Produced by Daniel Fromont
[Transcriber's note: Mrs. Hungerford (1855?-1897), _Only an Irish girl_,
Prudential Book Co., no date of publication]
ONLY AN IRISH GIRL
BY
THE DUCHESS
NEW YORK
THE PRUDENTIAL
BOOK CO.
ONLY AN IRISH GIRL.
CHAPTER I.
"And was it only a dream, Aileen?"
"Only a dream, miss, but it consarned me greatly. Shure an' I never had
the taste of a sweet sound sleep since I dramed it!"
Honor Blake laughs, and passes her slim hand over the old woman's ruddy
tanned cheek.
"You dear silly old thing to bother your head about a dream! It will be
time enough to fret when we've something real to fret about."
"Ah, mavourneen, may yez never see that day!" nurse Walsh murmurs with
passionate fondness, as she takes the girl's hand between her own broad
palms and presses and fondles it. "Shure it's like yesterday--I mind it
so well--that yer mother, as she lay dying beyant there, in her big
grand bedroom at Donaghmore, said to me, as I stood beside her with
you, a wee thing, in my arms, 'Ye'll be a mother to my little one,
Aileen, and guard her from all harm, as I would have done.' And I knelt
down then and there, and took my solemn oath; and from that day to this
it's the wan bit of sunshine in a cloudy world ye've been to me,
alanna!"
Tears come into the girl's eyes. There is a sad feeling in her heart
this evening, as she stands in the little cottage, and looks across the
bog at the long fields of corn beyond the river; and at this mention of
her dead mother--the fragile mother whom she has never seen--the
feeling grows into passionate pain and longing.
"He's a mighty fine gintleman and a man of manes--I'm not denying it,
darlint--but he's not the man for you. Take an old woman's advice,
mavourneen! He's black of face and of heart. He's come of a race that
ground the poor and raised the rints, and sent poor mothers and old men
and babies on to the highway to die of hunger and cold and
heart-wretchedness!"
"But Power has done none of these things," the girl says warmly.
"His father and his father's father have done them; and haven't we the
word of the Holy Book for it--the sins of the fathers shall be visited
on the children to the fourth generation?"
Honor shudders, and her pretty color fades. Is she thinking of the sins
of the dead-and-gone Blakes, some of which she may yet have to suffer
for?
"I must go now, Aileen; the boys will be home by this time. And when I
bring this fine Englishman to see you--he is only half an Englishman
after all, for his mother was one of the Blakes of Derry--you'll give
him a welcome?"
"That I will, asthore, though it's little the welcome of an old woman
will be to him while he has your swate face to look on."
The girl laughs and gathers her fur cape about her as she steps out on
to the bog road, for a keen wind blows from the mountains. As she turns
to leave the cottage, a man, who has been smoking in the shelter of one
of the heaps of turf, straightens himself and walks after her. His
steps fall noiselessly on the peaty soil; but some instinct makes Honor
turn her head, and at sight of him her face flushes.
"Ah, what brings you here, Power? I thought you were away at Drum with
Launce?"
"I went part of the way but turned back. Sure they'd nothing better to
do! I had!"
"And have you done it?" the girl asks shyly.
"I am doing it now," he says, with a smile.
She does not answer him in words, but her eyes are filled with a sudden
glow and sweetness.
"You will find your visitor at Donaghmore," he tells her, as they walk
together across the yielding bog; "I met him at Garrick Station, and
drove him over. Your father could not go, as he had to run off at the
last minute to take the deposition of poor Rooney, who is dying, I'm
afraid. The Englishman seemed to think nothing of it, when I told him
how the poor fellow had been badly hurt in a fight. He evidently
imagines it is the custom for one man to shoot another every week or so
in the ordinary Irish village."
"Oh, Power, don't talk like that!" the girl says. "Sure, we all know
these dreadful things occur only too often. Don't let us talk about
them at all. Tell me what he is like."
"Like an ordinary mortal! He is gray as to his clothes, a trifle pasty
as to his complexion, and more than a trifle fine in his manners. But
you'll get on with him all right--girls like mashers."
