THE ESCAPE
In vain, after that, did Anty try to sleep; turn which way she would,
she saw the bloodshot eyes and horrid drunken face of her cruel
brother. For a long time she lay, trembling and anxious; fearing she
knew not what, and trying to compose herself—trying to make herself
think that she had no present cause for fear; but in vain. If she heard
a noise, she thought it was her brother’s footstep, and when the house
was perfectly silent and still, she feared the very silence itself. At
last, she crept out of bed, and, taking the candle left by her brother,
which had now burned down to the socket, stepped softly down the
stairs, to the place where the two maid-servants slept, and, having
awakened them, she made Biddy return with her and keep her company for
the remainder of the night. She did not quite tell the good-natured
girl all that had passed; she did not own that her brother had
threatened to send her to a madhouse, or that he had sworn to have her
life; but she said enough to show that he had shamefully ill-treated
her, and to convince Biddy that wherever her mistress might find a
home, it would be very unadvisable that she and Barry should continue
to live under the same roof.
Early in the morning, “Long afore the break o’ day,” as the song says,
Biddy got up from her hard bed on the floor of her mistress’ room, and,
seeing that Anty was at last asleep, started to carry into immediate
execution the counsels she had given during the night. As she passed
the head of the stairs, she heard the loud snore of Barry, in his
drunken slumber; and, wishing that he might sleep as sound for ever and
ever, she crept down to her own domicile, and awakened her comrade.
“Whist, Judy—whist, darlint! Up wid ye, and let me out.”
“And what’d you be doing out now?” yawned Judy.
“An arrand of the misthress;—shure, he used her disperate. Faix, it’s a
wondher he didn’t murther her outright!”
“And where are ye going now?”
“Jist down to Dunmore—to the Kellys then, avich. Asy now; I’ll be
telling you all bye and bye. She must be out of this intirely.”
“Is’t Miss Anty? Where’d she be going thin out of this?”
“Divil a matther where! He’d murther her, the ruffian ’av he cotched
her another night in his dhrunkenness. We must git her out before he
sleeps hisself right. But hurry now, I’ll be telling you all when I’m
back again.”
The two crept off to the back door together, and, Judy having opened
it, Biddy sallied out, on her important and good-natured mission. It
was still dark, though the morning was beginning to break, as she
stood, panting, at the front door of the inn. She tried to get in at
the back, but the yard gates were fastened; and Jack, the ostler, did
not seem to be about yet. So she gave a timid, modest knock, with the
iron knocker, on the front door. A pause, and then a second knock, a
little louder; another pause, and then a third; and then, as no one
came, she remembered the importance of her message, and gave such a rap
as a man might do, who badly wanted a glass of hot drink after
travelling the whole night.
The servants had good or hardy consciences, for they slept soundly; but
the widow Kelly, in her little bed-room behind the shop, well knew the
sound of that knocker, and, hurrying on her slippers and her gown, she
got to the door, and asked who was there.
“Is that Sally, ma’am?” said Biddy, well knowing the widow’s voice.
“No, it’s not. What is it you’re wanting?”
“Is it Kate thin, ma’am?”
“No, it’s not Kate. Who are you, I say; and what d’you want?”
“I’m Biddy, plaze ma’am—from Lynch’s, and I’m wanting to spake to
yerself, ma’am—about Miss Anty. She’s very bad intirely, ma’am.”
“What ails her;—and why d’you come here? Why don’t you go to Doctor
Colligan, av’ she’s ill; and not come knocking here?”
“It ain’t bad that way, Miss Anty is, ma’am. Av’ you’d just be good
enough to open the door, I’d tell you in no time.”
It would, I am sure, be doing injustice to Mrs Kelly to say that her
curiosity was stronger than her charity; they both, however, no doubt
had their effect, and the door was speedily opened.
“Oh, ma’am!” commenced Biddy, “sich terrible doings up at the house!
Miss Anty’s almost kilt!”
“Come out of the cowld, girl, in to the kitchen fire,” said the widow,
who didn’t like the February blast, to which Biddy, in her anxiety, had
been quite indifferent; and the careful widow again bolted the door,
and followed the woman into certainly the warmest place in Dunmore, for
the turf fire in the inn kitchen was burning day and night. “And now,
tell me what is it ails Miss Anty? She war well enough yesterday, I
think, and I heard more of her then than I wished.”
Biddy now pulled her cloak from off her head, settled it over her
shoulders, and prepared for telling a good substantial story.
