she remembered
that she had betrayed her sister, and she remembered too how much of
the supposed love-making had been done by her own words, and not by
any spoken by Captain Clayton. And there came upon her at that moment
a remembrance also of that other moment in which she had acknowledged
to herself that she had loved this man, and had told herself that the
love was vain, and had sworn to herself that she would never stand
in Ada's way, and had promised to herself that all things should be
happy to her as this man's sister-in-law. Acting then on this idea
merely because Ada had been beautiful she had gone to work,--and this
had come of it! In that minute that was allowed to her as the boiled
mutton was cooling on the dresser beneath her hand, all this passed
through her mind.
"Wrong done by me to Ada!" said the Captain.
"I have said it; but if you are a gentleman you will forget it. I
know that you are a gentleman,--a gallant man, such as few I think
exist anywhere. Captain Clayton, there are but two of us. Take the
best; take the fairest; take the sweetest. Let all this be as though
it had never been spoken. I will be such a sister to you as no man
ever won for himself. And Ada will be as loving a wife as ever graced
a man's home. Let it be so, and I will bless every day of your life."
"No," he said slowly, "I cannot let it be like that. I have learned
to love you and you only, and I thought that you had known it."
"Never!"
"I had thought so. It cannot be as you propose. I shall never speak
of your sister to a living man. I shall never whisper a word of her
regard even here in her own family. But I cannot change my heart as
you propose. Your sister is beautiful, and sweet, and good; but she
is not the girl who has crept into my heart, and made a lasting home
for herself there,--if the girl who has done so would but accept
it. Ada is not the girl whose brightness, whose bravery, whose wit
and ready spirit have won me. These things go, I think, without any
effort. I have known that there has been no attempt on your part; but
the thing has been done and I had hoped that you were aware of it. It
cannot now be undone. I cannot be passed on to another. Here, here,
here is what I want," and he put his two hands upon her shoulders.
"There is no other girl in all Ireland that can supply her place if
she be lost to me."
He had spoken very solemnly, and she had stood there in solemn mood
listening to him. By degrees the conviction had come upon her that he
was in earnest, and was not to be changed in his purpose by anything
that she could say to him. She had blundered, had blundered awfully.
She had thought that with a man beauty would be everything; but with
this man beauty had been nothing; nor had good temper and a sense of
duty availed anything. She rushed into the dining-room carrying the
boiled mutton with her, and he followed. What should she do now? Ada
would yield--would give him up--would retire into the background, and
would declare that Edith should be made happy, but would never lift
up her head again. And she--she herself--could also give him up,
and would lift up her head again. She knew that she had a power of
bearing sorrow, and going on with the work of the world, in spite of
all troubles, which Ada did not possess. It might, therefore, have
all been settled, but that the man was stubborn, and would not be
changed. "Of course, he is a man," said Edith to herself, as she put
the mutton down. "Of course he must have it all to please himself. Of
course he will be selfish."
"I thought you were never coming with our morsel of dinner," said Mr.
Jones.
"Here is the morsel of dinner; but I could have dished it in half the
time if Captain Clayton had not been there."
"Of course I am the offender," said he, as he sat down. "And now I
have forgotten to bring the potatoes." So he started off, and met
Florian at the door coming in with them. Mr. Jones carved the mutton,
and Captain Clayton was helped first. In a boycotted house you will
always find that the gentlemen are helped before the ladies. It
is a part of the principle of boycotting that women shall subject
themselves.
Captain Clayton, after his first little stir about the potatoes, ate
his dinner in perfect silence. That which had taken place upset him
more completely than the rifles of two or three Landleaguers. Mr.
Jones was also silent. He was a man at the present moment nearly
overwhelmed by his cares. And Ada, too, was silent. As Edith looked
at her furtively she began to fear that her pet suspected something.
There was a look of suffering in her face which Edith could read,
though it was not plain enough written there to be legible to others.
Her father and Florian had no key by which to read it, and Captain
Clayton never allowed his eyes to turn towards Ada's face. But it was
imperative on both that they should not all fall into some feeling of
special sorrow through their silence. "It is just one week more," she
said, "before you men must be at Galway."
"Only one week," said Florian.
"It will be much better to have it over," said the father. "I do not
think you need come back at all, but start at once from Galway. Your
sisters can bring what things you want, and say good-bye at Athenry."
"My poor Florian," said Edith.
"I shan't mind it so much when I get to England," said the boy. "I
suppose I shall come home for the Christmas holidays."
"I don't know about that," said the father. "It will depend upon the
state of the country."
"You will come and meet him, Ada?" asked Edith.
"I suppose so," said Ada. And her sister knew from the tone of her
voice that some evil was already suspected.
There was nothing more said that night till Edith and Ada were
together. Mr. Jones lingered with his daughters, and the Captain took
Florian out about the orchard, thinking it well to make him used
to whatever danger might come to him from being out of the house.
"They will never come where they will be sure to be known," said the
Captain; "and known by various witnesses. And they won't come for
the chance of a pop shot. I am getting to know their ways as well as
though I had lived there all my life. They count on the acquittal of
Pat Carroll as a certainty. Whatever I may be, you are tolerably safe
as long as that is the case."
"They may shoot me in mistake for you," said the boy.
"Well, yes; that is so. Let us go back to the house. But I don't
think there would be any danger to-night anyway." Then they returned,
and found Mr. Jones alone in the dining-room. He was very melancholy
in these days, as a man must be whom ruin stares in the face.
Edith had followed Ada upstairs to the bedrooms, and had crept after
her into that which had been prepared for Captain Clayton. She could
see now by the lingering light of an August evening that a tear had
fallen from each eye, and had slowly run down her sister's cheeks.
"Oh, Ada, dear Ada, what is troubling you?"
"Nothing,--much."
"My girl, my beauty, my darling! Much or little, what is it? Cannot
you tell me?"
"He cares nothing for me," said Ada, laying her hand upon the pillow,
thus indicating the "he" whom she intended. Edith answered not a
word, but pressed her arm tight round her sister's waist. "It is so,"
said Ada, turning round upon her sister as though to rebuke her. "You
know that it is so."
"My beauty, my own one," said Edith, kissing her.
"You know it is so. He has told you. It is not me that he loves;
it is you. You are his chosen one. I am nothing to him,--nothing,
nothing." Then she flung herself down upon the bed which her own
hands had prepared for him.
It was all true. As the assertions had come from her one by one,
Edith had found herself unable to deny a tittle of what was said.
"Ada, if you knew my heart to you."
"What good is it? Why did you teach me to believe a falsehood?"
"Oh! you will kill me if you accuse me. I have been so true to you."
Then Ada turned round upon the bed, and hid her face for a few
minutes upon the pillow. "Ada, have I not been true to you?"
"But that you should have been so much mistaken;--you, who know
everything."
"I have not known him," said Edith.
"But you will," said Ada. "You will be his wife."
"Never!" ejaculated the other.
Then slowly, Ada got up from the bed and shook her hair from off her
face and wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. "It must be so," she
said. "Of course it must, as he wishes it. He must have all that he
desires."
"No, not so. He shall never have this."
"Yes, Edith, he must and he shall. Do you not know that you loved him
before you ever bade me to do so? But why, oh why did you ever make
that great mistake? And why was I so foolish as to have believed
you? Come," she said, "I must make his bed for him once again. He
will be here soon now and we must be away." Then she did obliterate
the traces of her form which her figure had made upon the bed, and
smoothed the pillow, and wiped away the mark of her tear which
had fallen on it. "Come, Edith, come," said she, "let us go and
understand each other. He knows, for you have told him, but no one
else need know. He shall be your husband, and I will be his sister,
and all shall be bright between you."
"Never," said Edith. "Never! He will never be married if he waits for
me."
"My dear one, you shall be his wife," said Ada. Such were the last
words which passed between them on that night.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE ROAD TO BALLYGLUNIN.
The days ran on for the trial of Pat Carroll, but Edith did not again
see Captain Clayton. There came tidings to Morony Castle of the new
honours which Mr. O'Mahony had achieved.
"I don't know that the country will be much the wiser for his
services," said Captain Clayton. "He will go altogether with those
wretched Landleaguers."
"He will be the best of the lot," said Mr. Jones.
"It is saying very little for him," said Captain Clayton.
"He is an honest man, and I take him to be the only honest man among
them."
"He won't remain a Landleaguer long if he is honest. But what about
his daughter?"
"Frank has seen her down in Cavan, and declares that she is about to
make any amount of money at the London theatres."
"I take it they will find it quite a new thing to have a Member of
Parliament among their number with an income," said Clayton. "But
I'll bet any man a new hat that there is a split between him and them
before the next Parliament is half over."
This took place during one of the visits which Captain Clayton had
made to Morony Castle in reference to the coming trial. Florian had
been already sent on to Mr. Blake's of Carnlough, and was to be
picked up there on that very afternoon by Mr. Jones, and driven to
Ballyglunin, so as to be taken from thence to the assize town by
train. This was thought to be most expedient, as the boy would not be
on the road for above half an hour.
After Captain Clayton had gone, Mr. Jones asked after Edith, and was
told that she was away in Headford. She had walked into town to call
on Mrs. Armstrong, with a view of getting a few articles which Mrs.
Armstrong had promised to buy for her. Such was the story as given to
Mr. Jones, and fully believed by him; but the reader may be permitted
to think that the young lady was not anxious to meet the young
gentleman.
"Ada," said Mr. Jones suddenly, "is there anything between Edith and
Captain Clayton?"
"What makes you ask, papa?"
"Because Peter has hinted it. I do not care to have such things told
me of my own family by the servant."
"Yes, there is, papa," said Ada boldly. "Captain Clayton is in love
with Edith."
"This is no time for marrying or giving in marriage."
Ada made no reply, but thought that it must at the same time be a
very good time for becoming engaged. It would have been so for her
had such been her luck. But of herself she said nothing. She had
made her statement openly and bravely to her sister, so that there
should be no departing from it. Mr. Jones said nothing further at the
moment, but before the girls had separated for the night Ada had told
Edith what had occurred.
At that time they were in the house alone together,--alone as
regarded the family, though they still had the protection of Peter.
Mr. Jones had started on his journey to Galway.
"Papa," said Ada, "knows all about Yorke."
"Knows what?" demanded Edith.
"That you and he are engaged together."
"He knows more than I do, then. He knows more than I ever shall know.
Ada, you should not have said so. It will have to be all unsaid."
"Not at all, dear."
"It will all have to be unsaid. Have you been speaking to Captain
Clayton on the subject?"
"Not a word. Indeed it was not I who told papa. It was Peter. Peter
said that there was something between you and him, and papa asked me.
I told papa that he was in love with you. That was true at any rate.
You won't deny that?"
"I will deny anything that connects my name with that of Captain
Yorke Clayton."
But Ada had determined how that matter should arrange itself. Since
the blow had first fallen on her, she had had time to think of
it,--and she had thought of it. Edith had done her best for her
(presuming that this brave Captain was the best) and she in return
would do her best for Edith. No one knew the whole story but they
two. They were to be to her the dearest friends of her future life,
and she would not let the knowledge of such a story stand in her way
or theirs.
The train was to start from the Ballyglunin station for Athenry at
4.20 p.m. It would then have left Tuam for Athenry, where it would
fall into the day mail-train from Dublin to Galway. It was something
out of the way for Mr. Jones to call at Carnlough; but Carnlough was
not three miles from Ballyglunin, and Mr. Jones made his arrangements
accordingly. He called at Carnlough, and there took up the boy on
his outside car. Peter had come with him, so as to take back the
car to Morony Castle. But Peter had made himself of late somewhat
disagreeable, and Mr. Jones had in truth been sulky.
"Look here, Peter," he had said, speaking from one side of the car
to the other, "if you are afraid to come to Ballyglunin with me and
Master Flory, say so, and get down."
"I'm not afeared, Mr. Jones."
"Then don't say so. I don't believe you are afeared as you call it."
"Then why do you be talking at me like that, sir?"
"I don't think you are a coward, but you are anxious to make the
most of your services on my behalf. You are telling everyone that
something special is due to you for staying in a boycotted house.
It's a kind of service for which I am grateful, but I can't be
grateful and pay too."
"Why do you talk to a poor boy in that way?"
"So that the poor boy may understand me. You are willing, I believe,
to stick to your old master,--from sheer good heart. But you like to
talk about it. Now I don't like to hear about it." After that Peter
drove on in silence till they came to Carnlough.
The car had been seen coming up the avenue, and Mr. Blake, with his
wife and Florian, were standing on the door-steps. "Now do take care
of the poor dear boy," said Mrs. Blake. "There are such dreadful
stories told of horrible men about the country."
"Don't mention such nonsense, Winifred," said her husband, "trying
to frighten the boy. There isn't a human being between this and
Ballyglunin for whom I won't be responsible. Till you come to a mile
of the station it's all my own property."
"But they can shoot--" Then Mrs. Blake left the rest of her sentence
unspoken, having been checked by her husband's eye. The boy, however,
had heard it and trembled.
"Come along, Florian," said the father. "Get up along with Peter."
The attempt which he had made to live with his son on affectionate
paternal relations had hardly been successful. The boy had been told
so much of murderers that he had been made to fear. Peter,--and other
Peters about the country,--had filled his mind with sad foreboding.
And there had always been something timid, something almost unmanly
in his nature. He had seemed to prefer to shrink and cower and be
mysterious with the Carrolls to coming forward boldly with such a man
as Yorke Clayton. The girls had seen this, and had declared that he
was no more than a boy; but his father had seen it and had made no
such allowance. And now he saw that he trembled. But Florian got up
on the car, and Peter drove them off to Ballyglunin.
Carnlough was not above three Irish miles from Ballyglunin; and Mr.
Jones started on the little journey without a misgiving. He sat alone
on the near side of the car, and Florian sat on the other, together
with Peter who was driving. The horse was a heavy, slow-going animal,
rough and hairy in its coat, but trustworthy and an old servant.
There had been a time when Mr. Jones kept a carriage, but that had
been before the bad times had begun. The carriage horses had been
sold after the flood,--as Ada had called the memorable incident;
and now there were but three cart horses at Morony Castle, of which
this one animal alone was habitually driven in the car. The floods,
indeed, had now retreated from the lands of Ballintubber and the
flood gates were mended; but there would be no crop of hay on all
those eighty acres this year, and Mr. Jones was in no condition to
replace his private stud. As he went along on this present journey he
was thinking bitterly of the injury which had been done him. He had
lost over two hundred tons of hay, and each ton of hay would have
been worth three pounds ten shillings. He had been unable to get a
sluice gate mended till men had been brought together from Monaghan
and parts of Cavan to mend them for him, and he had even to send
these men into Limerick to buy the material, as not a piece of timber
could be procured in Galway for the use of a household so well
boycotted as was Morony Castle. There had been also various calls on
Mr. Jones from those relatives whose money had been left as mortgages
on his property. And no rent had as yet come in, although various
tenants had been necessarily evicted. Every man's hand was against
him; so that there was no money in his coffers. He who had chiefly
sinned against him,--who was the first to sin,--was the sinner whom
he was about to prosecute at Galway. It must be supposed, therefore,
that he was not in a good humour as he was driven along the road to
Ballyglunin.
They had not yet passed the boundary fence between Carnlough and
the property of one of the numerous race of Bodkins, when Mr. Jones
saw a mask, which he supposed to be a mask worn by a man, through a
hole in the wall just in front of him, but high above his head. And
at the same moment he could see the muzzles of a double-barrelled
rifle presented through the hole in the wall. What he saw he saw
but for a few seconds; but he could see it plainly. He saw it so
plainly as to be able afterwards to swear to a black mask, and to a
double-barrelled gun. Then a trigger was pulled, and one bullet--the
second--went through the collar of his own coat, while the first had
had a more fatal and truer aim. The father jumped up and turning
round saw that his boy had fallen to the ground. "Oh, my God!" said
Peter, and he stopped the horse suddenly. The place was one where the
commencement had been made of a cutting in the road during the potato
failure of 1846; so that the wall and the rifle which had been passed
through it were about four or five feet above the car. Mr. Jones
rushed up the elevation, and clambered, he did not know how, into
the field. There he saw the back of a man speeding along from the
wall, and in the man's hand there was a gun. Mr. Jones looked around
but there was no one nigh him but Peter, the old servant, and his
dying boy. He could see, however, that the man who ran was short of
stature.
But though his rage had sufficed to carry him up from the road into
the field, the idea that his son had been shot caused him to pause
as he ran, and to return to the road. When he got there he found
two girls about seventeen and eighteen years of age, one sitting on
the road with Florian's head on her lap, and the other kneeling and
holding the boy's hands. "Oh, yer honour! sorrow a taste in life do
we know about it," said the kneeling girl.
"Not a sight did we see, or a sound did we hear," said the other,
"only the going off of the blunderbuss. Oh, wirra shure! oh, musha,
musha! and it's dead he is, the darling boy." Mr. Jones came round
and picked up poor Florian and laid him on the car. The bullet had
gone true to its mark and had buried itself in his brain. There was
the end of poor Florian Jones and all his troubles. The father did
not say a word, not even in reply to Peter's wailings or to the
girls' easy sorrow; but, taking the rein in his own hands, drove the
car with the body on it back to Carnlough.
We can hardly analyse the father's mind as he went. Not a tear came
to his relief. Nor during this half hour can he hardly have been said
to sorrow. An intensity of wrath filled his breast. He had spent his
time for many a long year in doing all in his power for those around
him, and now they had brought him to this. They had robbed him of his
boy's heart. They had taught his boy to be one of them, and to be
untrue to his own people. And now, because he had yielded to better
teachings, they had murdered him. They had taught his boy to be a
coward; for even in his bereavement he remembered poor Florian's
failing. The accursed Papist people were all cowards down to their
backbones. So he said of them in his rage. There was not one of
them who could look any peril in the face as did Yorke Clayton or
his son Frank. But they were terribly powerful in their wretched
want of manliness. They could murder, and were protected in their
bloodthirstiness one by another. He did not doubt but that those
two girls who were wailing on the road knew well enough who was the
murderer, but no one would tell in this accursed, unhallowed, godless
country. The honour and honesty of one man did not, in these days,
prompt another to abstain from vice. The only heroism left in the
country was the heroism of mystery, of secret bloodshed and of hidden
attacks.
He had driven back methodically to Carnlough gates, but he hesitated
to carry his burden up to the hall-door. Would it not be better for
him at once to go home, and there to endure the suffering that was
in store for him? But he remembered that it would behove him to take
what steps might be possible for tracing the murderer. That by no
steps could anything be done, he was sure; but still the attempt was
necessary. He had, however, paused a minute or two at the open gate
when he was rebuked by Peter. "Shure yer honour is going up to the
house to get the constables to scour the counthry."
"Scour the country!" said the father. "All the country will turn out
to defend the murderer of my boy." But he drove up to the front, and
Peter knocked at the door.
"Good heaven, Jones!" said Mr. Blake, as he looked at the car and its
occupant. The poor boy's head was supported on the pillow behind the
driver's seat, on which no one sat. Peter held him by both his feet,
and Mr. Jones had his hand within his grasp.
"So it is," said the father. "You know where they have cut the road
just where your property meres with Bodkin's. There was a man above
there who had loop-holed the wall. I saw his face wearing a mask as
plain as I can see yours. And he had a double-barrelled gun. He fired
the two shots, and my boy was killed by the first."
"They have struck you too on the collar of your coat."
"I got into the field with the murderer, and I could have caught the
man had I been younger. But what would have been the use? No jury
would have found him guilty. What am I to do? Oh, God! what am I to
do?" Mrs. Blake and her daughter were now out upon the steps, and
were filling the hall with their wailings. "Tell me, Blake, what had
I better do?" Then Mr. Blake decided that the body should remain
there that night, and Mr. Jones also, and that the police should be
sent for to do whatever might seem fitting to the policemen's mind.
Peter was sent off to Morony Castle with such a letter as Miss Blake
was able to write to the two Jones girls. The police came from Tuam,
but the result of their enquiries on that night need not be told
here.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE GALWAY COURT HOUSE.
There was a feeling very general in the county that the murder had
been committed by the man named Lax, who was known to have been in
the neighbourhood lately, and was declared by his friends at Headford
to be now in Galway, waiting for the trial of Pat Carroll. But there
seemed to be a feeling about the country that Florian Jones had
deserved his fate. He had, it was said, been untrue to his religion.
He had given a solemn promise to Father Brosnan,--of what nature was
not generally known,--and had broken it. "The bittherness of the
Orange feud was in his blood," said Father Brosnan. But neither did
he explain the meaning of what he said, as none of the Jones family
had ever been Orangemen. But the idea was common about Tuam and
Headford that Pat Carroll was a martyr, and that Florian had been
persuaded to turn Protestant in order that he might give false
evidence against him. The reader, however, must understand that
Florian still professed the Catholic religion at the moment of his
death, and that all Headford was aware that Pat Carroll had broken
the sluice gate at Ballintubber.
After an interval of two days the trial was about to go on at Galway
in spite of the murder. It was quite true that by nothing could the
breath of life be restored to Florian Jones. His evidence, such as it
was, could now be taken only from his deposition. And such evidence
was regarded as being very unfair both on one side and on the other.
As given against Pat Carroll it was regarded as unfair, as being
incapable of subjection to cross-examination. The boy's evidence had
been extracted from him by his parents and by Captain Yorke Clayton,
in opposition to the statements which had been made scores of times
by himself on the other side, and which, if true, would all tend to
exonerate the prisoner. It had been the intention of Mr. O'Donnell,
the senior counsel employed to defend Carroll, to insist, with the
greatest severity, on the lies told by the poor boy. It was this
treatment which Florian had especially feared. There could be no such
treatment now; but Mr. O'Donnell would know well how to insist on
the injustice of the deposition, in which no allusion would be made
to the falsehood previously told. But on the other side it was said
that the witness had been removed so that his evidence should not be
given. They must now depend solely on the statement of Terry Carroll,
Pat's brother, and who also had lied terribly before he told the
truth. And he, too, was condemned more bitterly, even by Mr. Jones
and his friends, in that he was giving evidence against his brother,
than had he continued to lie on his behalf. The circumstances being
such as they were, it was felt to be almost impossible to secure
the conviction of Pat Carroll for the offence he had committed. And
yet there were certainly a dozen persons who had seen that offence
committed in the light of day, and many other dozens who knew by whom
the offence had been committed.
And, indeed, the feeling had become common through the country that
all the lawyers and judges in Ireland,--the lawyers and judges that
is who were opposed to the Landleague,--could not secure a conviction
of any kind against prisoners whom the Landleague was bound to
support. It had come to be whispered about, that there were men in
the County of Galway,--and men also in other counties,--too strong
for the Government, men who could beat the Government on any point,
men whom no jury could be brought to convict by any evidence; men who
boasted of the possession of certain secret powers,--which generally
meant murder. It came to be believed that these men were possessed
of certain mysterious capabilities which the police could not handle,
nor the magistrates touch. And the danger to be feared from these
men arose chiefly from the belief in them which had become common.
It was not that they could do anything special if left to their own
devices, but that the crowds by whom they were surrounded trembled at
their existence. The man living next to you, ignorant, and a Roman
Catholic, inspired with some mysterious awe, would wish in his heart
that the country was rid of such fire-brands. He knew well that the
country, and he as part of the country, had more to get from law and
order than from murder and misrule. But murder and misrule had so
raised their heads for the present as to make themselves appear to
him more powerful than law and order. Mr. Lax, and others like him,
were keenly alive to the necessity of maintaining this belief in
their mysterious power.
The trial came on, having been delayed two days by the murder of poor
Florian Jones. His body had, in the meantime, been taken home, and
the only visitor received at Morony Castle had been Yorke Clayton. On
his coming he had been at first closeted with Mr. Jones, and had then
gone out and seen the two girls together. He had taken Ada's hand
first and then Edith's, but he had held Edith's the longer. The girls
had known that it was so, but neither of them had said a word to
rebuke him. "Who was it?" asked Ada.
Clayton shook his head and ground his teeth. "Do you know, or have
you an idea? You know so much about the country," said Edith.
"To you two, but to you only, I do know. He and I cannot exist
together. The man's name is Lax."
It may be imagined that the trial was not commenced at Galway without
the expression of much sympathy for Mr. Jones and the family at
Morony Castle. It is hard to explain the different feelings which
existed, feelings exactly opposed to each other, but which still were
both in their way general and true. He was "poor Mr. Jones," who had
lost his son, and, worse still, his eighty acres of grass, and he
was also "that fellow Jones," that enemy to the Landleague, whom it
behoved all patriotic Irishmen to get the better of and to conquer.
Florian had been murdered on the 30th of August, which was a Tuesday,
and the trial had been postponed until Friday, the 2nd of September.
It was understood that the boy was to be buried at Headford, on
Saturday, the 3rd; but, nevertheless, the father was in the assize
town on the Friday. He was in the town, and at eleven o'clock he took
his place in the Crown Court. He was a man who was still continually
summoned as a grand juror, and as such had no difficulty in securing
for himself a place. To the right of the judge sat the twelve jurors
who had been summoned to try the case, and to the left was the grand
jurors' box, in which Mr. Jones took his seat early in the day. And
Frank was also in the court, and had been stopped by no one when he
accompanied his father into the grand jurors' box.
But the court was crowded in a wonderful manner, so that they who
understood the ways of criminal courts in Ireland knew that something
special was boded. As soon as Mr. Justice Parry took his seat, it was
seen that the court was much more than ordinarily filled, and was
filled by men who did not make themselves amenable to the police.
Many were the instructions given by the judge who had been selected
with a special view to this trial. Judge Parry was a Roman Catholic,
who had sat in the House of Commons as a strong Liberal, had been
Attorney-General to a Liberal Government, and had been suspected of
holding Home-Rule sentiments. But men, when they become judges, are
apt to change their ideas. And Judge Parry was now known to be a firm
man, whom nothing would turn from the execution of his duty. There
had been many Judge Parrys in Ireland, who have all gone the same
gait, and have followed the same course when they have accepted the
ermine. A man is at liberty to indulge what vagaries he pleases, as
long as he is simply a Member of Parliament. But a judge is not at
liberty. He now gave special instructions to the officers of the
court to keep quiet and to preserve order. But the court was full,
densely crowded; and the noise which arose from the crowd was only
the noise as of people whispering loudly among themselves.
The jury was quickly sworn and the trial was set on foot. Pat Carroll
was made to stand up in the dock, and Mr. Jones looked at the face of
the man who had been the first on his property to show his hostility
to the idea of paying rent. He and Lax had been great friends, and it
was known that Lax had sworn that in a short time not a shilling of
rent should be paid in the County Mayo. From that assurance all these
troubles had come.
Then the Attorney-General opened the case, and to tell the truth, he
made a speech which though very eloquent, was longer than necessary.
He spoke of the dreadful state of the country, a matter which he
might have left to the judge, and almost burst into tears when he
alluded to the condition of Mr. Jones, the gentleman who sat opposite
to him. And he spoke at full length of the evidence of the poor boy
whose deposition he held in his hand, which he told the jury he would
read to them later on in the day. No doubt the lad had deceived his
father since the offence had been committed. He had long declared
that he knew nothing of the perpetrators. The boy had seemed to
entertain in his mind certain ideas friendly to the Landleague, and
had made promises on behalf of Landleaguers to which he had long
adhered. But his father had at last succeeded, and the truth had
been forthcoming. His lordship would instruct them how far the boy's
deposition could be accepted as evidence, and how far it must fail.
And so at last the Attorney-General brought his eloquent speech to an
end.
And now there arose a murmuring sound in the court, and a stirring of
feet and a moving of shoulders, louder than that which had been heard
before. The judge, there on his bench, looking out from under his
bushy eyebrows, could see that the people before him were all of one
class. And he could see also that the half-dozen policemen who were
kept close among the crowd, were so pressed as to be hardly masters
of their own actions. He called out a word even from the bench in
which there was something as to clearing the court; but no attempt
to clear the court was made or was apparently possible. The first
witness was summoned, and an attempt was made to bring him up through
the dock into the witness-box. This witness was Terry Carroll, the
brother of Pat, and was known to be there that he might swear away
his brother's liberty. His head no sooner appeared, as about to leave
the dock, than the whole court was filled with a yell of hatred.
There were two policemen standing between the two brothers, but Pat
only turned round and looked at the traitor with scorn. But the
voices through the court sounded louder and more venomous as Terry
Carroll stepped out of the dock among the policemen who were to make
an avenue for him up to the witness-box.
It was the last step he ever made. At that moment the flash of a
pistol was seen in the court; of a pistol close at the man's ear, and
Terry Carroll was a dead man. The pistol had touched his head as it
had been fired, so that there had been no chance of escape. In this
way was the other witness removed, who had been brought thither by
the Crown to give evidence as to the demolition of Mr. Jones's flood
gates. And it was said afterwards,--for weeks afterwards,--that such
should be the fate of all witnesses who appeared in the west of
Ireland to obey the behests of the Crown.
Then was seen the reason why the special crowd had been gathered
there, and of what nature were the men who had swarmed into court.
Clayton, who had been sitting at the end of the row of barristers,
jumped up over the back of the bench and rushed in among the people,
who now tried simply to hold their own places, and appeared neither
to be anxious to go in or out. "Tear an' ages, Musther Clayton, what
are you after jumping on to a fellow that way." This was said by a
brawny Miletian, on to whose shoulders our friend had leaped, meaning
to get down among the crowd. But the Miletian had struck him hard,
and would have knocked him down had there been room enough for him on
which to fall. But Clayton had minded the blow not at all, and had
minded the judge as little, making his way in through the crowd over
the dead body of Terry Carroll. He had been aware that Lax was in the
court, and had seated himself opposite to the place where the man
had stood. But Lax had moved himself during the Attorney-General's
speech, either with the view of avoiding the Captain's eyes,--or, if
he were to be the murderer, of finding the best place from which the
deed could be done. If this had been his object, certainly the place
had been well selected. It was afterwards stated, that though fifty
people at the judge's end of the court had seen the pistol, no eyes
had seen the face of him who held it. Many faces had been seen, but
nobody could connect a single face with the pistol. And it was proved
also that the ball had entered the head just under the ear, with a
slant upwards towards the brain, as though the weapon had been used
by someone crouching towards the ground.
Clayton made his way out of court, followed by the faithful Hunter,
and was soon surrounded by half a score of policemen. Hunter was left
to watch the door of the court, because he was well acquainted with
Lax, and because should Lax come across Hunter, "God help Mr. Lax!"
as Clayton expressed himself. And others were sent by twos and threes
through the city to catch this man if it were possible, or to obtain
tidings respecting him. "A man cannot bury himself under the ground,"
said Clayton; "we have always this pull upon them, that they cannot
make themselves invisible." But in this case it almost did appear
that Mr. Lax had the power.
Though Pat Carroll was not at once set at liberty, his trial was
brought to an end. It was felt to be impossible to send the case to
the jury when the only two witnesses belonging to the Crown had been
murdered. The prisoner was remanded, or sent back to gaol, so that
the Crown might look for more evidence if more might chance to be
found, and everybody else connected in the matter was sent home. A
dark gloom settled itself on Galway, and men were heard to whisper
among themselves that the Queen's laws were no longer in force. And
there was a rowdy readiness to oppose all force, the force of the
police for instance, and the force of the military. There were men
there who seemed to think that now had come the good time when they
might knock anyone on the head at their leisure. It did not come
quite to this, as the police were still combined, and their enemies
were not so. But such men as Captain Clayton began to look as though
they doubted what would become of it. "If he thinks he is big enough
to catch a hold of Terry Lax and keep him, he'll precious soon find
his mistake." This was said by Con Heffernan of Captain Clayton.
CHAPTER XXXII.
MR. O'MAHONY AS MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT.
Frank Jones had travelled backwards and forwards between Morony
Castle and the North more than once since these things were doing,
and had met the new member for Cavan together with Rachel on the very
evening on which poor Florian had been murdered. It was not till the
next morning that the news had become generally known. "I am sorry to
hear, Frank," said Rachel, "that you are all doing so badly at Morony
Castle."
"Badly enough."
"Are you fetching all these people down from here to do the work the
men there ought to do? How are the men there to get their wages?"
"That is the essence of boycotting," said Frank. "The men there won't
get their wages, and can only live by robbing the governor and men
like him of their rents. And in that way they can't live long.
Everything will be disturbed and ruined."
"It seems to me," said Rachel, "that the whole country is coming to
an end."
"Your father is Member of Parliament now, and of course he will set
it all to rights."
"He will at any rate do his best to do so," said Rachel, "and will
rob no man in the doing it. What do you mean to do with yourself?"
"Stick to the ship till it sinks, and then go down with it."
"And your sisters?"
"They are of the same way of thinking, I take it. They are not good
at inventing any way of getting out of their troubles; but they know
how to endure."
"Now, Frank," said she, "shall I give you a bit of advice?"
"Oh yes! I like advice."
"You wanted to kiss me just now."
"That was natural at any rate."
"No, it wasn't;--because you and I are two. When a young man and a
young woman are two they shouldn't kiss any more. That is logic."
"I don't know about logic."
"At any rate it is something of the same sort. It is the kind of
thing everybody believes in if they want to go right. You and I want
to go right, don't we?"
"I believe so."
"Of course we do," and she took hold of his arm and shook him. "It
would break your heart if you didn't think I was going right, and why
shouldn't I be as anxious about you? Now for my piece of advice. I am
going to make a lot of money."
"I am glad to hear it."
"Come and share it with me. I would have shared yours if you had made
a lot. You must call me Madame de Iona, or some such name as that.
