Joe was right; the mill was not at work, for 'Andy' had been summoned
to Ennis, where the assizes were then going forward. The mare which had
formed part of our calculations was also absent; and we sat down in
the little porch to hold a council of war as to our future proceedings.
After canvassing the question for some time, Joe left me for a few
minutes, and returned with the information that the highroad to Ennis
lay only a couple of miles distant, and that a stage-coach would pass
there in about two hours, by which I could reach the town that evening.
It was therefore decided that he should return with the pony to
Murranakilty; while I, having procured a gossoon to carry my baggage,
made the best of my way towards the Ennis road.
Joe soon found me an urchin to succeed him as my guide and companion;
and with an affectionate leave-taking, and a faithful promise to meet me
sometime and somewhere, we parted.
So long as I had journeyed along beside my poor, half-witted follower,
the strange and fickle features of his wandering intellect had somehow
interrupted the channels of my own feelings, and left me no room for
reflection on my changed fortunes. Now, however, my thoughts returned to
the past with all the force of some dammed-up current, and my blighted
hopes threw a dark and sombre shadow over all my features. What cared
I what became of me? Why did I hasten hither and thither? These were my
first reflections. If life had lost its charm, so had misfortune lost
its terror. There seemed something frivolous and contemptible in the
return to those duties which in all the buoyant exhilaration of my
former life had ever seemed unfitting and unmanly. No! rather let me
seek for some employment on active service. The soldier's career I once
longed for, to taste its glorious enthusiasm--that I wished for now, to
enjoy its ceaseless movement and exertion.
As I thought over all I had seen and gone through since my arrival in
Ireland--its varied scenes of mirth and woe; its reckless pleasures, its
wilder despair--I believed that I had acquired a far deeper insight into
my own heart in proportion as I looked more into those of others. A not
unfrequent error this. The outstretched page of human nature that I had
been gazing on had shown me the passions and feelings of other men laid
bare before me, while my own heart was dark, enshrined, and unvisited
within me. I believed that life had no longer anything to tie me to
it--and I was not then twenty! Had I counted double as many years, I had
had more reason for the belief, and more difficulty to think so.
Sometimes I endeavoured to console myself by thinking of all the
obstacles that under the happiest circumstances must have opposed
themselves to my union with Louisa Bellew. My mother's pride alone
seemed an insurmountable one. But then I thought of what a noble part
had lain before me, to prefer the object of my love--the prize of my
own winning--to all the caresses of fortune, all the seductions of the
world. Sir Simon Bellew, too--what could he mean? The secret he alluded
to, what was it? Alas! what mattered it? My doom was sealed, my fate
decided; I had no care how.
Such were my thoughts as I journeyed along the path that conducted
towards the highroad; while my little guide--barelegged and barefooted,
trotted on merrily before me--who, with none of this world's goods, had
no room in his heart for sorrow or repining.
We at last reached the road, which, dusty and deserted, skirted the side
of a bleak mountain for miles--not a house to be seen; not a traveller,
nor scarce a wheel-track, to mark the course of any one having passed
there. I had not followed it for more than half an hour when I heard
the tramp of horses and the roll which announced the approach of an
equipage. A vast cloud of dust, through which a pair of leaders were
alone visible, appeared at a distance. I seated myself at the roadside
to await its coming, my little gossoon beside me, evidently not sorry
to have reached a resting-place; and once more my thoughts returned to
their well-worn channel, and my head sank on my bosom. I forgot where I
was, when suddenly the prancing of a pair of horses close to me aroused
me from my stupor, and a postillion called out to me in no very subdued
accent--
'Will ye hook on that trace there, avick, av ye 're not asleep?'
Whether it was my look of astonishment at the tone and the nature of the
request, or delay in acceding to it, I know not; but a hearty curse
from the fellow on the wheelers perfectly awakened me, and I replied by
something not exactly calculated to appease the heat of the discussion.
'Begorra,' said he of the leaders, 'it's always the way with your shabby
genteels!' and he swung himself down from the saddle to perform the
required service himself.