“Oh, Misthress Kelly, ma’am, there’s been disperate doings last night
up at the house. We were all hearing, in the morn yesterday, as how
Miss Anty and Mr Martin, God bless him!—were to make a match of it,—as
why wouldn’t they, ma’am? for wouldn’t Mr Martin make her a tidy,
dacent, good husband?”
“Well, well, Biddy—don’t mind Mr Martin; he’ll be betther without a
wife for one while, and he needn’t be quarrelling for one when he wants
her. What ails Miss Anty?”
“Shure I’m telling you, ma’am; howsomever, whether its thrue or no
about Mr Martin, we were all hearing it yestherday; and the masther, he
war afther hearing it too, for he come into his dinner as black as
tunder; and Terry says he dhrunk the whole of a bottle of wine, and
then he called for the sperrits, and swilled away at them till he was
nigh dhrunk. Well, wid that, ma’am, he sent for Miss Anty, and the
moment she comes in, he locks to the door, and pulls her to the sofa,
and swears outright that he’ll murdher her av’ she don’t swear, by the
blessed Mary and the cross, that she’ll niver dhrame of marrying no
one.”
“Who tould you all this, Biddy? was it herself?”
“Why, thin, partly herself it war who tould me, ma’am, and partly—; you
see, when Mr Barry war in his tantrums and dhrunken like, I didn’t like
to be laving Miss Anty alone wid him, and nobody nigh, so I and Terry
betook ourselves nigh the door, and, partly heard what was going on;
that’s the thruth on it, Mrs Kelly; and, afther a dale of rampaging and
scolding, may I niver see glory av’ he didn’t up wid his clenched fist,
strik her in the face, and knock her down—all for one as ’av she wor a
dhrunken blackguard at a fair!”
“You didn’t see that, Biddy?”
“No, ma’am—I didn’t see it; how could I, through the door?—but I heerd
it, plain enough. I heerd the poor cratur fall for dead amongst the
tables and chairs—I did, Mrs Kelly—and I heerd the big blow smash agin
her poor head, and down she wint—why wouldn’t she? and he, the born
ruffian, her own brother, the big blackguard, stricking at her wid all
his force! Well, wid that ma’am, I rushed into the room—at laist, I
didn’t rush in—for how could I, and the door locked?—but I knocked agin
and agin, for I war afeard he would be murthering her out and out. So,
I calls out, as loud as I could, as how Miss Anty war wanting in the
kitchen: and wid that he come to the door, and unlocks it as bould as
brass, and rushes out into the garden, saying as how Miss Anty war
afther fainting. Well, in course I goes in to her, where he had dragged
her upon the sofa, and, thrue enough, she war faint indeed.”
“And, did she tell you, Biddy, that her own brother had trated her that
way?”
“Wait, Mrs Kelly, ma’am, till I tell yer how it all happened. When she
comed to herself—and she warn’t long coming round—she didn’t say much,
nor did I; for I didn’t just like then to be saying much agin the
masther, for who could know where his ears were?—perish his sowl, the
blackguard!”
“Don’t be cursing, Biddy.”
“No, ma’am; only he must be cursed, sooner or later. Well, when she
comed to herself, she begged av’ me to help her to bed, and she went up
to her room, and laid herself down, and I thought to myself that at any
rate it was all over for that night. When she war gone, the masther he
soon come back into the house, and begun calling for the sperrits
again, like mad; and Terry said that when he tuk the biling wather into
the room, Mr Barry war just like the divil—as he’s painted, only for
his ears. After that Terry wint to bed; and I and Judy weren’t long
afther him, for we didn’t care to be sitting up alone wid him, and he
mad dhrunk. So we turned in, and we were in bed maybe two hours or so,
and fast enough, when down come the misthress—as pale as a sheet, wid a
candle in her hand, and begged me, for dear life, to come up into her
room to her, and so I did, in coorse. And then she tould me all—and,
not contint with what he’d done down stairs, but the dhrunken ruffian
must come up into her bed-room and swear the most dreadfullest things
to her you iver heerd, Mrs Kelly. The words he war afther using, and
the things he said, war most horrid; and Miss Anty wouldn’t for her
dear life, nor for all the money in Dunmore, stop another night, nor
another day in the house wid him.”
“But, is she much hurt, Biddy?”
“Oh! her head’s cut, dreadful, where she fell, ma’am: and he shuck the
very life out of her poor carcase; so he did, Mrs Kelly, the ruffian!”
“Don’t be cursing, I tell you, girl. And what is it your misthress is
wishing to do now? Did she tell you to come to me?”