The name does not matter, but the money will be all there. Won't it
be grand to be able to help your father and your sisters! Only you
men are so beastly proud. Isn't it honest money,--money that has come
by singing?"
"Certainly it is."
"And if the wife earns it instead of the husband;--isn't that honest?
And then you know," she said, looking up into his face, "you can kiss
me right away. Isn't that an inducement?"
The offer was an inducement, but the conversation only ended in a
squabble. She rebuked him for his dishonesty, in taking the kiss
without acceding to the penalty, and he declared that according to
his view of the case, he could not become the fainéant husband of a
rich opera singer. "And yet you would ask me to become the fainéante
wife of a wealthy landowner. And because, under the stress of the
times, you are not wealthy you choose to reject the girl altogether
who has given you her heart. Go away. You are no good. When a man
stands up on his hind legs and pretends to be proud he never is any
good."
Then Mr. O'Mahony came in and had a political discussion with Frank
Jones. "Yes," said the Member of Parliament, "I mean to put my
shoulder to the wheel, and do the very best that can be done. I
cannot believe but what a man in earnest will find out the truth.
Politics are not such a hopeless muddle but what some gleam of light
may be made to shine through."
"There are such things as leaders," said Frank.
Then Mr. O'Mahony stood up and laid his hand upon his heart. "You
remember what Van Artevelde said--'They shall murder me ere make me
go the way that is not my way, for an inch.' I say the same."
"What will Mr. Parnell do with such a follower?"
"Mr. Parnell is also an honest man," cried Mr. O'Mahony. "Two honest
men looking for light together will never fall out. I at any rate
have some little gift of utterance. Perhaps I can persuade a man, or
two men. At any rate I will try."
"But how are we to get back to London, father?" said Rachel. "I don't
think it becomes an honest Member of Parliament to take money out of
a common fund. You will have to remain here in pawn till I go and
sing you out." But Rachel had enough left of Lord Castlewell's money
to carry them back to London, on condition that they did not stop on
the road, and to this condition she was forced to bring her father.
Early on the following morning before they started the news reached
Cavan of poor Florian's death. "Oh God! My brother!" exclaimed Frank;
but it was all that he did say. He was a man who like his father
had become embittered by the circumstances of the times. Mr. Jones
had bought his property, now thirty years since, with what was then
called a parliamentary title. He had paid hard money for it, and had
induced his friends to lend their money to assist the purchase, for
which he was responsible. Much of the land he had been enabled to
keep in his own hands, but on none of the tenants' had he raised
the rent. Now there had come forth a law, not from the hand of the
Landleaguers, but from the Government, who, it was believed, would
protect those who did their duty by the country. Under this law
commissioners were to be appointed,--or sub-commissioners,--men
supposed to be not of great mark in the country, who were to reduce
the rent according to their ideas of justice. If a man paid ten
pounds,--or had engaged to pay ten,--let him take his pen and write
down seven or eight as the sub-commissioner should decide. As the
outside landlords, the friends of Mr. Jones, must have five pounds
out of the original ten, that which was coming to Mr. Jones himself
would be about halved. And the condition of Mr. Jones, under the
system of boycotting which he was undergoing, was hard to endure.
Now Frank was the eldest son, and the property of Castle Morony and
Ballintubber was entailed upon him. He was brought up in his early
youth to feel that he was to fill that situation, which, of all
others, is the most attractive. He was to have been the eldest son
of a man of unembarrassed property. Now he was offered to be taken
to London as the travelling husband--or upper servant, as it might
be--of an opera singer. Then, while he was in this condition, there
came to him the news that his brother had been murdered; and he
must go home to give what assistance was in his power to his poor,
ill-used sisters. It is not to be wondered at that he was embittered.
He had been spending some hours of the last day in reading the
clauses of the Bill under which the sub-commissioners were to show
him what mercy they might think right. As he left Cavan the following
morning, his curses were more deep against the Government than
against the Landleague.
Mr. O'Mahony and his daughter got back to Cecil Street in September
in a very impecunious state. He soon began to understand that the
position of Member of Parliament was more difficult and dangerous
than that of a lecturer. The police had interfered with him; but the
police had in truth done him no harm, nor had they wanted anything
from him. But as Member of Parliament for Cavan the attacks made on
his purse were very numerous. And throughout September, when the
glory of Parliament was just newly settled upon his shoulders, sundry
calls were made upon him for obedience which were distasteful to him.
He was wanted over in Ireland. Mr. O'Mahony was an outspoken, frank
man, who did not at all like to be troubled with secrets. "I haven't
got any money to come over to Ireland just at present. They took
what I had away from me in County Cavan during the election. I don't
suppose I shall have any to speak of till after Christmas, and then
it won't be much. If you have anything for a man to do in London it
will be more within my reach." It was thus he wrote to some brother
Member of Parliament who had summoned him to a grand meeting at the
Rotunda. He was wanted to address the people on the honesty of the
principle of paying no rent. "For the matter of that," he wrote to
another brother member, "I don't see the honesty. Why are we to
take the property from Jack and give it to Bill? Bill would sell it
and spend the money, and no good would then have been done to the
country. I should have to argue the matter out with you or someone
else before I could speak about it at the Rotunda." Then, there arose
a doubt whether Mr. O'Mahony was the proper member for Cavan. He
settled himself down in Cecil Street and began to write a book about
rent. When he began his book he hated rent from his very soul. The
difficulty he saw was this: what should you do with the property when
you took it away from the landlords? He quite saw his way to taking
it away; if only a new order would come from heaven for the creation
of a special set of farmers who should be wedded to their land by
some celestial matrimony, and should clearly be in possession of it
without the perpetration of any injustice. He did not quite see his
way to this by his own lights, and therefore he went to the British
Museum. When a man wants to write a book full of unassailable facts,
he always goes to the British Museum. In this way Mr. O'Mahony
purposed to spend his autumn instead of speaking at the Rotunda,
because it suited him to live in London rather than in Dublin.
Cecil Street in September is not the most cheerful place in the
world. While Rachel had been singing at "The Embankment," with the
occasional excitement of a quarrel with Mr. Moss, it had been all
very well; but now while her father was studying statistics at the
British Museum, she had nothing to do but to practise her singing. "I
mean to do something, you know, towards earning that £200 which you
have lent me." This she said to Lord Castlewell, who had come up to
London to have his teeth looked after. This was the excuse he gave
for being in London at this unfashionable season. "I have to sing
from breakfast to dinner without stopping one minute, so you may go
back to the dentist at once. I haven't time even to see what he has
done."
"I have to propose that you and your father shall come and dine with
me down at Richmond to-day. There is old Mrs. Peacock, who used to
sing bouffe parts at the Queen's Theatre. She is a most respectable
old party, and she shall come if you will let her."
"For papa to flirt with?" said Rachel.
"Not at all. With a party of four there is never any flirting. It is
all solid sense. I want to have some serious conversation about that
£200. Mrs. Peacock will be able to give me her opinion."
"She won't be able to lend me the money?"
"I'm afraid she isn't a good doctor for that disease. But you must
dine somewhere, and do say you will come."
But Rachel was determined not to come,--at any rate not to say that
she would come without consulting her father. So she explained that
the Member of Parliament was hard at work at the British Museum,
writing a book against the payment of rents, and that she could not
go without consulting him. But Lord Castlewell made that very easy.
"I'll go and see," said he, "how a man looks when he is writing a
book on such a subject; and I'll be back and tell you all about
it. I'll drive you down in my phaeton,--of course if your father
consents. If he wants to bring his book with him, the groom shall
carry it in a box."
"And what about Mrs. Peacock?"
"There won't be any trouble about her, because she lives at Richmond.
You needn't be a bit afraid for your father's sake, because she is
over sixty." Then he started off, and came back in half an hour,
saying that Mr. O'Mahony had expressed himself quite satisfied to do
as he was told.
"The deceit of the world, the flesh, and the devil, get the better of
one on every side," said Rachel, when she was left to herself. "Who
would have thought of the noble lord spinning off to the British
Museum on such an errand as that! But he will give papa a good
dinner, and I shan't be any the worse. A man must be very bad before
he can do a woman an injury if she is determined not to be injured."
Lord Castlewell drove the two down to Richmond, and very pleasant
the drive was. The conversation consisted of quizzing Mr. O'Mahony
about his book, as to which he was already beginning to be a little
out of heart. But he bore the quizzing well, and was thoroughly
good-humoured as he saw the lord and his daughter sitting on the
front seat before him. "I am a Landleaguing Home-Ruler, you know, my
lord, of the most advanced description. The Speaker has never turned
me out of the House of Commons, only because I have never sat there.
Your character will be lost for ever." Lord Castlewell declared that
his character would be made for ever, as he had the great prima donna
of the next season at his left hand.
The dinner went off very pleasantly. Old Mrs. Peacock declared that
she had never known a prima donna before to be the daughter of a
Member of Parliament. She felt that great honour was done to the
profession.
"Why," said Lord Castlewell, "he is writing a book to prove that
nobody should pay any rent!"
"Oh!" said Mrs. Peacock, "that would be terrible. A landlord wouldn't
be a landlord if he didn't get any rent;--or hardly." Then Mr.
O'Mahony went to work to explain that a landlord was, of his very
name and nature, an abomination before the Lord.
"And yet you want houses to live in," said Lord Castlewell.
When they were in the middle of their dinners they were all surprised
by the approach of Mr. Mahomet M. Moss. He was dressed up to a degree
of beauty which Rachel thought that she had never seen equalled. His
shirt-front was full of little worked holes. His studs were gold and
turquoise, and those at his wrists were double studs, also gold and
turquoise. The tie of his cravat was a thing marvellous to behold.
His waistcoat was new for the occasion, and apparently all over
marvellously fine needlework. It might, all the same, have been
done by a sewing-machine. The breadth of the satin lappets of his
dress-coat were most expansive. And his hair must have taken two
artists the whole afternoon to accomplish. It was evident to see that
he felt himself to be quite the lord's equal by the strength of his
personal adornment. "Well, yes," he said, "I have brought Madame
Tacchi down here to show her what we can do in the way of a suburban
dinner. Madame Tacchi is about to take the place which Miss O'Mahony
has vacated at 'The Embankment.' Ah, my lord, you behaved very
shabbily to us there."
"If Madame Tacchi," said the lord, "can sing at all like Miss
O'Mahony, we shall have her away very soon. Is Madame Tacchi in
sight, so that I can see her?"
Then Mr. Moss indicated the table at which the lady sat, and with the
lady was Madame Socani.
"They are a bad lot," said Lord Castlewell, as soon as Moss had
withdrawn. "I know them, and they are a bad lot, particularly that
woman who is with them. It is a marvel to me how you got among them."
Lord Castlewell had now become very intimate with the O'Mahonys; and
by what he said showed also his intimacy with Mrs. Peacock.
"They are Americans," said O'Mahony.
"And so are you," said the lord. "There can be good Americans and bad
Americans. You don't mean to say that you think worse of an American
than of an Englishman."
"I think higher of an Englishman than of an American, and lower also.
If I meet an American where a gentleman ought to be, I entertain
a doubt; if I meet him where a labourer ought to be, I feel very
confident. I suppose that the manager of a theatre ought to be a
gentleman."
"I don't quite understand it all," said Mrs. Peacock.
"Nor anybody else," said Rachel. "Father does fly so very high in the
air when he talks about people."
After that the lord drove Miss O'Mahony and her father back to
Cecil Street, and they all agreed that they had had a very pleasant
evening.
END OF VOL. II.
Charles Dickens And Evans, Crystal Palace Press.
* * * * *
THE LANDLEAGUERS
by
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
In Three Volumes--VOL. III.
London
Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly
1883
[All rights reserved]
Charles Dickens and Evans,
Crystal Palace Press.
CONTENTS
Chapter
XXXIII. CAPTAIN CLAYTON'S LOVE-MAKING.
XXXIV. LORD CASTLEWELL'S LOVE-MAKING.
XXXV. MR. O'MAHONY'S APOLOGY.
XXXVI. RACHEL WRITES ABOUT HER LOVERS.
XXXVII. RACHEL IS ILL.
XXXVIII. LORD CASTLEWELL IS MUCH TROUBLED.
XXXIX. CAPTAIN CLAYTON'S FIRST TRIUMPH.
XL. YORKE CLAYTON AGAIN MAKES LOVE.
XLI. THE STATE OF IRELAND.
XLII. LORD CASTLEWELL'S FAREWELL.
XLIII. MR. MOSS IS FINALLY ANSWERED.
XLIV. FRANK JONES COMES BACK AGAIN.
XLV. MR. ROBERT MORRIS.
XLVI. CONG.
XLVII. KERRYCULLION.
XLVIII. THE NEW ARISTOCRACY FAILS.
XLIX.
THE LANDLEAGUERS.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CAPTAIN CLAYTON'S LOVE-MAKING.
The household at Castle Morony was very sad for some time after the
trial. They had hardly begun to feel the death of Florian while the
excitement existed as they felt it afterwards. Mr. Jones, his father,
seemed to regard the lost boy as though he had been his favourite
child. It was not many months since he had refused to allow him to
eat in his presence, and had been persuaded by such a stranger as was
Captain Clayton, to treat him with some show of affection. When he
had driven him into Ballyglunin, he had been stern and harsh to him
to the very last. And now he was obliterated with sorrow because he
had been robbed of his Florian. The two girls had sorrows of their
own; though neither of them would permit her sorrow to create any
quarrel between her and her sister. And Frank, who since his return
from the North had toiled like a labourer on the property--only
doing double a labourer's work--had sorrow, too, of his own. It was
understood that he had altogether separated himself from Rachel
O'Mahony. The cause of his separation was singular in its nature.
It was now November, and Rachel had already achieved a singularly
rapid success at Covent Garden. She still lived in Cecil Street, but
there was no lack of money. Indeed, her name had risen into such
repute that some Irish people began to think that her father was
the proper man for Cavan, simply because she was a great singer. It
cannot be said, however, that this was the case among the men who
were regarded as the leaders of the party, as they still doubted
O'Mahony's obedience. But money at any rate poured into Rachel's lap,
and with the money that which was quite as objectionable to poor
Frank. He had begun by asserting that he did not wish to live idle
on the earnings of a singer; and, therefore, as the singer had said,
"he and she were obliged to be two." As she explained to her father,
she was badly treated. She was very anxious to be true to her lover;
but she did not like living without some lover to whom she might be
true. "You see, as I am placed I am exposed to the Mosses. I do want
to have a husband to protect me." Then a lover had come forward.
Lord Castlewell had absolutely professed to make her the future
Marchioness of Beaulieu. Of this there must be more hereafter; but
Frank heard of it, and tore his hair in despair.
And there was another misery at Castle Morony. It reached Mr. Jones's
ears that Peter was anxious to give warning. It certainly was the
case that Peter was of great use to them, and that Mr. Jones had
rebuked him more than once as having made a great favour of his
services. The fact was that Peter, if discharged, would hardly know
where to look for another place where he could be equally at home and
equally comfortable. And he was treated by the family generally with
all that confidence which his faithfulness seemed to deserve. But
he was nervous and ill at ease under his master's rebukes; and at
last there came an event which seemed to harrow up his own soul, and
instigated him to run away from County Galway altogether.
"Miss Edith, Miss Edith," he said, "come in here, thin, and see what
I have got to show you." Then, with an air of great mystery, he drew
his young mistress into the pantry. "Look at that now! Was ever the
like of that seen since the mortial world began?" Then he took out
from a dirty envelope a dirty sheet of paper, and exposed it to her
eyes. On the top of it was a rude coffin. "Don't it make yer hair
stand on end, and yer very flesh creep, Miss Edith, to look at the
likes o' that!" And below the coffin there was a ruder skull and two
cross-bones. "Them's intended for what I'm to be. I understand their
language well enough. Look here," and he turned the envelope round
and showed that it was addressed to Peter McGrew, butler, Morony
Castle. "They know me well enough all the country round." The letter
was as follows:
MR. PETER MCGREW,
If you're not out of that before the end of the month, but
stay there doing things for them infernal blackguards,
your goose is cooked. So now you know all about it.
From yours,
MOONLIGHT.
Edith attempted to laugh at this letter, but Peter made her
understand that it was no laughing matter.
"I've a married darter in Dublin who won't see her father shot down
that way if she knows it."
"You had better take it to papa, then, and give him warning," said
Edith.
But this Peter declined to do on the spur of the moment, seeming to
be equally afraid of his master and of Captain Moonlight.
"If I'd the Captain here, he'd tell me what I ought to do." The
Captain was always Captain Clayton.
"He is coming here to-morrow, and I will show him the letter," said
Edith. But she did not on that account scruple to tell her father at
once.
"He can go if he likes it," said Mr. Jones, and that was all that Mr.
Jones said on the subject.
This was the third visit that the Captain had paid to Morony
Castle since the terrible events of the late trial. And it must be
understood that he had not spoken a word to either of the two girls
since the moment in which he had ventured to squeeze Edith's hand
with a tighter grasp than he had given to her sister. They, between
them, had discussed him and his character often; but had come to no
understanding respecting him.
Ada had declared that Edith should be his, and had in some degree
recovered from the paroxysm of sorrow which had first oppressed her.
But Edith had refused altogether to look at the matter in that light.
"It was quite out of the question," she said, "and so Captain Clayton
would feel it. If you don't hold your tongue, Ada," she said, "I
shall think you're a brute."
But Ada had not held her tongue, and had declared that if no one else
were to know it--no one but Edith and the Captain himself--she would
not be made miserable by it.
"What is it?" she said. "I thought him the best and he is the best. I
thought that he thought that I was the best; and I wasn't. It shall
be as I say."
After this manner were the discussions held between them; but of
these Captain Clayton heard never a word.
When he came he would seem to be full of the flood gates, and of Lax
the murderer. He had two men with him now, Hunter and another. But
no further attempt was made to shoot him in the neighbourhood of
Headford. "Lax finds it too hot," he said, "since that day in the
court house, and has gone away for the present. I nearly know where
he is; but there is no good catching him till I get some sort of
evidence against him, and if I locked him up as a 'suspect,' he would
become a martyr and a hero in the eyes of the whole party. The worst
of it is that though twenty men swore that they had seen it, no
Galway jury would convict him." But nevertheless he was indefatigable
in following up the murderer of poor Florian. "As for the murder in
the court house," he said, "I do believe that though it was done in
the presence of an immense crowd no one actually saw it. I have the
pistol, but what is that? The pistol was dropped on the floor of the
court house."
On this occasion Edith brought him poor Peter's letter. As it
happened they two were then alone together. But she had taught
herself not to expect any allusion to his love. "He is a stupid
fellow," said the Captain.
"But he has been faithful. And you can't expect him to look at these
things as you do."
"Of course he finds it to be a great compliment. To have a special
letter addressed to him by some special Captain Moonlight is to bring
him into the history of his country."
"I suppose he will go."
"Then let him go. I would not on any account ask him to stay. If he
comes to me I shall tell him simply that he is a fool. Pat Carroll's
people want to bother your father, and he would be bothered if he
were to lose his man-servant. There is no doubt of that. If Peter
desires to bother him let him go. Then he has another idea that he
wants to achieve a character for fidelity. He must choose between the
two. But I wouldn't on any account ask him for a favour."
Then Edith having heard the Captain's advice was preparing to leave
the room when Captain Clayton stopped her. "Edith," he said.
"Well, Captain Clayton."
"Some months ago,--before these sad things had occurred,--I told you
what I thought of you, and I asked you for a favour."
"There was a mistake made between us all,--a mistake which does
not admit of being put to rights. It was unfortunate, but those
misfortunes will occur. There is no more to be said about it."
"Is the happiness of two people to be thus sacrificed, when nothing
is done for the benefit of one?"
"What two?" she asked brusquely.
"You and I."
"My happiness will not be sacrificed, Captain Clayton," she said.
What right had he to tell that her happiness was in question? The
woman spoke,--the essence of feminine self, putting itself forward to
defend feminine rights generally against male assumption. Could any
man be justified in asserting that a woman loved him till she had
told him so? It was evident no doubt,--so she told herself. It was
true at least. As the word goes she worshipped the very ground he
stood upon. He was her hero. She had been made to think and to feel
that he was so by this mistake which had occurred between the three.
She had known it before, but it was burned in upon her now. Yet he
should not be allowed to assume it. And the one thing necessary
for her peace of mind in life would be that she should do her duty
by Ada. She had been the fool. She had instigated Ada to believe
this thing in which there was no truth. The loss of all ecstasy
of happiness must be the penalty which she would pay. And yet she
thought of him. Must he pay a similar penalty for her blunder? Surely
this would be hard! Surely this would be cruel! But then she did not
believe that man ever paid such penalty as that of which she was
thinking. He would have the work of his life. It would be the work
of her life to remember what she might have been had she not been a
fool.
"If so," he said after a pause, "then there is an end of it all,"
and he looked at her as though he absolutely believed her words,--as
though he had not known that her assertion had been mere feminine
pretext! She could not endure that he at any rate should not know the
sacrifice which she would have to make. But he was very hard to her.
He would not even allow her the usual right of defending her sex by
falsehood. "If so there is an end of it all," he repeated, holding
out his hand as though to bid her farewell.
She believed him, and gave him her hand. "Good-bye, Captain Clayton,"
she said.
"Never again," he said to her very gruffly, but still with such a
look across his eyes as irradiated his whole face. "This hand shall
never again be your own to do as you please with it."
"Who says so?" and she struggled as though to pull her hand away, but
he held her as though in truth her hand had gone from her for ever.
"I say so, who am its legitimate owner. Now I bid you tell me the
truth, or rather I defy you to go on with the lie. Do you not love
me?"
"It is a question which I shall not answer."
"Then," said he, "from a woman to a man it is answered. You cannot
make me over to another. I will not be transferred."
"I can do nothing with you, Captain Clayton, nor can you with me. I
know you are very strong of course." Then he loosened her hand, and
as he did so Ada came into the room.
"I have asked her to be my wife," said the Captain, putting his hand
upon Edith's arm.
"Let it be so," said Ada. "I have nothing to say against it."
"But I have," said Edith. "I have much to say against it. We can all
live without being married, I suppose. Captain Clayton has plenty to
do without the trouble of a wife. And so have you and I. Could we
leave our father? And have we forgotten so soon poor Florian? This is
no time for marriages. Only think, papa would not have the means to
get us decent clothes. As far as I am concerned, Captain Clayton, let
there be an end of all this." Then she stalked out of the room.
"Ada, you are not angry with me," said Captain Clayton, coming up to
her.
"Oh, no! How could I be angry?"
"I have not time to do as other men do. I do not know that I ever
said a word to her; and yet, God knows, that I have loved her dearly
enough. She is hot tempered now, and there are feelings in her heart
which fight against me. You will say a word in my favour?"
"Indeed, indeed I will."
"There shall be nothing wrong between you and me. If she becomes my
wife, you shall be my dearest sister. And I think she will at last.
I know,--I do know that she loves me. Poor Florian is dead and gone.
All his short troubles are over. We have still got our lives to lead.
And why should we not lead them as may best suit us? She talks about
your father's present want of money. I would be proud to marry your
sister standing as she is now down in the kitchen. But if I did
marry her I should have ample means to keep her as would become your
father's daughter." Then he took his leave and went back to Galway.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
LORD CASTLEWELL'S LOVE-MAKING.
It was explained in the last chapter that Frank Jones was not in a
happy condition because of the success of the lady whom he loved.
Rachel, as Christmas drew nigh, was more and more talked about in
London, and became more and more the darling of all musical people.
She had been twelve months now on the London boards, and had fully
justified the opinion expressed of her by Messrs. Moss and Le Gros.
There were those who declared that she sang as no woman of her age
had ever sung before. And there had got abroad about her certain
stories, which were true enough in the main, but which were all the
more curious because of their truth; and yet they were not true
altogether. It was known that she was a daughter of a Landleaguing
Member of Parliament, and that she had been engaged to marry the
son of a boycotted landlord. Mr. Jones' sorrows, and the death of
his poor son, and the murder of the sinner who was to have been the
witness at the trial of his brother, were all known and commented
on in the London press; and so also was the peculiar vigour of Mr.
O'Mahony's politics. Nothing, it was said, could be severed more
entirely than were Mr. Jones and Mr. O'Mahony. The enmity was so
deep that all ideas of marriage were out of the question. It was, no
doubt, true that the gentleman was penniless and the lady rolling in
wealth; but this was a matter so grievous that so poor a thing as
money could not be allowed to prevail. And then Mr. Moss was talked
about as a dragon of iniquity,--which, indeed, was true enough,--and
was represented as having caused contracts to be executed which would
bind poor Rachel to himself, both as to voice and beauty. But Lord
Castlewell had seen her, and had heard her; and Mr. Moss, with all
his abominations, was sent down to the bottom of the nethermost pit.
The fortune of "The Embankment" was made by the number of visitors
who were sent there to see and to hear this wicked fiend; but it all
redounded to the honour and glory of Rachel.
But Rachel was to be seen a _fêted_ guest at all semi-musical
houses. Whispers about town were heard that that musical swell, Lord
Castlewell, had been caught at last. And in the midst of all this,
Mr. O'Mahony came in for his share of popularity. There was something
so peculiar in the connection which bound a violent Landleaguing
Member of Parliament with the prima donna of the day. They were
father and daughter, but they looked more like husband and wife, and
it always seemed that Rachel had her own way. Mr. O'Mahony had quite
achieved a character for himself before the time had come in which
he was enabled to open his mouth in the House of Commons. And some
people went so far as to declare that he was about to be the new
leader of the party.
It certainly was true that about this time Lord Castlewell did make
an offer to Rachel O'Mahony.
"That I should have come to this!" she said to the lord when the lord
had expressed his wishes.
"You deserve it all," said the gallant lord.
"I think I do. But that you should have seen it,--that you should
have come to understand that if I would be your wife I would sing
every note out of my body,--to do you good if it were possible. How
have you been enlightened so far as to see that this is the way in
which you may best make yourself happy?"
Lord Castlewell did not quite like this; but he knew that his
wished-for bride was an unintelligible little person, to whom much
must be yielded as to her own way. He had not given way to this idea
before he had seen how well she had taken her place among the people
with whom he lived. He was forty years old, and it was time that he
should marry. His father was a very proud personage, to whom he never
spoke much. He, however, would be of opinion that any bride whom his
son might choose would be, by the very fact, raised to the top of the
peerage. His mother was a religious woman, to whom any matrimony for
her son would be an achievement. Now, of the proposed bride he had
learned all manner of good things. She had come out of Mr. Moss's
furnace absolutely unscorched; so much unscorched as to scorn the
idea of having been touched by the flames. She was thankful to Lord
Castlewell for what he had done, and expressed her thanks in a manner
that was not grateful to him. She was not in the least put about or
confused, or indeed surprised, because the heir of a marquis had made
an offer to her--a singing girl; but she let him understand that she
quite thought that she had done a good thing. "It would be so much
better for him than going on as he has gone," she said to her father.
And Lord Castlewell knew very well what were her sentiments.
It cannot be said that he repented of his offer. Indeed he pressed
her for an answer more than once or twice. But her conduct to him was
certainly very aggravating. This matter of her marriage with an earl
was an affair of great moment. Indeed all London was alive with the
subject. But she had not time to give him an answer because it was
necessary that she should study a part for the theatre. This was hard
upon an earl, and was made no better by the fact that the earl was
forty. "No, my lord earl," she said laughing, "the time for that has
not come yet. You must give me a few days to think of it." This she
said when he expressed a not unnatural desire to give her a kiss.
But though she apparently made light of the matter to him, and
astonished even her father by her treatment of him, yet she thought
of it with a very anxious mind. She was quite alive to the glories
of the position offered to her, and was not at all alive to its
inconveniences. People would assert that she had caught the lover who
had intended her for other purposes. "That was of course out of the
question," she said to herself. And she felt sure that she could make
as good a countess as the best of them. With her father a Member of
Parliament, and her husband an earl, she would have done very well
with herself. She would have escaped from that brute Moss, and would
have been subjected to less that was disagreeable in the encounter
than might have been expected. She must lose the public singing which
was attractive to her, and must become the wife of an old man. It was
thus in truth that she looked at the noble lord. "There would be an
end," she said, "and for ever, of 'Love's young dream.'" The dream
had been very pleasant to her. She had thoroughly liked her Frank.
He was handsome, fresh, full of passion, and a little violent when
his temper lay in that direction. But he had been generous, and she
was sure of him that he had loved her thoroughly. After all, was not
"Love's young dream" the best?
An answer was at any rate due to Lord Castlewell. But she made up
her mind that before she could give the answer, she would write to
Frank himself. "My lord," she said very gravely to her suitor, "it
has become my lot in life to be engaged to marry the son of that Mr.
Jones of whom you have heard in the west of Ireland."
"I am aware of it," said Lord Castlewell gravely.
"It has been necessary that I should tell you myself. Now, I cannot
say whether, in all honour, that engagement has been dissolved."
"I thought there was no doubt about it," said the lord.
"It is as I tell you. I must write to Mr. Jones. Hearts cannot be
wrenched asunder without some effort in the wrenching. For the great
honour you have done me I am greatly thankful."
"Let all that pass," said the lord.
"Not so. It has to be spoken of. As I stand at present I have been
repudiated by Mr. Jones."
"Do you mean to ask him to take you back again?"
"I do not know how the letter will be worded, because it has not
been yet written. My object is to tell him of the honour which Lord
Castlewell proposes to me. And I have not thought it quite honest to
your lordship to do this without acquainting you."
Then that interview was over, and Lord Castlewell went away no doubt
disgusted. He had not intended to be treated in this way by a singing
girl, when he proposed to make her his countess. But with the disgust
there was a strengthened feeling of admiration for her conduct. She
looked much more like the countess than the singing girl when she
spoke to him. And there certainly never came a time in which he
could tell her to go back and sing and marry Mr. Moss. Therefore the
few days necessary for an answer went by, and then she gave him her
reply. "My lord," she said, "if you wish it still, it shall be so."
The time for "Love's young dream" had not gone by for Lord
Castlewell. "I do wish it still," he said in a tone of renewed joy.
"Then you shall have all that you wish." Thereupon she put her little
hands on his arm, and leant her face against his breast. Then there
was a long embrace, but after the embrace she had a little speech to
make. "You ought to know, Lord Castlewell, how much I think of you
and your high position. A man, they say, trusts much of his honour
into the hands of his wife. Whatever you trust to me shall be guarded
as my very soul. You shall be to me the one man whom I am bound to
worship. I will worship you with all my heart, with all my body,
with all my soul, and with all my strength. Your wishes shall be my
wishes. I only hope that an odd stray wish of mine may occasionally
be yours." Then she smiled so sweetly that as she looked up into his
face he was more enamoured of her than ever.
But now we must go back for a moment, and read the correspondence
which took place between Rachel O'Mahony and Frank Jones. Rachel's
letter ran as follows:
MY DEAR FRANK,
I am afraid I must trouble you once again with my affairs;
though, indeed, after what last took place between us it
ought not to be necessary. Lord Castlewell has proposed
to make me his wife; and, to tell you the truth, looking
forward into the world, I do not wish to throw over all
its pleasures because your honour, whom I have loved, does
not wish to accept the wages of a singing girl. But the
place is open to you still,--the wages, and the singing
girl, and all. Write me a line, and say how it is to be.
Yours as you would have me to be,
RACHEL O'MAHONY.
This letter Frank Jones showed to no one. Had he allowed it to be
seen by his sister Edith, she would probably have told him that no
man ever received a sweeter love-letter from the girl whom he loved.
"The place is open to you still,--the wages, the singing girl, and
all." The girl had made nothing of this new and noble lover, except
to assure his rival that he, the rival, should be postponed to him,
the lover, if he, the lover, would write but one word to say that it
should be so. But Frank was bad at reading such words. He got it into
his head that the girl had merely written to ask the permission of
her former suitor to marry this new lordly lover, and, though he did
love the girl, with a passion which the girl could never feel for the
lord, he wrote back and refused the offer.
MY DEAR RACHEL,
It is, I suppose, best as it is. We are sinking lower and
lower daily. My father is beginning to feel that we shall
never see another rent day at Castle Morony. It is not
fitting that I should think of joining my fallen fortunes
to yours, which are soaring so high. And poor Florian is
gone. We are at the present moment still struck to the
ground because of Florian. As for you, and the lord who
admires you, you have my permission to become his wife. I
have long heard that he is your declared admirer. You have
before you a glorious future, and I shall always hear with
satisfaction of your career.
Yours, with many memories of the past,
FRANCIS JONES.
It was not a letter which would have put such a girl as Rachel
O'Mahony into good heart unless she had in truth wished to get his
agreement to her lordly marriage. "This twice I have thrown myself at
his head and he has rejected me." Then she abided Lord Castlewell's
coming, and the scene between them took place as above described. The
marriage was at once declared as a settled thing. "Now, my dear, you
must name the day," said Lord Castlewell, as full of joy as though he
were going to marry a duke's daughter.
"I have got to finish my engagement," said Rachel; "I am bound down
to the end of May. When June comes you shan't find a girl who will
be in a greater hurry. Do you think that I do not wish to become a
countess?"
He told her that he would contrive to get her engagement broken.
"Covent Garden is not going to quarrel with me about my wife, I'm
sure," he said.
"Ah! but my own one," said Rachel, "we will do it all _selon les
règles_. I am in a hurry, but we won't let the world know it. I, the
future Countess of Castlewell; I, the future Marchioness of Beaulieu,
will keep my terms and my allotted times like any candle-snuffer.
