MR. O'BRIEN SEES A VISION OF THE PAST
Moyross Abbey bore its wonted peaceful aspect upon that night. The
broken arches of the ruin stood out against the pale gray sky, in
which a star was beginning to twinkle here and there, and the air of
the summer evening was heavy with the scent of flowers. The
dining-room windows were unshuttered, and the light of the candles
shone on the white table-cloth, and the silver and flowers upon it,
and on the faces of the trio who sat round. Mr. O'Brien himself was
not there. Wearisome and unending business connected with the
troubles at the mine, and the proposal to bring in labour from a
distance, had taken him once more to Dublin, and he was not expected
home till the following day. In his place at the head of the table
sat a handsome curly-haired lad, facing Ella and Miss Browne with a
look of smiling defiance. The two latter were pale and tearful, and
Miss Browne shook her head and sighed to herself with profoundest
dejection every now and again.
Whilst dinner was proceeding, conversation had been impossible, but
now that the dessert had been placed on the table, and the servants
had withdrawn, Ella said apprehensively, as she had already said
twenty times at least since her scapegrace brother had walked in,
dusty and toil-worn, a couple of hours before:
"Oh, Harry, Uncle Nicholas will be so dreadfully, dreadfully angry
when he comes home to-morrow!"
"No doubt, Nelly," said the culprit philosophically. "There'll be a
bit of a shine over it, I expect. It's got to be faced, though, and
you're not to blame for it, so don't look so doleful, old lady."
"But it's so ungrateful, Harry," sobbed Ella, fairly breaking down,
"and Uncle Nicholas has done so much for us. He's let us live here
all these years since Father and Mother died, and sent you to school,
and--and--"
"I know all that, Nell," interposed her brother more gravely, "and
I've tried my best to fall in with Uncle Nicholas's ideas. Do you
suppose if it hadn't been for thinking of all we owe him that I'd
have let myself be banished off to the Carpathian Mountains to live
among a lot of Polish Jews and learn their gibberish. But it's no
good. The more I've tried grubbing underground the more I hate it,
so I just showed them a clean pair of heels, and made my way back
here. I can't let Uncle Nicholas shape my life for me, for all my
gratitude to him."
"Oh, my dear boy, don't be hasty, and don't anger your uncle!"
pleaded Miss Browne in her thin, reedy tones. "He's not used to be
thwarted or contradicted, Harry, and more depends on it than you have
any idea of. There are harpies here," nodding her head mysteriously,
"on the watch to seize on any advantage. We have kept them at a
distance hitherto--"
Miss Browne's speech was cut short by a violent ring of the
door-bell, which pealed and clanged far away in the depths of the
house.
"My dears, what can that be at this hour, and at the front door?" she
exclaimed apprehensively. "I am always so nervous in this dreadful
country, and with your uncle away too."
"We'll hear what they have to say for themselves, whoever it may be,"
said Harry, getting up and opening the dining-room door a little way,
so as to be able to hear what passed outside.
"If you please," said a voice, speaking in short gasps, as Norah's
panting breath enabled her to find utterance. "We want to see Miss
Ella at once; it's very important."
The dignified butler viewed the dishevelled pair on the door-step
with much disfavour. Evidently he did not think that any
communication they had to import could be of much consequence.
"Miss Ella is at dinner and can't be disturbed," he said loftily.
"You'd best give me your message, unless you like to wait till dinner
is over to see her."
"We can't do anything of the sort," said Manus bluntly. "We've got
to see Miss Ella at once, or else Mr. O'Brien himself, and you'll
please go in and say so."
What the butler would have replied to this bold speech remained
unknown, for Miss Browne, opening the dining-room door a little
wider, called out sharply:
"Who's that out there, Cartwright? Tell them that Mr. O'Brien is not
at home, and if they want to see Miss Ella they must come at a proper
hour."
"That's just what I was saying, ma'am," returned the indignant
butler. "I think it's young Master and Miss O'Brien from Kilshane,
and they say they want to see Miss Ella very particular."
"The O'Brien children? At this hour? How extremely forward, and at
the very instant when I was speaking of them."
And Miss Browne did not trouble herself to lower her voice or conceal
the annoyance of her tones.
Ella, however, had heard too, and she ran out into the hall with a
little eager cry.
"Oh, Norah, dear, what is the matter? I hope there is nothing wrong
with any of you at Kilshane."
