Once more I went to my bed, but this time with my clothes off, for if
there was to be a conference with the Earl and the Countess at the
Manor House, not to speak of the chance of seeing Lady Mary herself, I
wished to put on the new and gorgeous suit I had bought in London for
that occasion, and which had not yet been on my back. I was so excited
and so delighted with the thought of seeing Lady Mary that I knew I
could not sleep a wink, especially as daylight was upon me, but I had
scarcely put my head on the pillow when I was as sound asleep as any
of my ancestors, the old Kings of Kinsale. The first thing I knew
Paddy was shaking me by the shoulder just a little rougher than a
well-trained servant should.
"Beggin' your pardon," says he, "his lordship, the great Earl of
Westport, sends word by a messenger that he'll be pleased to have
account with ye, at your early convenience, over at the Manor House
beyond."
"Very well, Paddy," said I, "ask the messenger to take my compliments
to the Earl and say to him I will do myself the honour of calling on
him in an hour's time. Deliver that message to him; then come back and
help me on with my new duds."
When Paddy returned I was still yawning, but in the shake of a
shillelah he had me inside the new costume, and he stood back against
the wall with his hand raised in amazement and admiration at the glory
he beheld. He said after that kings would be nothing to him, and
indeed the tailor had done his best and had won his guineas with more
honesty than you'd expect from a London tradesman. I was quietly
pleased with the result myself.
I noticed with astonishment that it was long after mid-day, so it
occurred to me that Lord Strepp must have had a good sleep himself,
and sure the poor boy needed it, for it's no pleasure to spend life
underground till after you're dead, and his evening in the tunnel must
have been very trying to him, as indeed he admitted to me afterward
that it was.
I called on Father Donovan, and he looked me over from head to foot
with wonder and joy in his eye.
"My dear lad, you're a credit to the O'Ruddys," he said, "and to
Ireland," he said, "and to the Old Head of Kinsale," he said.
"And to that little tailor in London as well," I replied, turning
around so that he might see me the better.
In spite of my chiding him Paddy could not contain his delight, and
danced about the room like an overgrown monkey.
"Paddy," said I, "you're making a fool of yourself."
Then I addressed his Reverence.
"Father Donovan," I began, "this cruel war is over and done with, and
no one hurt and no blood shed, so the Earl--"
At this moment there was a crash and an unearthly scream, then a thud
that sounded as if it had happened in the middle of the earth. Father
Donovan and I looked around in alarm, but Paddy was nowhere to be
seen. Toward the wall there was a square black hole, and, rushing up
to it, we knew at once what had happened. Paddy had danced a bit too
heavy on an old trap-door, and the rusty bolts had broken. It had let
him down into a dungeon that had no other entrance; and indeed this
was a queer house entirely, with many odd nooks and corners about it,
besides the disadvantage of Sir Goddard Oxenbridge tramping through
the rooms in two sections.
"For the love of Heaven and all the Saints," I cried down this
trap-door, "Paddy, what has happened to you?"
"Sure, sir, the house has fallen on me."
"Nothing of the kind, Paddy. The house is where it always was. Are you
hurted?"
"I'm dead and done for completely this time, sir. Sure I feel I'm with
the angels at last."
"Tut, tut, Paddy, my lad; you've gone in the wrong direction
altogether for them."
"Oh, I'm dying, and I feel the flutter of their wings," and as he
spoke two or three ugly blind bats fluttered up and butted their
stupid heads against the wall.
"You've gone in the right direction for the wrong kind of angels,
Paddy; but don't be feared, they're only bats, like them in my own
tower at home, except they're larger."
I called for Tom Peel, as he knew the place well.
"Many a good cask of brandy has gone down that trap-door," said he,
"and the people opposite have searched this house from cellar to
garret and never made the discovery Paddy did a moment since."
He got a stout rope and sent a man down, who found Paddy much more
frightened than hurt. We hoisted both of them up, and Paddy was a
sight to behold.
"Bad luck to ye," says I; "just at the moment I want a presentable lad
behind me when I'm paying my respects to the Earl of Westport, you
must go diving into the refuse heap of a house that doesn't belong to
you, and spoiling the clothes that does. Paddy, if you were in a seven
years' war, you would be the first man wounded and the last man
killed, with all the trouble for nothing in between. Is there anything
broken about ye?"