What do you think Moss will say?"
"What can it signify what Mr. Moss may say?"
"Ah! but my own man, it does signify. Mr. Moss shall know that
through it all I have done my duty. Madame Socani will tell lies, but
she shall feel in her heart that she has once in her life come across
a woman who, when she has signed a bit of paper, intends to remain
true to the paper signed. And, my lord, there is still £100 due to
you from my father."
"Gammon!" said the lord.
"I could pay it by a cheque on the bank, to be sure, but let us go on
to the end of May. I want to see how all the young women will behave
when they hear of it." And so some early day in June was fixed for
the wedding.
Among others who heard of it were, of course, Mr. Moss and Madame
Socani. They heard of it, but of course did not believe it. It was
too bright to be believed. When Madame Socani was assured that Rachel
had taken the money,--she and her father between them,--she declared,
with great apparent satisfaction, that Rachel must be given up as
lost. "As to that wicked old man, her father--"
"He's not so very old," said Moss.
"She's no chicken, and he's old enough to be her father. That is, if
he is her father. I have known that girl on the stage any day these
ten years."
"No, you've not; not yet five. I don't quite know how it is." And Mr.
Moss endeavoured to think of it all in such a manner as to make it
yet possible that he might marry her. What might not they two do
together in the musical world?
"You don't mean to say you'd take her yet?" said Madame Socani, with
scorn.
"When I take her you'll be glad enough to join us; that is, if we
will have you." Then Madame Socani ground her teeth together, and
turned up her nose with redoubled scorn.
But it was soon borne in upon Mr. Moss that the marriage was to be
a marriage, and he was in truth very angry. He had been able to
endure M. Le Gros' success in carrying away Miss O'Mahony from "The
Embankment." Miss O'Mahony might come back again under that or any
other name. He--and she--had a musical future before them which might
still be made to run in accordance with his wishes. Then he had
learned with sincere sorrow that she was throwing herself into the
lord's hands, borrowing money of him. But there might be a way out of
this which would still allow him to carry out his project. But now he
heard that a real marriage was intended, and he was very angry. Not
even Madame Socani was more capable of spite than Mr. Moss, though
he was better able to hide his rage. Even now, when Christmas-time
had come, he would hardly believe the truth, and when the marriage
was not instantly carried out, new hopes came to him--that Lord
Castlewell would not at last make himself such a fool. He inquired
here and there in the musical world and the theatrical world, and
could not arrive at what he believed to be positive truth. Then
Christmas passed by, and Miss O'Mahony recommenced her singing at
Covent Garden. Three times a week the house was filled, and at last a
fourth night was added, for which the salary paid to Rachel was very
much increased.
"I don't see that the salary matters very much," said Lord
Castlewell, when the matter was discussed.
"Oh, but, my lord, it does matter!" She always called him my lord
now, with a little emphasis laid on the "my." "They have made father
a Member of Parliament, but he does not earn anything. What I can
earn up to the last fatal day he shall have, if you will let me give
it to him."
They were very bright days for Rachel, because she had all the
triumph of success,--success gained by her own efforts.
"I can never do as much as this when I am your countess," she said
to her future lord. "I shall dwell in marble halls, as people say,
but I shall never cram a house so full as to be able to see, when I
look up from the stage, that there is not a place for another man's
head; and when my throat gave way the other day I could read all the
disappointment in the public papers. I shall become your wife, my
lord."
"I hope so."
"And if you will love me I shall be very happy for long, long years."
"I will love you."
"But there will be no passion of ecstasy such as this. Father says
that Home Rule won't be passed because the people will be thinking of
my singing. Of course it is all vanity, but there is an enjoyment in
it."
But all this was wormwood to Mr. Moss. He had put out his hand so
as to clutch this girl now two years since, understanding all her
singing qualities, and then in truth loving her. She had taken a
positive hatred to him, and had rejected him at every turn of her
life. But he had not at all regarded that. He had managed to connect
her with his theatre, and had perceived that her voice had become
more and more sweet in its tones, and more and more rich in its
melody. He had still hoped that he would make her his wife. Madame
Socani's abominable proposal had come from an assurance on her part
that he could have all that he wished for without paying so dear for
it. There had doubtless been some whispering between them over the
matter, but the order for the proposal had not come from him. Madame
Socani had judged of Rachel as she might have judged of herself. But
all that had come to absolute failure. He felt now that he should be
paying by no means too dear by marrying the girl. It would be a great
triumph to marry her; but he was told that this absurd earl wished to
triumph in the same manner.
He set afloat all manner of reports, which, in truth, wounded Lord
Castlewell sorely. Lord Castlewell had given her money, and had then
failed in his object. So said Mr. Moss. Lord Castlewell had promised
marriage, never intending it. Lord Castlewell had postponed the
marriage because as the moment drew nearer he would not sacrifice
himself. If the lady had a friend, it would be the friend's duty to
cudgel the lord, so villainous had been the noble lord's conduct. But
yet, in truth, who could have expected that the noble lord would have
married the singing girl? Was not his character known? Did anybody
in his senses expect that the noble lord would marry Miss Rachel
O'Mahony?
"If I have a friend, is my friend to cudgel you, my lord?" she said,
clinging on to his arm in her usual manner. "My friend is papa, who
thinks that you are a very decent fellow, considering your misfortune
in being a lord at all. I know where all these words come from;--it
is Mahomet M. Moss. There is nothing for it but to live them down
with absolute silence."
"Nothing," he replied. "They are a nuisance, but we can do nothing."
But Lord Castlewell did in truth feel what was said about him. Was he
not going to pay too dearly for his whistle? No doubt Rachel was all
that she ought to be. She was honest, industrious, and high-spirited;
and, according to his thinking, she sang more divinely than any woman
of her time. And he so thought of her that he knew that she must be
his countess or be nothing at all to him. To think of her in any
other light would be an abomination to him. But yet, was it worth
his while to make her Marchioness of Beaulieu? He could only get rid
of his present engagement by some absolute change in his mode of
life. For instance, he must shut himself up in a castle and devote
himself entirely to a religious life. He must explain to her that
circumstances would not admit his marrying, and must offer to pay her
any sum of money that she or her father might think fit to name. If
he wished to escape, this must be his way; but as he looked at her
when she came off the stage, where he always attended her, he assured
himself that he did not wish to escape.
CHAPTER XXXV.
MR. O'MAHONY'S APOLOGY.
Time went on and Parliament met. Mr. O'Mahony went before the
Speaker's table and was sworn in. He was introduced by two brother
Landleaguers, and really did take his place with some enthusiasm. He
wanted to speak on the first day, but was judiciously kept silent by
his colleagues. He expressed an idea that, until Ireland's wrongs had
been redressed, there ought not to be a moment devoted to any other
subject, and became very violent in his expressions of this opinion.
But he was not long kept dumb. Great things were expected from
his powers of speech, and, though he had to be brought to silence
ignominiously on three or four occasions, still, at last some power
of speech was permitted to him. There were those among his own
special brethren who greatly admired him and praised him; but with
others of the same class there was a shaking of the head and many
doubts. With the House generally, I fear, laughter prevailed rather
than true admiration. Mr. O'Mahony, no doubt, could speak well in a
debating society or a music hall. Words came from his tongue sweeter
than honey. But just at the beginning of the session, the Speaker
was bound to put a limit even to Irish eloquence, and in this case
was able to do so. As Mr. O'Mahony contrived to get upon his feet
very frequently, either in asking a question or in endeavouring to
animadvert on the answer given, there was something of a tussle
between him and the authority in the chair. It did not take much
above a week to make the Speaker thoroughly tired of this new member,
and threats were used towards him of a nature which his joint
Milesian and American nature could not stand. He was told of dreadful
things which could be done to him. Though as yet he could not be
turned out of the House, for the state of the young session had not
as yet admitted of that new mode of torture, still, he could be
named. "Let him name me. My name is Mr. O'Mahony." And Mr. O'Mahony
was not a man who could be happy when he was quarrelling with all
around him. He was soon worked into a violent passion, in which he
made himself ridiculous, but when he had subsided, and the storm
was past, he knew he had misbehaved, and was unhappy. And, as he
was thoroughly honest, he could not be got to obey his leaders in
everything. He wanted to abolish the Irish landlords, but he was
desirous of abolishing them after some special plan of his own, and
could hardly be got to work efficiently in harness together with
others.
"Don't you think your father is making an ass of himself,--just a
little, you know?"
This was said by Lord Castlewell to Rachel when the session was not
yet a fortnight old, and made Rachel very unhappy. She did think that
her father was making an ass of himself, but she did not like to be
told of it. And much as she liked music herself, dear as was her own
profession to her, still she felt that, to be a Member of Parliament,
and to have achieved the power of making speeches there, was better
than to run after opera singers. She loved the man who was going to
marry her very well,--or rather, she intended to do so.
He was not to her "Love's young dream." But she intended that his
lordship should become love's old reality. She felt that this would
not become the case, if love's old reality were to tell her often
that her father was an ass. Lord Castlewell's father was, she
thought, making an ass of himself. She heard on different sides that
he was a foolish, pompous old peer, who could hardly say bo to a
goose; but it would not, she thought, become her to tell her future
husband her own opinion on that matter. She saw no reason why he
should be less reticent in his opinion as to her father. Of course he
was older, and perhaps she did not think of that as much as she ought
to have done. She ought also to have remembered that he was an earl,
and she but a singing girl, and that something was due to him for the
honour he was doing her. But of this she would take no account. She
was to be his wife, and a wife ought to be equal to the husband. Such
at least was her American view of the matter. In fact, her ideas on
the matter ran as follows: My future husband is not entitled to call
my father an ass because he is a lord, seeing that my father is a
Member of Parliament. Nor is he entitled to call him so because he is
an ass, because the same thing is true of his own father. And thus
there came to be discord in her mind.
"I suppose all Parliament people make asses of themselves sometimes,
Lords as well as Commons. I don't see how a man is to go on talking
for ever about laws and landleagues, and those sort of things without
doing so. It is all bosh to me. And so I should think it must be to
you, as you don't do it. But I do not think that father is worse than
anybody else; and I think that his words are sometimes very
beautiful."
"Why, my dear, there is not a man about London who is not laughing at
him."
"I saw in _The Times_ the other day that he is considered a very true
and a very honest man. Of course, they said that he talked nonsense
sometimes; but if you put the honesty against the nonsense, he will
be as good as anybody else."
"I don't think you understand, my dear. Honesty is not what they
want."
"Oh!"
"But what they don't want especially is nonsense."
"Poor papa! But he doesn't mean to consult them as to what they want.
His idea is that if everybody can be got to be honest this question
may be settled among them. But it must be talked about, and he, at
any rate, is eloquent. I have heard it said that there was not a more
eloquent man in New York. I think he has got as many good gifts as
anyone else."
In this way there rose some bad feeling. Lord Castlewell did think
that there was something wanting in the manner in which he was
treated by his bride. He was sure that he loved her, but he was sure
also that when a lord marries a singing girl he ought to expect some
special observance. And the fact that the singing girl's father was
a Member of Parliament was much less to him than to her. He, indeed,
would have been glad to have the father abolished altogether. But she
had become very proud of her father since he had become a Member of
Parliament. Her ideas of the British constitution were rather vague;
but she thought that a Member of Parliament was at least as good as a
lord who was not a peer. He had his wealth; but she was sure that he
was too proud to think of that.
Just at this period, when the session was beginning, Rachel began to
doubt the wisdom of what she was doing. The lord was, in truth, good
enough for her. He was nearly double her age, but she had determined
to disregard that. He was plain, but that was of no moment. He had
run after twenty different women, but she could condone all that,
because he had come at last to run after her. For his wealth she
cared nothing,--or less than nothing, because by remaining single
she could command wealth of her own;--wealth which she could control
herself, and keep at her own banker's, which she suspected would
not be the case with Lord Castlewell's money. But she had found the
necessity of someone to lean upon when Frank Jones had told her that
he would not marry her, and she had feared Mr. Moss so much that she
had begun to think that he would, in truth, frighten her into doing
some horrible thing. As Frank had deserted her, it would be better
that she should marry somebody. Lord Castlewell had come, and she had
felt that the fates were very good to her. She learned from the words
of everybody around,--from her new friends at Covent Garden, and from
her old enemies at "The Embankment," and from her father himself,
that she was the luckiest singing girl at this moment known in
Europe. "By G----, she'll get him!" such had been the exclamation
made with horror by Mr. Moss, and the echo of it had found its way to
her ears. The more Mr. Moss was annoyed, the greater ought to have
been her delight. But,--but was she in truth delighted? As she came
to think of the reality she asked herself what were the pleasures
which were promised to her. Did she not feel that a week spent with
Frank Jones in some little cottage would be worth a twelvemonth of
golden splendour in the "Marble Halls" which Lord Castlewell was
supposed to own? And why had Frank deserted her? Simply because he
would not come with her and share her money. Frank, she told herself,
was, in truth, a gallant fellow. She did love Frank. She acknowledged
so much to herself again and again. And yet she was about to marry
Lord Castlewell, simply because her doing so would be the severest
possible blow to her old enemy, Mr. Moss.
Then she asked herself what would be best for her. She had made for
herself a great reputation, and she did not scruple to tell herself
that this had come from her singing. She thought very much of her
singing, but very little of her beauty. A sort of prettiness did
belong to her; a tiny prettiness which had sufficed to catch Frank
Jones. She had laughed about her prettiness and her littleness a
score of times with Ada and Edith, and also with Frank himself. There
had been the three girls who had called themselves "Beauty and the
Beast" and the "Small young woman." The reader will understand that
it had not been Ada who had chosen those names; but then Ada was not
given to be witty. Her prettiness, such as it was, had sufficed, and
Frank had loved her dearly. Then had come her great triumph, and she
knew not only that she could sing, but that the world had recognised
her singing. "I am a great woman, as women go," she had said to
herself. But her singing was to come to an end for ever and ever on
the 1st of May next. She would be the Countess of Castlewell, and in
process of time would be the Marchioness of Beaulieu. But she never
again would be a great woman. She was selling all that for the marble
halls.
Was she wise in what she was doing? She had lain awake one long
morning striving to answer the question for herself. "If nobody else
should come, of course I should be an ugly old maid," she said to
herself; "but then Frank might perhaps come again,--Frank might come
again,--if Mr. Moss did not intervene in the meantime." But at last
she acknowledged to herself that she had given the lord a promise.
She would keep her promise, but she could not bring herself to exult
at the prospect. She must take care, however, that the lord should
not triumph over her. The lord had called her father an ass. She
certainly would say a rough word or two if he abused her father
again.
This was the time of the "suspects." Mr. O'Mahony had already taken
an opportunity of expressing an opinion in the House of Commons that
every honest man, every patriotic man, every generous man, every
man in fact who was worth his salt, was in Ireland locked up as a
"suspect," and in saying so managed to utter very bitter words indeed
respecting him who had the locking up of these gentlemen. Poor Mr.
O'Mahony had no idea that he might have used with propriety as to
this gentleman all the epithets of which he believed the "suspects"
to be worthy; but instead of doing so he called him a "disreputable
jailer." It is not pleasant to be called a disreputable jailer in the
presence of all the best of one's fellow citizens, but the man so
called in this instance only smiled. Mr. O'Mahony had certainly made
himself ridiculous, and the whole House were loud in their clamours
at the words used. But that did not suffice. The Speaker reprimanded
Mr. O'Mahony and desired him to recall the language and apologise
for it. Then there arose a loud debate, during which the member of
the Government who had been assailed declared that Mr. O'Mahony had
not as yet been quite long enough in the House to learn the little
details of Parliamentary language; Mr. O'Mahony would no doubt soften
down his eloquence in course of time. But the Speaker would not be
content with this, and was about to order the sinner to be carried
away by the Sergeant-at-Arms, when a friend on his right and a friend
on his left, and a friend behind him, all whispered into his ear
how easy it is to apologise in the House of Commons. "You needn't
say he isn't a disreputable jailer, but only call him a distasteful
warder;--anything will do." This came from the gentleman at Mr.
O'Mahony's back, and the order for his immediate expulsion was
ringing in his ears. He had been told that he was ridiculous, and
could feel that it would be absurd to be carried somewhere into the
dungeons. And the man whom he certainly detested at the present
moment worse than any other scoundrel on the earth, had made a
good-natured apology on his behalf. If he were carried away now, he
could never come back again without a more serious apology. Then,
farewell to all power of attacking the jailer. He did as the man
whispered into his ear, and begged to substitute "distasteful warder"
for the words which had wounded so cruelly the feelings of the right
honourable gentleman. Then he looked round the House, showing that
he thought that he had misbehaved himself. After that, during Mr.
O'Mahony's career as a Member of Parliament, which lasted only for
the session, he lost his self-respect altogether. He had been driven
to withdraw the true wrath of his eloquence from him "at whose brow,"
as he told Rachel the next morning, "he had hurled his words with a
force that had been found to be intolerable."
Mr. O'Mahony had undoubtedly made himself an ass again on this
second, third, and perhaps tenth occasion. This was not the ass
he had made himself on the occasion to which Lord Castlewell had
referred. But yet he was a thoroughly honest, patriotic man, desirous
only of the good of his country, and wishing for nothing for himself.
Is it not possible that as much may be said for others, who from
day to day so violently excite our spleen, as to make us feel that
special Irishmen selected for special constituencies are not worthy
to be ranked with men? You shall take the whole House of Commons,
indifferent as to the side on which they sit,--some six hundred and
thirty out of the number,--and will find in conversation that the
nature of the animal, the absurdity, the selfishness, the absence
of all good qualifies, are taken for granted as matters admitting
of no dispute. But here was Mr. O'Mahony, as hot a Home-Ruler and
Landleaguer as any of them, who was undoubtedly a gentleman,--though
an American gentleman. Can it be possible that we are wrong in our
opinions respecting the others of the set?
Rachel heard it all the next day, and, living as she did among
Italians and French, and theatrical Americans, and English swells,
could not endeavour to make the apology which I have just made for
the Irish Brigade generally. She knew that her father had made an ass
of himself. All the asinine proportions of the affair had been so
explained to her as to leave no doubt on her mind as to the matter.
But the more she was sure of it, the more resolved she became that
Lord Castlewell should not call her father an ass. She might do
so,--and undoubtedly would after her own fashion,--but no such
privilege should be allowed to him.
"Oh! father, father," she said to him the next morning, "don't you
think you've made a goose of yourself?"
"Yes, I do."
"Then, don't do it any more."
"Yes, I shall. It isn't so very easy for a man not to make a goose of
himself in that place. You've got to sit by and do nothing for a year
or two. It is very difficult. A man cannot afford to waste his time
in that manner. There is all Ireland to be regenerated, and I have to
learn the exact words which the prudery of the House of Commons will
admit. Of course I have made a goose of myself; but the question is
whether I did not make a knave of myself in apologising for language
which was undoubtedly true. Only think that a man so brutal, so
entirely without feelings, without generosity, without any touch
of sentiment, should be empowered by the Queen of England to lock
up, not only every Irishman, but every American also, and to keep
them there just as long as he pleases! And he revels in it. I do
believe that he never eats a good breakfast unless half-a-dozen new
'suspects' are reported by the early police in the morning; and I
am not to call such a man a 'disreputable jailer.' I may call him a
'distasteful warder.' It's a disgrace to a man to sit in such a House
and in such company. Of course I was a goose, but I was only a goose
according to the practices of that special duck-pond." Mr. O'Mahony,
as he said this, walked about angrily, with his hands in his
breeches' pockets, and told himself that no honest man could draw the
breath of life comfortably except in New York.
"I don't know much about it, father," said Rachel, "but I think you'd
better cut and run. Your twenty men will never do any good here.
Everybody hates them who has got any money, and their only friends
are just men as Mr. Pat Carroll, of Ballintubber."
Then, later in the day, Lord Castlewell called to drive his bride
in the Park. He had so far overcome family objections as to have
induced his sister, Lady Augusta Montmorency, to accompany him. Lady
Augusta had been already introduced to Rachel, but had not been
much prepossessed. Lady Augusta was very proud of her family, was a
religious woman, and was anything but contented with her brother's
manner of life. But it was no doubt better that he should marry
Rachel than not be married at all; and therefore Lady Augusta had
allowed herself to be brought to accompany the singing girl upon this
occasion. She was, in truth, an uncommonly good young woman; not
beautiful, not clever, but most truly anxious for the welfare of her
brother. It had been represented to her that her brother was over
head and ears in love with the young lady, and looking at the matter
all round, she had thought it best to move a little from her dignity
so as to take her sister-in-law coldly by the hand. It need hardly
be said that Rachel did not like being taken coldly by the hand, and,
with her general hot mode of expression, would have declared that she
hated Augusta Montmorency. Now, the two entered the room together,
and Rachel kissed Lady Augusta, while she gave only her hand to Lord
Castlewell. But there was something in her manner on such occasions
which was intended to show affection,--and did show it very plainly.
In old days she could decline to kiss Frank in a manner that would
set Frank all on fire. It was as much as to say--of course you've a
right to it, but on this occasion I don't mean to give it to you. But
Lord Castlewell was not imaginative, and did not think of all this.
Rachel had intended him to think of it.
"Oh, my goodness!" began the lord, "what a mess your father did make
of it last night." And he frowned as he spoke.
Rachel, as an intended bride--about to be a bride in two or three
months--did not like to be frowned at by the man who was to marry
her. "That's as people may think, my lord," she said.
"You don't mean to say that you don't think he did make a mess of
it?"
"Of course he abused that horrid man. Everybody is abusing him."
"As for that, I'm not going to defend the man." For Lord Castlewell,
though by no means a strong politician, was a Tory, and unfortunately
found himself agreeing with Rachel in abusing the members of the
Government.
"Then why do you say that father made a mess of it?"
"Everybody is talking about it. He has made himself ridiculous before
the whole town."
"What! Lord Castlewell," exclaimed Rachel.
"I do believe your father is the best fellow going; but he ought not
to touch politics. He made a great mistake in getting into the House.
It is a source of misery to everyone connected with him."
"Or about to be connected with him," said Lady Augusta, who had not
been appeased by the flavour of Rachel's kiss.
"There's time enough to think about it yet," said Rachel.
"No, there's not," said Lord Castlewell, who intended to express in
rather a gallant manner his intention of going on with the marriage.
"But I can assure you there is," said Rachel, "ample time. There
shall be no time for going on with it, if my father is to be abused.
As it happens, you don't agree with my father in politics. I, as a
woman, should have to call myself as belonging to your party, if we
be ever married. I do not know what that party is, and care very
little, as I am not a politician myself. And I suppose if we were
married, you would take upon yourself to abuse my father for his
politics, as he might abuse you. But while he is my father, and you
are not my husband, I will not bear it. No, thank you, Lady Augusta,
I will not drive out to-day. 'Them's my sentiments,' as people say;
and perhaps your brother had better think them over while there's
time enough." So saying, she did pertinaciously refuse to be driven
by the noble lord on that occasion.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
RACHEL WRITES ABOUT HER LOVERS.
What a dear fellow is Frank Jones. That was Rachel's first idea when
Lord Castlewell left her. It was an idea she had driven from out of
her mind with all the strength of which she was capable from the
moment in which his lordship had been accepted. "He never shall be
dear to me again," she had said, thinking of what would be due to
her husband; and she had disturbed herself, not without some success,
in expelling Frank Jones from her heart. It was not right that the
future Lady Castlewell should be in love with Frank Jones. But now
she could think about Frank Jones as she pleased. What a dear fellow
is Frank Jones! Now, it certainly was the case that Lord Castlewell
was not a dear fellow at all. He was many degrees better than Mr.
Moss, but for a dear fellow!--She only knew one. And she did tell
herself now that the world could hardly be a happy world to her
without one dear fellow,--at any rate, to think of.
But he had positively refused to marry her! But yet she did not in
the least doubt his love. "I'm a little bit of a thing," she said to
herself; "but then he likes little bits of things. At any rate, he
likes one."
And then she had thought ever so often over the cause which had
induced Frank to leave her. "Why shouldn't he take my money, since it
is here to be taken? It is all a man's beastly pride!" But then again
she contradicted the assertion to herself. It was a man's pride, but
by no means beastly. "If I were a man," she went on saying, "I don't
think I should like to pay for my coat and waistcoat with money which
a woman had earned; and I should like it the less, because things at
home, in my own house, were out of order." And then again she thought
of it all. "I should be an idiot to do that. Everybody would say so.
What! to give up my whole career for a young man's love,--merely that
I might have his arm round my waist? I to do it, who am the greatest
singer of my day, and who can, if I please, be Countess of Castlewell
to-morrow! That were losing the world for love, indeed! Can any man's
love be worth it? And I am going on to become such a singer as the
world does not possess another like me. I know it. I feel it daily in
the increasing sweetness of the music made. I see it in the wakeful
eagerness of men's ears, waiting for some charm of sound,--some
wonderful charm,--which they hardly dare to expect, but which always
comes at last. I see it in the eyes of the women, who are hardly
satisfied that another should be so great. It comes in the worship
of the people about the theatre, who have to tell me that I am their
god, and keep the strings of the sack from which money shall be
poured forth upon them. I know it is coming, and yet I am to marry
the stupid earl because I have promised him. And he thinks, too, that
his reflected honours will be more to me than all the fame that I can
earn for myself. To go down to his castle, and to be dumb for ever,
and perhaps to be mother of some hideous little imp who shall be the
coming marquis. Everything to be abandoned for that,--even Frank
Jones. But Frank Jones is not to be had! Oh, Frank Jones, Frank
Jones! If you could come and live in such a marble hall as I could
provide for you! It should have all that we want, but nothing more.
But it could not have that self-respect which it is a man's first
duty in life to achieve." But the thought that she had arrived at was
this,--that with all her best courtesy she would tell the Earl of
Castlewell to look for a bride elsewhere.
But she would do nothing in a hurry. The lord had been very civil
to her, and she, on her part, would be as civil to the lord as
circumstances admitted. And she had an idea in her mind that she
could not at a moment's notice dismiss this lord and be as she was
before. Her engagement with the lord was known to all the musical
world. The Mosses and Socanis spent their mornings, noons, and nights
in talking about it,--as she well knew. And she was not quite sure
that the lord had given her such a palpable cause for quarrelling as
to justify her in throwing him over. And when she had as it were
thrown him over in her mind, she began to think of other causes for
regret. After all, it was something to be Countess of Castlewell.
She felt that she could play the part well, in spite of all Lady
Augusta's coldness. She would soon live the Lady Augusta down into a
terrible mediocrity. And then again, there would be dreams of Frank
Jones. Frank Jones had been utterly banished. But if an elderly
gentleman is desirous that his future wife shall think of no Frank
Jones, he had better not begin by calling the father of that young
lady a ridiculous ass.
She was much disturbed in mind, and resolved that she would seek
counsel from her old correspondent, Frank's sister.
"Dearest Edith," she began,
I know you will let me write to you in my troubles. I am
in such a twitter of mind in consequence of my various
lovers that I do not know where to turn; nor do I quite
know whom I am to call lover number one. Therefore, I
write to you to ask advice. Dear old Frank used to be
lover number one. Of course I ought to call him now Mr.
Francis Jones, because another lover is really lover
number one. I am engaged to marry, as you are well aware,
no less a person than the Earl of Castlewell; and, if
all things were to go prosperously with me, I should in
a short time be the Marchioness of Beaulieu. Did you
ever think of the glory of being an absolutely live
marchioness? It is so overwhelming as to be almost too
much for me. I think that I should not cower before my
position, but that I should, on the other hand, endeavour
to soar so high that I should be consumed by my own
flames. Then there is lover number three--Mr. Moss--who,
I do believe, loves me with the truest affection of them
all. I have found him out at last. He wishes to be the
legal owner of all the salaries which the singer of La
Beata may possibly earn; and he feels that, in spite of
all that has come and gone, it is yet possible. Of all the
men who ever forgave, Mr. Moss is the most forgiving.
Now, which am I to take of these three? Of course, if
you are the honest girl I take you to be, you will write
back word that one, at any rate, is not in the running.
Mr. Francis Jones has no longer the honour. But what
if I am sure that he loves me; and what, again, if I
am sure that he is the only one I love? Let this be
quite--quite--between ourselves. I am beginning to think
that because of Frank Jones I cannot marry that gorgeous
earl. What if Frank Jones has spoiled me altogether? Would
you wish to see me on this account delivered over to Mr.
Mahomet Moss as a donkey between two bundles of hay?
Tell me what you think of it. He won't take my money. But
suppose I earn my money for another season or two? Would
not your Irish brutalities be then over; and my father's
eloquence, and the eccentricities of the other gentlemen?
And would not your brother and your father have in some
way settled their affairs? Surely a little money won't
then be amiss, though it may have come from the industry
of a hard-worked young woman.
Of course I am asking for mercy, because I am absolutely
devoted to a certain young man. You need not tell him that
in so many words; but I do not see why I am to be ashamed
of my devotion,--seeing that I was not ashamed of my
engagement, and boasted of it to all the world. And I have
done nothing since to be ashamed of.
You have never told me a word of your young man; but the
birds of the air are more communicative than some friends.
A bird of the air has told me of you, and of Ada also, and
had made me understand that from Ada has come all that
sweetness which was to be expected from her. But from you
has not come that compliance with your fate in life which
circumstances have demanded.
Your affectionate friend,
RACHEL O'MAHONY.
It could not but be the case that Edith should be gratified by the
receipt of such a letter as this. Frank was now at home, and was
terribly down in the mouth. Boycotting had lost all its novelty at
Morony Castle. His sisters had begun to feel that it was a pleasant
thing to have their butter made for them, and pleasant also not to
be introduced to a leg of mutton till it appeared upon the table.
Frank, too, had become very tired of the work which fell to his lot,
though he had been relieved in the heaviest labours of the farm by
"Emergency" men, who had been sent to him from various parts of
Ireland. But he was thoroughly depressed in heart, as also was his
father. Months had passed by since Pat Carroll had stood in the dock
at Galway ready for his trial. He was now, in March, still kept in
Galway jail under remand from the magistrates. A great clamour was
made in the county upon the subject. Florian's murder had stirred all
those who were against the League to feel that the Government should
be supported. But there had been a mystery attached to that other
murder, perpetrated in the court, which had acted strongly on the
other side,--on behalf of the League. The murder of Terry Carroll at
the moment in which he was about to give evidence,--false evidence,
as the Leaguers said,--against his brother was a great triumph to
them. It was used as an argument why Pat Carroll should be no longer
confined, while Florian's death had been a reason why he never should
be released at all. All this kept the memory of Florian's death,
and the constant thought of it, still fresh in the minds of them all
at Morony Castle, together with the poverty which had fallen upon
them, had made the two men weary of their misfortunes. Under such
misfortunes, when continued, men do become more weary than women.
But Edith thought there would be something in the constancy of
Rachel's love to cheer her brother, and therefore the letter made
her contented if not happy.
For herself, she said to herself no love could cheer her. Captain
Clayton still hung about Tuam and Headford, but his presence in the
neighbourhood was always to be attributed to the evidence of which he
was in search as to Florian's death. It seemed now with him that the
one great object of his heart was the unravelling of that murder. "It
was no mystery," as he said over and over again in Edith's hearing.
He knew very well who had fired the rifle. He could see, in his
mind's eye, the slight form of the crouching wretch as he too surely
took his aim from the temporary barricade. The passion had become so
strong with him of bringing the man to justice that he almost felt,
that between him and his God he could swear to having seen it. And
yet he knew that it was not so. To have the hanging of that man would
be to him a privilege only next to that of possessing Edith Jones.
And he was a sanguine man, and did believe that in process of time
both privileges would be vouchsafed to him.
But Edith was less sanguine. She could not admit to herself the
possibility that there should be successful love between her and
her hero. His presence there in the neighbourhood of her home was
stained by constant references to her brother's blood. And then,
though there was no chance for Ada, Ada's former hopes militated
altogether against Edith. "He had better go away and just leave us to
ourselves," she said to herself. But yet neither was she nor was Ada
sunk so low in heart as her father and her brother.
"Frank," she said to her brother, "whom do you think this letter is
from?" and she held up in her hand Rachel's epistle.
"I care not at all, unless it be from that most improbable of all
creatures, a tenant coming to pay his rent."
"Nothing quite so beautiful as that."
"Or from someone who has evidence to give about some of these murders
that are going on?"--A Mr. Morris from the other side of the lake,
in County Mayo, had just been killed, and the minds of men were now
disturbed with this new horror.--"Anybody can kill anybody who has a
taste in that direction. What a country for a man with his family to
pitch upon and live in! And that all this should have been kept under
so long by policemen and right-thinking individuals, and then burst
out like a subterranean fire all over the country, because the hope
has been given them of getting their land for nothing! In order to
indulge in wholesale robbery they are willing at a moment's notice to
undertake wholesale murder."
After listening to words such as these, Edith found it impossible to
introduce Rachel's letter on the spur of the moment.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
RACHEL IS ILL.
Rachel, before the end of March, received the following letter from
her friend, but she received it in bed. The whole world of Covent
Garden Theatre had been thrown into panic-stricken dismay by the fact
that Miss O'Mahony had something the matter with her throat. This was
the second attack, the first having been so short as to have caused
no trepidations in the world of music; but this was supposed to be
sterner in its nature, and to have caused already great alarm. Before
March was over it was published to the world at large that Miss
O'Mahony would not be able to sing during the forthcoming week.