“No, ma’am; she didn’t exactly tell me—only as she war saying that she
wouldn’t for anything be staying in the house with Mr Barry; and as she
didn’t seem to be knowing where she’d be going, and av’ she be raally
going to be married to Mr Martin—”
“Drat Mr Martin, you fool! Did she tell you she wanted to come here?”.
“She didn’t quite say as much as that. To tell the thruth, thin, it wor
I that said it, and she didn’t unsay it; so, wid that, I thought I’d
come down here the first thing, and av’ you, Mrs Kelly, wor thinking it
right, we’d get her out of the house before the masther’s stirring.”
The widow was a prudent woman, and she stood, for some time,
considering; for she felt that, if she held out her hand to Anty now,
she must stick to her through and through in the battle which there
would be between her and her brother; and there might be more plague
than profit in that. But then, again, she was not at all so indifferent
as she had appeared to be, to her favourite son’s marrying four hundred
a-year. She was angry at his thinking of such a thing without
consulting her; she feared the legal difficulties he must encounter;
and she didn’t like the thoughts of its being said that her son had
married an old fool, and cozened her out of her money. But still, four
hundred a-year was a great thing; and Anty was a good-tempered
tractable young woman, of the right religion, and would not make a bad
wife; and, on reconsideration, Mrs Kelly thought the thing wasn’t to be
sneezed at. Then, again, she hated Barry, and, having a high spirit,
felt indignant that he should think of preventing her son from marrying
his sister, if the two of them chose to do it; and she knew she’d be
able, and willing enough, too, to tell him a bit of her mind, if there
should be occasion. And lastly, and most powerfully of all, the woman’s
feeling came in to overcome her prudential scruples, and to open her
heart and her house to a poor, kindly, innocent creature, ill-treated
as Anty Lynch had been. She was making up her mind what to do, and
determining to give battle royal to Barry and all his satellites, on
behalf of Anty, when Biddy interrupted her by saying,—
“I hope I warn’t wrong, ma’am, in coming down and throubling you so
arly? I thought maybe you’d be glad to befrind Miss Anty—seeing she and
Miss Meg, and Miss Jane, is so frindly.”
“No, Biddy;—for a wondher, you’re right, this morning. Mr Barry won’t
be stirring yet?”
“Divil a stir, ma’am! The dhrunkenness won’t be off him yet this long
while. And will I go up, and be bringing Miss Anty down, ma’am?”
“Wait a while. Sit to the fire there, and warm your shins. You’re a
good girl. I’ll go and get on my shoes and stockings, and my cloak, and
bonnet. I must go up wid you myself, and ask yer misthress down, as she
should be asked. They’ll be telling lies on her ’av she don’t lave the
house dacently, as she ought.”
“More power to you thin, Mrs Kelly, this blessed morning, for a kind
good woman as you are, God bless you!” whimpered forth Biddy, who, now
that she had obtained her request, began to cry, and to stuff the
corner of her petticoat into her eyes.
“Whist, you fool—whist,” said the widow. “Go and get up Sally—you know
where she sleeps—and tell her to put down a fire in the little parlour
upstairs, and to get a cup of tay ready, and to have Miss Meg up. Your
misthress’ll be the better of a quiet sleep afther the night she’s had,
and it’ll be betther for her jist popping into Miss Meg’s bed than
getting between a pair of cowld sheets.”
These preparations met with Biddy’s entire approval, for she reiterated
her blessings on the widow, as she went to announce all the news to
Sally and Kate, while Mrs Kelly made such preparations as were fitting
for a walk, at that early hour, up to Dunmore House.
They were not long before they were under weigh, but they did not reach
the house quite so quickly as Biddy had left it. Mrs Kelly had to pick
her way in the half light, and observed that “she’d never been up to
the house since old Simeon Lynch built it, and when the stones were
laying for it, she didn’t think she ever would; but one never knowed
what changes might happen in this world.”
They were soon in the house, for Judy was up to let them in; and though
she stared when she saw Mrs Kelly, she merely curtsied, and said
nothing.
The girl went upstairs first, with the candle, and Mrs Kelly followed,
very gently, on tiptoe. She need not have been so careful to avoid
waking Barry, for, had a drove of oxen been driven upstairs, it would
not have roused him. However, up she crept,—her thick shoes creaking on
every stair,—and stood outside the door, while Biddy went in to break
the news of her arrival.