As the light of the hall lamp fell on Manus and Norah, it revealed
very visible traces of their scamper across country. They were both
greatly flushed and out of breath, and their faces and hands were
scratched and bleeding with forcing their way through thickets and
hedges. Norah's hat had fallen off and hung behind by its strings,
and her frock exhibited innumerable rents.
"Oh, please," she began, forgetting in her excitement to answer
Ella's question, or to go through any usual preliminaries of
hand-shaking, "we were up at the mine, Manus and I, and there were a
lot of people there, the miners, and ever so many besides, and a man
was speaking to them about the work being stopped and Mr. M'Bain
threatening to bring over Scotchmen!" Norah's instinctive loyalty
kept her from betraying who the orator had been. "They're wild about
it, and they're all coming here to speak to Uncle Nicholas, and make
him promise that the mine shall be worked in the old way. Manus and
I ran across the fields to tell you, and oh! we were so afraid we
shouldn't get here in time."
Ella turned to her brother, who stood behind her.
"Oh, Harry, do you hear that, and Uncle Nicholas is away! Whatever
are we to do?"
"Give them beans if they come; but I'm afraid they won't give us the
chance. It was awfully good of you two to take so much trouble," the
lad went on, rather patronizingly, to Manus and Norah, "but I expect
you've had your run for nothing. Irishmen generally mean about half
of what they say, and the rest goes off in bluster and shouting. I
shouldn't wonder if the whole lot were sitting in the public-house at
the cross-roads at this moment, airing their eloquence and abusing us
all very comfortably. I just wish they would pay us a visit and
we'll make it hot for them."
"Well, you won't have long to wait," said Manus shortly, "for they're
on the avenue this minute; I hear them."
And indeed, as all bent forward to listen, there was audible, in the
stillness of the night, a low ominous roll that came steadily nearer,
the tramp of many feet, the deep growl of angry voices. Sharper,
too, and nearer at hand, though no one at the time paid it any heed,
sounded a rattle as if a conveyance were being driven in over the
paving-stones of the yard. At the same instant a troop of
terror-stricken maids burst into the hall.
"Oh, lor', ma'am! oh, lor' Master Harry, there's a mob of people
coming up against us! Maria was out on the avenue and she saw them
and ran for her life! They're screeching and hollering that it would
lift the hair off your head to hear them. They'll murder us in cold
blood! They'll burn the house down over our heads! It's us English
that they're mad against."
Miss Browne, ashy white and trembling like an aspen leaf, was yet
true to her wonted instincts. She threw her shaking arms round Ella,
putting herself in front of her like a shield.
"My darling! my heart!" she cried, "they shall kill me before they
touch a hair of your head."
Harry Wyndham drew himself erect, the half-unconscious air of bravado
which he had worn all evening was gone, and instead he was cool,
prompt, and collected, a typical English lad confronted with danger
and difficulty.
"Bar every door and close the shutters of all the ground-floor
windows. This house is pretty strong, and ought to be able to hold
out for a bit. Thanks to you, Brownie, all the indoor servants are
English, so there's no fear of anyone letting the rabble in at the
back door."
Meanwhile the roar outside was growing louder and more menacing, and
now the crowd appeared in view, rolling on up the avenue with shouts
and groans and discordant yells. Their numbers had swelled
considerably since the children had seen them last, as all the
dwellers along the line of march had joined in as onlookers or
sympathizers. Harry turned round angrily to the frightened maids,
who were huddled in a corner, sending forth scream upon scream.
"What good do you expect to do yourselves by hullabalooing like
that?" he demanded. "Go this instant and close all the windows as I
desired you. In spite of Uncle Nicholas, it strikes me it was as
well I happened to turn up to-night. Where's Cartwright? You come
and help me to load the guns. You can shoot, I suppose?"
"Well, sir, I 'ave fired a gun," said that functionary modestly.
Ella sprang forward, her face almost as white as her evening dress.
"Oh, Harry, you won't shoot the people?" she gasped.
"Not if I can help it, but they won't come into this house while I
can keep them out," her brother answered determinedly.
He closed the hall-door, which had been standing open all this time,
with a bang, and turned to Manus. "See here, youngster. You slip
out of the house at the back, where you won't be seen, and run for
your life for the police. Most likely the first volley will send the
whole lot flying, but if it doesn't we'll hold out all right for a
couple of hours."
Norah caught him by the cuff of his coat sleeve.
"Let me go out and speak to them," she cried. "I know some of
them--the man who was speaking at the mine, and some of the others,
and perhaps I could make them go away."