In this catastrophe her lordly lover was of course the most sedulous
of attendants. In truth he was so, though when we last met him and
his bride together he had made himself very disagreeable. Rachel had
then answered him in such language as to make her think it impossible
that he should not quarrel with her; but still here he was, constant
at her chamber door. Whether his constancy was due to his position
about the theatre or to his ardour as a lover, she did not know; but
in either case it troubled her somewhat, and interfered with her
renewed dreams about Frank. Then came the following letter from
Frank's sister:
DEAR RACHEL,
I am not very much surprised, though I was a little, that
you should have accepted Lord Castlewell; but I had not
quite known the ins and outs of it, not having been there
to see. Frank says that the separation had certainly come
from him, because he could not bring himself to burden
your prosperity with the heavy load of his misfortunes.
Poor fellow! They are very heavy. They would have made you
both miserable for awhile, unless you could have agreed
to postpone your marriage. Why should it not have been
postponed?
But Lord Castlewell came in the way, and I supposed
him naturally to be as beautiful and gracious as he is
gorgeous and rich. But though you say nothing about him
there does creep out from your letter some kind of idea
that he is not quite so beautiful in your eyes as was
poor Frank. Remember that poor Frank has to wear two blue
shirts a week and no more, in order to save the washing!
How many does Lord Castlewell wear? How many will he wear
when he is a marquis?
But at any rate it does seem to be the case that you and
the earl are not as happy together as your best friends
could wish. We had understood that the earl was ready
to expire for love at the sound of every note. Has he
slackened in his admiration so as to postpone his expiring
to the close of every song? Or why is it that Frank should
be allowed again to come up and trouble your dreams?
You are so fond of joking that it is almost impossible for
a poor steady-going, boycotted young woman to follow you
to the end. Of course I understand that what you say about
Mr. Moss is altogether a joke. But then what you say about
Frank is, I am sure, not a joke. If you love him the best,
as I am sure you do--so very much the best as to disregard
the marble halls--I advise you, in the gentlest manner
possible, to tell the marble halls that they are not
wanted. It cannot be right to marry one man when you say
that you love another as you do Frank. Of course he will
wait if you like to wait. All I can say is, that no man
loves a girl better than he loves you.
We are very much down in the world at the present. We have
literally no money. Papa's relatives have given their
money to him to invest, and he has laid it out on the
property here. Nobody was thought to have done so well as
he till lately; but now they cannot get their interest,
and, of course, they are impatient. Commissioners have
sat in the neighbourhood, and have reduced the rents all
round. But they can't reduce what doesn't exist. There
are tenants who I suppose will pay. Pat Carroll could
certainly have done so. But then papa's share in the
property will be reduced almost to nothing. He will not
get above five shillings out of every twenty shillings of
rent, such as it was supposed to be when he bought it. I
don't understand all this, and I am sure I cannot make you
do so.
I have nothing to tell about my young man, as you call
him, except that he cannot be mine. I fancy that girls are
not fond of writing about their young men when they don't
belong to them. Frank, at any rate, is yours, if you will
take him; and you can write about him with an open heart.
I cannot do so. Think of poor Florian and his horrid
death. Is this a time for marriage,--if it were otherwise
possible,--which it is not?
God bless you, dear Rachel. Let me hear from you again
soon. I have said nothing to Frank as yet. I attempted
it this morning, but was stopped. You can imagine
that he, poor fellow, is not very happy.--Yours very
affectionately,
EDITH JONES.
Rachel read the letter on her sick bed, and as soon as it was read
Lord Castlewell came to her. There was always a nurse there, but Lord
Castlewell was supposed to be able to see the patient, and on one
occasion had been accompanied by his sister. It was all done in the
most proper form imaginable, much to Rachel's disgust. Incapable as
she was in her present state of carrying on any argument, she was
desirous of explaining to Lord Castlewell that he was not to hold
himself as bound to marry her. "If you think that father is an ass,
you had better say so outright, and let there be an end of it."
She wished to speak to him after this fashion. But she could not
say it in the presence of the nurse and of Lady Augusta. But Lord
Castlewell's conduct to herself made her more anxious than ever to
say something of the kind. He was very civil, even tender, in his
inquiries, but he was awfully frigid. She could tell from his manner
that that last speech of hers was rankling in his bosom as the frigid
words fell from his lips. He was waiting for some recovery,--a
partial recovery would be better than a whole one,--and then he would
speak his mind. She wanted to speak her mind first, but she could
hardly do so with her throat in its present condition.
She had no other friend than her father, no other friend to take her
part with her lovers. And she had, too, fallen into such a state
that she could not say much to him. According to the orders of the
physician, she was not to interest herself at all about anything.
"I wonder whether the man was ever engaged to two or three lovers at
once," she said to herself, alluding to the doctor. "He knows at any
rate of Lord Castlewell, and does he think that I am not to trouble
myself about him?"
She had a tablet under her pillow, which she took out and wrote on
it certain instructions. "Dear father, C. and I quarrelled before
I was ill at all, and now he comes here just as though nothing
had happened. He said you made an ass of yourself in the House of
Commons. I won't have it, and mean to tell him so; but I can't talk.
Won't you tell him from me that I shall expect him to beg my pardon,
and that I shall never hear anything of the kind again. It must come
to this. Your own R." This was handed to Mr. O'Mahony by Rachel that
very day before he went down to the House of Commons.
"But, my dear!" he said. Rachel only shook her head. "I can hardly
say all this about myself. I don't care twopence whether he thinks me
an ass or not."
"But I do," said Rachel on the tablet.
"He is an earl, and has wonderful privileges, as well as a great deal
of money."
"Marble halls and impudence," said Rachel on the tablet. Then Mr.
O'Mahony, feeling that he ought to leave her in peace, made her a
promise, and went his way. At Covent Garden that evening he met the
noble lord, having searched for him in vain at Westminster. He was
much more likely to find Lord Castlewell among the singers of the
day, than with the peers; but of these things Mr. O'Mahony hardly
understood all the particulars.
"Well, O'Mahony, how is your charming daughter?"
"My daughter is not inclined to be charming at all. I do hope she may
be getting better, but at present she is bothering her head about
you."
"It is natural that she should think of me a little sometimes," said
the flattered lord.
"She has written me a message which she says that I am to deliver.
Now mind, I don't care about it the least in the world." Here the
lord looked very grave. "She says that you called me an ass. Well,
I am to you, and you're an ass to me. I am sure you won't take it as
any insult, neither do I. She wants you to promise that you won't
call me an ass any more. Of course it would follow that I shouldn't
be able to call you one. We should both be hampered, and the truth
would suffer. But as she is ill, perhaps it would be better that you
should say that you didn't mean it."
But this was not at all Lord Castlewell's view of the matter.
Though he had been very glib with his tongue in calling O'Mahony an
ass, he did not at all like the compliment as paid back to him by
his father-in-law. And there was something which he did not quite
understand in the assertion that the truth would suffer. All the
world was certain that Mr. O'Mahony was an ass. He had been turned
out of the House of Commons only yesterday for saying that the
Speaker was quite wrong, and sticking to it. There was not the
slightest doubt in the world about it. But his lordship knew his
gamut, which was all that he pretended to know, and never interfered
with matters of which he was ignorant. He was treated with the
greatest respect at Covent Garden, and nobody ever suspected him of
being an ass. And then he had it in his mind to speak very seriously
to Rachel as soon as she might be well enough to hear him. "You
have spoken to me in a manner, my dear, which I am sure you did not
intend." He had all the words ready prepared on a bit of paper in his
pocket-book. And he was by no means sure but that the little quarrel
might even yet become permanent. He had discussed it frequently with
Lady Augusta, and Lady Augusta rather wished that it might become
permanent. And Lord Castlewell was not quite sure that he did not
wish it also. The young lady had a way of speaking about her own
people which was not to be borne. And now she had been guilty of the
gross indecency of sending a message to him by her own father,--the
very man whom he called an ass. And the man in return only laughed
and called him an ass.
But Lord Castlewell knew the proprieties of life. Here was this--girl
whom he had proposed to marry, a sad invalid at the moment. The
doctor had, in fact, given him but a sad account of the case. "She
has strained her voice continually till it threatens to leave her,"
said the doctor; "I do not say that it will be so, but it may. Her
best chance will be to abandon all professional exertions till next
year." Then the doctor told him that he had not as yet taken upon
himself to hint anything of all this to Miss O'Mahony.
Lord Castlewell was puzzled in the extreme. If the lady lost her
voice and so became penniless and without a profession; and if he in
such case were to throw her over, and leave her unmarried, what would
the world say of him? Would it be possible then to make the world
understand that he had deserted her, not on account of her illness,
but because she had not liked to hear her father called an ass. And
had not Rachel already begun the battle in a manner intended to
show that she meant to be the victor? Could it be possible that she
herself was desirous of backing out. There was no knowing the extent
of the impudence to which these Americans would not go! No doubt she
had, by the use of intemperate language on the occasion when she
would not be driven out in the carriage, given him ample cause for a
breach. To tell the truth, he had thought then that a breach would
be expedient. But she had fallen ill, and it was incumbent on him to
be tender and gentle. Then, from her very sick bed, she had sent him
this impudent message.
And it had been delivered so impudently! "The truth would suffer!" He
was sure that there was a meaning in the words intended to signify
that he, Lord Castlewell, was and must be an ass at all times. Then
he asked himself whether he was an ass because he did not quite
understand O'Mahony's argument. Why did the truth suffer? As to his
being an ass,--O'Mahony being an ass,--he was sure that there was no
doubt about that. All the world said so. The House of Commons knew
it,--and the newspapers. He had been turned out of the House for
saying the Speaker was wrong, and not apologising for having uttered
such words. And he, Lord Castlewell, had so expressed himself only
to the woman who was about to be his wife. Then she had had the
incredible folly to tell her father, and the father had told him that
under certain circumstances the "truth must suffer." He did not quite
understand it, but was sure that Mr. O'Mahony had meant to say that
they were two fools together.
He was not at all ashamed of marrying a singing girl. It was the
thing he would be sure to do. And he thought of some singing girls
before his time, and of his time also, whom it would be an honour for
such as him to marry. But he would degrade himself--so he felt--by
the connection with an advanced Landleaguing Member of Parliament.
He looked round the lot of them, and he assured himself that there
was not one from whose loins an English nobleman could choose a wife
without disgrace. It was most unfortunate,--so he told himself. The
man had not become Member of Parliament till quite the other day. He
had not even opened his mouth in Parliament till the engagement had
been made. And now, among them all, this O'Mahony was the biggest
ass. And yet Lord Castlewell found himself quite unable to hold his
own with the Irish member when the Irish member was brought to attack
him. He certainly would have made Rachel's conduct a fair excuse for
breaking with her,--only that she was ill.
If he could have known the state of Rachel's mind there might have
been an end to his troubles. She had now, at length, been made
thoroughly wretched by hearing the truth from the doctor,--or what
the doctor believed to be the truth. "Miss O'Mahony, I had better
tell you, your voice has gone, at any rate for a year."
"For a year!" The hoarse, angry, rusty whisper came forth from her,
and in spite of its hoarseness and rustiness was audible enough.
"I fear so. For heaven's sake don't talk; use your tablet." Rachel
drew the tablet from under her pillow and dashed it across the
room. The doctor picked it up, and, with a kind smile and a little
caressing motion of his hand, put it again back under the pillow.
Rachel buried her head amidst the bedclothes and sobbed bitterly.
"Try to make yourself happy in remembering how you have succeeded,"
said the doctor.
"It won't be back just the same," she wrote on her tablet.
"It is in God's hands," said the doctor. There came not another word
from Rachel, either by her tablet or by any struggle at speech. The
doctor, having made what attempts at comfort he could, went his way.
Then her father, who had been in and out constantly, came to his
daughter. He had not been present when she threw the tablet away, but
he knew what the doctor had said to her.
"My pet," he said. But she made no attempt to answer him. A year! At
her time of life a year is an eternity. And then this doctor had only
told her that her voice was in God's hands. She could talk to herself
without any effort. "When they say that they always condemn you.
When the doctor tells you that you are in God's hands he means the
Devil's."
She had been so near the gods and goddesses, and now she was no more
than any other poor woman. She might be less, as her face had begun
to wither with her voice. She had all but succeeded; as for her
face, as for the mere look of her, let it go. She told herself that
she cared nothing for her appearance. What was Lord Castlewell to
her,--what even was Frank's love? To stand on the boards of the
theatre and become conscious of the intense silence of the crowd
before her,--so intense because the tone of her voice was the one
thing desired by all the world. And then to open her mouth and to let
the music go forth and to see the ears all erect, as she fancied she
could, so that not a sound should be lost,--should not be harvested
by the hungry hearers! That was to be a very god! As she told herself
of all her regrets, there was not a passing sorrow given to Lord
Castlewell. And what of the other man? "Oh, Frank, dear Frank, you
will know it all now. There need be no more taking money." But she
did take some comfort at last in that promise of God's hands. When
she had come, as it were, to the bitterest moment of her grief, she
told herself that, though it might be even at the end of a whole
year, there was something to be hoped.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
LORD CASTLEWELL IS MUCH TROUBLED.
When her father had been with her half-an-hour, and was beginning to
think that he could escape and go down to the House,--and he had a
rod in pickle for the Speaker's back, such a rod that the Speaker's
back should be sore for the rest of the session--Rachel began her
lengthened conversation with him. In the last half-hour she had made
up her mind as to what she would say. But the conversation was so
long and intricate, being necessarily carried on by means of her
tablet, that poor O'Mahony's rod was losing all its pickle. "Father,
you must go and see Lord Castlewell at once."
"I think, my dear, he understood me altogether when I saw him before,
and he seemed to agree with me. I told him I didn't mind being called
an ass, but that you were so absurd as to dislike it. In fact, I gave
him to understand that we were three asses; but I don't think he'll
say it again."
"It isn't about that at all," said the tablet.
"What else do you want?"
Then Rachel went to work and wrote her demand with what deliberation
she could assume.
"You must go and tell him that I don't want to marry him at all. He
has been very kind, and you mustn't tell him that he's an ass any
more. But it won't do. He has proposed to marry me because he has
wanted a singing girl; and I think I should have done for him,--only
I can't sing."
Then the father replied, having put himself into such a position
on the bed as to read the tablet while Rachel was filling it: "But
that'll all come right in a very short time."
"It can't, and it won't. The doctor says a year; but he knows nothing
about it, and says it's in God's hands. He means by that it's as bad
as it can be."
"But, my dear--"
"I tell you it must be so."
"But you are engaged. He would never be so base a man as to take your
word at such a moment as this. Of course he couldn't do it. If you
had had small-pox, or anything horrible like that, he would not have
been justified."
"I'm as ugly as ever I can be," said the tablet, "and as poor a
creature." Then she stopped her pencil for a moment.
"Of course he's engaged to you. Why, my dear, I'd have to cowhide him
if he said a word of the kind."
"Oh, no!" said the tablet with frantic energy.
"But you see if I wouldn't! You see if I don't! I suppose they think
a lord isn't to be cowhided in this country. I guess I'll let 'em
know the difference."
"But I don't love him," said the tablet.
"Goodness gracious me!"
"I don't. When he spoke of you in that way I began to think of it,
and I found I hated him. I do hate him like poison, and I want you to
tell him so."
"That will be very disagreeable," said the father.
"Never mind the disagreeables. You tell him so. I tell you he won't
be the worst pleased of the lot of us. He wanted a singer, and not a
Landleaguer's daughter; now he hasn't got the singer, but has got the
Landleaguer's daughter. And I'll tell you something else I want--"
"What do you want?" asked the father, when her hand for a moment
ceased to scrawl.
"I want," she said, "Frank Jones. Now you know all about it."
Then she hid her face beneath the bedclothes, and refused to write
another word.
He went on talking to her till he had forgotten the Speaker and
the rod in pickle. He besought her to think better of it; and if
not that, just at present to postpone any action in the matter. He
explained to her how very disagreeable it would be to him to have to
go to the lord with such a message as she now proposed. But she only
enhanced the vehemence of her order by shaking her head as her face
lay buried in the pillow.
"Let it wait for one fortnight," said the father.
"No!" said the girl, using her own voice for the effort.
Then the father slowly took himself off, and making his way to the
House of Commons, renewed his passion as he went, and had himself
again turned out before he had been half-an-hour in the House.
The earl was sitting alone after breakfast two or three days
subsequently, thinking in truth of his difficulty with Rachel. It
had come to be manifest to him that he must marry the girl unless
something terrible should occur to her. "She might die," he said to
himself very sadly, trying to think of cases in which singers had
died from neglected throats. And it did make him very sad. He could
not think of the perishing of that magnificent treble without great
grief; and, after his fashion, he did love her personally. He did
not know that he could ever love anyone very much better. He had
certainly thought that it would be a good thing that his father and
mother and sister should go and live in foreign lands,--in order, in
short, that they might never more be heard of to trouble him,--but he
did not even contemplate their deaths, so sweet-minded was he. But
in the first fury of his love he had thought how nice it would be to
be left with his singing girl, and no one to trouble him. Now there
came across him an idea that something was due to the Marquis of
Beaulieu,--something, that is, to his own future position; and what
could he do with a singing girl for his wife who could not sing?
He was unhappy as he thought of it all, and would ever and again, as
he meditated, be stirred up to mild anger when he remembered that he
had been told that "the truth would suffer." He had intended, at any
rate, that his singing girl should be submissive and obedient while
in his hands. But here had been an outbreak of passion! And here
was this confounded O'Mahony ready to make a fool of himself at a
moment's notice before all the world. At that moment the door was
opened and Mr. O'Mahony was shown into the room.
"Oh! dear," exclaimed the lord, "how do you do, Mr. O'Mahony? I hope
I see you well."
"Pretty well. But upon my word, I don't know how to tell you what
I've got to say."
"Has anything gone wrong with Rachel?"
"Not with her illness,--which, however, does not seem to improve. The
poor girl! But you'll say she's gone mad."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I really hardly know how I ought to break it. You must have learned
by this time that Rachel is a girl determined to have her own way."
"Well; well; well!"
"And, upon my word, when I think of myself, I feel that I have
nothing to do but what she bids me."
"It's more than you do for the Speaker, Mr. O'Mahony."
"Yes, it is; I admit that. But Rachel, though she is inclined to
be tyrannical, is not such a downright positive old blue-bottle
nincompoop as that white-wigged king of kings. Rachel is bad; but
even you can't say that she is bad enough to be Speaker of the House
of Commons. My belief is, that he'll come to be locked up yet."
"We have all the highest opinion of him."
"It's because you like to be sat upon. You don't want to be allowed
to say bo to a goose. I have often heard in my own country--"
"But you call yourself an Irishman, Mr. O'Mahony."
"Never did so in my life. They called me so over there when they
wanted to return me to hold my tongue in that House of Torment; but
I guess it will puzzle the best Englishman going to find out whether
I'm an American or an Irishman. They did something over there to make
me an American; but they did nothing to unmake me as an Irishman. And
there I am, member for Cavan; and it will go hard with me if I don't
break that Speaker's heart before I've done with him. What! I ain't
to say that he goes wrong when he never goes right by any chance?"
"Have you come here this morning, Mr. O'Mahony, to abuse the
Speaker?"
"By no means. It was you who threw the Speaker in my teeth."
Lord Castlewell did acknowledge to himself his own imprudence.
"I came here to tell you about my daughter, and upon my word I
shall find it more difficult than anything I may have to say to the
Speaker. I have the most profound contempt for the Speaker."
"Perhaps he returns it."
"I don't believe he does, or he wouldn't make so much of me as to
turn me out of the House. When a man finds it necessary to remove an
enemy, let the cause be what it may, he cannot be said to despise
that enemy. Now, I wouldn't give a puff of breath to turn him out of
the House. In truth, I despise him too much."
"He is to be pitied," said the lord, with a gentle touch of irony.
"I'll tell you what, Lord Castlewell--"
"Don't go on about the Speaker, Mr. O'Mahony,--pray don't."
"You always begin,--but I won't. I didn't come here to speak about
him at all. And the Chairman of Committees is positively worse. You
know there's a creature called Chairman of Committees?"
"Now, Mr. O'Mahony, I really must beg that you will fight your
political battles anywhere but here. I'm not a politician. How is
your charming daughter this morning?"
"She is anything but charming. I hardly know what to make of her,
but I find that I am always obliged to do what she tells me." There
was another allusion to the Speaker on the lord's tongue, but he
restrained himself. "She has sent me here to say that she wants the
marriage to be broken off."
"Good Heavens!"
"She does. She says that you intend to marry her because she's a
singing girl;--and now she can't sing."
"Not exactly that," said the lord.
"And she thinks she oughtn't to have accepted you at all,--that's the
truth." The lord's face became very long. "I think myself that it was
a little too hurried. I don't suppose you quite knew your own minds."
"If Miss O'Mahony repents--"
"Well, Miss O'Mahony does repent. She has got something into her head
that I can't quite explain. She thought that she'd do for a countess
very well as long as she was on the boards of a theatre. But now that
she's to be relegated to private life she begins to feel that she
ought to look after someone about her own age."
"Oh, indeed! Is this her message?"
"Well; yes. It is her message. I shouldn't in such a matter invent
it all if she hadn't sent me. I don't know, now I think of it, that
she did say anything about her own age. But yet she did," remarked
Mr. O'Mahony, calling to mind the assertion made by Rachel that she
wanted Frank Jones. Frank Jones was about her own age, whereas the
lord was as old as her father.
"Upon my word, I am much obliged to Miss O'Mahony."
"She certainly has meant to be as courteous as she knows how," said
Mr. O'Mahony.
"Perhaps on your side of the water they have different ideas of
courtesy. The young lady sends me word that now she means to retire
from the stage she finds I am too old for her."
"Not that at all," said Mr. O'Mahony. But he said it in an apologetic
tone, as though admitting the truth.
Lord Castlewell, as he sat there for a few moments, acknowledged to
himself that Rachel possessed certain traits of character which had
something fine about them, from whatever side of the water she had
come. He was a reasonable man, and he considered that there was a
way made for him to escape from this trouble which was not to have
been expected. Had Rachel been an English girl, or an Italian, or a
Norwegian, he would hardly have been let off so easily. As he was
an earl, and about to be a marquis, and as he was a rich man, such
suitors are not generally given up in a hurry. This young lady had
sent word to him that she had lost her voice permanently and was
therefore obliged to surrender that high title, that noble name, and
those golden hopes which had glistened before her eyes. No doubt he
had offered to marry her because of her singing;--that is, he would
not have so offered had she not have been a singer. But he could not
have departed from his engagement simply because she had become dumb.
He quite understood that Mr. O'Mahony would have been there with
his cowhide, and though he was by no means a coward be did not wish
to encounter the American Member of the House of Commons in all
his rage. In fact, he had been governed in his previous ideas by a
feeling of propriety; but propriety certainly did not demand him to
marry a young lady who had sent to tell him that he was too old. And
this irate member of the House of Commons had come to bring him the
message!
"What am I expected to suggest now?" said Lord Castlewell, after
awhile.
"Just your affectionate blessing, and you're very sorry," said Mr.
O'Mahony, with a shrug. "That's the kind of thing, I should say."
He couldn't send her his affectionate blessing, and he couldn't
say he was very sorry. Had the young lady been about to marry his
son,--had there been such a son,--he could have blessed her; and he
felt that his own personal dignity did not admit of an expression of
sorrow.
Was he to let the young lady off altogether? There was something
nearly akin,--very nearly akin,--to true love in his bosom as he
thought of this. The girl was ill, and no doubt weak, and had been
made miserable by the loss of her voice. The doctor had told him that
her voice, for all singing purposes, had probably gone for ever. But
her beauty remained;--had not so faded, at least, as to have given
any token of permanent decay. And that peculiarly bright eye was
there; and the wit of the words which had captivated him. The very
smallness of her stature, with its perfect symmetry, had also gone
far to enrapture him.
No doubt, he was forty. He did not openly pretend even to be less.
And where was the young lady, singer or no singer, who if disengaged,
would reject the heir to a marquisate because he was forty? And
he did not believe that Rachel had sent him any message in which
allusion was made to his age. That had been added by the stupid
father, who was, without doubt, the biggest fool that either America
or Ireland had ever produced. Now that the matter had been brought
before him in such bald terms, he was by no means sure that he was
desirous of accepting the girl's offer to release him. And the father
evidently had no desire to catch him. He must acknowledge that Mr.
O'Mahony was an honest fool.
"It's very hard to know what I'm to say." Here Mr. O'Mahony shook his
head. "I think that, perhaps, I had better come and call upon her."
"You mustn't speak a word! And, if you're to be considered as no
longer engaged, perhaps there might be--you know--something--well,
something of delicacy in the matter!"
Mr. O'Mahony felt at the moment that he ought to protect the
interests of Frank Jones.
"I understand. At any rate I am not disposed to send her my blessing
at present as a final step. An engagement to be married is a very
serious step in life."
But her father remembered that she had told him that she wanted Frank
Jones. Should he tell the lord the exact truth, and explain all about
Frank Jones? It would be the honest thing to do. And yet he felt that
his girl should have another chance. This lord was not much to his
taste; but still, for a lord, he had his good points.
"I think we had better leave it for the present," said the lord. "I
feel that in the midst of all your eloquence I do not quite catch
Miss O'Mahony's meaning."
O'Mahony felt that this lord was as bad a lord as any of them. He
would like to force the lord to meet him at some debating club where
there was no wretched Speaker and there force him to give an answer
on any of the burning questions which now excited the two countries.
"Very well. I will explain to Rachel as soon as I can that the matter
is still left in abeyance. Of course we feel the honour done us by
your lordship in not desiring to accept at once her decision. Her
condition is no doubt sad. But I suppose she may expect to hear once
more from yourself in a short time."
So Mr. O'Mahony took his leave, and as he went to Cecil Street
endeavoured in his own mind to investigate the character of Lord
Castlewell. That he was a fool there could be no doubt, a fool with
whom he would not be forced to live in the constant intercourse of
married life for any money that could be offered to him. He was a man
who, without singing himself, cared for nothing but the second-hand
life of a theatre. But then he, Mr. O'Mahony, was not a young woman,
and was not expected to marry Lord Castlewell. But he had told
himself over and over again that Lord Castlewell had been "caught."
He was a great lord rolling in money, and Rachel had "caught" him.
He had not quite approved of Rachel's conduct, but the lord had been
fair game for a woman. What the deuce was he to think now of the lord
who would not be let off?
"I wonder whether it can be love for her," said he to himself; "such
love as I used to feel."
Then he sighed heavily as he went home.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CAPTAIN CLAYTON'S FIRST TRIUMPH.
It was now April, and this April was a sad month in Ireland. I do
not know why the deaths of two such men as were then murdered should
touch the heart with a deeper sorrow than is felt for the fate of
others whose lot is lower in life; why the poor widow, who has
lost her husband while doing his duty amidst outrages and unmanly
revenges, is not to be so much thought of as the sweet lady who has
been robbed of her all in the same fashion. But so it is with human
nature. We know how a people will weep for their Sovereign, and it
was with such tears as that, with tears as sincere as those shed for
the best of kings, that Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke were
lamented. In April these two men had fallen, hacked to death in front
of the Viceregal Lodge. By whom they were killed, as I write now, no
one knows, and as regards Lord Frederick one can hardly guess the
reason. He had come over to Ireland on that very day, to take the
place which his luckier predecessor had just vacated, and had as yet
done no service, and excited no vengeance in Ireland. He had only
attended an opening pageant;--because with him had come a new Lord
Lieutenant,--not new indeed to the office, but new in his return. An
accident had brought the two together on the day, but Lord Frederick
was altogether a stranger, and yet he had been selected. Such had
been his fate, and such also the fate of Mr. Burke, who, next to him
in official rank, may possibly have been in truth the doomed one.
They were both dealt with horribly on that April morning,--and all
Ireland was grieving. All Ireland was repudiating the crime, and
saying that this horror had surely been done by American hands. Even
the murderers native to Ireland seemed to be thoroughly ashamed of
this deed.
It would be needless here to tell,--or to attempt to tell,--how one
Lord-Lieutenant had made way for another, and one Chief Secretary
for another Chief Secretary. It would be trying to do too much. In
the pages of a novel the novelist can hardly do more than indicate
the sources of the troubles which have fallen upon the country,
and can hardly venture to deal with the names and characters of
those who have been concerned. For myself, I do most cordially agree
with the policy of him in whose place Lord Frederick had this day
suffered,--as far as his conduct in Ireland can be read from that
which he did and from that which he spoke. As far as he had agreed
with the Government in their measure for interfering with the price
paid for land in the country,--for putting up a new law devised by
themselves in lieu of that time-honoured law by which property has
ever been protected in England,--I disagree. Of my disagreement
no one will take notice;--but my story cannot be written without
expressing it.
But down at Morony Castle, mingled with their sorrows, there was a
joy and a triumph; not loud indeed, not sounded with trumpets, not as
yet perfect, not quite assured even in the mind of one man; but yet
assuring in the mind of that man,--and indeed of one other,--almost
to conviction. That man was Captain Yorke Clayton, and that other man
was only poor Hunter, the wounded policeman. For such triumph as was
theirs a victim is needed; and in this case the victim, the hoped-for
victim, was Mr. Lax.
Nothing had ever been made out in regard to the murder of Terry
Carroll in the Court House at Galway. Irish mysteries are coming to
be unriddled now, but there will be no unriddling of that. Yorke
Clayton, together with Hunter and all the police of County Galway,
could do nothing in regard to that mystery. They had struggled their
very best, and, from the nature of the crime, had found themselves
almost obliged to discover the perpetrator. The press of the two
countries, the newspapers in other respects so hostile to each other,
had united in declaring that the police were bound to know all about
it. The police had determined to know nothing about it, because the
Government did not dare to bring forward such evidence. This was the
Irish Landleague view; and though it contained an accusation against
the Government for having contrived the murder itself, it was all
the better on that account. The English papers simply said that the
Galway police must be fast asleep. This man had been murdered when
in the very hands of the officers of justice. The judge had seen
the shots fired. The victim fell into the hands of four policemen.
The pistol was found at his feet. It was done in daylight, and all
Galway was looking on. The kind of things that were said by one set
of newspapers and another drove Yorke Clayton almost out of his wits.
He had to maintain a show of good humour, and he did maintain it
gallantly. "My hero is a hero still," whispered Edith to her own
pillow. But, in truth, nothing could be done as to that Galway case.
Mr. Lax was still in custody, and was advised by counsel not to give
any account of himself at that time. It was indecent on the part of
the prosecution that he should be asked to do so. So said the lawyers
on his side, but it was clear that nobody in the court and nobody in
Galway could be got to say that he or she had seen him do it. And
yet Yorke Clayton had himself seen the hip of the stooping man. "I
suppose I couldn't swear to it," he said to himself; and it would
be hard to see how he could swear to the man without forswearing
himself.
But while this lamentable failure was going on, success reached him
from another side. He didn't care a straw what the newspapers said
of him, so long as he could hang Mr. Lax. His triumph in that respect
would drown all other failures. Mr. Lax was still in custody, and
many insolent petitions had been made on his behalf in order that he
might be set free. "Did the Crown intend to pretend that they had any
shadow of evidence against him as to the shooting of Terry Carroll?"
"No;--but there was another murder committed a day or two before.
Poor young Florian Jones had been murdered. Even presuming that Lax's
hand cannot be seen visible in the matter of Terry Carroll, there is,
we think, something to connect him with the other murder. The two, no
doubt, were committed in the same interest. The Crown is not prepared
to allow Lax to escape from its hands quite yet." Then there were
many words on the subject going on just at the time at which Lax
especially wanted his freedom, and at which, to tell the truth, Yorke
Clayton was near the end of his tether in regard to poor Florian.
In the beginning of his inquiry as to the Ballyglunin murder, he
entertained an idea that Lax, after firing the shot, had been seen
by that wicked car-driver, who had boycotted Mr. Jones in his great
need. The reader will probably have forgotten that Mr. Jones had
required to be driven home to Morony Castle from Ballyglunin station,
and had been refused the accommodation by a wicked old Landleaguer,
who had joined the conspiracy formed in the neighbourhood against
Mr. Jones. He had done so, either in fear of his neighbours, or
else in a true patriot spirit--because he had gone without any
supper, as had also his horses, on the occasion. The man's name was
Teddy Mooney, the father of Kit Mooney who stopped the hunting at
Moytubber. And he certainly was patriotic. From day to day he went
on refusing fares,--for the boycotted personages were after all more
capable of paying fares than the boycotting hero of doing without
them,--suffering much himself from want of victuals, and more on
behalf of his poor animal. He saw his son Kit more than once or twice
in those days, and Kit appeared to be the stancher patriot of the
two. Kit was a baker, and did earn wages; but he utterly refused to
subsidise the patriotism of his father. "If ye can't do that for the
ould counthry," said Kit, "ye ain't half the man I took ye for." But
he refused him a gallon of oats for his horse.
It was not at once that the old man gave way. He went on boycotting
individuals till he hadn't a pair of breeches left to sit upon, and
the non-boycotted tradesmen of the little towns around declined to
sit upon his car, because the poor horse, fed upon roadside grasses,
refused to be urged into a trot. "Tare and ages, man, what's the good
of it? Ain't we a-cutting the noses off our own faces, and that with
the money so scarce that I haven't seen the sight of a half-crown
this two weeks." It was thus that he declared his purpose of going
back to the common unpatriotic ways of mankind, to an old pal, whom
he had known all his days. He did do so, but found, alas! that his
trade had perished in the meanwhile or forced itself into other
channels.