Anty was still asleep, but it did not take much to rouse her; and she
trembled in her bed, when, on her asking what was the matter, Mrs Kelly
popped her bonnet inside the door, and said,
“It’s only me, my dear. Mrs Kelly, you know, from the inn,” and then
she very cautiously insinuated the rest of her body into the room, as
though she thought that Barry was asleep under the bed, and she was
afraid of treading on one of his stray fingers. “It’s only me, my dear.
Biddy’s been down to me, like a good girl; and I tell you what—this is
no place for you, just at present, Miss Anty; not till such time as
things is settled a little. So I’m thinking you’d betther be slipping
down wid me to the inn there, before your brother’s up. There’s nobody
in it, not a sowl, only Meg, and Jane, and me, and we’ll make you snug
enough between us, never fear.”
“Do, Miss Anty, dear do, darling,” added Biddy. “It’ll be a dale
betther for you than waiting here to be batthered and bruised, and,
perhaps, murthered out and out.”
“Hush, Biddy—don’t be saying such things,” said the widow, who had a
great idea of carrying on the war on her own premises, but who felt
seriously afraid of Barry now that she was in his house, “don’t be
saying such things, to frighthen her. But you’ll be asier there than
here,” she continued, to Anty; “and there’s nothin like having things
asy. So, get up alanna [12], and we’ll have you warm and snug down
there in no time.”
Anty did not want much persuading. She was soon induced to get up and
dress herself, to put on her cloak and bonnet, and hurry off with the
widow, before the people of Dunmore should be up to look at her going
through the town to the inn; while Biddy was left to pack up such
things as were necessary for her mistress’ use, and enjoined to hurry
down with them to the inn as quick as she could; for, as the widow
said, “there war no use in letting every idle bosthoon [13] in the
place see her crossing with a lot of baggage, and set them all asking
the where and the why and the wherefore; though, for the matther of
that, they’d all hear it soon enough.”
To tell the truth, Mrs Kelly’s courage waned from the moment of her
leaving her own door, and it did not return till she felt herself
within it again. Indeed, as she was leaving the gate of Dunmore House,
with Anty on her arm, she was already beginning to repent what she was
doing; for there were idlers about, and she felt ashamed of carrying
off the young heiress. But these feelings vanished the moment she had
crossed her own sill. When she had once got Anty home, it was all
right. The widow Kelly seldom went out into the world; she seldom went
anywhere except to mass; and, when out, she was a very modest and
retiring old lady; but she could face the devil, if necessary, across
her own counter.
And so Anty was rescued, for a while, from her brother’s persecution.
This happened on the morning on which Martin and Lord Ballindine met
together at the lawyer’s, when the deeds were prepared which young
Kelly’s genuine honesty made him think necessary before he eloped with
old Sim Lynch’s heiress. He would have been rather surprised to hear,
at that moment, that his mother had been before him, and carried off
his bride elect to the inn!
Anty was soon domesticated. The widow, very properly, wouldn’t let her
friends, Meg and Jane, ask her any questions at present. Sally had
made, on the occasion, a pot of tea sufficient to supply the morning
wants of half a regiment, and had fully determined that it should not
be wasted. The Kelly girls were both up, and ready to do anything for
their friend; so they got her to take a little of Sally’s specific, and
put her into a warm bed to sleep, quiet and secure from any
interruption.
While her guest was sleeping, the widow made up her mind that her best
and safest course, for the present, would be, as she expressed it to
her daughter, Meg, “to keep her toe in her pump, and say nothing to
nobody.”
“Anty can just stay quiet and asy,” she continued, “till we see what
Master Barry manes to be afther; he’ll find it difficult enough to move
her out of this, I’m thinking, and I doubt his trying. As to money
matthers, I’ll neither meddle nor make, nor will you, mind; so listen
to that, girls; and as to Moylan, he’s a dacent quiet poor man—but it’s
bad thrusting any one. Av’ he’s her agent, however, I s’pose he’ll look
afther the estate; only, Barry’ll be smashing the things up there at
the house yonder in his anger and dhrunken fits, and it’s a pity the
poor girl’s property should go to rack. But he’s such a born divil,
she’s lucky to be out of his clutches alive; though, thank the
Almighty, that put a good roof over the lone widow this day, he can’t
clutch her here. Wouldn’t I like to see him come to the door and ax for
her! And he can’t smash the acres, nor the money they say Mulholland
has, at Tuam; and faix, av’ he does any harm up there at the house,
shure enough Anty can make him pay for it—every pot and pan of it—out
of his share, and she’ll do it, too—av’ she’s said by me. But mind,
I’ll neither meddle nor make; neither do you, and then we’re safe, and
Anty too. And Martin’ll be here soon—I wondher what good Dublin’ll do
him?—They might have the Repale without him, I suppose?—And when he’s
here, why, av’ he’s minded to marry her, and she’s plased, why, Father
Geoghegan may come down, and do it before the whole counthry, and who’s
ashamed? But there’ll be no huggery-muggery, and schaming; that is, av’
they’re said by me. Faix, I’d like to know who she’s to be afeared of,
and she undher this roof! I s’pose Martin ain’t fool enough to care for
what such a fellow as Barry Lynch can do or say—and he with all the
Kellys to back him; as shure they would, and why not, from the lord
down? Not that I recommend the match; I think Martin a dale betther off
as he is, for he’s wanting nothing, and he’s his own industhry—and,
maybe, a handful of money besides. But, as for being afeard—I niver
heard yet that a Kelly need be afeard of a Lynch in Dunmore.”