"Every leg and arm I've got is broken," he whimpered, but Father
Donovan, who was nearly as much of a surgeon as a priest, passed his
hand over the trembling lad, then smote him on the back, and said the
exercise of falling had done him good.
"Get on with you," said I, "and get off with those clothes. Wash
yourself, and put on the suit I was wearing yesterday, and see that
you don't fall in the water-jug and drown yourself."
I gave the order for Tom Peel to saddle the four horses and get six of
his men with swords and pistols and blunderbusses to act as an escort
for me.
"Are you going back to Rye, your honour?" asked Peel.
"I am not. I am going to the Manor House."
"That's but a step," he cried in surprise.
"It's a step," said I, "that will be taken with dignity and
consequence."
So, with the afternoon sun shining in our faces, we set out from the
house of Brede, leaving but few men to guard it. Of course I ran the
risk that it might be taken in our absence; but I trusted the word of
Lord Strepp as much as I distrusted the designs of his father and
mother, and Strepp had been the captain of the expedition against us;
but if I had been sure the mansion was lost to me, I would have evaded
none of the pomp of my march to the Manor House in the face of such
pride as these upstarts of Westports exhibited toward a representative
of a really ancient family like the O'Ruddy. So his Reverence and I
rode slowly side by side, with Jem and Paddy, also on horseback, a
decent interval behind us, and tramping in their wake that giant, Tom
Peel, with six men nearly as stalwart as himself, their blunderbusses
over their shoulders, following him. It struck panic in the village
when they saw this terrible array marching up the hill toward them,
with the sun glittering on us as if we were walking jewellery. The
villagers, expecting to be torn limb from limb, scuttled away into the
forest, leaving the place as empty as a bottle of beer after a wake.
Even the guards around the Manor House fled as we approached it, for
the fame of our turbulence had spread abroad in the land. Lord Strepp
tried to persuade them that nothing would happen to them, for when he
saw the style in which we were coming he was anxious to make a show
from the Westport side and had drawn up his men in line to receive us.
But we rode through a silent village that might have been just sacked
by the French. I thought afterward that this desertion had a subduing
effect on the old Earl's pride, and made him more easy to deal with.
In any case his manner was somewhat abated when he received me. Lord
Strepp himself was there at the door, making excuses for the servants,
who he said had gone to the fields to pick berries for their supper.
So, leaving Paddy to hold one horse and Jem the other, with the seven
men drawn up fiercely in front of the Manor House, Father Donovan and
myself followed Lord Strepp into a large room, and there, buried in an
arm-chair, reclined the aged Earl of Westport, looking none too
pleased to meet his visitors. In cases like this it's as well to be
genial at the first, so that you may remove the tension in the
beginning.
"The top of the morning--I beg your pardon--the tail of the afternoon
to you, sir, and I hope I see you well."
"I am very well," said his lordship, more gruffly than politely.
"Permit me to introduce to your lordship, his Reverence, Father
Donovan, who has kindly consented to accompany me that he may yield
testimony to the long-standing respectability of the House of
O'Ruddy."
"I am pleased to meet your Reverence," said the Earl, although his
appearance belied his words. He wasn't pleased to meet either of us,
if one might judge by his lowering countenance, in spite of my
cordiality and my wish to make his surrender as easy for him as
possible.
I was disappointed not to see the Countess and Lady Mary in the room,
for it seemed a pity that such a costume as mine should be wasted on
an old curmudgeon, sitting with his chin in his breast in the depths
of an easy-chair, looking daggers though he spoke dumplings.
I was just going to express my regret to Lord Strepp that no ladies
were to be present in our assemblage, when the door opened, and who
should sail in, like a full-rigged man-o'-war, but the Countess
herself, and Lady Mary, like an elegant yacht floating in tow of her.
I swept my bonnet to the boards of the floor with a gesture that would
have done honour to the Court of France; but her Ladyship tossed her
nose higher in the air, as if the man-o'-war had encountered a huge
wave. She seated herself with emphasis on a chair, and says I to
myself, "It's lucky for you, you haven't Paddy's trap-door under you,
or we'd see your heels disappear, coming down like that."