The result was that Teddy Mooney became very bitter in spirit, and
was for a while an Orangeman, and almost a Protestant. The evil
things that had been done to him were terrible to his spirit. He had
been threatened with eviction from ten acres of ground because he
couldn't pay his rent; or, as he said, because he had declined to
drive a maid-servant to the house of another gentleman who was also
boycotted. This had not been true, but it had served to embitter
Teddy Mooney. And now, at last, he had determined to belong to the
other side.
When an Irishman does make up his mind to serve the other side he
is very much determined. There is but the meditation of two minutes
between Landleaguing and Orangeism, between boycotting landlords and
thorough devotion to the dear old landlord. When Kit Mooney had first
laid down the law to his father, how he ought to assist in boycotting
all the enemies of the Landleague, no one saw his way clearer than
did Teddy Mooney. "I wouldn't mind doing without a bit or a sup,"
he said, when his son explained to him that he might have to suffer
a little for the cause. "Not a bit or a sup when the ould counthry
wants it." He had since had a few words with his son Kit, and was
now quite on the other side of the question. He was told that
somebody had threatened to cut off his old mare's tail because he
had driven Phil D'Arcy. Since that he had become a martyr as well as
an Orangeman, and was disposed to go any length "for the gintl'men."
This had come all about by degrees--had been coming about since poor
Florian's murder; and at last he wrote a letter to Yorke Clayton, or
got someone else to write it:
"Yer Honour,--It was Lax as dropped Master Flory. Divil a doubt about
it. There's one as can tell more about it as is on the road from
Ballyglunin all round. This comes from a well-wisher to the ould
cause. For Muster Clayton."
When Captain Clayton received this he at once knew from whom it
had come. The Landleaguing car-driver, who had turned gentlemen's
friend, was sufficiently well known to history to have been talked
about. Clayton, therefore, did not lose much time in going down to
Ballyglunin station and requiring to be driven yet once again from
thence to Carnlough. "And now, Mr. Teddy Mooney," he said, after they
had travelled together a mile or two from Ballyglunin, and had come
almost to the spot at which the poor boy had been shot, "tell me what
you know about Mr. Lax's movements in this part of the world." He
had never come there before since the fatal day without having three
policemen with him, but now he was alone. Such a man as Teddy Mooney
would be most unwilling to open his mouth in the presence of two or
more persons.
"O Lord, Captain, how you come on a poor fellow all unawares!"
"Stop a moment, Mr. Mooney," and the car stopped. "Whereabouts was it
the young gentleman perished?"
"Them's the very shot-holes," said Teddy, pointing up to the
temporary embrasure, which had indeed been knocked down half a score
of times since the murder, and had been as often replaced by the
diligent care of Mr. Blake and Captain Clayton.
"Just so. They are the shot-holes. And which way did the murderer
run?" Teddy pointed with his whip away to the east, over the ground
on which the man had made his escape. "And where did you first see
him?"
"See him!" ejaculated Teddy. It became horrible to his imagination as
he thought that he was about to tell of such a deed.
"Of course, we know you did see him; but I want to know the exact
spot."
"It was over there, nigh to widow Dolan's cottage."
"It wasn't the widow who saw him, I think?"
"Faix, it was the widow thin, with her own eyes. I hardly know'd
him. And yet I did know him, for I'd seen him once travelling from
Ballinasloe with Pat Carroll. And Lax is a man as when you've once
seen him you've seen him for allays. But she knowed him well. Her
husband was one of the boys when the Fenians were up. If he didn't go
into the widow Dolan's cabin my name's not Teddy Mooney."
"And who else was there?"
"There was no one else; but only her darter, a slip of a girl o'
fifteen, come up while Lax was there. I know she come up, because I
saw her coming jist as I passed the door."
Captain Clayton entered into very friendly relations with Teddy
Mooney on that occasion, trying to make him understand, without any
absolute promises, that all the luck and all the rewards,--in fact,
all the bacon and oats,--lay on the dish to which Mr. Lax did not
belong. Under these influences Teddy did become communicative--though
he lied most awfully. That did not in the least shock Captain
Clayton, who certainly would have believed nothing had the truth been
told him without hesitation. At last it came out that the car-driver
was sure as to the personality of Lax,--had seen him again and again
since he had first made his acquaintance in Carroll's company, and
could swear to having seen him in the widow's cabin. He knew also
that the widow and her daughter were intimate with Lax. He had not
seen the shot fired. This he said in an assured tone, but Captain
Clayton had known that before. He did not expect to find anyone who
had seen the shot fired, except Mr. Jones and Peter. As to Peter
he had his suspicions. Mr. Jones was certain that Peter had told
the truth in declaring that he had seen no one; but the Captain had
argued the matter out with him. "A fellow of that kind is in a very
hard position. You must remember that for the truth itself he cares
nothing. He finds a charm rather in the romantic beauty of a lie. Lax
is to him a lovely object, even though he be aware that he and Lax be
on different sides. And then he thoroughly believes in Lax; thinks
that Lax possesses some mysterious power of knowing what is in his
mind, and of punishing him for his enmity. All the want of evidence
in this country comes from belief in the marvellous. The people
think that their very thoughts are known to men who make their name
conspicuous, and dare not say a word which they suppose that it is
desired they shall withhold. In this case Peter no doubt is on our
side, and would gladly hang Lax with his own hand if he were sure he
would be safe. But Lax is a mysterious tyrant, who in his imagination
can slaughter him any day; whereas he knows that he shall encounter
no harm from you. He and poor Florian were sitting on the car with
their backs turned to the embrasure; and Peter's attention was given
to the driving of the car,--so that there was no ground for thinking
that he had seen the murderer. All the circumstances of the moment
ran the other way. But still it was possible."
And Captain Clayton was of opinion that Peter was beginning to be
moved from the determined know-nothingness of his primary evidence.
He had seen the flash. And then, as his master had run up the bank,
he didn't know whether he hadn't caught the flying figure of a man.
"I had the poor boy's head on my knees, Captain Clayton; and how is a
poor man to look much about him then?"
In this condition stood Captain Clayton's mind in regard to Peter,
when he heard, for the first time, a word about the widow Dolan and
the widow Dolan's daughter.
The woman swore by all her gods that she knew nothing of Lax. But
then she had already fallen into the difficulty of having been
selected as capable of giving evidence. It generally happens that no
one first person will be found even to indicate others, so that there
is no finding a beginning to the case. But when a witness has been
indicated, the witness must speak.
"The big blackguard!" exclaimed Mrs. Dolan, when she heard of the
evil that had been brought her; "to have the imperence to mention my
name!"
It was felt, all the country through, to be an impertinence,--for
anybody to drag anybody else into the mess of troubles which was
sure to arise from an enforced connection with a law court. Most
unwillingly the circumstances were drawn from Mrs. Dolan, and with
extreme difficulty also from that ingenious young lady her daughter.
But, still, it was made to appear that Lax had taken refuge in their
cottage, and had gone down from thence to a little brook, where he
effected the cleansing of his pistol. The young lady had done all in
her power to keep her mother silent, but the mother had at last been
tempted to speak of the weapon which Lax had used.
Now there was no further question of letting Lax go loose from
prison! That very irate barrister, Mr. O'Donnell, who was accustomed
to speak of all the Landleague criminals as patriotic lambs,--whose
lamb-like qualities were exceeded only by their patriotism,--did not
dare to intimate such a wish any further. But he did urge, with all
that benevolence for which he was conspicuous, that the trial should
come on at that immediate spring assizes. A rumour had, however,
already reached the ears of Captain Clayton, and others in his
position, that a great alteration was to be effected in the law.
This, together with Mrs. Dolan's evidence, might enable him to hang
Mr. Lax. Therefore the trial was postponed;--not, indeed, with
outspoken reference as to the new measure, but with much confidence
in its resources.
It would be useless here to refer to that Bill which was to have
been passed for trying certain prisoners in Ireland without the
intervention of a jury, and of the alteration which took place in
it empowering the Government to alter the venue, and to submit such
cases to a selected judge, to selected juries, to selected counties.
The Irish judges had remonstrated against the first measure, and the
second was to be first tried, so that should it fail the judges might
yet be called upon to act.
Such was the law under which criminals were tried in 1882, and the
first capital convictions were made under which the country began to
breathe freely. But the tidings of the law had got abroad beforehand,
and gave a hope of triumph to such men as Captain Clayton. Let a man
undertake what duty he will in life, if he be a good man he will
desire success; and if he be a brave man he will long for victory.
The presence of such a man as Lax in the country was an eyesore to
Captain Clayton, which it was his primary duty to remove. And it was
a triumph to him now that the time had come in which he might remove
him. Three times had Mr. Lax fired at the Captain's head, and three
times had the Captain escaped. "I think he has done with his guns and
his pistols now," said Captain Clayton, in his triumph.
CHAPTER XL.
YORKE CLAYTON AGAIN MAKES LOVE.
"I am not quite sure about Peter yet," said Clayton to Mr. Jones.
"But if we could look into his very soul I am afraid he could not do
much for us."
"I never believed in Peter as a witness," replied Mr. Jones.
"I should like to know exactly what he did see;--whether it was a
limb or a bit of his coat. But I think that young lady crept out and
saw him cleaning his pistol. And I think that the old lady had a
glimpse of the mask. I think that they can be made to say so."
"I saw the mask myself, and the muzzle of the rifle;--and I saw the
man running as plainly as I see you."
"That will all be wanted, Mr. Jones. But I trust that we may have to
summon you to Dublin. As things are at present, if Lax had been seen
in broad daylight firing at the poor boy by a dozen farmers it would
do no good in County Galway. There is Miss Edith out there. She is
awfully anxious about this wretch who destroyed her brother. I will
go and tell her." So Captain Clayton rushed out, anxious for another
cause for triumph.
Mr. Jones had heard of his suit, and had heard also that the suit was
made to Edith and not to Ada. "There is not one in a dozen who would
have taken Edith," said he to himself,--"unless it be one who saw her
with my eyes." But yet he did not approve of the marriage. "They were
poverty stricken," he said, and Clayton went about from day to day
with his life in his hand. "A brave man," he said to himself; "but
singularly foolhardy,--unless it be that he wants to die." He had not
been called upon for his consent, for Edith had never yielded. She,
too, had said that it was impossible. "If Ada would have suited, it
might have been possible, but not between Yorke and me." They had
both come now to call him by his Christian name; and they to him were
Ada and Edith; but with their father he had never quite reached the
familiarity of a Christian name.
Mr. Jones had, in truth, been so saddened by the circumstances of the
last two years that he could not endure the idea of marriages in his
family. "Of course, if you choose, my dear, you can do as you like,"
he used to say to Edith.
"But I don't choose."
"What there are left of us should, I think, remain together. I
suppose they cannot turn me out of this house. The Prime Minister
will hardly bring in a Bill that the estates bought this last hundred
years shall belong to the owners of the next century. He can do so,
of course, as things go now. There are no longer any lords to stop
him, and the House of Commons, who want their seats, will do anything
he bids them. It's the First Lieutenant who looks after Ireland, who
has ideas of justice with which the angels of light have certainly
not filled his mind. That we should get nothing from our purchased
property this century, and give it up in the course of the next, is
in strict accordance with his thinking. We can depend upon nothing.
My brother-in-law can, of course, sell me out any day, and would not
stop for a moment. Everybody has to get his own, except an Irish
landlord. But I think we should fare ill all together. Your brother
is behaving nobly, and I don't think we ought to desert him. Of
course you can do as you please."
Then the squire pottered on, wretched in heart; or, rather, down in
the mouth, as we say, and gave his advice to his younger daughter,
not, in truth, knowing how her heart stood. But a man, when he
undertakes to advise another, should not be down in the mouth
himself. _Equam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem, non secus ac
bonis_. If not, your thoughts will be too strongly coloured by your
own misfortunes to allow of your advising others.
All this Edith knew,--except the Latin. The meaning of it had been
brought home to her by her own light. "Poor papa is so hipped," she
said to herself, "that he thinks that nobody will ever be happy
again." But still she resolved that she would not marry Yorke
Clayton. There had been a mistake, and she had made it,--a miserable
blunder for which she was responsible. She did not quite analyse the
matter in her own mind, or look into the thoughts of Ada, or of Yorke
himself,--the hero of her pillow; but she continued to tell herself
that the proper order of things would not admit it. Ada, she knew,
wished it. Yorke longed for her, more strongly even than for Lax, the
murderer. For herself, when she would allow her thoughts to stray for
a moment in that direction, all the bright azure tints of heaven were
open to her. But she had made a mistake, and she did not deserve it.
She had been a blind fool, and blind fools deserved no azure tints of
heaven.
If she could have had her own way she would still have married Ada to
Yorke Clayton. When Ada told her that she had got over her foolish
love, it was the mere babble of unselfishness. Feel a passion for
such a man as Yorke Clayton, look into the depth of his blue eyes,
and fancy for herself a partnership with the spirit hidden away
within, and then get over it! Edith was guilty here of the folly of
judging of her sister as herself. And as for Yorke himself;--a man,
she said, always satisfies himself with that which is lovely and
beautiful. And with Ada he would have such other gifts as so strong
a man as Yorke always desires in his wife. In temper she was perfect;
in unselfishness she was excellent. In all those ways of giving
aid, which some women possess and some not at all,--but which, when
possessed, go so far to make the comfort of a house,--she was supreme.
If a bedroom were untidy, her eye saw it at once. If a thing had
to be done at the stroke of noon, she would remember that other
things could not be done at the same time. If a man liked his egg
half-boiled, she would bear it in her mind for ever. She would know
the proper day for making this marmalade and that preserve; and she
would never lose her good looks for a moment when she was doing these
things. With her little dusting-brush at her girdle, no eyes that
knew anything would ever take her for aught but a lady. She was just
the wife for Yorke Clayton.
So Edith argued it in her own bosom, adding other wondrous mistakes
to that first mistake she had made. In thinking of it all she counted
herself for nothing, and made believe that she was ugly in all eyes.
She would not allow the man to see as his fancy led him; and could
not bring herself to think that if now the man should change his mind
and offer his hand to Ada, it would be impossible that Ada should
accept it. Nor did she perceive that Ada had not suffered as she had
suffered.
"I wanted to catch you just for one moment," said Yorke Clayton,
running out so as to catch his prey. She had half wished to fly from
him, and had half told herself that any such flight was foolish.
"What is it, Yorke?" she said.
"I think,--I do think that I have at last got Lax upon the hip."
"You are so bloody-minded about Lax."
"What! Are you going to turn round and be merciful?" He was her hero,
and she certainly felt no mercy towards the murderer of her brother;
no mercy towards him who she now thought had planned all the injury
done to her father; no mercy towards him who had thrice fired at her
beloved. This wretched man had struggled to get the blood of him who
was all the world to her; and had been urged on to his black deeds
by no thought, by no feeling, that was not in itself as vile as hell!
Lax was to her a viper so noxious as to be beyond the pale of all
mercy. To crush him beneath the heel of her boot, so as to make an
end of him, as of any other poisonous animal, was the best mercy to
all other human beings. But she had said the word at the spur of the
moment, because she had been instigated by her feelings to gainsay
her hero, and to contradict him, so that he might think that he was
no hero of hers. She looked at him for the moment, and said nothing,
though he held her by the arm. "If you say I am to spare him, I will
spare him."
"No," she answered, "because of your duty."
"Have I followed this man simply as a duty? Have I lain awake
thinking of it till I have given to the pursuit such an amount of
energy as no duty can require? Thrice he has endeavoured to kill me,
firing at me in the dark, getting at me from behind hedges, as no
one who has anything of the spirit of man in his bosom will do when
he strives to destroy his enemy. All that has been nothing. I am a
policeman in search of him, and am the natural enemy of a murderer.
Of course in the ordinary way I would not have spared him; but the
ordinary way would have sufficed. Had he escaped me I could have
laughed at all that. But he took that poor lad's life!" Here he
looked sadly into her face, and she could see that there was a tear
within his eye. "That was much, but that was not all. That lad was
your brother, him whom you so dearly loved. He shot down the poor
child before his father's face, simply because he had said that he
would tell the truth. When you wept, when you tore your hair, when
you flung yourself in sorrow upon the body, I told myself that either
he or I must die. And now you bid me be merciful." Then the big tears
dropped down his cheeks, and he began to wail himself,--hardly like a
man.
And what did Edith do? She stood and looked at him for a few moments;
then extricated herself from the hold he still had of her, and flung
herself into his arms. He put down his face and kissed her forehead
and her cheeks; but she put up her mouth and kissed his lips. Not
once or twice was that kiss given; but there they stood closely
pressed to each other in a long embrace. "My hero," she said; "my
hero." It had all come at last,--the double triumph; and there was,
he felt, no happier man in all Ireland than he. He thought, at least,
that the double battle had been now won. But even yet it was not so.
"Captain Clayton," she began.
"Why Captain? Why Clayton?"
"My brother Yorke," and she pressed both his hands in hers. "You can
understand that I have been carried away by my feelings, to thank you
as a sister may thank a brother."
"I will not have it," he exclaimed fiercely. "You are no sister, nor
can I ever be your brother. You are my very own now, and for ever."
And he rushed at her again as though to envelop her in his arms, and
to crush her against his bosom.
"No!" she exclaimed, avoiding him with the activity of a young fawn;
"not again. I had to beg your pardon, and it was so I did it."
"Twenty times you have offended me, and twenty times you must repeat
your forgiveness."
"No, no, it must not be so. I was wrong to say that you were
bloody-minded. I cannot tell why I said so. I would not for worlds
have you altered in anything;--except," she said, "in your love for
me."
"But have you told me nothing?"
"I have called you my hero,--and so you are."
"Nay, Edith, it is more than that. It is not for me to remind you,
but it is more than that."
She stood there blushing before him, over her cheeks and up to her
forehead; but yet did not turn away her face.
"How am I to tell you why it is more than that? You cannot tell me,"
she replied.
"But, Edith--"
"You cannot tell me. There are moments for some of us the feelings of
which can never be whispered. You shall be my hero and my brother if
you will; or my hero and my friend; or, if not that, my hero and my
enemy."
"Never!"
"No, my enemy you cannot be; for him who is about to revenge my
brother's death no name less sweet than dearest friend will suffice.
My hero and my dearest friend!"
Then she took him by the hand, and turned away from the walk, and,
escaping by a narrow path, was seen no more till she met him at
dinner with her father and her brother and her sister.
"By God! she shall be mine!" said Clayton. "She must be mine!"
And then he went within, and, finding Hunter, read the details of
the evidence for the trial of Mr. Lax in Dublin, as prepared by the
proper officers in Galway city.
CHAPTER XLI.
THE STATE OF IRELAND.
It will be well that they who are interested only in the sensational
incidents of our story to skip this chapter and go on to other parts
of our tale which may be more in accordance with their taste. It
is necessary that this one chapter shall be written in which the
accidents that occurred in the lives of our three heroines shall be
made subordinate to the political circumstances of the day. This
chapter should have been introductory and initiative; but the facts
as stated will suit better to the telling of my story if they be told
here. There can be no doubt that Ireland has been and still is in
a most precarious condition, that life has been altogether unsafe
there, and that property has been jeopardised in a degree unknown
for many years in the British Islands. It is, I think, the general
opinion that these evils have been occasioned by the influx into
Ireland of a feeling which I will not call American, but which has
been engendered in America by Irish jealousy, and warmed into hatred
by distance from English rule. As far as politics are regarded,
Ireland has been the vassal of England as Poland has been of those
masters under which she has been made to serve. She was subjected to
much ill-usage, and though she has readily accepted the language, the
civilisation, and the customs of England, and has in fact grown rich
by adopting them, the memories of former hardships have clung to
her, and have made her ready to receive willingly the teachings of
those whose only object it has been to undermine the prestige of the
British Empire. In no respect has she more readily taken to her bosom
English practices than in that of the letting and the hiring of land.
In various countries, such as Italy, Russia, France, and the United
States, systems have grown up different from that which has prevailed
in England. Whether the English system or any other may be the
best is not now the question. But in answering that question it is
material to know that Ireland has accepted and, at any rate for two
centuries, has followed that system. The landlord has been to his
tenants a beneficent or, occasionally, a hard master, and the tenants
have acknowledged themselves as dependent, generally with much
affection, though not unfrequently with loud complaint. It has been
the same in England. Questions of tenant-right, of leases, and of the
cruelty of evictions have from time to time cropped up in Ireland.
But rents were readily paid up to 1878 and 1879; though abatements
were asked for,--as was the case also in England; and there were
men ready to tell the Irish from time to time, since the days of
O'Connell downwards, that they were ill-treated in being kept out of
their "ould" properties by the rightful owners.
Then the American revolt, growing out of Smith O'Brien's logic and
physical force, gave birth to Fenianism. The true Fenian I take to be
one desirous of opposing British power, by using a fulcrum placed on
American soil. Smith O'Brien's logic consisted in his assertion that
if his country wished to hammer the British Crown, they could only
do it by using hammers. Smith O'Brien achieved little beyond his own
exile;--but his words, acting upon his followers, produced Fenianism.
That died away, but the spirit remained in America; and when English
tenants began to clamour for temporary abatements in their rent, the
clamours were heard on the other side of the water, and assisted the
views of those American-Irish who had revivified Ribandism and had
given birth to the cry of Home Rule.
During the time that this was going on, a long unflagging series
of beneficial Acts of Parliament, and of consequently ameliorated
circumstances, had befallen the country. I was told the other day by
an Irish Judge, whose name stands conspicuous among those who are
known for their wisdom and their patriotism, by a Roman Catholic
Judge too, that in studying the latter laws of the two countries, the
laws affecting England and Ireland in reference to each other, he
knew no law by which England was specially favoured, though he knew
various laws redounding to the benefit of Ireland. When the cry for
some relief to suffering Ireland came up, at the time of the Duchess
of Marlborough's Fund, it was alleged in proof of Ireland's poor
condition that there was not work by which the labourers could earn
wages. I have known Ireland for more than forty years,--say from 1842
to 1882. In 1842 we paid five shillings a week for the entire work
of a man. As far as I can learn, we now pay, on an average, nine
shillings for the same. The question is not whether five shillings
was sufficient, or whether nine be insufficient, but that the normal
increase through the country has been and can be proved to be such as
is here declared.
I will refer to the banks, which can now be found established in any
little town, almost in any village, through the country. Fifty years
ago they were very much rarer. Banks do not spring up without money
to support them. The increase of wages,--and the banks also in an
indirect manner,--have come from that decrease in the population
which followed the potato famine of 1846. The famine and its results
were terrible while they lasted; but they left behind them an
amended state of things. When man has failed to rule the world
rightly, God will step in, and will cause famines, and plagues, and
pestilence--even poverty itself--with His own Right Arm. But the cure
was effected, and the country was on its road to a fair amount of
prosperity, when the tocsin was sounded in America, and Home Rule
became the cry.
Ireland has lain as it were between two rich countries. England,
her near neighbour, abounds in coal and iron, and has by means of
these possessions become rich among the nations. America, very much
the more distant, has by her unexampled agricultural resources put
herself in the way to equal England. It is necessary,--necessary at
any rate for England's safety,--that Ireland should belong to her.
This is here stated as a fact, and I add my own opinion that it is
equally necessary for Ireland's welfare. But on this subject there
has arisen a feud which is now being fought out by all the weapons of
rebellion on one side, and on the other by the force of a dominating
Government, restrained, as it is found to be, by the self-imposed
bonds of a democratic legislature. But there is the feud, and the
battle, and the roaring of the cannons is heard afar off.
I now purpose to describe in a very few words the nature of the
warfare. It may be said that the existence of Ireland as a province
of England depends on the tenure of the land. If the land were to be
taken altogether from the present owners, and divided in perpetuity
among any possible number of tenants, so as to be the property of
each tenant, without payment of any rent, all England's sense of
justice would be outraged, the English power of governing would be
destroyed, and all that could then be done by England would be to
give a refuge to the present owners till the time should come for
righting themselves, and they should be enabled to make some further
attempt for the recovery of their possessions. This would probably
arrive, if not sooner, from the annihilation of the new proprietors
under the hands of their fellow-countrymen to whom none of the spoil
had been awarded. But English statesmen,--a small portion, that is,
of English statesmen,--have wished in their philanthropy to devise
some measure which might satisfy the present tenants of the land,
giving them a portion of the spoil; and might leave the landlords
contented,--not indeed with their lot, which they would feel to be
one of cruel deprivation, but with the feeling that something had
at any rate been left to them. A compromise would be thus effected
between the two classes whose interests have always been opposed to
each other since the world began,--between the owners of property and
those who have owned none.
The statesmen in question have now come into power by means of their
philanthropy, their undoubted genius, and great gifts of eloquence.
They have almost talked the world out of its power of sober judgment.
I hold that they have so succeeded in talking to the present House
of Commons. And when the House of Commons has been so talked into
any wise or foolish decision, the House of Lords and the whole
legislating machinery of the country is bound to follow.
But how should their compromises be effected? It does not suit the
present writer to name any individual statesman. He neither wishes to
assist in raising a friend to the gods, or to lend his little aid in
crushing an enemy. But to the Liberal statesmen of the day, men in
speaking well of whom--at a great distance--he has spent a long life,
he is now bound to express himself as opposed. We all remember the
manner after which the Coercion Bill of 1881 was passed. The hoarse
shrieks with which a score of Irish members ran out of the House
crying "Privilege," when their voices had been stopped by the
salutary but certainly unconstitutional word of the Speaker, is
still ringing in our ears. Then the Government and the Irish score
were at daggers-drawn with each other. To sit for thirty-six hours
endeavouring to pass a clause was then held by all men to be an
odious bondage. But when these clauses had thus roughly been made to
be the law, the sugar-plum was to follow by which all Ireland was to
be appeased. The second Bill of 1881 was passed, which, with various
additions, has given rise to Judge O'Hagan's Land Court. That, with
its various sub-commissioners, is now engaged in settling at what
rate land shall be let in Ireland.
That Judge O'Hagan and his fellow commissioners are well qualified
to perform their task,--as well qualified, that is, by kindness,
by legal knowledge and general sagacity as any men can be,--I have
heard no one deny. In the performance of most difficult duties they
have hitherto encountered no censure. But they have, I think, been
taxed to perform duties beyond the reach of any mortal wisdom. They
are expected to do that which all the world has hitherto failed in
doing,--to do that against which the commonest proverbs of ancient
and modern wisdom have raised their voice. There is no proverb more
common than that of "_caveat emptor_." It is Judge O'Hagan's business
to do for the poorer party in each bargain made between a landlord
and a tenant that against which the above proverb warns him. The
landlord has declared that the tenant shall not have the land unless
he will pay £10 a year for it. The tenant agrees. Then comes Judge
O'Hagan and tells the two contracting parties to take up their pens
quickly and write down £8 as the fair rent payable for the land. And
it was with the object of doing this, of reducing every £10 by some
percentage, twenty per cent. or otherwise, that this commission was
appointed. The Government had taken upon itself to say that the
greed of Irish landlords had been too greedy, and the softness of
Irish tenants too soft, and that therefore Parliament must interfere.
Parliament has interfered, and £8 is to be written down for a term
of years in lieu of £10, and the land is to become the possession of
the tenant instead of the landlord as long as he may pay this reduced
rent. In fact all the bonds which have bound the landlord to his land
are to be annihilated. So also are the bonds which bind the tenant,
who will sell the property so acquired when he shall have found that
that for which he pays £8 per annum shall have become worth £10 in
the market.
It is useless to argue with the commissioners, or with the
Government, as to the inexpediency of such an attempt to alter the
laws for governing the world, which have forced themselves on the
world's acceptance. Many such attempts have been made to alter these
laws. The Romans said that twelve per cent. should be the interest
for money. A feeling long prevailed in England that legitimate
interest should not exceed five per cent. It is now acknowledged that
money is worth what it will fetch; and the interests of the young,
the foolish, and the reckless, who are tempted to pay too much for
it, are protected only by public opinion. The usurer is hated, and
the hands of the honest men are against him. That suffices to give
the borrower such protection as is needed. So it is with landlords
and tenants. Injury is no doubt done, and injustice is enabled to
prevail here and there. But it is the lesser injury, the lesser
injustice, which cannot be prevented in the long run by any attempt
to escape the law of "_caveat emptor_."
It is, however, vain to talk to benevolent commissioners, or to
a Government working by eloquence and guided by philanthropy,
regardless of political economy. "Would you have the heart," asks
the benevolent commissioner, "to evict the poor man from his small
holding on which he has lived all his life, where his only sympathies
lie, and send him abroad to a distant land, where his solitary tie
will be that of labour?" The benevolent commissioner thus expresses
with great talk and with something also of the eloquence of his
employers the feeling which prevails on that side of the question.
But that which he deprecates is just what I could do; and having
seen many Irishmen both in America and in Ireland, I know that the
American Irishman is the happiest man of the two. He eats more; and
in much eating the happiness of mankind depends greatly. He is better
clothed, better sheltered, and better instructed. Though his women
wail when he departs, he sends home money to fetch them. This may
be for the profit of America. There are many who think that it must
therefore be to the injury of England. The question now is whether
the pathetic remonstrance of the tear-laden commissioner should be
allowed to prevail. I say that the tenant who undertakes to pay
for land that which the land will not enable him to pay had better
go,--under whatever pressure.
Let us see how many details, how many improbabilities, will have to
be met before the benevolence of the commissioner can be made to
prevail. The reductions made on the rent average something between
twenty and twenty-five per cent. Let us take them at twenty. If a
tenant has to be evicted for a demand of £10, will he be able to live
in comfort if he pay only £8? Shall one tenant live in comfort on a
farm, the rent of which has been reduced him from £100 to £80, and
another, the reduction having been from £20 to £16? In either case,
if a tenant shall do well with two children, how shall he do with six
or eight? A true teetotaller can certainly pay double the rent which
may be extracted from a man who drinks. Shall the normal tenant earn
wages beyond what he gets from the land under his own tillage? Shall
the idle man be made equal to the industrious,--or can this be done,
or should it be done, by any philanthropy? Statesmen sitting together
in a cabinet may resolve that they will set the world right by
eloquence and benevolence combined; but the practices to which the
world have been brought by long experience will avail more than
eloquence and benevolence. Statesmen may decree that land shall be
let at a certain rate, and the decree will prevail for a time. It
may prevail long enough to put out of gear the present affairs of
the Irish world with which these statesmen will have tampered. But
the long experience will come back, and bargains will again be
made between man and man, though the intervening injuries will be
heartbreaking.
But the benevolence of the Government and its commissioners will
not have gone far. The Land Law of 1881 has, as I now write, been
at work for twelve months, and the results hitherto accomplished
have been very small. It may be doubted whether a single reluctant
tenant,--a single tenant who would have been unwilling to leave his
holding,--has been preserved from American exile by having his £10
or £20 or £30 of rent reduced to £8 or £16 or £24. The commissioners
work slowly, having all the skill of the lawyers, on one side or the
other, against them. It is piteous to see the hopelessness of three
sub-commissioners in the midst of a crowd of Irish attorneys. And the
law, as it exists at present, can be made to act only on holdings
possessed by tenants for one year. And the skill of the lawyers is
used in proving on the part of the landlords that the land is held by
firm leases, and cannot, therefore, be subjected to the law; and then
by proving, on behalf of the tenants, that the existing leases are
illegal, and should be broken. The possession of a lease, which used
to be regarded as a safeguard and permanent blessing to the tenant,
is now held to be cruelly detrimental to him, as preventing the
lowering of his rent, and the immediate creation for him of a tenancy
for ever. It is not to be supposed that the sub-commissioners can
walk over the land and straightway reduce the rents, though the
lands would certainly be subject to such reduction did not the law
interfere. In a majority of cases,--a majority as far as all Ireland
is concerned,--a feeling of honesty does prevail between landlord and
tenant, which makes them both willing to subject themselves to the
new law without the interference of attorneys, and many are preparing
themselves for such an arrangement. The landlord is willing to lose
twenty per cent. in fear of something worse, and the tenant is
willing to take it, hardly daring to hope for anything better. Such
is the best condition which the law has ventured to anticipate.
But in either case this is to be done as tempering the wind to the
shorn lamb. The landlord is anxious if possible to save for himself
and those who may come after him something of the reality of his
property, and the tenant feels that, though something of the nobility
of property has been promised to him by the Landleaguers, he may
after all make the best bargain by so far submitting himself to his
shorn landlord.
But on estates where the commissioners are allowed their full swing,
the whole nature of the property in the land will be altered. The
present tenant, paying a tax of £8 per annum which will be subjected
to no reduction and on which no abatement can be made, in lieu of a
£10 rent, will be the owner. The small man will be infinitely more
subject to disturbance than at present, because the tax must be
paid. The landlord will feel no mercy for him, seeing that the bonds
between them which demanded mercy have been abrogated. The extra
£2 or £4 or £6 will not enable the tenant to live the life of ease
which he will have promised himself. If his interest has been made
to be worth anything,--and it will be worth something, seeing that
it has been worth something, and is saleable under its present
condition,--it will be sold, and the emigration will continue. There
are cruel cases at present. There will be cases not less cruel under
the _régime_ which the new law is expected to produce. But the new
law will be felt to have been unjust as having tampered with the
rights of property, and having demanded from the owners of property
its sale or other terms than those of mutual contract.