During this operation I took the opportunity of looking at the
carriage, which was a large and handsome barouche, surrounded by all the
appurtenances of travel--cap-cases, imperials, etc.; a fat-looking, lazy
footman was nodding sleepily on the box, and a well-tanned lady's-maid
was reading a novel in the rumble. Within I saw the figure of a
lady, whose magnificent style of dress but little accorded with the
unfrequented road she was traversing and the wild inhabitants so thinly
scattered through it. As I looked, she turned round suddenly; and,
before I could recognise her, she called out my name. The voice in an
instant reassured me: it was Mrs. Paul Rooney herself!
'Stop!' cried she, with a wave of her jewelled hand. 'Michael, get down.
Only think of meeting you here, Captain!'
I stammered out some explanation about a cross-cut over the mountain
to catch the stage, and my desire to reach Ennis; while the unhappy
termination of our intimacy, and my mother's impertinent letter kept
ever uppermost in my mind, and made me confused and uneasy. Mrs. Paul,
however, had evidently no participation in such feelings, but welcomed
me with her wonted cordiality, and shook my hand with a warmth that
proved, if she had not forgotten, she had certainly forgiven, the whole
affair.
'And so you are going to Ennis!' said she, as I assumed the place beside
her in the barouche, while Michael was busily engaged in fastening on my
luggage behind--the two movements seeming to be as naturally performed
as though the amiable lady had been in the habit of taking up walking
gentlemen with a portmanteau every day of her life. 'Well, how
fortunate! I'm going there too. Pole [so she now designated her
excellent spouse, it being the English for Paul] has some little
business with the chief-justice--two murder cases, and a forcible
abduction--and I promised to take him up on my return from Milltown,
where I have been spending a few weeks. After that we return to our
little place near Bray, where I hope you 'll come and spend a few weeks
with us.'
'This great pleasure I fear I must deny myself,' said I, 'for I have
already outstayed my leave, and have unfortunately somehow incurred the
displeasure of his Excellency; and unless'--here I dropped my voice, and
stole a half-timid look at the lady under my eyelashes--'some one with
influence over his grace shall interfere on my behalf, I begin to fear
lest I may find myself in a sad scrape.'
Mrs. Paul blushing, turned away her head; and while pressing my hand
softly in her own, she murmured--
'Don't fret about it; it won't signify.'
I could scarce repress a smile at the success of my bit of flattery,
for as such alone I intended it, when she turned towards me, and, as if
desirous to change the topic, said--
'Well, we heard of all your doings--your steeplechase and your duel and
your wound, and all that; but what became of you afterwards?'
'Oh,' said I hesitatingly, 'I was fortunate enough to make a most
agreeable acquaintance, and with him I have been spending a few weeks on
the coast--Father Tom Loftus.'
'Father Tom!' said Mrs. Rooney with a laugh--'the pleasantest crayture
in Ireland! There isn't the like of him. Did he sing you the “Priest's
Supper?”' The lady blushed as she said these words, as if carried away
by a momentary excitement to speak of matters not exactly suitable; and
then drawing herself up, she continued in a more measured tone: 'You
know, Captain, one meets such strange people in this world.'
'To be sure, Mrs. Rooney,' said I encouragingly; 'and to one like
yourself, who can appreciate character, Father Loftus is indeed a gem.'
Mrs. Rooney, however, only smiled her assent, and again changed the
course of the conversation.
'You met the Bellews, I suppose, when down in the west?'
'Yes,' stammered I; 'I saw a good deal of Sir Simon when in that
country.'
'Ah, the poor man!' said she with real feeling, 'what an unhappy lot his
has been!'
Supposing that she alluded to his embarrassment as to fortune, the
difficulties which pressed upon him from money causes, I merely muttered
my assent.
'But I suppose,' continued she, 'you have heard the whole story, though
the unhappy event occurred when you were a mere child.'
'I am not aware to what you allude,' said I eagerly, while a suspicion
shot across my mind that the secret of Sir Simon Bellow's letter was at
length to be cleared up.
'Ah,' said Mrs. Rooney with a sigh, 'I mean poor dear Lady Bellow's
affair--when she went away with a major of dragoons; and to be sure
an elegant young man he was, they said. Pole was on the inquest, and I
heard him say he was the handsomest man he ever saw in his life.'
'He died suddenly, then?'
