The Fairies in the Castle
The Rebellion of '45 came, and Ultor de Lacy was one of the few Irishmen
implicated treasonably in that daring and romantic insurrection. Of
course there were warrants out against him, but he was not to be found.
The young ladies, indeed, remained as heretofore in their father's
lonely house in Clare; but whether he had crossed the water or was still
in Ireland was for some time unknown, even to them. In due course he was
attainted, and his little estate forfeited. It was a miserable
catastrophe--a tremendous and beggarly waking up from a life-long dream
of returning principality.
In due course the officers of the crown came down to take possession,
and it behoved the young ladies to flit. Happily for them the
ecclesiastic I have mentioned was not quite so confident as their
father, of his winning back the magnificent patrimony of his ancestors;
and by his advice the daughters had been secured twenty pounds a year
each, under the marriage settlement of their parents, which was all that
stood between this proud house and literal destitution.
Late one evening, as some little boys from the village were returning
from a ramble through the dark and devious glen of Cappercullen, with
their pockets laden with nuts and "frahans," to their amazement and even
terror they saw a light streaming redly from the narrow window of one of
the towers overhanging the precipice among the ivy and the lofty
branches, across the glen, already dim in the shadows of the deepening
night.
"Look--look--look--'tis the Phooka's tower!" was the general cry, in the
vernacular Irish, and a universal scamper commenced.
The bed of the glen, strewn with great fragments of rock, among which
rose the tall stems of ancient trees, and overgrown with a tangled
copse, was at the best no favourable ground for a run. Now it was dark;
and, terrible work breaking through brambles and hazels and tumbling
over rocks. Little Shaeen Mull Ryan, the last of the panic rout,
screaming to his mates to wait for him--saw a whitish figure emerge from
the thicket at the base of the stone flight of steps that descended the
side of the glen, close by the castle-wall, intercepting his flight, and
a discordant male voice shrieked----
"I have you!"
At the same time the boy, with a cry of terror, tripped and tumbled; and
felt himself roughly caught by the arm, and hauled to his feet with a
shake.
A wild yell from the child, and a volley of terror and entreaty
followed.
"Who is it, Larry; what's the matter?" cried a voice, high in air, from
the turret window, The words floated down through the trees, clear and
sweet as the low notes of a flute.
"Only a child, my lady; a boy."
"Is he hurt?"
"Are you hurted?" demanded the whitish man, who held him fast, and
repeated the question in Irish; but the child only kept blubbering and
crying for mercy, with his hands clasped, and trying to drop on his
knees.
Larry's strong old hand held him up. He _was_ hurt, and bleeding from
over his eye.
"Just a trifle hurted, my lady!"
"Bring him up here."
Shaeen Mull Ryan gave himself over. He was among "the good people," who
he knew would keep him prisoner for ever and a day. There was no good in
resisting. He grew bewildered, and yielded himself passively to his
fate, and emerged from the glen on the platform above; his captor's
knotted old hand still on his arm, and looked round on the tall
mysterious trees, and the gray front of the castle, revealed in the
imperfect moonlight, as upon the scenery of a dream.
The old man who, with thin wiry legs, walked by his side, in a dingy
white coat, and blue facings, and great pewter buttons, with his silver
gray hair escaping from under his battered three-cocked hat; and his
shrewd puckered resolute face, in which the boy could read no promise of
sympathy, showing so white and phantom-like in the moonlight, was, as he
thought, the incarnate ideal of a fairy.
This figure led him in silence under the great arched gateway, and
across the grass-grown court, to the door in the far angle of the
building; and so, in the dark, round and round, up a stone screw stair,
and with a short turn into a large room, with a fire of turf and wood,
burning on its long unused hearth, over which hung a pot, and about it
an old woman with a great wooden spoon was busy. An iron candlestick
supported their solitary candle; and about the floor of the room, as
well as on the table and chairs, lay a litter of all sorts of things;
piles of old faded hangings, boxes, trunks, clothes, pewter-plates, and
cups; and I know not what more.
But what instantly engaged the fearful gaze of the boy were the figures
of two ladies; red drugget cloaks they had on, like the peasant girls of
Munster and Connaught, and the rest of their dress was pretty much in
keeping. But they had the grand air, the refined expression and beauty,
and above all, the serene air of command that belong to people of a
higher rank.
The elder, with black hair and full brown eyes, sat writing at the deal
table on which the candle stood, and raised her dark gaze to the boy as
he came in. The other, with her hood thrown back, beautiful and _riant_,
with a flood of wavy golden hair, and great blue eyes, and with
something kind, and arch, and strange in her countenance, struck him as
the most wonderful beauty he could have imagined.
They questioned the man in a language strange to the child. It was not
English, for he had a smattering of that, and the man's story seemed to
amuse them. The two young ladies exchanged a glance, and smiled
mysteriously. He was more convinced than ever that he was among the good
people. The younger stepped gaily forward and said----
"Do you know who _I_ am, my little man? Well, I'm the fairy Una, and
this is my palace; and that fairy you see there (pointing to the dark
lady, who was looking out something in a box), is my sister and family
physician, the Lady Graveairs; and these (glancing at the old man and
woman), are some of my courtiers; and I'm considering now what I shall
do with _you_, whether I shall send you to-night to Lough Guir, riding
on a rush, to make my compliments to the Earl of Desmond in his
enchanted castle; or, straight to your bed, two thousand miles under
ground, among the gnomes; or to prison in that little corner of the moon
you see through the window--with the man-in-the-moon for your gaoler,
for thrice three hundred years and a day! There, don't cry. You only see
how serious a thing it is for you, little boys, to come so near my
castle. Now, for this once, I'll let you go. But, henceforward, any boys
I, or my people, may find within half a mile round my castle, shall
belong to me for life, and never behold their home or their people
more."
And she sang a little air and chased mystically half a dozen steps
before him, holding out her cloak with her pretty fingers, and
courtesying very low, to his indescribable alarm.
Then, with a little laugh, she said----
"My little man, we must mend your head."
And so they washed his scratch, and the elder one applied a plaister to
it. And she of the great blue eyes took out of her pocket a little
French box of bon-bons and emptied it into his hand, and she said----
"You need not be afraid to eat these--they are very good--and I'll send
my fairy, Blanc-et-bleu, to set you free. Take him (she addressed
Larry), and let him go, with a solemn charge."
The elder, with a grave and affectionate smile, said, looking on the
fairy----
"Brave, dear, wild Una! nothing can ever quell your gaiety of heart."
And Una kissed her merrily on the cheek.
So the oak door of the room again opened, and Shaeen, with his
conductor, descended the stair. He walked with the scared boy in grim
silence near half way down the wild hill-side toward Murroa, and then he
stopped, and said in Irish----
"You never saw the fairies before, my fine fellow, and 'tisn't often
those who once set eyes on us return to tell it. Whoever comes nearer,
night or day, than this stone," and he tapped it with the end of his
cane, "will never see his home again, for we'll keep him till the day of
judgment; goodnight, little gossoon--and away with you."
So these young ladies, Alice and Una, with two old servants, by their
father's direction, had taken up their abode in a portion of that side
of the old castle which overhung the glen; and with the furniture and
hangings they had removed from their late residence, and with the aid of
glass in the casements and some other indispensable repairs, and a
thorough airing, they made the rooms they had selected just habitable,
as a rude and temporary shelter.