Lady Mary very modestly took up her position standing behind her
mother's chair, and, after one timid glance at me, dropped her eyes on
the floor, and then there were some moments of silence, as if every
one was afraid to begin. I saw I was going to have trouble with the
Countess, and although I think it will be admitted by my enemies that
I'm as brave a man as ever faced a foe, I was reluctant to throw down
the gage of battle to the old lady.
It was young Lord Strepp that began, and he spoke most politely, as
was his custom.
"I took the liberty of sending for you, Mr. O'Ruddy, and I thank you
for responding so quickly to my invitation. The occurrences of the
past day or two, it would be wiser perhaps to ignore--"
At this there was an indignant sniff from the Countess, and I feared
she was going to open her batteries, but to my amazement she kept
silent, although the effort made her red in the face.
"I have told my father and mother," went on Lord Strepp, "that I had
some conversation with you this morning, and that conditions might be
arrived at satisfactory to all parties concerned. I have said nothing
to my parents regarding the nature of these conditions, but I gained
their consent to give consideration to anything you might say, and to
any proposal you are good enough to make."
The old gentleman mumbled something incomprehensible in his chair, but
the old lady could keep silence no longer.
"This is an outrage," she cried, "the man's action has been scandalous
and unlawful. If, instead of bringing those filthy scoundrels against
our own house, those cowards that ran away as soon as they heard the
sound of a blunderbuss, we had all stayed in London, and you had had
the law of him, he would have been in gaol by this time and not
standing brazenly there in the Manor House of Brede."
And after saying this she sniffed again, having no appreciation of
good manners.
"Your ladyship has been misinformed," I said with extreme deference.
"The case is already in the hands of dignified men of law, who are
mightily pleased with it."
"Pleased with it, you idiot," she cried. "They are pleased with it
simply because they know somebody will pay them for their work, even
it's a beggar from Ireland, who has nothing on him but rags."
"Your ladyship," said I, not loath to call attention to my costume,
"I assure you these rags cost golden guineas in London."
"Well, you will not get golden guineas from Brede estate," snapped her
ladyship.
"Again your ladyship is misinformed. The papers are so perfect, and so
well do they confirm my title to this beautiful domain, that the
money-lenders of London simply bothered the life out of me trying to
shovel gold on me, and both his lordship and your ladyship know that
if a title is defective there is no money to be lent on it."
"You're a liar," said the Countess genially, although the Earl looked
up in alarm when I mentioned that I could draw money on the papers.
Again I bowed deeply to her ladyship, and, putting my hands in my
pockets, I drew out two handfuls of gold, which I strewed up and down
the floor as if I were sowing corn, and each guinea was no more than a
grain of it.
"There is the answer to your ladyship's complimentary remark," said I
with a flourish of my empty hands; and, seeing Lady Mary's eyes
anxiously fixed on me, I dropped her a wink with the side of my face
farthest from the Countess, at which Lady Mary's eyelids drooped
again. But I might have winked with both eyes for all the Countess,
who was staring like one in a dream at the glittering pieces that lay
here and there and gleamed all over the place like the little yellow
devils they were. She seemed struck dumb, and if anyone thinks gold
cannot perform a miracle, there is the proof of it.
"Is it gold?" cried I in a burst of eloquence that charmed even
myself, "sure I could sow you acres with it by the crooking of my
little finger from the revenues of my estate at the Old Head of
Kinsale."
"O'Ruddy, O'Ruddy," said Father Donovan very softly and reprovingly,
for no one knew better than him what my ancestral revenues were.
"Ah well, Father," said I, "your reproof is well-timed. A man should
not boast, and I'll say no more of my castles and my acres, though the
ships on the sea pay tribute to them. But all good Saints preserve us,
Earl of Westport, if you feel proud to own this poor estate of Brede,
think how little it weighed with my father, who all his life did not
take the trouble to come over and look at it. Need I say more about
Kinsale when you hear that? And as for myself, did I attempt to lay
hands on this trivial bit of earth because I held the papers? You know
I tossed them into your daughter's lap because she was the
finest-looking girl I have seen since I landed on these shores."