Harry shook himself free impatiently. "You don't suppose a howling
mob of madmen are going to listen to a little chit like you! Go with
Miss Browne there, she'll look after you. Collect all the women,
Brownie, when they've done fastening the doors and windows, and take
them to the kitchen; they'll be out of the way of harm, and safer
than they would be anywhere else. Ella, bring down the guns over the
chimney-piece in Uncle Nicholas's bedroom; we shall need all we have."
He issued all his orders like a young commander-in-chief, and was
obeyed unhesitatingly. He locked and double-locked the hall-door,
fastened a heavy iron bar across it, and drew two stout bolts
besides. Then with his own hands he shuttered the narrow windows on
either side of the door. Norah cast one last look out before the
shutters were closed. The crowd were close up now, hooting, yelling,
and brandishing sticks. Behind them, where the last of the daylight
still lingered in the sky, rose the abbey ruin, grand and peaceful, a
strange contrast to the wild tumult that raged so close to it. It
was that glimpse of the ruin which put a sudden idea into Norah's
head.
"Wait for me, Manus," she cried breathlessly. "I know how we'll
frighten the people away better than with guns."
She tore up the wide staircase and opened the first door that she
came to. She dragged the white quilt off the bed, rolling it up
hastily into a bundle, and seized a box of matches off a small table
by the bed-side. As she dashed out into the corridor again, an old
gentleman, white-haired and bent, came up another stair at its
farther end with a lighted candle in his hand.
"What's going on?" he cried angrily. "Has Bedlam broken loose while
I've been away? What's all the noise outside about, and where are
all the servants? Why are the lamps not lit? Where's Miss Ella, or
Miss Browne, or anybody?"
There was no one within hearing but Norah, and she did not answer
him; she did not even pause to recollect that this must be her Uncle
Nicholas, the grim, vindictive being of whom she had heard so much
but whom she had never seen. She darted down to him and pulled the
candle out of his hand without ceremony.
"Oh please, I must have it!" she gasped; "it's ever so much better
than matches, because they go out, you know."
The old man did not attempt to resist, he only gazed in utter
amazement at the apparition that had so unexpectedly appeared before
him. Norah's hat still hung upon her shoulders, as it had fallen off
during her wild scamper with Manus, her black hair was tossed back
off her forehead, and her blue eyes were alight with excitement and
earnestness of purpose.
"Who are you, child?" he cried.
But Norah did not stay to answer. She had blown the candle out and
was racing along the corridor and down the stairs with her spoils;
nor did she stop when she met Ella coming upstairs to obey her
brother's behest.
"What are you doing up here, Norah?" cried Ella. "Go to the kitchen;
Brownie is there, and the servants; and Harry says it is the safest
place for you to be."
It had grown so dark within doors that Ella did not see Mr. O'Brien
till she ran up against him, standing in the corridor, where Norah
had left him, as if he were rooted to the ground. She could not
repress a cry of alarm at the sudden shock.
"Uncle Nicholas! We thought you were in Dublin. How do you come to
be here?"
"I come to be here because I drove in by the stable-yard five minutes
ago, and it's the shortest way to my bedroom," returned the old man
gruffly. "Is the world turned upside down, or am I going mad?
What's all that shouting and the row that I hear? And in heaven's
name, who was it that ran down here just now?"
"It was little Norah O'Brien. Poor child, she's quite terrified. I
suppose she's looking for somewhere to hide. The miners are in front
of the house, Uncle Nicholas, and a mob of people with them,
threatening to attack it. Norah and her brother brought warning just
in time, and Harry thinks we can hold out till help comes."
Ella stopped short, remembering that it was the first Mr. O'Brien had
heard of the prodigal's return, and dreading an outburst of wrath.
She need not have been afraid, however; her uncle had not heard her
last words at all.
"Norah O'Brien," he repeated to himself slowly; but it was not of her
he was thinking. Another child stood before him--a boy with the same
bright eyes and dark waving hair, a boy who had raced about that
house and made it ring with his shouts and laughter forty years
before. That boy's name had been Piers, and it was nearly a year
since he had been laid, far from his kindred, in a crowded London
cemetery.
Norah, meanwhile, little dreaming of the effect she had produced,
tore on her way downstairs. Ella's words had fallen on unheeding
ears. Norah had not even taken their meaning in.
"Quick, quick, Manus!" she cried, as she found her brother waiting
for her; "we haven't a minute to lose. We must get out of the house
somehow or other--through a window or any way that we can, before the
crowd closes up all round."