"You know that I hate that word, Power! Why will you use it?"
"Because it describes your cousin to a nicety."
"Goodness! A masher!" the girl cries in dismay. "How will such a
creature live at Donaghmore? He should have gone to Aunt Julia's in
Dublin--he would have felt at home there."
Whereat they both laugh, natural hearty laughter that dies away in
musical echoes.
Aunt Julia is one of the bugbears of the Blake family, her gentility
and general fineness being altogether too much for them.
"Oh, hang it, the fellow's man enough to prefer Donaghmore and you to
Merrion Square!"
"And Aunt Julia," the girl finishes slyly.
"Yes," he says. And then, with sudden passion--"Is this man to come
between us, Honor? To-day as I looked at him I felt, if it was so, I
could find it in my heart to shoot him dead!"
It is getting dusk here on the lower quarry road, which leads them by a
short cut to Donaghmore. On one side stretches the bog, on the other
the grim gray rocks shut out the sky. To Honor's nervous fancy it
almost seems as if the rocks catch up his vengeful words, and echo them
mockingly. More than one ghastly story is connected with this lonely
spot; and, spoken here, the cruel words have double meaning.
"You are changed already," the man says more calmly, seeing the
expression of horror on her face. "You and Launce have never been the
same to me since that affair at Boyne. It is only Horace who remains my
friend."
"And am I not your friend, Power?"
"There can be no friendship between you and me, Honor. There can be but
one of two things--love or hatred. I love you as better men would tell
you they love their own souls. I want you for my wife--no friend, but
my very own, until death us do part! Honor, my darling--Honor, my own
love, will you come to me?"
His arms close round her in the darkness, and with a low sob she yields
to their masterful pressure, while his words--half fierce in their
passion--seem to reach her like words heard in a dream.
Suddenly, out from the middle of the bog, comes a plaintive cry like
the call of some night-bird. It is answered half a mile away, in the
direction of Donaghmore, and then again there is silence. But it is no
bird-call, Honor knows; and she raises her face from her lover's breast
with a little sigh of fear.
"Don't sigh, my darling! Sure no harm could touch you with me," the man
says tenderly.
But a chill has fallen upon the girl; her brief thrill of happiness has
left a vague unrest behind it.
"I must go in now, Power. What will they say to me? I have never been
out so late before!"
"And I have never kissed you before, nor held you in my arms," he
answers almost incoherently. "Sure love like ours takes no heed of the
clock!"
"My father will take heed of it, though," the girl rejoins, smiling,
and hurrying, fast as the uneven path will let her, toward the lights
that are gleaming now from all the lower windows of her home.
Donaghmore stands on a slight hill overlooking the river on one side
and the woods of Colonel Frenche's estate on the other. It is a stone
house, with deep-set windows and stout doors, that have withstood hard
blows in their day. Save for Glen Doyle, Colonel Frenche's place, there
is no house of equal size for miles around, and several visitors have
remarked the loneliness of the situation; but to that the Blakes never
give a thought. The solid old house, which faces all the winds that
blow, is very dear to them. In its very isolation there is a charm that
any other dwelling would lack.
"Honor," the young fellow says, as they reach the house, "will you
speak a word of warning to your father and Launce? They won't listen to
me, I know. But it is not safe to speak as they have been doing lately.
This affair of poor Rooney's may show you the temper of the people. No
man was better liked, but he couldn't keep a still tongue in his head,
and he lies at death's door this night."
"And are we not to speak, Power? Have we not as much right to our
opinion as other people? There never yet was a Blake who was a rebel or
a coward!"
"There is a time to speak and a time to keep silent," he answers,
taking her face between his hands, and looking down, his dark eyes
softening, at the pretty flushed cheeks and lips just curved into a
pout. "My own love, trust me! I would not have you or yours bring a
stain upon the old name--but silence can hurt no one."
From where they stand they can hear the sounds of voices and men's
laughter and the chink of glass, which come through the open windows of
the dining-room.
"Those windows ought to be securely fastened before the dusk falls,
Honor. Your father is really too--too confident."