In this manner did Mrs Kelly express the various thoughts that ran
through her head, as she considered Anty’s affairs; and if we could
analyse the good lady’s mind, we should probably find that the result
of her reflections was a pleasing assurance that she could exercise the
Christian virtues of charity and hospitality towards Anty, and, at the
same time, secure her son’s wishes and welfare, without subjecting her
own name to any obloquy, or putting herself to any loss or
inconvenience. She determined to put no questions to Anty, nor even to
allude to her brother, unless spoken to on the subject; but, at the
same time, she stoutly resolved to come to no terms with Barry, and to
defy him to the utmost, should he attempt to invade her in her own
territories.
After a sound sleep Anty got up, much strengthened and refreshed, and
found the two Kelly girls ready to condole with, or congratulate her,
according to her mood and spirits. In spite of their mother’s caution,
they were quite prepared for gossiping, as soon as Anty showed the
slightest inclination that way; and, though she at first was afraid to
talk about her brother, and was even, from kindly feeling, unwilling to
do so, the luxury of such an opportunity of unrestrained confidence
overcame her; and, before the three had been sitting together for a
couple of hours, she had described the whole interview, as well as the
last drunken midnight visit of Barry’s to her own bed-room, which, to
her imagination, was the most horrible of all the horrors of the night.
Poor Anty. She cried vehemently that morning—more in sorrow for her
brother, than in remembrance of her own fears, as she told her friends
how he had threatened to shut her up in a mad-house, and then to murder
her, unless she promised him not to marry; and when she described how
brutally he had struck her, and how, afterwards, he had crept to her
room, with his red eyes and swollen face, in the dead of the night,
and, placing his hot mouth close to her ears, had dreadfully sworn that
she should die, if she thought of Martin Kelly as her husband, she
trembled as though she was in an ague fit.
The girls said all they could to comfort her, and they succeeded in a
great degree; but they could not bring her to talk of Martin. She
shuddered whenever his name was mentioned, and they began to fear that
Barry’s threat would have the intended effect, and frighten her from
the match. However, they kindly talked of other things—of how
impossible it was that she should go back to Dunmore House, and how
comfortable and snug they would make her at the inn, till she got a
home for herself; of what she should do, and of all their little
household plans together; till Anty, when she could forget her
brother’s threats for a time, seemed to be more comfortable and happy
than she had been for years.
In vain did the widow that morning repeatedly invoke Meg and Jane,
first one and then the other, to assist in her commercial labours. In
vain were Sally and Kate commissioned to bring them down. If, on some
urgent behest, one of them darted down to mix a dandy of punch, or
weigh a pound of sugar, when the widow was imperatively employed
elsewhere, she was upstairs again, before her mother could look about
her; and, at last, Mrs Kelly was obliged to content herself with the
reflection that girls would be girls, and that it was “nathural and
right they shouldn’t wish to lave Anty alone the first morning, and she
sthrange to the place.”
At five o’clock, the widow, as was her custom, went up to her dinner;
and Meg was then obliged to come down and mind the shop, till her
sister, having dined, should come down and relieve guard. She had only
just ensconced herself behind the counter, when who should walk into
the shop but Barry Lynch.
Had Meg seen an ogre, or the enemy of all mankind himself, she could
not, at the moment, have been more frightened; and she stood staring at
him, as if the sudden loss of the power of motion alone prevented her
from running away.
“I want to see Mrs Kelly,” said Barry; “d’ye hear? I want to see your
mother; go and tell her.”
But we must go back, and see how Mr Lynch had managed to get up, and
pass his morning.