But the time selected for the measure was most inappropriate. If good
in itself, it was bad at the time it was passed. Home Rule coming
across to us from America had taken the guise of rebellion. I have
met gentlemen who, as Home-Rulers, have simply desired to obtain
for their country an increase of power in the management of their
own affairs. These men have been loyal and patriotic, and it might
perhaps be well to meet their views. The Channel no doubt does
make a difference between Liverpool and Dublin. But the latter-day
Home-Rulers, of whom I speak, brought their politics, their
aspirations, and their money from New York, and boldly made use of
the means which the British Constitution afforded them to upset the
British Constitution as established in Ireland. That they should not
succeed in doing this is the determination of all, at any rate on
this side of the Channel. It is still, I believe, the desire of most
thinking men on the Irish side. But parliamentary votes are not given
only to thinking men; and consequently a body of members has appeared
in the House, energetic and now well trained, who have resolved by
the clamour of their voices to put an end to the British power of
governing the country. These members are but a minority among those
whom Ireland sends to Parliament; but they have learned what a
minority can effect by unbridled audacity. England is still writhing
in her attempt to invent some mode of controlling them. But long
before any such mode had been adopted,--had been adopted or even
planned,--the Government in 1881 brought out their plan for securing
to the tenants fair rents, fixity of tenure, and freedom of sale.
As to the first, it will, of course, be admitted by all men that
rents should be fair, as also should be the price at which a horse is
sold. It is, however, beyond the power of Parliament to settle the
terms which shall be fair. "_Caveat emptor_" is the only rule by
which fair rents may be reached. By fixity of tenure is meant such a
holding of the land as shall enable the tenant to obtain an adequate
return for his labour and his capital, and to this is added a
romantic and consequently a most unjust idea that it may be well to
settle this question on behalf of the tenant by granting him such a
term as shall leave no doubt. Let him have the land for ever as long
as he will pay a stipulated sum, which shall be considerably less
than the landlord's demand. That idea I call romantic, and therefore
unjust. But, even though the beauty of the romance be held sufficient
to atone for the injustice, this was not the poetical re-arrangement
of all the circumstances of land tenure in Ireland. Freedom of sale
is necessarily annexed to fixity of tenure. If a man is to have the
possession of land in perpetuity, surely he should be allowed to sell
it. Whether he be allowed or not, he will contrive to do so. Freedom
of sale means, I take it, that the so-called landlord shall have no
power of putting a veto on the transaction. We cannot here go into
the whole question as it existed in Ulster before 1870; but the
freedom of sale intended is such, I think, as I have defined it.
Whether these concessions be good or bad, this was, at any rate,
no time for granting them. They seem to me to amount to wholesale
confiscation. But supposing me to be wrong in that, can I be wrong
in thinking that a period of declared rebellion is not a time for
concessions? When the Land Bill was passed the Landleague was in full
power; boycotting had become the recognised weapon of an illegal
association; and the Home-Rulers of the day,--the party, that is, who
represented the Landleague,--were already in such possession of large
portions of the country as to prevent the possibility of carrying out
the laws.
At this moment the Government brought forward its romantic theory
as to the manipulation of land, and, before that theory was at work,
commenced its benevolent intentions by locking up all those who were
supposed to be guilty of an intention to carry out the Government
project further than the Government would carry it out itself. It
is held, as a rule, in politics that coercion and concession cannot
be applied together. Ireland was in mutiny under the guidance of
a mutinous party in the House of Commons, and at that moment a
commission was put in operation, under which it was the intention of
the Government to transfer the soil of the country at a reduced price
to the very men among whom the mutineers are to be found. How do the
tidings of such a commission operate upon the ears of Irishmen at
large? He is told that under the fear of the Landleague his rent
is to be reduced to an extent which is left to his imagination;
and then, that he is to be freed altogether from the incubus of a
landlord! He is, in fact, made to understand that his cherished
Landleague has become all-powerful. And yet he hears that odious men,
whom he recognises only as tyrants, are filling the jails through the
country with all his dearest friends. Demanding concessions, and the
continued increase of them, and having learned the way to seize upon
them when they are not given, he will not stand coercion. Abated rent
soon becomes no rent. When it is left to the payer of the rent to
decide on which system he will act, it is probable that the no-rent
theory will prevail.
So it was in 1882. Tenants were harassed by needy landlords, and when
they were served with forms of ejectment the landlords were simply
murdered, either in their own persons or in that of their servants.
Men finding their power, and beginning to learn how much might be
exacted from a yielding Government, hardly knew how to moderate their
aspirations. When they found that the expected results did not come
at once, they resorted to revenge. Why should these tyrants keep them
out from the good things which their American friends had promised
them, and which were so close within their grasp? And their anger
turned not only against their landlords, but against those who
might seem in any way to be fighting on the landlords' side. Did a
neighbour occupy a field from which a Landleaguing tenant had been
evicted, let the tails of that neighbour's cattle be cut off, or the
legs broken of his beasts of burden, or his sheep have their throats
cut. Or if the injured one have some scruples of conscience, let the
oppressor simply be boycotted, and put out of all intercourse with
his brother men. Let no well-intentioned Landleaguing neighbour buy
from him a ton of hay, or sell to him a loaf of bread.
But as a last resource, if all others fail, let the sinner be
murdered. We all know, alas! in how many cases the sentence has been
pronounced and the judgment given, and the punishment executed.
Such have been the results of the Land Law passed in 1881. And under
the curse so engendered the country is now labouring. It cannot be
denied that the promoters of the Land Laws are weak, and that the
disciples of the Landleague are strong. In order that the truth of
this may be seen and made apparent, the present story is told.
CHAPTER XLII.
LORD CASTLEWELL'S FAREWELL.
Poor Mr. O'Mahony had enemies on every side. There had come up lately
a state of things which must be very common in political life. The
hatreds which sound so real when you read the mere words, which look
so true when you see their scornful attitudes, on which for the time
you are inclined to pin your faith so implicitly, amount to nothing.
The Right Honourable A. has to do business with the Honourable B.,
and can best carry it on by loud expressions and strong arguments
such as will be palatable to readers of newspapers; but they do not
hate each other as the readers of the papers hate them, and are ready
enough to come to terms, if coming to terms is required. Each of them
respects the other, though each of them is very careful to hide his
respect. We can fancy that the Right Honourable A. and the Honourable
B. in their moments of confidential intercourse laugh in their joint
sleeves at the antipathies of the public. In the present instance it
was alleged that the Right Honourable A. and the Honourable B. had
come to some truce together, and had ceased for a while to hit each
other hard knocks. Such a truce was supposed to be a feather in the
cap of the Honourable B., as he was leader of a poor party of no
more than twenty; and the Right Honourable A. had in this matter the
whole House at his back. But for the nonce each had come off his high
horse, and for the moment there was peace between them.
But Mr. O'Mahony would have no peace. He understood nothing of
compromises. He really believed that the Right Honourable gentleman
was the fiend which the others had only called him. To him it was a
compact with the very devil. Now the leader of his party, knowing
better what he was about, and understanding somewhat of the manner in
which politics are at present carried on, felt himself embarrassed by
the honesty of such a follower as Mr. O'Mahony. Mr. O'Mahony, when he
was asked whether he wished to lead or was willing to serve, declared
that he would neither lead nor serve. What he wanted was the "good
of Ireland." And he was sure that that was not to be obtained by
friendship with Her Majesty's Government. This was in itself very
well, but he was soon informed that it was not as a free-lance that
he had been elected member for Cavan. "That is between me and my
constituency," said Mr. O'Mahony, standing up with his head thrown
back, and his right hand on his heart. But the constituency soon gave
him to understand that he was not the man they had taken him to be.
He, too, had begun to find that to spend his daughter's money in
acting patriotism in the House of Commons was not a fine _rôle_
in life. He earned nothing and he did nothing. Unless he could
bind himself hand and foot to his party he had not even a spark of
delegated power. He was not allowed to speak when he desired, and
was called upon to sit upon those weary benches hour after hour, and
night after night, only pretending to effect those things which he
and his brother members knew could not be done. He was not allowed
to be wrathful with true indignation, not for a moment; but he was
expected to be there from question time through the long watches of
the night--taking, indeed, his turn for rest and food--always ready
with some mock indignation by which his very soul was fretted; and
no one paid him the slightest respect, though he was, indeed, by no
means the least respectable of his party. He would have done true
work had it been given him to do. But at the present moment his
own party did not believe in him. There was no need at present for
independent wrathful eloquence. There seldom is need in the House of
Commons for independent eloquence. The few men who have acquired for
themselves at last the power of expressing it, not to empty benches,
not amidst coughings and hootings, and loud conversation, have had
to make their way to that point either by long efficient service or
by great gifts of pachydermatousness. Mr. O'Mahony had never served
anyone for an hour, and was as thin-skinned as a young girl; and,
though his daughter had handed him all her money, so that he might
draw upon it as he pleased, he told himself, and told her also, that
his doing so was mean. "You're welcome to every dollar, father, only
it doesn't seem to make you happy."
"I should be happy to starve for the country, if starving would do
anything."
"I don't see that one ever does any good by starving as long as there
is bread to eat. This isn't a romantic sort of thing, this payment of
rents; but we ought to try and find out what a man really owes."
"No man owes a cent to any landlord on behalf of rent."
"But how is a man to get the land?" she said. "Over in our country a
rough pioneering fellow goes and buys it, and then he sells it, and
of course the man who buys it hasn't to pay rent. But I cannot see
how any fellow here can have a right to the land for nothing." Then
Mr. O'Mahony reminded his daughter that she was ill and should not
exert herself.
It was now far advanced in May, and Mr. O'Mahony had resolved to
make one crushing eloquent speech in the House of Commons and then
to retire to the United States. But he had already learned that
even this could not be effected without the overcoming of many
difficulties. In himself, in his eloquence, in the supply of words,
he trusted altogether; but there was the opportunity to be bought,
and the Speaker's eye to be found,--he regarded this Speaker's eye
as the most false of all luminaries,--and the empty benches to be
encountered, and then drowsy reporters to be stirred up; and then
on the next morning,--if any next morning should come for such a
report,--there would not be a tithe of what he had spoken to be read
by any man, and, in truth, very little of what he could speak would
be worthy of reading. His words would be honest and indignant and
fine-sounding, but the hearer would be sure to say, "What a fool is
that Mr. O'Mahony!" At any rate, he understood so much of all this
that he was determined to accept the Chiltern Hundreds and flee away
as soon as his speech should be made.
It was far advanced in May, and poor Rachel was still very ill.
She was so ill that all hope had abandoned her either as to her
profession or as to either of her lovers. But there was some spirit
in her still, as when she would discuss with her father her future
projects. "Let me go back," she said, "and sing little songs for
children in that milder climate. The climate is mild down in the
South, and there I may, perhaps, find some fragment of my voice."
But he who was becoming so despondent both for himself and for his
country, still had hopes as to his daughter. Her engagement with Lord
Castlewell was not even yet broken. Lord Castlewell had gone out of
town at a most unusual period,--at a time when the theatres always
knew him, and had been away on the exact day which had been fixed for
their marriage. Rachel had done all that lay in herself to disturb
the marriage, but Lord Castlewell had held to it, urged by feelings
which he had found it difficult to analyse. Rachel had in her
sickness determined to have done with him altogether, but latterly
she had had no communication with him. She had spoken of him to her
father as though he were a being simply to be forgotten. "He has
gone away, and, as far as he is concerned, there is an end of me.
It could not have finished better." But her mind still referred to
Frank Jones, and from him she had received hardly a word of love.
Further words of love she could not send him. During her illness many
letters, or little notes rather, had been written to Castle Morony on
her behalf by her father, and to these there had come replies. Frank
was so anxious to hear of her well-doing. Frank had not cared so much
for her voice as for her general health. Frank was so sorry to hear
of her weakness. It had all been read to her, but as it had been read
she had only shaken her head; and her father had not carried the
dream on any further. To his thinking she was still engaged to the
lord, and it would be better for her that she should marry the lord.
The lord no doubt was a fool, and filled the most foolish place in
the world,--that of a silly fainéant earl. But he would do no harm to
his daughter, and the girl would learn to like the kind of life which
would be hers. At present she was very, very ill, but still there was
hope for recovery.
By the treasury of the theatre she had been treated munificently. Her
engagement had been almost up to the day fixed for her marriage, and
the money which would have become due to her under it had been paid
in full. She had sent back the latter payments, but they had been
returned to her with the affectionate respects of the managers. Since
she had put her foot upon these boards she had found herself to be
popular with all around her. That, she had told herself, had been due
to the lord who was to become her husband. But Rachel had become, and
was likely to become, the means of earning money for them, and they
were grateful. To tell the truth, Lord Castlewell had had nothing to
do with it.
But gradually there came upon them the conviction that her voice was
gone, and then the payment of the money ceased. She, and the doctor,
and her father, had discussed it together, and they had agreed to
settle that it must be so.
"Yes," said the girl, smiling, "it is bitter. All my hopes! And such
hopes! It is as though I were dead, and yet were left alive. If it
had been small-pox, or anything in that way, I could have borne it.
But this thing, this terrible misfortune!"
Then she laughed, and then burst out sobbing with loud tears, and hid
her face.
"You will be married, and still be happy," said the doctor.
"Married! Rubbish! So much you know about it. Am I ever to get strong
in my limbs again, so as to be able to cross the water and go back to
my own country?"
Here the doctor assured her that she would be able to go back to her
own country, if it were needed.
"Father," she said, as soon as the doctor had left her, "let there be
an end to all this about Lord Castlewell. I will not marry him."
"But, my dear!"
"I will not marry him. There are two reasons why I should not. I do
not love him, and he does not love me. There are two other reasons. I
do not want to marry him, and he does not want to marry me."
"But he says he does."
"That is his goodness. He is very good. I do not know why a man
should be so good who has had so bad a bringing up. Think of me,--how
good I ought to be, as compared with him. I haven't done anything
naughty in all my life worse than tear my frock, or scold poor Frank;
and yet I find it harder to give him up, merely because of the
grandeur, than he does to marry me, the poor singing girl, who can
never sing again. No! My good looks are gone, such as they were. I
can feel it, even with my fingers. You had better take me back to the
States at once."
"Good-bye, Rachel," said the lord, coming into her room the day but
one after this. Her father was not with her, as she had elected to be
alone when she would bid her adieu to her intended husband.
"This is very good of you to come to me."
"Of course I came."
"Because you were good. You need not have come unless you had wished
it. I had so spoken to you as to justify you in staying away. My
voice is gone, and I can only squeak at you in this broken treble."
"Your voice would not have mattered at all."
"Ah, but it has mattered to me. What made you want to marry me?"
"Your beauty quite as much as your voice," said the lord.
"And that has gone too. Everything I had has gone. It is melancholy!
No, my lord," she said, interrupting him when he attempted to
contradict her, "there is not a word more to be said about it. Voice
and beauty, such as it was, and the little wit, are all gone. I did
believe in my voice myself, and therefore I felt myself fitting
to marry you. I could have left a name behind me if my voice had
remained. But, in truth, my lord, it was not fitting. I did not love
you."
"That, indeed!"
"As far as I know myself, I did not love you. You have heard me speak
of Frank Jones,--a man who can only wear two clean shirts a week
because he has been so boycotted by those wretched Irish as to be
able to afford no more. I would take him with one shirt to-morrow, if
I could get him. One does not know why one loves a person. Of course
he's handsome, and strong, and brave. I don't think that has done it,
but I just got the fancy into my head, and there it is still. And he
with his two shirts, working every day himself with his own hands to
earn something for his father, would not marry me because I was a
singing girl and took wages. He would not have another shirt to be
washed with my money. Oh, that the chance were given to me to go and
wash it for him with my own hands!"
Lord Castlewell sat through the interview somewhat distraught, as
well he might be; but when it was over, and he had taken his leave
and kissed her forehead, as he went home in his cab, he told himself
that he had got through that little adventure very well.
CHAPTER XLIII.
MR. MOSS IS FINALLY ANSWERED.
Some days after the scene last recorded Rachel was sitting in her
bedroom, partly dressed, but she was, as she was wont to declare
to her father, as weak as a cat with only one life. She had in the
morning gone through a good deal of work. She had in the first place
counted her money. She had something over £600 at the bank, and she
had always supplied her father with what he had wanted. She had told
her future husband that she must sing one month in the year so as
to earn what would be necessary for the support of the Member of
Parliament, and singularly enough her father had yielded. But now
the six hundred and odd pounds was all that was left to take them
both back to the United States. "I think I shall be able to lecture
there," Mr. O'Mahony had said. "Wait till I express my opinion about
queens, and lords, and the Speaker! I think I shall be able to say
a word or two about the Speaker!--and the Chairman of Committees. A
poor little creature who can hardly say bo to a goose unless he had
got all the men to back him. I don't want to abuse the Queen, because
I believe she does her work like a lady; but if I don't lay it on hot
on the Speaker of the British House of Commons, my name is not Gerald
O'Mahony."
"You forget your old enemy, the Secretary."
"Him we used to call Buckshot? I'm not so sure about him. At any rate
he has had a downfall. When a man's had a downfall I don't care about
lecturing against him. But I don't think it probable that the Speaker
will have a downfall, and then I can have my fling."
Rachel had dismissed her brougham, and she had written to Edith
Jones. That, no doubt, had been the greatest effort of the morning.
We need not give here the body of her letter, but it may be
understood that she simply declared at length the nature of the
prospect before her. There was not a word of Frank Jones in it. She
had done that before, and Frank Jones had not responded. She intended
to go with her father direct from Liverpool to New York, and her
letter was full chiefly of affectionate farewells. To Edith and to
Ada and to their father there were a thousand written kisses sent.
But there was not a kiss for Frank. There was not a word for Frank,
so that any reader of the letter, knowing there was a Frank in the
family, would have missed the mention of him, and asked why it was
so. It was very, very bitter to poor Rachel this writing to Morony
Castle without an allusion to the man; but, as she had said, he had
been right not to come and live on her wages, and he certainly was
right not to say a word as to their loss, when neither of them had
wages on which to live. It would have suited in the United States,
but she knew that it would not suit here in the old country, and
therefore when the letter was written she was sitting worn-out, jaded
and unhappy in her own bed-room.
The lodging was still in Cecil Street, from which spot she and her
father had determined not to move themselves till after the marriage,
and had now resolved to remain there till Rachel should be well
enough for her journey to New York. As she sat there the servant,
whom in her later richer days she had taken to herself, came to her
and announced a visitor. Mr. Moss was in the sitting-room. "Mr. Moss
here!" The girl declared that he was in the sitting-room, and in
answer to further inquiries alleged that he was alone. How he had got
there the girl could not say. Probably somebody had received a small
bribe. Mr. O'Mahony was not in,--nor was anybody in. Rachel told
the girl to be ready when she was ready to accompany her into the
parlour, and thus resolving that she would see Mr. Moss she sent him
a message to this effect. Then she went to work and perfected her
dressing very slowly.
When she had completed the work she altered her purpose, and
determined that she would see Mr. Moss alone. "You be in the little
room close at hand," she said, "and have the door ajar, so that you
can come to me if I call. I have no reason to suspect this man, and
yet I do suspect him." So saying, she put on her best manners, as it
might be those she had learned from the earl when he was to be her
husband, and walked into the room. She had often told herself, since
the old days, as she had now told the maid, that no real ground for
suspicion existed; and yet she knew that she did suspect the man.
Rachel was pale and wan, and moved very slowly as though with
haughty gesture. Mr. Moss, no doubt, had reason for knowing that the
marriage with Lord Castlewell was at an end. The story had been told
about among the theatres. Lord Castlewell did not mean to marry Miss
O'Mahony; or else the other and stranger story, Miss O'Mahony did not
mean to marry Lord Castlewell. Though few believed that story, it was
often told. Theatrical people generally told it to one another as a
poetical tale. The young lady had lost her voice and her beauty. The
young lady was looking very old and could never sing again. It was
absolutely impossible that in such circumstances she should decline
to marry the lord if he were willing. But it was more than probable
that he should decline to marry her. The theatrical world had
been much astonished by Lord Castlewell's folly, and now rejoiced
generally over his escape. But that he should still want to marry the
young lady, and that she should refuse,--that was quite impossible.
But Mr. Moss was somewhat different from the theatrical world in
general. He kept himself to himself, and kept his opinion very much
in the dark. Madame Socani spoke to him often about Rachel, and
expressed her loud opinion that Lord Castlewell had never been in
earnest. And she was of opinion that Rachel's voice had never had any
staying property. Madame Socani had once belittled Rachel's voice,
and now her triumph was very great. In answer to all this Mr. Moss
almost said nothing. Once he did turn round and curse the woman
violently, but that was all. Then, when the news had, he thought,
been made certain, either in one direction or the other, he came and
called on the young lady.
"Well, Mr. Moss," said the young lady, with a smile that was intended
to be most contemptible and gracious.
"I have been so extremely sorry to hear of your illness, my dear
young lady."
Her grandeur departed from her all at once. To be called this man's
"dear young lady" was insufferable. And grandeur did not come easily
to her, though wit and sarcasm did.
"Your dear young lady, as you please to call her, has had a bad time
of it."
"In memory of the old days I called you so, Miss O'Mahony. You and I
used to be thrown much together."
"You and I will never be thrown together again, as my singing is all
over."
"It may be so and it may not."
"It is over, at any rate as far as the London theatres go,--as far as
you and I go.
"I hope not."
"I tell you it is. I am going back to New York at once, and do not
think I shall sing another note as long as I live. I'm going to learn
to cook dishes for papa, and we mean to settle down together."
"I hope not," he repeated.
"Very well; but at any rate I must say good-bye to you. I am very
weak, and cannot do much in the talking line."
Then she got up and stood before him, as though determined to wish
him good-bye. She was in truth weak, but she was minded to stand
there till he should have gone.
"My dear Miss O'Mahony, if you would sit down for a moment, I have a
proposition to make to you. I think that it is one to which you may
be induced to listen."
Then she did sit down, knowing that she would want the strength which
rest would give her. The conversation with Mr. Moss might probably
be prolonged. He also sat down at a little distance, and held his
shining new hat dangling between his knees. It was part of her
quarrel with him that he had always on a new hat.
"Your marriage with Lord Castlewell, I believe, is off."
"Just so."
"And also your marriage with Mr. Jones?"
"No doubt. All my marriages are off. I don't mean to be married at
all. I tell you I'm going home to keep house for my father."
"Keep house for me," said Mr. Moss.
"I would rather keep house for the devil," said Rachel, rising from
her chair in wrath.
"Vy?--vy?"--Mr. Moss was reduced by his eagerness and enthusiasm to
his primitive mode of speaking--"Vat is it that you shall want of a
man but that he shall love you truly? I come here ready to marry you,
and to take my chance in all things. You say your voice is gone. I am
here ready to take the risk. Lord Castlewell will not have you, but
I will take you." Now he had risen from his chair, and was standing
close to her; but she was so surprised at his manner and at his words
that she did not answer him at all. "That lord cared for you not at
all, but I care. That Mr. Jones, who was to have been your husband,
he is gone; but I am not gone. Mr. Jones!" then he threw into his
voice a tone of insufferable contempt.
This Rachel could not stand.
"You shall not talk to me about Mr. Jones."
"I talk to you as a man who means vat he is saying. I will marry you
to-morrow."
"I would sooner throw myself into that river," she said, pointing
down to the Thames.
"You have nothing, if I understand right,--nothing! You have had
a run for a few months, and have spent all your money. I have got
£10,000! You have lost your voice,--I have got mine. You have no
theatre,--I have one of my own. I am ready to take a house and
furnish it just as you please. You are living here in these poor,
wretched lodgings. Why do I do that?" And he put up both his hands.
"You never will do it," said Rachel.
"Because I love you." Then he threw away his new hat, and fell on his
knees before her. "I will risk it all,--because I love you! If your
voice comes back,--well! If it do not come back, you will be my wife,
and I shall do my best to keep you like a lady."
Here Rachel leant back in her chair, and shut her eyes. In truth she
was weak, and was hardly able to carry on the battle after her old
fashion. And she had to bethink herself whether the man was making
this offer in true faith. If so, there was something noble in it;
and, though she still hated the man, as a woman may hate her lover,
she would in such case be bound not to insult him more than she could
help. A softer feeling than usual came upon her, and she felt that he
would be sufficiently punished if she could turn him instantly out of
the room. She did not now feel disposed "to stick a knife into him,"
as she had told her father when describing Mr. Moss. But he was at
her knees and the whole thing was abominable.
"Rachel, say the word, and be mine at once."
"You do not understand how I hate you!" she exclaimed.
"Rachel, come to my arms!"
Then he got up, as though to clasp the girl in his embrace. She ran
from him, and immediately called the girl whom she had desired to
remain in the next room with the door open. But the door was not
open, and the girl, though she was in the room, did not answer.
Probably the bribe which Mr. Moss had given was to her feeling rather
larger than ordinary.
"My darling, my charmer, my own one, come to my arms!"
And he did succeed in getting his hand round on to Rachel's waist,
and getting his lips close to her head. She did save her face so that
Mr. Moss could not kiss her, but she was knocked into a heap by his
violence, and by her own weakness. He still had hold of her as she
rose to her feet, and, though he had become acquainted with her
weapon before, he certainly did not fear it now. A sick woman, who
had just come from her bed, was not likely to have a dagger with her.
When she got up she was still more in his power. She was astray,
scrambling here and there, so as to be forced to guard against her
own awkwardness. Whatever may be the position in which a woman may
find herself, whatever battle she may have to carry on, she has first
to protect herself from unseemly attitudes. Before she could do
anything she had first to stand upon her legs, and gather her dress
around her.
"My own one, my life, come to me!" he exclaimed, again attempting to
get her into his embrace.
But he had the knife stuck into him. She had known that he would do
it, and now he had done it.
"You fool, you," she said; "it has been your own doing."
He fell on the sofa, and clasped his side, where the weapon had
struck him. She rang the bell violently, and, when the girl came,
desired her to go at once for a surgeon. Then she fainted.
"I never was such a fool as to faint before," she told Frank
afterwards. "I never counted on fainting. If a girl faints, of course
she loses all her chance. It was because I was ill. But poor Mr. Moss
had the worst of it."
Rachel, from the moment in which she fainted, never saw Mr. Moss any
more. Madame Socani came to visit her, and told her father, when she
failed to see her, that Mr. Moss had only three days to live. Rachel
was again in bed, and could only lift up her hands in despair. But to
her father, and to Frank Jones, she spoke with something like good
humour.
"I knew it would come," she said to her father. "There was something
about his eye which told me that an attempt would be made. He would
not believe of a woman that she could have a will of her own. By
treating her like an animal he thought he would have his own way. I
don't imagine he will treat me in that way again." And then she spoke
of him to Frank. "I suppose he does like me?"
"He likes your singing,--at so much a month."
"That's all done now. At any rate, he cannot but know that it is
an extreme chance. He must fancy that he really likes me. A man
has to be forgiven a good deal for that. But a man must be made to
understand that if a woman won't have him, she won't! I think Mr.
Moss understands it now."
CHAPTER XLIV.
FRANK JONES COMES BACK AGAIN.
These last words had been spoken after the coming of Frank Jones, but
something has to be said of the manner of his coming, and of the
reasons which brought him, and something also which occurred before
he came. It could not be that Mr. Moss should be wounded after so
desperate a fashion and that not a word should be said about it.
Of what happened at the time of the wounding Rachel knew nothing.
She had been very brave and high in courage till the thing was done,
but as soon as it was done she sent for the servant and fainted away.
She knew nothing of what had occurred till she had been removed
out of the room on one side, and he on the other. She did not hear,
therefore, of the suggestion made by Mr. Moss that some vital part of
him had been reached.
He did bleed profusely, but under the aid of the doctor and Mr.
O'Mahony, who was soon on the scene, he recovered himself more
quickly than poor Rachel, who was indeed somewhat neglected till the
hero of the tragedy had been sent away. He behaved with sufficient
courage at last, though he had begun by declaring that his days were
numbered. At any rate he had said when he found the power of ordinary
speech, "Don't let a word be whispered about it to Miss O'Mahony;
she isn't like other people." Then he was taken back to his private
lodging, and confided to the care of Madame Socani, where we will
for the present leave him. Soon after the occurrence,--a day or two
after it,--Frank Jones appeared suddenly on the scene. Of course it
appeared that he had come to mourn the probable death of Mr. Moss.
But he had in truth heard nothing of the fatal encounter till he had
arrived in Cecil Street, and then could hardly make out what had
occurred amidst the confused utterances.
"Frank Jones!" she exclaimed. "Father, what has brought him here?"
and she blushed up over her face and head to the very roots of her
hair. "Come up, of course he must come up. When a man has come all
the way from Castle Morony he must be allowed to come up. Why should
you wish to keep him down in the area?" Then Frank Jones soon made
his appearance within the chamber.
It was midsummer, and Rachel occupied a room in the lowest house in
the street, looking right away upon the river, and her easy-chair had
been brought up to the window at which she sat, and looked out on the
tide of river life as it flowed by. She was covered at present with
a dressing gown, as sweet and fresh as the morning air. On her head
she wore a small net of the finest golden filigree, and her tiny
feet were thrust into a pair of bright blue slippers bordered with
swans-down. "Am I to come back?" her obedient father had asked. But
he had been told not to come back, not quite at present. "It is not
that I want your absence," she had said, "but he may. He can tell
me with less hesitation that he is going to set up a pig-killing
establishment in South Australia than he could probably you and me
together." So the father simply slapped him on the back, and bade him
walk upstairs till he would find No. 15 on the second landing. "Of
course you have heard," he said, as Frank was going, "of what she has
been and done to Mahomet M. Moss?"
"Not a word," said Frank. "What has she done?"
"Plunged a dagger into him," said Mr. O'Mahony,--in a manner which
showed to Frank that he was not much afraid of the consequences of
the accident. "You go up and no doubt she will tell you all about
it." Then Frank went up, and was soon admitted into Rachel's room.
"Oh, Frank!" she said, "how are you? What on earth has brought you
here?" Then he at once began to ask questions about poor Moss, and
Rachel of course to answer them. "Well, yes; how was I to help it? I
told him from the time that I was a little girl, long before I knew
you, that something of this kind would occur if he would not behave
himself."
"And he didn't?" asked Frank, with some little pardonable curiosity.
"No, he did not. Whether he wanted me or my voice, thinking that
it would come back again, I cannot tell, but he did want something.
There was a woman who brought messages from him, and even she wanted
something. Then his ideas ran higher."
"He meant to marry you," said Frank.
"I suppose he did,--at last. I am very much obliged to him, but it
did not suit. Then,--to make a short story of it, Frank, I will tell
you the whole truth. He took hold of me. I cannot bear to be taken
hold of; you know that yourself."
He could only remember how often he had sat with her down among the
willows at the lake side with his arm round her waist, and she had
never seemed to be impatient under the operation.
"And though he has such a beautiful shiny hat he is horribly awkward.
He nearly knocked me down and fell on me, by way of embracing me."
Frank thought that he had never been driven to such straits as that.
"To be knocked down and trampled on by a beast like that! There
are circumstances in which a girl must protect herself, when other
circumstances have brought her into danger. In those days--yesterday,
that is, or a week ago--I was a poor singing girl. I was at every
man's disposal, and had to look after myself. There are so many white
bears about, ready to eat you, if you do not look after yourself. He
tried to eat me, and he was wounded. You do not blame me, Frank."
"No, indeed; not for that."
"What do you blame me for?"
"I cannot think you right," he answered with almost majestic
sternness, "to have accepted the offer of Lord Castlewell."
"You blame me for that."
He nodded his head at her.
"What would you have had me do?"
"Marry a man when you love him, but not when you don't."
"Oh, Frank! I couldn't. How was I to marry a man when I loved him,--I
who had been so treated? But, sir," she said, remembering herself,
"you have no right to say I did not love Lord Castlewell. You have no
business to inquire into that matter. Nobody blames you, or can, or
shall, in that affair,--not in my hearing. You behaved as gentlemen
do behave; gentlemen who cannot act otherwise, because it is born
in their bones and their flesh. I--I have not behaved quite so well.
Open confession is good for the soul. Frank, I have not behaved quite
so well. You may inquire about it. I did not love Lord Castlewell,
and I told him so. He came to me when my singing was all gone, and
generously renewed his offer. Had I not known that in his heart of
hearts he did not wish it,--that the two things were gone for which
he had wooed me,--my voice, which was grand, and my prettiness, which
was but a little thing, I should have taken his second offer, because
it would be well to let him have what he wanted. It was not so; and
therefore I sent him away, well pleased."
"But why did you accept him?"
"Oh, Frank! do not be too hard. How am I to tell you--you, of all
men, what my reasons were? I was alone in the world; alone with such
dangers before me as that which Mr. Moss brought with him. And then
my profession had become a reality, and this lord would assist me. Do
all the girls refuse the lords who come and ask them?"
Then he stood close over her, and shook his head.
"But I should have done so," she continued after a pause. "I
recognise it now; and let there be an end of it. There is a something
which does make a woman unfit for matrimony." And the tears coursed
themselves down her wan cheeks. "Now it has all been said that need
be said, and let there be an end of it. I have talked too much about
myself. What has brought you to London?"
"Just a young woman," he whispered slowly.
A pang shot through her heart; and yet not quite a pang, for with it
there was a rush of joy, which was not, however, perfect joy, because
she felt that it must be disappointed.
"Bother your young woman," she said; "who cares for your young woman!
How are you going on in Galway?"
"Sadly enough, to tell the truth."
"No rents?"
He shook his head.
"Nothing but murders and floods?"
"The same damnable old story running on from day to day."
"And have the girls no servants yet?"
"Not a servant; except old Peter, who is not quite as faithful as he
should be."
"And,--and what about that valiant gay young gentleman, Captain
Clayton?"