'He was shot by Sir Simon in a duel the very day-week after the
elopement.'
'And she?' said I.
'Poor thing! she died of a consumption, or some say a broken heart, the
same summer.'
'That is a sad story, indeed,' said I musingly; 'and I no longer wonder
that the poor old man should be such as he is.'
'No, indeed; but then he was very much blamed after all, for he never
had that Jerningham out of the house.'
'Horace Jerningham!' cried I, as a cold sickening fear crept over me.
'Oh, yes, that was his name. He was the Honourable Horace Jerningham,
the younger son of some very high family in England; and, indeed,
the elder brother has died since, and they say the title has become
extinct.'
It is needless for me to attempt any description of the feelings that
agitated my heart, when I say that Horace Jerningham was the brother of
my own mother. I remembered when a child to have heard something of
a dreadful duel, when all the family went into deep mourning, and my
mother's health suffered so severely that her life was at one time
feared for; but that fate should have ever thrown me into intimacy with
those upon whom this grievous injury was inflicted, and by whom death
and mourning were brought upon my house, was a sad and overwhelming
affliction that rendered me stunned and speechless. How came it then,
thought I, that my mother never recognised the name of her brother's
antagonist when speaking of Miss Bellew in her letter to me? Before I
had time to revolve this doubt in my mind Mrs. Rooney had explained it.
'And this was the beginning of all his misfortunes. The friends of the
poor young man were people of great influence, and set every engine to
work to ruin Sir Simon, or, as he then was, Mr. Simon Barrington. At
last they got him outlawed; and it was only the very year he came to the
title and estates of his uncle that the outlawry was taken off, and
he was once more enabled to return to Ireland. However, they had their
revenge if they wished for it; for what between recklessness and bad
company, he took to gambling when abroad, contracted immense debts, and
came into his fortune little better than a beggar. Since then the world
has seen little of him, and indeed he owes it but little favour. Under
Pole's management the property is now rapidly improving; but the old man
cares little for this, and all I believe he wishes for is to have health
enough to go over to the Continent and place his daughter in a convent
before he dies.'
Little did she guess how every word sank deep into my heart. Every
sentence of the past was throwing its shadow over all my future, and the
utter wreck of my hopes seemed now inevitable.
While thus I sat brooding over my gloomiest thoughts, Mrs. Rooney,
evidently affected by the subject, maintained a perfect silence. At
last, however, she seemed to have summed up the whole case in her mind,
as turning to me confidentially, with her hand pressed upon my arm, she
added in a true moralising cadence, very different from that she had
employed when her feelings were really engaged--
'And that's what always comes of it when a gallant, gay Lutherian gets
admission into a family.'
Shall I confess, that, notwithstanding the deep sorrow of my heart,
I could scarce repress an outbreak of laughter at these words! We now
chatted away on a variety of subjects, till the concourse of people
pressing onwards to the town, the more thickly populated country, and
the distant view of chimneys apprised us we were approaching Ennis.
Notwithstanding all my wishes to get on as fast as might be, I found it
impossible to resist an invitation to dine that day with the Rooneys,
who had engaged a small select party at the Head Inn, where Mrs.
Rooney's apartments were already awaiting her.
It was dusk when we arrived, and I could only perceive that the gloomy
and narrow streets were densely crowded with country-people, who
conversed together in groups. Here and there a knot of legal folk were
congregated, chatting in a louder tone; and before the court-house stood
the carriage of the chief-justice, with a guard of honour of the county
yeomanry, whose unsoldierlike attitudes and droll equipments were
strongly provocative of laughter. The postillions, who had with true
tact reserved a 'trot for the town,' whipped and spurred with all their
might; and as we drove through the thronged streets a changed impression
fled abroad that we were the bearers of a reprieve, and a hearty cheer
from the mob followed us to our arrival at the inn door--a compliment
which Mrs. Paul, in nowise attributing to anything save her own peculiar
charms and deserts, most graciously acknowledged by a smile and a wave
of her hand, accompanied by an unlimited order for small beer--which
act of grace was, I think, even more popular than their first impression
concerning us.
'Ah, Captain,' said the lady, with a compassionate smile, as I handed
her out of the carriage, 'they are so attached to the aristocracy!'