"What a prophet of evil you are, Power!" the girl answers lightly; but,
all the same, her heart is filled with the vague fear that has been
troubling her for weeks past, ever since her brother Launce got into a
dispute with some farmers at Boyne Fair, and was threatened by them.
"It's enough to make the old abbot walk again," she added, half
smiling, half scornfully, "to hear you talk of danger threatening
Donaghmore! Didn't he frighten the rebels away in '98, so that ours was
the only safe house, lonely as it is?"
"The rebels of to-day are not to be so easily frightened or kept at
bay," he answers meaningly. "Good-night, my darling, and remember my
words!"
"Good-night," she says softly; and presently the great doors close
behind her, and he is alone.
"Come in here, my girl, and give an account of yourself," her father's
voice calls to her, as she is slipping past the open dining-room door.
"Launce here thought we had lost you, but I knew there was no such
luck."
The next moment she is standing in the brilliantly-lighted room, before
the little knot of gentlemen--her father, her brothers, and their
guest--gathered about one end of the long table.
"This is my little girl, Beresford; and, if she had been a boy, Heaven
bless her, your uncle would have adopted her, and left her all the
money he had hoarded! But it wasn't to be, I suppose."
The man he calls Beresford smiles slightly at this speech, and Honor
sees the smile and resents it. Her gray eyes darken, her face turns
suddenly pale and cold as she moves slowly forward to her father's side.
"By Jove, what a grand air!" Brian Beresford says to himself, eyeing
her critically. "Where on earth did she learn to carry herself in that
fashion?'
"You did not expect to find your cousin safe at home before you, Honor?"
"Yes, papa; I met Power, and he told me. He was saying too"--with a
faint smile at Launce--"that he was afraid Mr. Beresford would find
Donaghmore dull. He thought he would have felt more at home at Aunt
Julia's."
The new-comer does not in the least understand the point of this
speech, but he is perfectly conscious that there is a cut in it
somewhere; and this consciousness is not lessened by the way it is
received. Her father turns red in the face and says, "Tut tut! How
absurd!" Horace smiles, and Launce breaks into open laughter.
"I am sorry if I am intruding," Mr. Beresford says stiffly. "I accepted
your father's invitation as frankly as it was offered; but----"
"There, my boy, not another word," his host interrupts him, still red
in the face, still frowning at Honor in a covert way. "I should have
been cut to the heart if your father's son had refused or misunderstood
me. But these younger people are full of their chaff; you'll understand
each other in a day or so."
"I understand him perfectly as it is," Honor says to herself, as she
walks out for the room, very erect and stately, and altogether on her
dignity; "and I don't like him a bit. Power was wrong there--we shall
never get on together."
As she is crossing the hall she sees that the front door stands open.
She turns a little out of her way to close it, and as she does so she
sees the shadows of two figures sharply outlined on the smooth gravel.
One man is bare-headed--he has just stepped out the house
evidently--the other wears a low hat pulled down over his brows.
It is nothing out of the common for a servant to step out of the house
to speak to a friend--domestic rule is not very strict at
Donaghmore--yet a strange fear assails Honor. The window by the side of
the door is open, and by standing close to it she can hear every word
they say; but their words are meaningless--they are talking Irish.
Suddenly one of the men--it is their new groom, whom Launce hired at
Boyne--says distinctly in English:
"He's no more from the Castle than you are. How soft ye are, to be
sure! He's the masther's nephew from London. And sure, if the worst
comes to the worst, he'd not count at all, at all; he's little better
than a fine young woman in breeches. Faix, and I'd take half a dozen of
his make as my own share of a good night's work; but be aisy--he'll be
gone before even ye need raise a finger!"
While their hands are meeting and they are bending toward each other as
if for a parting whisper, the girl flies swiftly up-stairs and into her
own room.
Her heart is beating painfully, her cheeks are pale with fear and
anger, and yet she cannot help laughing aloud as the man's words come
back to her--"He's little better than a fine young woman in breeches!"
"Could anything be funnier or truer?" she says to herself with
malicious satisfaction. "Oh, how I wish he could have heard them! It
would take a bit of his starch out, I fancy, and teach him how little
mashers are thought of at Donaghmore."