"Everything goes amiss in love as well as war," said Frank. "Between
the three of them, I hardly know what they want."
"I think I know."
"Very likely. Everything goes so astray with all of us, so that the
wanting it is sufficient reason for not getting it."
"Is that all you have come to tell me?"
"I suppose it is."
"Then you might have stayed away."
"I may as well go, perhaps."
"Go? no! I am not so full of new friends that I can afford to throw
away my old like that. Of course you may not go, as you call it!
Do you suppose I do not care to hear about those girls whom I
love,--pretty nearly with all my heart? Why don't you tell me about
them, and your father? You come here, but you talk of nothing but
going. You ain't half nice."
"Can I come in yet?" This belonged to a voice behind the door, which
was the property of Mr. O'Mahony.
"Not quite yet, father. Mr. Jones is telling me about them all at
Morony Castle."
"I should have thought I might have heard that," said Mr. O'Mahony.
"The girls have special messages to send," said Rachel.
"I'll come back in another ten minutes," said Mr. O'Mahony. "I shall
not wait longer than that."
"Only their love," said Frank; upon which Rachel looked as though she
thought that Frank Jones was certainly an ass.
"Of course I want to hear their love," said Rachel. "Dear Ada, and
dear Edith! Why don't you tell me their love?"
"My poor sick girl," he said, laying his hand upon her shoulder, and
looking into her eyes.
"Never mind my sickness. I know I am as thin and as wan as an ogre.
Nevertheless, I care for their love."
"Rachel, do you care for mine?"
"I haven't got it! Oh, Frank, why don't you speak to me? You have
spoken a word, just a word, and all the blood is coming back to my
veins already."
"Dearest, dearest, dearest Rachel."
"Now you have spoken; now you have told me of your sisters and your
father. Now I know it all! Now my father may come in."
"Do you love me, then?"
"Love you! That question you know to be unnecessary. Love you! Why
I spend every day and every night in loving you! But, Frank, you
wouldn't have me when I was going to be rich. I ought not to have
you now that I am to be poor." But by this time she was in his arms
and he was kissing her, till, as she had said, the blood was once
again running in her veins. "Oh, Frank, what a tyrant you are! Did
I not tell you to let poor father come into the room? You have said
everything now. There cannot be another word to say. Frank, Frank,
Frank! I have found it out at last. I cannot live without you."
"But how are you to live with me? There is no money."
"Bother money. Wealth is sordid. Washing stockings over a tub is the
only life for me,--so long as I have you to come back to me."
"And your health?"
"I tell you it is done. I was merely sick of the Jones complaint. Oh,
heavens! how I can hate people, and how I can love them!" Then she
threw herself on the sofa, absolutely worn out by the violence of her
emotions.
Mr. O'Mahony was commissioned, and sat down by his girl's side to
comfort her. But she wanted no comforting. "So you and Frank have
made it up, have you?" said Mr. O'Mahony.
"We have never quarrelled so far as I am concerned," said Frank. "The
moment I heard Lord Castlewell was dismissed, I came back."
"Yes," said she, raising herself half up on the sofa. "Do you know
his story, father? It is rather a nice story for a girl to hear of
her own lover, and to feel that it is true. When I was about to make
I don't know how many thousand dollars a year by my singing, he would
not come and take his share of it. Then I have to think of my own
disgrace. But it enhances his glory. Because he was gone, I brought
myself to accept this lord."
"Now, Rachel, you shall not exert yourself," said Frank.
"I will, sir," she replied, holding him by the hand. "I will tell my
story. He had retreated from the stain, and the lord had come in his
place. But he was here always," and she pressed his hand to her side.
"He could not be got rid of. Then I lost my voice, and was 'utterly
dished,' as the theatrical people say. Then the lord went,--behaving
better than I did however,--and I was alone. Oh, what bitter moments
there came then,--long enough for the post to go to Ireland and to
return! And now he is here. Once more at my feet again, old man, once
more! And then he talks to me of money! What is money to me? I have
got such a comforting portion that I care not at all for money." Then
she all but fainted once again, and Frank and her father both knelt
over her caressing her.
It was a long time before Frank left her, her father going in and out
of the room as it pleased him the while. Then he declared that he
must go down to the House, assuring Frank that one blackguard there
was worse than another, but saying that he would see them to the end
as long as his time lasted. Rachel insisted that Frank should go with
him.
"I am just getting up from my death-bed," she said, laughing, "and
you want me to go on like any other man's young woman. I can think
about you without talking to you." And so saying she dismissed him.
On the next morning, when he came again, she discussed with him the
future arrangement of his life and hers.
"Of course you must stay with your father," she said. "You do not
want to marry me at once, I suppose. And of course it is impossible
if you do. I shall go to the States with father as soon as this
Parliament affair is over. He is turned out of the House so often
that he will be off before long for good and all. But there is the
mail still running, and remember that what I say is true. I shall be
ready and willing to be made Mrs. Frank Jones as soon as you will
come and fetch me, and will tell me that you are able to provide me
just with a crust and a blanket in County Galway. Whatever little you
will do with, I will do with less."
Then she sat upon his knee, and embraced him and kissed him, and
swore to him that no other Lord Castlewell who came should interfere
with his rights.
"And as for Mr. Moss," she added, "I do not think that he will ever
appear again to trouble your little game."
CHAPTER XLV.
MR. ROBERT MORRIS.
One morning, a little later in the summer, about the beginning of
August, all Galway were terrified by the tidings of another murder.
Mr. Morris had been killed,--had been "dropped," as the language of
the country now went, from behind a wall built by the roadside. It
had been done at about five in the afternoon, in full daylight; and,
as was surmised by the police, with the consciousness of many of the
peasantry around. He had been walking along the road from Cong to his
own house, and had been "dropped," and left for dead by the roadside.
Dead, indeed, he was when found. Not a word more would have been said
about it, but for the intervention of the police, who were on the
spot within three hours of the occurrence. A little girl had been
coming into Cong, and had told the news. The little girl was living
at Cong, and was supposed to be in no way connected with the murder.
"It's some of them boys this side of Clonbur," said one of the men of
Cong.
No one thought it necessary after that to give any further
explanation of the circumstances.
Mr. Robert Morris was somewhat of an oddity in his way; but he was
a man who only a few months since was most unlikely to have fallen
a victim to popular anger. He was about forty years of age, and
had lived altogether at Minas Cottage, five or six miles from Cong,
as you pass up the head of Lough Corrib, on the road to Maum. He
was unmarried, and lived quite alone in a small house, trusting to
the attentions of two old domestics and their daughter. He kept a
horse and a car and a couple of cows and a few cocks and hens; but
otherwise he lived alone. He was a man of property, and had, indeed,
come from a family very long established in the county. People said
of him that he had £500 a year; but he would have been very glad
to have seen the half of it paid to his agent; for Mr. Morris, of
Minas Cottage, had his agent as well as any other gentleman. He was
a magistrate for the two counties, Galway and Mayo, and attended
sessions both at Cong and at Clonbur. But when there he did little
but agree with some more active magistrate; and what else he did with
himself no one could tell of him.
But it was said in respect to him that he was a benevolent gentleman;
and but a year or two since very many in the neighbourhood would have
declared him to be especially the poor man's friend. With £500 a year
he could have done much; with half that income he could do something
to assist them, and something he still did. He had his foibles, and
fancies, but such as they were they did not tread on the corns of any
of his poorer neighbours. He was proud of his birth, proud of his
family, proud of having owned, either in his own hands or those of
his forefathers, the same few acres,--and many more also, for his
forefathers before him had terribly diminished the property. There
was a story that his great great grandfather had lived in a palatial
residence in County Kilkenny. All this he would tell freely, and
would remark that to such an extent had the family been reduced by
the extravagance of his forefathers. "But the name and the blood
they can never touch," he would remark. They would not ask as to his
successor, because they valued him too highly, and because Mr. Morris
would never have admitted that the time had come when it was too late
to bring a bride home to the western halls of his forefathers. But
the rumour went that Minas Cottage would go in the female line to a
second cousin, who had married a cloth merchant in Galway city, to
whom nor to her husband did Mr. Morris ever speak. There might be
something absurd in this, but there was nothing injurious to his
neighbours, and nothing that would be likely to displease the poorer
of them.
But Mr. Morris had been made the subject of various requests from his
tenants. They had long since wanted and had received a considerable
abatement in their rent. Hence had come the straitened limits of £250
a year. They had then offered the "Griffith's valuation." To explain
the "Griffith's valuation" a chapter must be written, and as no
one would read the explanation if given here it shall be withheld.
Indeed, the whole circumstances of Mr. Morris's property were too
intricate to require, or to admit, elucidation here. He was so driven
that if he were to keep anything for himself he must do so by means
of the sheriff's officer, and hence it had come to pass that he had
been shot down like a mad dog by the roadside.
County Galway was tolerably well used to murders by this time, but
yet seemed to be specially astonished by the assassination of Mr.
Morris. The innocence of the man; for the dealings of the sheriff's
officer were hardly known beyond the town land which was concerned!
And then the taciturnity of the county side when the murder had been
effected! It was not such a deed as was the slaughtering of poor
Florian Jones, or the killing of Terry Carroll in the court house.
They had been more startling, more alarming, more awful for the
tradesmen, and such like, to talk of among themselves, but the
feeling of mystery there had been connected with the secret capacity
of one individual. Everyone, in fact, knew that those murders had
been done by Lax. And all felt that for the doing of murders Lax was
irrepressible. But over there in the neighbourhood of Clonbur, or in
the village of Cong, Lax had never appeared. There was no one in the
place to whom the police could attribute any Lax-like properties. In
that respect, the slaughtering of Mr. Morris had something in it more
terrible even than those other murders. It seemed as though murder
were becoming the ordinary popular mode by which the people should
redress themselves,--as though the idea of murder had recommended
itself easily to their intellects. And then they had quietly
submitted--all of them--to taciturnity. They who were not concerned
in the special case, the adjustment that is of Mr. Morris's rent,
accepted his murder with perfect quiescence, as did those who were
aggrieved. Nobody had seen anything. Nobody had heard anything.
Nobody had known anything. Such were the only replies that were given
to the police. If Mr. Morris, then why not another--and another--till
the whole country would be depopulated? In Mr. Morris's case a
landlord had been chosen; but in other localities agents and
sheriffs' officers,--and even those keepers on a property which a
gentleman is supposed to employ,--were falling to the right and to
the left. But of Mr. Morris and his death nothing was heard.
Yorke Clayton of course went down there, for this, too, was in his
district, and Hunter went with him, anxious, if possible, to learn
something. They saw every tenant on the property; and, indeed, they
were not over numerous. There was not one as to whom they could
obtain evidence that he was ever ferocious by character. "They've got
to think that they have the right to it all. The poor creatures are
not so bad as them that is teaching them. If I think as the farm is
my own, of course I don't like to be made to pay rent for it." That
was the explanation of the circumstances, as given by Mrs. Davies,
of the hotel at Clonbur. And it was evident that she thought it to
be sufficient. The meaning of it, according to Captain Clayton's
reading, was this: "If you allow such doctrines to be preached abroad
by Members of Parliament and Landleague leaders,--to be preached as
a doctrine fit for the people,--then you cannot be surprised if the
people do as they are taught and hold their tongues afterwards."
This Mr. Morris had been the first cousin of our poor old friend
Black Tom Daly.
"Good God!" he exclaimed, as soon as he read the news, sitting in his
parlour at Daly's Bridge; "there is Bob Morris gone now."
"Bob Morris, of Minas Cottage!" exclaimed Peter Bodkin, who had
ridden over to give Tom Daly some comfort in his solitude, if it
might be possible.
"By George! yes; Bob Morris! Did you know him?"
"I don't think he ever came out hunting."
"Hunting, indeed! How should he, when he hadn't a horse that he could
ride upon? And Bob knew nothing of sport. The better for him, seeing
the way that things are going now. No, he never was out hunting, poor
fellow. But for downright innocence and kindness and gentleness of
heart, there is no one left like him. And now they have murdered him!
What is to be the end of it? There is Persse telling me to hold on by
the hounds, when I couldn't keep a hound in the kennels at Ahaseragh
if it were ever so."
"Times will mend," said Peter.
"And Raheney Gorse fired so as to drive every fox out of the country!
Persse is wrong, and I am wrong to stay at his bidding. The very
nature of mankind has altered in the old country. There are not the
same hearts within their bosoms. To burn a gorse over a fox's head!
There is a damnable cruelty in it of which men were not guilty,--by
G----! they were not capable,--a year or two ago. These ruffians
from America have come and told them that they shall pay no rent,
and their minds have been so filled with the picture that its
magnificence has overcome them. They used to tell us that money is
the root of all evil; it proves to be true now. The idea that they
should pay no rent has been too much for them; and they have become
fiends under the feelings which have been roused. Only last year they
were mourning over a poor fox like a Christian,--a poor fox that had
been caught in a trap,--and now they would not leave a fox in the
country, because the gentlemen, they think, are fond of them. The
gentlemen are their enemies, and therefore they will spite them. They
will drive every gentleman out of the country, and where will they be
then?" Here Tom Daly sat quiet for a while, looking silent through
the open window, while Peter sat by him feeling the occasion to be
too solemn for speech. After a while Tom continued his ejaculations.
"Gladstone! Gladstone! There are those who think that man to be great
and good; but how can he be great and good if he lets loose such
spirits among us? They tell me that he's a very amiable man in his
own family, and goes to church regular; but he must be the most
ignorant human being that ever took upon himself to make laws for
a people. He can understand nothing about money, nothing about
property, nothing about rents! I suppose he thinks it fair to take
away one man's means and give them to another, simply because one is
a gentleman and the other not! A fair rent! There's nothing I hate so
much in my very soul as the idea of a fair rent. A fair rent means
half that a man pays now; but in a few years' time it will mean again
whatever the new landlord may choose to ask. And fixity of tenure!
Every man is to get what doesn't belong to him, and if a man has
anything he's to be turned out; that is fixity of tenure. And freedom
of sale! A man is to be allowed to sell what isn't his own. He thinks
that when he has thrown half an eye over a country he can improve it
by altering all the wisdom of ages. A man talks and talks, and others
listen to him till they flatter him that another God Almighty has
been sent upon earth." It was thus that Tom Daly expressed himself as
to the Prime Minister of the day; but Tom was a benighted Tory, and
had thought nothing of these subjects till they were driven into his
mind by the strange mortality of the foxes around him.
Poor Mr. Morris was buried, and there was an end of him. The cloth
merchant's wife in Galway got the property; and, as far as we can
hear at present, is not likely to do as well with it as her husband
is with his bales of goods. No man perhaps more insignificant than
Mr. Robert Morris could have departed. He did nothing, and his
figure, as he walked about between Cong and Clonbur, could be well
spared. But his murder had given rise to feelings through the country
which were full of mischief and full of awe. He had lived most
inoffensively, and yet he had gone simply because it had occurred to
some poor ignorant tenant, who had held perhaps ten or fifteen acres
of land, out of which he had lived upon the potatoes grown from two
or three of them, that things would go better with him if he had not
a landlord to hurry him for rent! Then the tenant had turned in his
mind the best means of putting his landlord out of the way, and had
told himself that it was an easy thing to do. He had not, of his own,
much capacity for the use of firearms; but he had four pound ten,
which should have gone to the payment of his rent, and of this four
pound ten, fifteen shillings secured the services of some handy man
out of the next parish. He had heard the question of murder freely
discussed among his neighbours, and by listening to others had
learned the general opinion that there was no danger in it. So he
came to a decision, and Mr. Morris was murdered.
So far the question was solved between this tenant and this landlord;
but each one of the neighbours, as he thought of it, felt himself
bound to secrecy _pro bono publico_. There was a certain comfort in
this, and poor Bob Morris's death seemed likely to be passed over
with an easy freedom from suspicion. Any man might be got rid of
silently, and there need be no injurious results. But men among
themselves began to talk somewhat too freely, and an awe grew among
them as this man and that man were named as objectionable. And the
men so named were not all landlords or even agents. This man was a
sheriff's officer, and that a gamekeeper. The sheriffs' officers and
gamekeepers were not all murdered, but they were named, and a feeling
of terror crept cold round the hearts of those who heard the names.
Who was to be the keeper of the list and decide finally as to the
victims? Then suddenly a man went, and no one knew why he went. He
was making a fence between two fields, and it was whispered that he
had been cautioned not to make the fence. At any rate he had been
stoned to death, and though there must have been three at least at
the work, no one knew who had stoned him. Men began to whisper among
each other, and women also, and at last it was whispered to them that
they had better not whisper at all. Then they began to feel that not
only was secrecy to be exacted from them, but they were not to be
admitted to any participation in the secrecy.
And with such of the gentry as were left there had grown up
precautions which could not but fill the minds of the peasantry with
a vague sense of fear. They went about with rifle in their hands, and
were always accompanied by police. They had thick shutters made to
their windows, and barred themselves within their houses. Those who
but a few months since had been the natural friends of the people,
now appeared everywhere in arms against them. If it was necessary
that there should be intercourse between them, that intercourse took
place by means of a policeman. A further attempt at murder had been
made in the neighbourhood, and was so talked of that it seemed that
all kindly feeling had been severed. Men began to creep about and
keep out of the way lest they should be suspected; and, indeed,
it was the fact that there was hardly an able-bodied man in three
parishes to whom some suspicion did not attach itself.
And thus the women would ask for fresh murders, and would feel
disappointed when none were reported to them, craving, as it were,
for blood. And all this had come to pass certainly within the space
of two years! A sweeter-tempered people than had existed there had
been found nowhere; nor a people more ignorant, and possessing less
of the comforts of civilisation. But no evil was to be expected from
them, no harm came from them--beyond a few simple lies, which were
only harmful as acting upon their own character. As Tom Daly had
said, these very men were not capable of it a few months ago. The
tuition had come from America! That, no doubt, was true; but it had
come by Irish hearts and Irish voices, by Irish longings and Irish
ambition. Nothing could be more false than to attribute the evil to
America, unless that becomes American which has once touched American
soil. But there does grow up in New York, or thereabouts, a mixture
of Irish poverty with American wealth, which calls itself "Democrat,"
and forms as bad a composition as any that I know from which either
to replenish or to create a people.
A very little of it goes unfortunately a long way. It is like gin
made of vitriol when mingled with water. A small modicum of gin,
though it does not add much spirit to the water, will damnably defile
a large quantity. And this gin has in it a something of flavour which
will altogether deceive an uneducated palate. There is an alcoholic
afflatus which mounts to the brain and surrounds the heart and
permeates the veins, which for the moment is believed to be true gin.
But it makes itself known in the morning, and after a few mornings
tells its own tale too well. These "democrats" could never do us the
mischief. They are not sufficient, either in intellect or in number;
but there are men among us who have taught themselves to believe that
the infuriated gin drinker is the true holder of a new gospel.
CHAPTER XLVI.
CONG.
In those days Captain Clayton spent much of his time at Cong, and
Frank Jones was often with him. Frank, however, had returned from
London a much altered man. Rachel had knocked under to him. It was
thus that he spoke of it to himself. I do not think that she spoke of
it to herself exactly in the same way. She knew her own constancy,
and felt that she was to be rewarded.
"Nothing, I think, would ever have made me marry Lord Castlewell."
It was thus she talked to her father while he was awaiting the period
of his dismissal.
"I dare say not," said he. "Of course he is a poor weak creature. But
he would have been very good to you, and there would have been an end
to all your discomforts."
Rachel turned up her nose. An end to all her discomforts!
Her father knew nothing of what would comfort her and what would
discomfort.
She was utterly discomforted in that her voice was gone from her. She
would lie and sob on her bed half the morning, and would feel herself
to be inconsolable. Then she would think of Frank, and tell herself
that there was some consolation in store even for her. Had her voice
been left to her she would have found it to be very difficult to
escape from the Castlewell difficulty. She would have escaped, she
thought, though the heavens might have been brought down over her
head. When the time had come for appearing at the altar, she would
have got into the first train and disappeared, or have gone to bed
and refused to leave it. She would have summoned Frank at the last
moment, and would submit to be called the worst behaved young woman
that had ever appeared on the London boards. Now she was saved from
that; but,--but at what a cost!
"I might have been the greatest woman of the day, and now I must be
content to make his tea and toast."
Then she began to consider whether it was good that any girl should
be the greatest woman of the day.
"I don't suppose the Queen has so much the best of it with a pack of
troubles on her hands."
But Frank in the meantime had gone back to Galway, and Mr. Robert
Morris had been murdered. Soon after the death of Mr. Morris the man
had been killed as he was mending the ditch, and Captain Clayton
found that the tone of the people was varied in the answers which
they made to his inquiries. They were astounded, and, as it were,
struck dumb with surprise. Nobody knew anything, nobody had heard
anything, nobody had seen anything. They were as much in the dark
about poor Pat Gilligan as they had been as to Mr. Robert Morris.
They spoke of Pat as though he had been slaughtered by a direct blow
from heaven; but they trembled, and were evidently uncomfortable.
"That woman knows something about it," said Hunter to his master,
shaking his head.
"No doubt she knows a good deal about it; but it is not because she
knows that she is bewildered and bedevilled in her intellect. She
is beginning to be afraid that the country is one in which even she
herself cannot live in safety."
And the men looked to be dumbfoundered and sheepfaced. They kept out
of Captain Clayton's way, and answered him as little as possible.
"What's the good of axing when ye knows that I knows nothing?" This
was the answer of one man, and was a fair sample of the answers of
many; but they were given in such a tone that Clayton was beginning
to think that the evil was about to work its own cure.
"Frank," he said one day when he was walking with his friend in
the gloom of the evening, "this state of things is too horrible to
endure." The faithful Hunter followed them, and another policeman,
for the Captain was never allowed to stir two steps without the
accompaniment of a brace of guards.
"Much too horrible to be endured," said Frank. "My idea is that a
man, in order to make the best of himself, should run away from it.
Life in the United States has no such horrors as these. Though we're
apt to say that all this comes from America, I don't see American
hands in it."
"You see American money."
"American money in the shape of dollar bills; but they have all been
sent by Irish people. The United States is a large place, and there
is room there, I think, for an honest man."
"I'll never be frightened out of my own country," said Clayton. "Nor
do I think there is occasion. These abominable reprobates are not
going to prevail in the end."
"They have prevailed with poor Tom Daly. He was a man who worked
as hard as anyone to find amusement,--and employment too. He never
wronged anyone. He was even so honest as to charge a fair price for
his horses. And there he is, left high and dry, without a horse or
a hound that he can venture to keep about his own place. And simply
because the majority of the people have chosen that there shall be
no more hunting; and they have proved themselves to be able to have
their own way. It is impossible that poor Daly should hunt if they
will not permit him, and they carry their orders so far that he
cannot even keep a hound in his kennels because they do not choose
to allow it."
"And this you think will be continued always?" asked Clayton.
"For all that I can see it may go on for ever. My father has had
those water gates mended on the meadows though he could ill afford
it. I have told him that they may go again to-morrow. There is no
reason to judge that they should not do so. The only two men,--or
the man, rather, and the boy,--who have been punished for the last
attempt were those who endeavoured to tell of it. See what has come
of that!"
"All that is true."
"Will it not be better to go to America, to go to Africa, to go to
Asia, or to Russia even, than to live in a country like this, where
the law can afford you no protection, and where the lawgivers only
injure you?"
"I know nothing about the lawgivers," said Clayton, "but I have to
say a word or two about the law. Do you think this kind of thing is
going to remain?"
"It does remain, and every day becomes worse."
"An evil will always become worse till it begins to die away. I think
I see the end of things approaching. Evil-doers are afraid of each
other, and these poor fellows here live in mortal agony lest some Lax
of the moment should be turned loose at their own throats. I don't
think that Lax is an institution that will remain for ever in the
country. This present Lax we have fast locked up. Law at present, at
any rate, has so much of power that it is able to lock up a
Lax,--when it can catch him. As for this present man, I do hope that
the law will find itself powerful enough to fasten a rope round his
neck. No Galway jury would find him guilty, and that is bad enough.
But the lawgivers have done this for us, that we may try him before a
Dublin jury, and there are hopes. When Lax has been well hung out of
the world I can turn round and take a moment for my own happiness."
Yorke Clayton, as he said this, was alluding to his love affair with
Edith Jones. He had now conquered all the family with one exception.
Even the father had assented that it should be so, though tardily
and with sundry misgivings. The one person was Edith herself, and it
had come to be acknowledged by all around her that she loved Yorke
Clayton. As she herself never now denied it, it was admitted on all
sides at Morony Castle that the Captain was certainly the favoured
lover. But Edith still held out, and had gone so far as to tell the
Captain that he could not be allowed to come to the Castle unless he
would desist.
"I never shall desist," he had replied. "As to that you may take my
word." Then Edith had of course loved him so much the more.
"I don't think this kind of thing will go on," he continued, still
addressing Frank Jones. "The people are so fickle that they cannot be
constant even to anything evil. It is quite on the cards that Black
Tom Daly should next year be the most popular master of hounds in all
Ireland, and that Mr. Kit Mooney should not be allowed to show his
face within reach of Moytubber Gorse on hunting mornings."
"They'd have burned the gorse before they have come round to that
state of feeling. Look at Raheeny."
"It isn't so easy to destroy anything," said the philosophic Clayton.
"If the foxes are frightened out of Raheeny or Moytubber, they will
go somewhere else. And even if poor Tom Daly were to run away from
County Galway, as you're talking of doing, the county would find
another master."
"Not like Tom Daly," said Frank Jones, enthusiastically.
"There are as good fish in the sea as ever were caught. Tom Daly is a
first-class man, I admit; and he had no more obedient slave than
myself when I used to get out hunting two or three days in the
session. But he is a desponding man, and cannot look forward to
better times. For myself, I own that my hopes are fixed. Hang Lax,
and then the millennium!"
"I will quite agree as to the hanging of Lax," said Frank; "but for
any millennium, I want something more strong than Irish feeling.
You'll excuse me, old fellow."
"Oh, certainly! Of course, I'm an Irishman myself, and might have
been a Lax instead of a policeman, if chance had got hold of me in
time. As it is, I've a sort of feeling that the policeman is going to
have the best of it all through Ireland." Then there came a sudden
sound as of a sharp thud, and Yorke Clayton fell as it were dead at
Frank Jones's feet.
This occurred at a corner of the road, from which a little boreen or
lane ran up the side of the mountain between walls about three feet
high. But here some benevolent enterprising gentleman, wishing to
bring water through Lower Lough Cong to Lough Corrib, had caused
the beginnings of a canal to be built, which had, however, after
the expenditure of large sums of money, come to nothing. But the
ground, or rather rock, had so been moved and excavated as to make
it practicable for some men engaged, as had been this man, to drop
at once out of sight. Hunter was at once upon his track, with the
other policeman, both of whom fired at him. But as they acknowledged
afterwards, they had barely seen the skirt of his coat in the gloom
of the evening. The whole spot up and behind the corner of the road
was so honeycombed by the works of the intended canal as to afford
hiding-places and retreats for a score of murderers. Here, as
was afterwards ascertained, there was but one, and that one had
apparently sufficed.
Frank Jones had remained on the road with his friend, and had raised
him in his arms when he fell. "They have done for me this time,"
Clayton had said, but had said no more. He had in truth fainted,
but Frank Jones, in his ignorance, had thought that he was dead. It
turned out afterwards that the bullet had struck his ribs in the
front of his body, and, having been turned by the bone, had passed
round to his back, and had there buried itself in the flesh. It needs
not that we dwell with any length on this part of our tale, but may
say at once that the medical skill of Cong sufficed to extract the
bullet on the next morning.
After a while one of the two policemen came back to the road, and
assisted Frank Jones in carrying up poor Clayton to the inn. Hunter,
though still maimed by his wound, stuck to the pursuit, assisted by
two other policemen from Cong, who soon appeared upon the scene. But
the man escaped, and his flight was soon covered by the darkness
of night. It had been eight o'clock before the party had left the
inn, and had wandered with great imprudence further than they had
intended. At least, so it was said after the occurrence; though, had
nothing happened, they would have reached their homes before night
had in truth set in. But men said of Clayton that he had become so
hardened by the practices of his life, and by the failure of all
attempts hitherto made against him, that he had become incredulous of
harm.
"They have got me at last," he said to Frank the next morning. "Thank
God it was not you instead of me. I have been thinking of it as I lay
here in the night, and have blamed myself greatly. It is my business
and not yours." And then again further on in the day he sent a
message to Edith. "Tell her from me that it is all over now, but that
had I lived she would have had to be my wife."
But from that time forth he did in truth get better, though we in
these pages can never again be allowed to see him as an active
working man. It was his fault,--as the Galway doctor said his
egregious sin,--to spend the most of his time in lying on a couch
out in the garden at Morony Castle, and talking of the fate of Mr.
Lax. The remainder of his hours he devoted to the acceptance of
little sick-room favours from his hostess,--I would say from his two
hostesses, were it not that he soon came to terms with Ada, under
which Ada was not to attend to him with any particular care. "If I
could catch that fellow," he said to Ada, alluding to the man who
had intended to murder him, "I would have no harm done to him. He
should be let free at once; for I could not possibly have got such
an opportunity by any other means."
But poor Edith, the while, felt herself to be badly used. She and
Ada had often talked of the terrible perils to which Yorke Clayton
was subjected, and, as the reader may remember, had discussed the
propriety of a man so situated allowing himself to become familiar
with any girl. But now Captain Clayton was declared to be safe by
everybody. The doctors united in saying that his constitution would
carry him through a cannon-ball. But Edith felt that all the danger
had fallen to her lot.
In the meantime the search for the double murderers,--unless indeed
one murderer had been busy in both cases--was carried vainly along.
The horror of poor Mr. Morris's fate had almost disappeared under the
awe occasioned by the attack on Captain Clayton. It was astonishing
to see how entirely Mr. Morris, with all his family and his old
acres, and with Minas Cottage,--which, to the knowledge of the entire
population of Cong, was his own peculiar property,--was lost to
notice under the attack that had been made with so much audacity on
Captain Yorke Clayton. He, as one of four, all armed to the teeth,
was attacked by one individual, and attacked successfully. There
were those who said at first that the bars of Galway jail must have
been broken, and that Lax the omnipotent, Lax the omnipresent, had
escaped. And it certainly was the case that many were in ignorance
as to who the murderer had been. Probably all were ignorant,--all
of those who were in truth well acquainted with the person of Mr.
Morris' murderer. And in the minds of the people generally the awe
became greater than ever. To them it was evident that anybody could
murder anybody; and evident also that it was permitted to them to do
so by this new law which had sprung up of late in the country, almost
enjoining them to exercise this peculiar mode of retaliation. The
bravest thought that they were about to have their revenge against
their old masters, and determined that the revenge should be a bloody
one. But the more cowardly, and very much the more numerous on that
account, feared that, poor as they were, they might be the victims.
No man among them could be much poorer than Pat Gilligan, and he had
been chosen as one to be murdered, for some reason known only to the
murderer.
A new and terrible aristocracy was growing up among them,--the
aristocracy of hidden firearms. There was but little said among them,
even by the husband to the wife, or by the father to the son; because
the husband feared his wife, and the father his own child. There had
been a feeling of old among them that they were being ground down by
the old aristocracy. There must ever be such an idea on the part of
those who do not have enough to eat in regard to their betters, who
have more than plenty. It cannot be but that want should engender
such feeling. But now the dread of the new aristocracy was becoming
worse than that of the old. In the dull, dim minds of these poor
people there arose, gradually indeed but quickly, a conviction that
the new aristocracy might be worse even than the old; and that law,
as administered by Government, might be less tyrannical than the law
of those who had no law to govern them. So the people sat silent
at their hearths, or crawled miserably about their potato patches,
speaking not at all of the life around them.
When a week was over, tidings came to them that Captain Clayton,
though he had been shot right through the body,--though the bullet
had gone in at his breast and come out at his back, as the report
went,--was still alive, and likely to live. "He's a-spending every
hour of his blessed life a-making love to a young lady who is
a-nursing him." This was the report brought up to Cong by the steward
of the lake steamer, and was received as a new miracle by the Cong
people. The fates had decreed that Captain Clayton should not fall
by any bullet fired by Lax, the Landleaguer; for, though Lax, the
Landleaguer, was himself fast in prison when the attempt was made,
such became more than ever the creed of the people when it was
understood that Captain Clayton, with his own flesh and blood, was at
this moment making love to Mr. Jones's youngest daughter at Morony
Castle.
CHAPTER XLVII.
KERRYCULLION.
Captain Clayton was thoroughly enjoying life, now perhaps, for the
first time since he had had a bullet driven through his body. It had
come to pass that everything, almost everything, was done for him by
the hands of Edith. And yet Ada was willing to do everything that was
required; but she declared always that what she did was of no avail.
"Unless you take it to him, you know he won't eat it," she would
still say. No doubt this was absurd, because the sick man's appetite
was very good, considering that a hole had been made from his front
to his back within the last month. It was still September, the
weather was as warm as summer, and he insisted on lying out in the
garden with his rugs around him, and enjoying the service of all his
slaves. But among his slaves Edith was the one whom the other slaves
found it most difficult to understand.
"I will go on," she said to her father, "and do everything for him
while he is an invalid. But, when he is well enough to be moved,
either he or I must go out of this."
Her father simply said that he did not understand it; but then he was
one of the other slaves.
"Edith," said the Captain, one day, speaking from his rugs on the
bank upon the lawn, "just say that one word, 'I yield.' It will have
to be said sooner or later."