A momentary lull had come in the din outside, as the human torrent
swept up before the house and found themselves confronted by the long
blank range of shuttered windows, with no light visible anywhere.
They halted irresolutely, uncertain what to do, and in that instant's
delay Norah had her chance. A maid-servant with blanched cheeks and
trembling hands was drawing the bolts of a little side-door which led
down upon the pleasure-ground, the last point that remained to be
secured in the defences of the house.
"Let us out, please," Norah said authoritatively.
The woman stared at her, hardly able to believe that she had heard
aright.
"You must be mad, Miss, to be wanting such a thing. It's fiends
that's out there, nothing less; they'd tear you limb from limb if
they got you amongst them."
Norah gave her head a proud little toss as she pushed back the bolts
herself.
"No one will see us if we slip out quickly, and even if they did,
Malachy is out there, and he wouldn't let anyone hurt me. Shut the
door behind us and make it fast. Now then, Manus!"
Brother and sister vanished into the night. Not an instant too soon,
for the next moment the mob surged up all round the house, seeking to
find some means of entry; and they broke into shouts louder and more
ferocious than before as they found that timely warning had been
conveyed to the inmates, and that on all sides the house had been
made secure.
"Arrah, thin, it's not willin' to be shpoke to they are widin there!
Give a rap at the doore, boys, an' let them know we're here."
In obedience to the mandate, heavy and repeated blows were dealt upon
the hall-door, which, however, was of good solid oak, and showed no
signs of yielding. A pebble whizzed against one of the plate-glass
windows, and the crash and shiver of the falling glass were greeted
with exultant huzzas; another and another followed. Then a window on
the upper floor was thrown open, and Harry's clear, boyish tones made
themselves heard:
"Now then, I give fair warning to all concerned. I have a
double-barrelled gun, and Cartwright here has another. You've all
got two minutes to be out of this, at the end of that time we fire."
But the people's blood was up, too high and hot for threats to turn
them. Curses, groans, howls of execration answered him.
"Is't shoot us ye wud, ye clip? Is thim the manners they've larned
ye in Jarmany? Quit out o' that, an' let's shpake to the masther.
It's Nicholas O'Brien we'll talk to, not you, ye dirty spalpeen!"
And another volley of stones crashed against the windows.
Harry had his gun at his shoulder, the gleaming barrels levelled.
His intention was to fire the first discharge over the heads of the
crowd in the hope of scaring them away, but as his finger touched the
trigger he felt himself seized and thrust forcibly to one side. A
tall figure, which in the uncertain light seemed to have lost its
stoop and to be straight and erect as in years gone by, advanced to
the window, and a strident voice called out above the din:
"Who wants to talk to Nicholas O'Brien?"
Everyone in the crowd knew the tones, and a wild hubbub arose.
"It's the masther! Begorra, it's his honour's own self! It's
justice we want! It's our rights we'll have! We'll not be robbed
nor peeled nor put upon no longer! It's work we want, an' our wages,
an' bread for our childher's mouths! Down wid M'Bain an' ivery
furriner he'd bring along of him!"
Mr. O'Brien struck his stick violently on the ground, and raised his
hand to stay the tumult. What answer, however, he would have made to
the people's demands remained unknown, for as he opened his mouth to
speak, he stopped short, and his eyes became riveted on some object
away beyond the sea of upturned faces waiting breathlessly to hear
what he would say.
"Gracious heavens, what's that?" he cried.
All heads were turned to follow the direction of his gaze, and a low
murmur of fear and wonder ran through the wild and excited throng.
One of the broken windows high up in the abbey ruins was filled with
a dim bluish light, and in that strange radiance stood a white-clad
figure silent and motionless, one hand stretched menacingly towards
the surging crowd. For a moment or two the people gazed at the
vision speechless and paralyzed with terror, then frightened whispers
began to be heard.
"The saints 'tween us an' harm, there's the white nun! Mercy be wid
us, it's holy St. Bridget it is!"
Those who still held stones let them fall; some of the crowd dropped
on their knees and crossed themselves. A few of the more timid began
to edge away, others followed; in a moment the movement was general,
and the people were huddling down the avenue after each other like a
flock of frightened sheep, casting back terrified glances at the
dread apparition which still stood on high with uplifted arm in the
ruined window.
The moment the terrified crowd had disappeared, the light in the
window vanished too. To those who watched the strange sight from
Moyross House it seemed as if there was a stifled cry and then a
thud. After that all was silent, and the darkness of the summer's
night once more reigned supreme.