"I will not say it, Captain Clayton," said Edith with a firm voice.
"So you have gone back to the Captain," said he.
"I will go back further than that, if you continue to annoy me. It
shall be nothing but plain 'sir,' as hard as you please. You might as
well let go my hand; you know that I do not take it away violently,
because of your wound."
"I know--I know--I know that a girl's hand is the sweetest thing in
all creation if she likes you, and leaves it with you willingly."
Then there was a little pull, but it was only very little.
"Of course, I don't want to hurt you," said Edith.
"And, therefore, it feels as though you loved me. Of course it does.
Your hand says one thing and your voice another. Which way does your
heart go?"
"Right against you," said Edith. But she could not help blushing at
the lie as she told it. "My conscience is altogether against you, and
I advise you to attend more to that than to anything else." But still
he held her hand, and still she let him hold it.
At that moment Hunter appeared upon the scene, and Edith regained
her hand. But had the Captain held the hand, Hunter would not have
seen it. Hunter was full of his own news; and, as he told it, very
dreadful the story was. "There has been a murder worse than any that
have happened yet, just the other side of the lake," and he pointed
away to the mountains, and to that part of Lough Corrib which is just
above Cong.
"Another murder?" said Edith.
"Oh, miss, no other murder ever told of had any horror in it equal
to this! I don't know how the governor will keep himself quiet there,
with such an affair as this to be looked after. There are six of them
down,--or at any rate five."
"When a doubt creeps in, one can always disbelieve as much as one
pleases."
"You can hardly disbelieve this, sir, as I have just heard the story
from Sergeant Malcolm. There were six in the house, and five have
been carried out dead. One has been taken to Cong, and he is as good
as dead. Their names are Kelly. An old man and an old woman, and
another woman and three children. The old woman was very old, and the
man appears to have been her son."
"Have they got nobody?" asked Clayton.
"It appears not, sir. But there is a rumour about the place that
there were many of them in it."
"Looking after one another," said Clayton, "so that none should
escape his share of the guilt."
"It may be so. But there were many in it, sir. I can't tell much of
the circumstances, except the fact that there are the five bodies
lying dead." And Hunter, with some touch of dramatic effect and true
pathos, pointed again to the mountains which he had indicated as the
spot where this last murder was committed.
It was soon settled among them that Hunter should go off to the scene
of action, Cong, or wherever else his services might be required,
and that he should take special care to keep his master acquainted
with all details as they came to light. For us, we may give here the
details as they did reach the Captain's ears in the course of the
next few days.
Hunter's story had only been too true. The six persons had been
murdered, barring one child, who had been taken into Cong in a state
which was supposed hardly to admit of his prolonged life. The others,
who now lay dead at a shebeen house in the neighbourhood, consisted
of an old woman and her son, and his wife and a grown daughter, and a
son. All these had been killed in various ways,--had been shot with
rifles, and stoned with rocks, and made away with, after any fashion
that might come most readily to the hands of brutes devoid of light,
of mercy, of conscience, and apparently of fear. It must have been
a terrible sight to see, for those who had first broken in upon the
scene of desolation. In the course of the next morning it had become
known to the police, and it was soon rumoured throughout England and
Ireland that there had been ten murderers engaged in the bloody fray.
It must have been as Captain Clayton had surmised; one with another
intent upon destroying that wretched family,--or perhaps only one
among its number,--had insisted that others should accompany him. A
man who had been one of their number was less likely to tell if he
had a hand in it himself. And so there were ten of them. It might
be that one among the number of the murdered had seen the murder of
Mr. Morris, or of Pat Gilligan, or the attempted murder of Captain
Clayton. And that one was not sure not to tell,--had perhaps shown
by some sign and indication that to tell the truth about the deed
was in his breast,--or in hers! Some woman living there might have
spoken such a word to a friend less cautious in that than were the
neighbours in general. Then we can hear, or fancy that we can hear,
the muttered reasons of those who sought to rule amidst that bloody
community. They were a family of the Kellys,--these poor doomed
creatures,--but amidst those who whispered together, amidst those who
were forced to come into the whispering, there were many of the same
family; or, at any rate, of the same name. For the Kellys were a
tribe who had been strong in the land for many years. Though each of
the ten feared to be of the bloody party, each did not like not to
be of it, for so the power would have come out of their hands. They
wished to be among the leading aristocrats, though still they feared.
And thus they came together, dreading each other, hating each other
at last; each aware that he was about to put his very life within the
other's power, and each trying to think, as far as thoughts would
come to his dim mind, that to him might come some possibility of
escape by betraying his comrades.
But a miracle had occurred,--that which must have seemed to be a
miracle when they first heard it, and to the wretches themselves,
when its fatal truth was made known to them. While in the dead of
night they were carrying out this most inhuman massacre there were
other eyes watching them; six other eyes were looking at them,
and seeing what they did perhaps more plainly than they would see
themselves! Think of the scene! There were six persons doomed, and
ten who had agreed to doom them; and three others looking on from
behind a wall, so near as to enable them to see it all, under the
fitful light of the stars! Nineteen of them engaged round one small
cabin, of whom five were to die that night;--and as to ten others, it
cannot but be hoped that the whole ten may pay the penalty due to the
offended feelings of an entire nation!
It may be that it shall be proved that some among the ten had not
struck a fatal blow. Or it may fail to be proved that some among the
ten have done so. It will go hard with any man to adjudge ten men to
death for one deed of murder; and it is very hard for that one to
remember always that the doom he is to give is the only means in our
power to stop the downward path of crime among us. It may be that
some among the ten shall be spared, and it may be that he or they who
spare them shall have done right.
But such was not the feeling of Captain Yorke Clayton as he discussed
the matter, day after day, with Hunter, or with Frank Jones, upon the
lawn at Castle Morony. "It would be the grandest sight to see,--ten
of them hanging in a row."
"The saddest sight the world could show," said Frank.
"Sad enough, that the world should want it. But if you had been
employed as I have for the last few years, you would not think it sad
to have achieved it. If the judge and the jury will do their work as
it should be done there will be an end to this kind of thing for many
years to come. Think of the country we are living in now! Think of
your father's condition, and of the injury which has been done to
him and to your sisters, and to yourself. If that could be prevented
and atoned for, and set right by the hanging in one row of ten such
miscreants as those, would it not be a noble deed done? These ten
are frightful to you because there are ten at once,--ten in the same
village,--ten nearly of the same name! People would call it a bloody
assize where so many are doomed. But they scruple to call the country
bloody where so many are murdered day after day. It is the honest
who are murdered; but would it not be well to rid the world of these
ruffians? And, remember, that these ten would not have been ten, if
some one or two had been dealt with for the first offence. And if the
ten were now all spared, whose life would be safe in such a Golgotha?
I say that, to those who desire to have their country once more
human, once more fit for an honest man to live in, these ten men
hanging in a row will be a goodly sight."
There must have been a feeling in the minds of these three men that
some terrible step must be taken to put an end to the power of this
aristocracy, before life in the country would be again possible.
When they had come together to watch their friends and neighbours,
and see what the ten were about to do, there must have been some
determination in their hearts to tell the story of that which would
be enacted. Why should these ten have all the power in their own
hands? Why should these questions of life and death be remitted to
them, to the exclusion of those other three? And if this family of
Kellys were doomed, why should there not be other families of other
Kellys,--why not their own families? And if Kerrycullion were made to
swim in blood,--for that was the name of the townland in which these
Kellys lived,--why not any other homestead round the place in which
four or five victims may have hidden themselves? So the three, with
mutual whisperings among themselves, with many fears and with much
trembling, having obtained some tidings of what was to be done,
agreed to follow and to see. It was whispered about that one of the
family, the poor man's wife, probably, had seen the attack made upon
poor Pat Gilligan, and may, or may not, have uttered some threat
of vengeance; may have shown some sign that the murder ought to be
made known to someone. Was not Pat Gilligan her sister's husband's
brother's child? And he was not one of the other, the rich
aristocracy, against whom all men's hands were justly raised. Some
such word had probably passed the unfortunate woman's lips, and the
ten men had risen against her. The ten men, each protecting each
other, had sworn among themselves that so villainous a practice, so
glaring an evil as this, of telling aught to the other aristocracy,
must be brought to an end.
But then the three interfered, and it was likely that the other, the
rich aristocracy, should now know all about it. It was not to save
the lives of those unfortunate women and children that they went.
There would be danger in that. And though the women and children
were, at any rate, their near neighbours, why should they attempt to
interfere and incur manifest dangers on their account? But they would
creep along and see, and then they could tell; or should they be
disturbed in their employment, they could escape amidst the darkness
of the night. There could be no escape for those poor wretches,
stripped in their bed; none for that aged woman, who could not take
herself away from among the guns and rocks of her pursuers; none for
those poor children; none, indeed, for the father of the family, upon
whom the ten would come in his lair. If his wife had threatened to
tell, he must pay for his wife's garrulity. Pat Gilligan had suffered
for some such offence, and it was but just that she and he and they
should suffer also. But the three might have to suffer, also, in
their turns, if they consented to subject themselves to so bloody an
aristocracy. And therefore they stalked forth at night and went up to
Kerrycullion, at the heels of the other party, and saw it all. Now,
one after another, the six were killed, or all but killed, and then
the three went back to their homes, resolved that they would have
recourse to the other aristocracy.
Between Galway and Cong and Kerrycullion, Hunter was kept going
in these days, so as to obtain always the latest information for
his master. For, though the neighbourhood of Morony Castle was now
supposed to be quiet, and though the Captain was not at the moment
on active service, Hunter was still allowed to remain with him. And,
indeed, Captain Clayton's opinion was esteemed so highly, that,
though he could do nothing, he was in truth on active service. "They
are sticking to their story, all through?" he asked Hunter, or rather
communicated the fact to Hunter for his benefit.
"Oh, yes! sir; they stick to their story. There is no doubt about
them now. They can't go back."
"And that boy can talk now?"
"Yes, sir; he can talk a little."
"And what he says agrees with the three men? There will be no more
murders in that county, Hunter, or in County Galway either. When
they have once learned to think it possible that one man may tell of
another, there will be an end to that little game. But they must hang
them of course."
"Oh, yes! sir," said Hunter. "I'd hang them myself; the whole ten of
them, rather than keep them waiting."
"The trial is to be in Dublin. Before that day comes we shall find
what they do about Lax. I don't suppose they will want me; or if they
did, for the matter of that, I could go myself as well as ever."
"You could do nothing of the kind, Captain Clayton," said Edith, who
was sitting there. "It is absurd to hear you talk in such a way."
"I don't suppose he could just go up to Dublin, miss," said Hunter.
"Not for life and death?" roared the sick man.
"I suppose you could for life and death," said Hunter,--with a little
caution.
"For his own death he could," said Edith. "But it's the death of
other people that he is thinking of now."
"And you, what are you thinking of?"
"To tell the truth, just at this moment I was thinking of yours. You
are here under our keeping, and as long as you remain so, we are
bound to do what we can to keep you from killing yourself; you ought
to be in your bed."
"Tucked up all round,--and you ought to be giving me gruel." Then
Hunter simpered and went away. He generally did go away when the
love-scenes began.
"You could give one something which would cure me instantly."
"No, I could not! There are no such instant cures known in the
medical world for a man who has had a hole right through him."
"That bullet will certainly be immortal."
"But you will not if you talk of going up to Dublin."
"Edith, a kiss would cure me."
"Captain Clayton, you are in circumstances which should prevent you
from alluding to any such thing. I am here to nurse you, and I should
not be insulted."
"That is true," he said. "And if it be an insult to tell you what a
kiss would do for me, I withdraw the word. But the feeling it would
convey, that you had in truth given yourself to me, that you were
really, really my own, would I think cure me, though a dozen bullets
had gone through me."
Then when Ada had come down, Edith went to her bedroom, and kissed
the pillow, instead of him. Oh, if it might be granted to her to go
to him, and frankly to confess, that she was all, all his own! And
she felt, as days went on, she would have to yield, though honour
still told her that she should never do so.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE NEW ARISTOCRACY FAILS.
From this moment the mystery of the new aristocracy began to fade
away, and get itself abolished. Men and women began to feel that
there might be something worse in store for them than the old course
of policemen, juries, and judges. It had seemed, at first, as though
these evil things could be brought to an end, and silenced altogether
as far as their blessed country was concerned. A time was coming in
which everyone was to do as he pleased, without any fear that another
should tell of him. Though a man should be seen in the broad daylight
cutting the tails off half a score of oxen it would be recognised
in the neighbourhood as no more than a fair act of vengeance, and
nothing should be told of the deed, let the policemen busy themselves
as they might. And the beauty of the system consisted in the fact
that the fear of telling was brought home to the minds of all men,
women, and children. Though it was certain that a woman had seen a
cow's tail mangled, though it could be proved beyond all doubt that
she was in the field when the deed was done, yet if she held her
peace no punishment would await her. The policeman and the magistrate
could do nothing to her. But Thady O'Leary, the man who had cut a
cow's tail off, could certainly punish her. If nothing else were done
she could be boycotted, or, in other words, not allowed to buy or
sell the necessaries of life. Or she could herself be murdered, as
had happened to Pat Gilligan. The whole thing had seemed to run so
smoothly!
But now there had come, or would soon come, a change o'er the spirit
of the dream. The murder of Pat Gilligan, though it had made one in
the necessary sequence of events, one act in the course of the drama
which, as a whole, had appeared to be so perfect, seemed to them all
to have about it something terrible. No one knew what offence Pat
Gilligan had given, or why he had been condemned. Each man began to
tremble as he thought that he too might be a Pat Gilligan, and each
woman that she might be a Mrs. Kelly. It was better to go back to the
police and the magistrates than this!
I do not know that we need lean too heavily on the stupidity of the
country's side in not having perceived that this would be so. The
country's side is very slow in perceiving the course which things
will take. These ten murderers had been brought together, each from
fear of the others; and they must have felt that though they were
ten,--a number so great when they considered the employment on
which they were engaged as to cause horror to the minds of all of
them,--the ten could not include all who should have been included.
Had the other three been taken in, if that were possible, how much
better it would have been! But the desire for murder had not gone so
far,--its beauty had not been so perfectly acknowledged as to make
it even yet possible to comprise a whole parish in destroying one
family.
Then the three had seen that the whole scheme, the mystery of the
thing, the very plan upon which it was founded, must be broken down
and thrown to the winds. And we can imagine that, when the idea first
came upon the minds of those three, that the entire family of the
Kellys was to be sacrificed to stop the tongue of one talkative
old woman, a horror must have fallen upon them as they recognised
the duty which was incumbent on them. The duty of saving those six
unfortunates they did not recognise. They could not screw themselves
up to the necessary pitch of courage to enable them to enter in among
loaded pistols and black-visaged murderers. The two women and the
children had to die, though the three men were so close to them; so
close as to have been certainly able to save them, or some of them,
had they rushed into the cabin and created the confusion of another
advent. To this they could not bring themselves, for are not the
murderers armed? But an awful horror must have crept round their
minds as they thought of the self-imposed task they had undertaken.
They waited until the murders had been completed, and then they went
back home and told the police.
From this moment the mystery by which murders in County Galway and
elsewhere were for a short period protected was over in Ireland. Men
have not seen, as yet, how much more lovely it is to tell frankly all
that has been done, to give openly such evidence as a man may have to
police magistrates and justices of the peace, than to keep anything
wrapped within his own bosom. The charm of such outspoken truth does
not reconcile itself at once to the untrained mind; but the fact of
the loveliness does gradually creep in, and the hideous ugliness
of the other venture. On the minds of those men of Kerrycullion
something of the ugliness and something of the loveliness must have
made itself apparent. And when this had been done it was not probable
that a return to the utter ugliness of the lie should be possible.
Whether the ten be hanged,--to the intense satisfaction of Hunter and
his master,--or some fewer number, such as may suffice the mitigated
desire for revenge which at present is burning in the breasts of men,
the thing will have been done, and the mystery with all its beauty
will have passed away.
At Castle Morony the beginning of the passing away of the mystery was
hailed with great delight. It took place in this wise. A little girl
who had been brought up there in the kitchen, and had reached the age
of fifteen under the eyes of Ada and Edith,--a slip of a girl, whose
feet our two girls had begun to trammel with shoes and stockings, and
who was old enough to be proud of the finery though she could not
bear the confinement,--had gone under the system of boycotting, when
all the other servants had gone also. Peter, who was very stern in
his discipline to the younger people, had caught hold of her before
she went, and had brought her to Mr. Jones, recommending that at any
rate her dress should be stripped from her back, and her shoes and
stockings from her feet. "If you war to wallop her, sir, into the
bargain, it would be a good deed done," Peter had said to his master.
"Why should I wallop her for leaving my service?"
"She ain't guv' no notice," said the indignant Peter.
"And if I were to wallop you because you had taken it into your
stupid head to leave me at a moment's notice, should I be justified
in doing so?"
"There is differences," said Peter, drawing himself up.
"You are stronger, you mean, and Feemy Carroll is weak. Let her go
her own gait as she pleases. How am I to take upon myself to say that
she is not right to go? And for the shoes and stockings, let them go
with her, and the dress also, if I am supposed to have any property
in it. Fancy a Landleaguer in Parliament asking an indignant question
as to my detaining forcibly an unwilling female servant. Let them
all go; the sooner we learn to serve ourselves the better for us. I
suppose you will go too before long."
This had been unkind, and Peter had made a speech in which he had
said so. But the little affair had taken place in the beginning of
the boycotting disarrangements, and Mr. Jones had been bitter in
spirit. Now the girls had shown how deftly they could do the work,
and had begun to talk pleasantly how well they could manage to save
the wages and the food. "It's my food you'll have to save, and my
wages," said Captain Clayton. But this had been before he had a hole
driven through him, and he was only awed by a frown.
But now news was brought in that Feemy had crept in at the back door.
"Drat her imperence," said Peter, who brought in the news. "It's
like her ways to come when she can't get a morsel of wholesome food
elsewhere."
Then Ada and Edith had rushed off to lay hold of the delinquent, who
had indeed left a feeling in the hearts of her mistresses of some
love for her little foibles. "Oh! Feemy, so you've come back again,"
said Ada, "and you've grown so big!" But Feemy cowered and said not
a word. "What have you been doing all the time?" said Edith. "Miss
Ada and I have had to clean out all the pots and all the pans, and
all the gridirons, though for the matter of that there has been very
little to cook on them." Then Ada asked the girl whether she intended
to come back to her old place.
"If I'm let," said the girl, bursting into tears.
"Where are the shoes and stockings?" said Ada.
But the girl only wept.
"Of course you shall come back, shoes or no shoes. I suppose
times have been too hard with you at home to think much of
shoes or stockings. Since your poor cousin was shot in Galway
court-house,"--for Feemy was a cousin of the tribe of Carrolls,--"I
fear it hasn't gone very well with you all." But to this Feemy had
only answered by renewed sobs. She had, however, from that moment
taken up her residence as of yore in the old house, and had gone
about her business just as though no boycotting edict had been
pronounced against Castle Morony.
And gradually the other servants had returned, falling back into
their places almost without a word spoken. One boy, who had in former
days looked after the cows, absolutely did come and drive them in to
be milked one morning without saying a word.
"And who are you, you young deevil?" said Peter to him.
"I'm just Larry O'Brien."
"And what business have you here?" said Peter. "How many months ago
is it since last year you took yourself off without even a word said
to man or woman? Who wants you back again now, I wonder?"
The boy, who had grown half-way to a man since he had taken his
departure, made no further answer, but went on with the milking of
his cows.
And the old cook came back again from Galway, though she came after
the writing of a letter which must have taken her long to compose,
and the saying of many words.
"Honoured Miss," the letter went, "I've been at Peter Corcoran's
doing work any time these twelve months. And glad I've been to find
a hole to creep into. But Peter Corcoran's house isn't like Castle
Morony, and so I've told him scores of times. But Peter is one
of them Landleaguers, and is like to be bruk', horse, foot, and
dragoons, bekaise he wouldn't serve the gentry. May the deevil go
along with him, and with his pollytiks. Sure you know, miss, they
wouldn't let me stay at Castle Morony. Wasn't one side in pollitiks
the same as another to an old woman like me, who only wants to 'arn
her bit and her sup? I don't care the vally of a tobacco-pipe for
none of them now. So if the squire would take me back again, may God
bless him for iver and iver, say I." Then this letter was signed
Judy Corcoran,--for she too was of the family of the Corcorans,--and
became the matter for many arrangements, in the course of which she
once more was put into office as cook at Castle Morony.
Then Edith wrote the following letter to her friend Rachel, who still
remained in London, partly because of her health and partly because
her father had not yet quite settled his political affairs. But that
shall be explained in another chapter.
DEAREST RACHEL,
Here we are beginning to see daylight, after having been
buried in Cimmerian darkness for the best part of two
years. I never thought how possible it would be to get
along without servants to look after us, and how much
of the pleasures of life might come without any of its
comforts. Ada and I for many months have made every bed
that has been slept in in the house, till we have come to
think that the making of beds is the proper employment for
ladies. And every bit of food has been cooked by us, till
that too has become ladylike in our eyes. And it has been
done for papa, who has, I think, liked his bed and his
dinner all the better, because they have passed through
his daughters' hands. But, dear papa! I'm afraid he has
not borne the Cimmerian darkness as well as have we, who
have been young enough to look forward to the return of
something better.
What am I to say to you about Frank, who will not talk
much of your perfections, though he is always thinking
of them? I believe he writes to you constantly, though
what he says, or of what nature it is, I can only
guess. I presume he does not send many messages to Lord
Castlewell, who, however, as far as I can see, has behaved
beautifully. What more can a girl want than to have a lord
to fall in love with her, and to give her up just as her
inclination may declare itself?
What I write for now, specially, is to add a word to what
I presume Frank may have said in one of his letters. Papa
says that neither you nor Mr. O'Mahony are to think of
leaving this side of the water without coming down to
Castle Morony. We have got a cook now, and a cow-boy. What
more can you want? And old Peter is here still, always
talking about the infinite things which he has done for
the Jones family. Joking apart, you must of course come
and see us again once before you start for New York. Is
Frank to go with you? That is a question to which we can
get no answer at all from Frank himself.
In your last you asked me about my affairs. Dear girl,
I have no affairs. I am in such a position that it is
impossible for me to have what you would call affairs.
Between you and Frank everything is settled. Between
me and the man to whom you allude there is nothing
settled,--except that there is no ground for settlement.
He must go one way and I another. It is very sad, you will
say. I, however, have done it for myself and I must bear
the burden.
Yours always lovingly,
EDITH.
CHAPTER XLIX.
It is not to be supposed that Mr. Jones succumbed altogether to the
difficulties which circumstances had placed in his way. His feelings
had been much hurt both by those who had chosen to call themselves
his enemies and by his friends, and under such usage he became
somewhat sullen. Having suffered a grievous misfortune he had become
violent with his children, and had been more severely hurt by the
death of the poor boy who had been murdered than he had confessed.
But he had still struggled on, saying but little to anybody till at
last he had taken Frank into his confidence, when Frank had returned
from London with his marriage engagement dissolved. And the
re-engagement had not at all interfered with the renewed intimacy
between Frank and his father, because the girl was absolved from her
singing. The father had feared that the son would go away from him,
and lead an idle life, enjoying the luxuries which her rich salary
would purchase. Frank had shared his father's feelings in this
respect, but still the squire had had his misgivings. All that was
now set to rights by the absolute destruction of poor Rachel's voice.
Poor Mr. Jones had indeed received comfort from other sources more
material than this. His relatives had put their heads together, and
had agreed to bear some part of the loss which had fallen upon the
estate; not the loss, that is, from the submerged meadows, which was
indeed Mr. Jones's own private concern, but from the injury done to
him by the commissioners. Indeed, as things went on, that injury
appeared to be less extensive than had been imagined, though the
injustice, as it struck Mr. Jones's mind, was not less egregious.
Where there was a shred of a lease the sub-commissioners were
powerless, and though attempts had been made to break the leases they
had failed; and men were beginning to say that the new law would be
comparatively powerless because it would do so little. The advocates
for the law pointed out that, taking the land of Ireland all through,
not five per cent.,--and again others not two per cent.,--would be
affected by it. Whether it had been worth while to disturb the
sanctity of contracts for so small a result is another question; but
our Mr. Jones certainly did feel the comfort that came to him from
the fact. Certain fragments of land had been reduced by the
sub-commissioners after ponderous sittings, very beneficial to the
lawyers, but which Mr. Jones had found to be grievously costly to
him. He had thus agreed to other reductions without the lawyers, and
felt those also to be very grievous, seeing that since he had
purchased the property with a Parliamentary title he had raised
nothing. There was no satisfaction to him when he was told that a
Parliamentary title meant nothing, because a following Parliament
could undo what a preceding Parliament had done. But as the
arrangements went on he came to find that no large proportion of the
estates would be affected, and that gradually the rents would be
paid. They had not been paid as yet, but such he was told was the
coming prospect. Pat Carroll had risen up as a great authority at
Ballintubber, and had refused to pay a shilling. He had also
destroyed those eighty acres of meadow-land which had sat so near Mr.
Jones's heart. It had been found impossible to punish him, but the
impossibility was to be traced to that poor boy's delinquency. As the
owner of the property turned it all over within his own bosom, he
told himself that it was so. It was that that had grieved him most,
that which still sat heavy on his heart. But the boy was gone, and
Pat Carroll was in prison, and Pat Carroll's brother had been
murdered in Galway court-house. Lax, too, was in prison, and Yorke
Clayton swore by all his gods that he should be hanged. It was likely
that he would be hanged, and Yorke Clayton might find his comfort in
that. And now had come up this terrible affair at Kerrycullion, from
which it was probable that the whole mystery of the new aristocracy
would be abandoned. Mr. Jones, as he thought of it all, whispered to
himself that if he would still hold up his head, life might yet be
possible at Castle Morony. "It will only be for myself,--only for
myself and Ada," he said, still mourning greatly over his fate. "And
Ada will go, too. The beauty of the flock will never be left to
remain here with her father." But in truth his regrets were chiefly
for Edith. If that bloodthirsty Captain would have made himself
satisfied with Ada, he might still have been happy.
In these days he would walk down frequently to the meadows and see
the work which the men were doing. He had greatly enlarged them,
having borrowed money for the purpose from the Government Land
Commissioners, and was once again allowing new hopes to spring in his
heart. Though he was a man so silent, and appearing to be so
apathetic, he was intent enough on his own purposes when they became
clear before his eyes. From his first coming into this country his
purport had been to do good, as far as the radius of his circle went,
to all whom it included. The necessity of living was no doubt the
same with him as with others,--and of living well. He must do
something for himself and his children. But together with this was
the desire, nearly equally strong, of being a benefactor to those
around him. He had declared to himself when he bought the property
that with this object would he settle himself down upon it, and he
had not departed from it. He had brought up his children with this
purpose; and they had learned to feel, one and all, that it was among
the pleasures and the duties of their life. Then had come Pat
Carroll, and everything had been embittered for him. All Ballintubber
and all Morony had seemed to turn against him. When he found that Pat
Carroll was disposed to be hostile to him, he made the man a liberal
offer to take himself off to America. But Mr. Jones, in those days,
had heard nothing of Lax, and was unaware that Lax was a dominant
spirit under whom he was doomed to suffer.
"I did not know you so well then," said Captain Clayton to Mr. Jones,
now some weeks hence, "or I could have told you that Pat Carroll is
nobody. Pat Carroll is considered nobody, because he has not been to
New York. Mr. Lax has travelled, and Mr. Lax is somebody. Mr. Lax
settled himself in County Mayo, and thus he allowed his influence to
spread itself among us over here in County Galway. Mr. Lax is a great
man, but I rather think that he will have to be hanged in Galway jail
before a month has passed over his head."
Mr. Jones usually took his son with him when he walked about among
the meadows, and he again expressed his wishes to him as though Frank
hereafter were to have the management of everything. But on one
occasion, towards the latter half of the afternoon, he went alone.
There were different wooden barriers, having sluice gates passing
between them, over which he would walk, and at present there were
sheep on the upper meadows, on which the luxuriant grass had begun to
grow in the early summer. He was looking at his sheep now, and
thinking to himself that he could find a market for them in spite of
all that the boycotters could do to prevent him. But in one corner,
where the meadows ceased, and Pat Carroll's land began, he met an old
man whom he had known well in former years, named Con Heffernan. It
was absolutely the case that he, the landlord, did not at the present
moment know who occupied Pat Carroll's land, though he did know that
he had received no rent for the last three years. And he knew also
that Con Heffernan was a friend of Carroll's, or, as he believed, a
distant cousin. And he knew also that Con was supposed to have been
one of those who had assisted at the destruction of the sluice gates.
"Well, Con; how are you?" he said.
"Why thin, yer honour, I'm only puirly. It's bad times as is on us
now, indeed and indeed."
"Whose fault is that?" said the squire.
"Not yer honour's. I will allys say that for your honour. You never
did nothing to none of us."
"You had land on the estate till some twelve months since, and then
you were evicted for five gales of rent."
"That's thrue, too, yer honour."
"You ought to be a rich man now, seeing that you have got
two-and-a-half years' rent in your pocket, and I ought to be poor,
seeing that I've got none of it."
"Is it puir for yer honour, and is it rich for the like of me?"
"What have you done with the money, Con,--the five gales of rent?"
"'Deed, yer honour, and I don't be just knowing anything about it."
"I suppose the Landleaguers have had some of it."
"I suppose they have, thin; the black divil run away with them for
Laaguers!"
"Have you quarrelled with the League, Con?"
"I have quarrelled with a'most of the things which is a-going at the
present moment."
"I'm sorry for that, as quarrels with old friends are always bad."
"The Laague, then, isn't any such old friend of mine. I niver heerd
of the Laague, not till nigh three years ago. What with Faynians, and
moonlighters, and Home-Rulers, and now with thim Laaguers, they don't
lave a por boy any pace."
* * * * *
POSTSCRIPT.
In a preliminary note to the first volume I stated why this
last-written novel of my father's was never completed. He had
intended that Yorke Clayton should marry Edith Jones, that Frank
Jones should marry Rachel O'Mahony, and that Lax should be hanged for
the murder of Florian Jones; but no other coming incident, or further
unravelling of the story, is known.
H. M. T.
THE END.
Charles Dickens And Evans, Crystal Palace Press.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected without comment.
Specific changes in wording of the text are listed below.
Volume I, Chapter V, paragraph 5. The word "peasant" was
changed to "present" in the sentence: In regard to Ireland
his theory was that the land should be taken from the PRESENT
proprietors, and divided among the peasants who tilled it.
Volume I, Chapter XIII, last paragraph. The word "evidence"
was changed to "guilt" in the sentence: She could understand
that it must be taken down in some form that would be
presentable to a magistrate, and that evidence of the guilt
of Pat Carroll and evidence as to the possible GUILT of
others must not be whispered simply into her own ears.
Volume I, Chapter XIV, paragraph 6. The word "danger" was
changed to "dangers" in the sentence: Like the other letter
it was cheerful, and high-spirited; but still it seemed to
speak of impending DANGERS, which Frank, though he could not
understand them, thought that he could perceive.
Volume I, Chapter XV, paragraph 4. The word "President" was
changed too "Resident" in the sentence: He had lately been
appointed Joint RESIDENT Magistrate for Galway, Mayo, and
Roscommon, and had removed his residence to Galway.
Volume II, Chapter XVIII, paragraph 20. An em-dash was moved
from after the word "shillings" to after the word "said" in
the sentence: To tell the truth,--and as he had said,--to
earn a few shillings was the object of his ambition.
Volume II, Chapter XXIV, paragraph 65. The word "daughter"
was changed to the plural in the sentence: There would be
nothing unusual under ordinary circumstances in your
DAUGHTERS going to a ball at Galway.
Volume II, Chapter XXVI, paragraph 64. The word "thought" was
changed to "said" in the sentence: "I ought to have said 'my
lord,'" she SAID; "but I forgot. I hope you'll excuse me--my
lord." Also, a comma after "forgot" was changed to a full
stop.
Volume II, Chapter XXVII, next-to-last paragraph. The word
"is" was deleted from the sentence: There's [IS] no knowing
what a policeman can't do in this country.
Volume III, Chapter XXXVI, paragraph 14. The astute reader
will forgive Trollope, who was quite ill, for here calling
Pat Carroll's brother Jerry instead of Terry, as he has been
called up to now and will again be called later in the novel.
The name has been changed back to Terry in the sentence:
The murder of TERRY Carroll at the moment in which he was
about to give evidence,--false evidence, as the Leaguers
said,--against his brother was a great triumph to them.
Volume III, Chapter XXXIX, paragraph 4. "Jerry" was changed
to "Terry" (_v.s._) in the sentence: Nothing had ever been
made out in regard to the murder of TERRY Carroll in the
Court House at Galway.
Volume III, Chapter XXXIX, paragraph 5. "Jerry" was changed
to "Terry" (_v.s._) in the sentence: "Did the Crown intend to
pretend that they had any shadow of evidence against him as
to the shooting of TERRY Carroll?"
Volume III, Chapter XXXIX, paragraph 6. "Jerry" was changed
to "Terry" (_v.s._) in the sentence: Even presuming that
Lax's hand cannot be seen visible in the matter of TERRY
Carroll, there is, we think, something to connect him with
the other murder.
Volume III, Chapter XLVIII, paragraph 18. The word "jail" was
changed to "Galway court-house" in the sentence beginning:
Since your poor cousin was shot in GALWAY COURT-HOUSE . . .
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