"Well, well, well, well," growled the Earl, "I admit I have acted
rashly and harshly in this matter, and it is likely I have done wrong
to an honourable gentleman, therefore I apologize for it. Now, what
have you to propose?"
"I have to propose myself as the husband of your daughter, Lady Mary,
and as for our dowry, there it is on the floor for the picking up, and
I'm content with that much if I get the lady herself."
His lordship slowly turned his head around and gazed at his daughter,
who now was looking full at me with a frown on her brow. Although I
knew I had depressed the old people, I had an uneasy feeling that I
had displeased Lady Mary herself by my impulsive action and my
bragging words. A curious mildness came into the harsh voice of the
old Earl, and he said, still looking at his daughter:
"What does Mary say to this?"
The old woman could not keep her eyes from the gold, which somehow
held her tongue still, yet I knew she was hearing every word that was
said, although she made no comment. Lady Mary shook herself, as if to
arouse herself from a trance, then she said in a low voice:
"I can never marry a man I do not love."
"What's that? what's that?" shrieked her mother, turning fiercely
round upon her, whereat Lady Mary took a step back. "Love, love? What
nonsense is this I hear? You say you will not marry this man to save
the estate of Brede?"
"I shall marry no man whom I do not love," repeated Lady Mary firmly.
As for me, I stood there, hat in hand, with my jaw dropped, as if
Sullivan had given me a stunning blow in the ear; then the old Earl
said sternly:
"I cannot force my daughter: this conference is at an end. The law
must decide between us."
"The law, you old dotard," cried the Countess, rounding then on him
with a suddenness that made him seem to shrink into his shell. "The
law! Is a silly wench to run us into danger of losing what is ours? He
_shall_ marry her. If you will not force her, then I'll coerce her;"
and with that she turned upon her daughter, grasped her by her two
shoulders and shook her as a terrier shakes a rat. At this Lady Mary
began to weep, and indeed she had good cause to do so.
"Hold, madam," shouted I, springing toward her. "Leave the girl alone.
I agree with his lordship, no woman shall be coerced on account of
me."
My intervention turned the Countess from her victim upon me.
"You agree with his lordship, you Irish baboon? Don't think she'll
marry you because of any liking for you, you chattering ape, who
resemble a monkey in a show with those trappings upon you. She'll
marry you because I say she'll marry you, and you'll give up those
papers to me, who have sense enough to take care of them. If I have a
doddering husband, who at the same time lost his breeches and his
papers, I shall make amends for his folly."
"Madam," said I, "you shall have the papers; and as for the breeches,
by the terror you spread around you, I learn they are already in your
possession."
I thought she would have torn my eyes out, but I stepped back and
saved myself.
"To your room, you huzzy," she cried to her daughter, and Mary fled
toward the door. I leaped forward and opened it for her. She paused on
the threshold, pretending again to cry, but instead whispered:
"My mother is the danger. Leave things alone," she said quickly. "We
can easily get poor father's consent."
With that she was gone. I closed the door and returned to the centre
of the room.
"Madam," said I, "I will not have your daughter browbeaten. It is
quite evident she refuses to marry me."
"Hold your tongue, and keep to your word, you idiot," she rejoined,
hitting me a bewildering slap on the side of the face, after which
she flounced out by the way her daughter had departed.
The old Earl said nothing, but gazed gloomily into space from out the
depths of his chair. Father Donovan seemed inexpressibly shocked, but
my Lord Strepp, accustomed to his mother's tantrums, laughed outright
as soon as the door was closed. All through he had not been in the
least deceived by his sister's pretended reluctance, and recognized
that the only way to get the mother's consent was through opposition.
He sprang up and grasped me by the hand and said:
"Well, O'Ruddy, I think your troubles are at an end, or," he cried,
laughing again, "just beginning, but you'll be able to say more on
that subject this time next year. Never mind my mother; Mary is, and
always will be, the best girl in the world."
"I believe you," said I, returning his handshake as cordially as he
had bestowed it.
"Hush!" he cried, jumping back into his seat again. "Let us all look
dejected. Hang your head, O'Ruddy!" and again the door opened, this
time the Countess leading Lady Mary, her long fingers grasping that
slim wrist.
"She gives her consent," snapped the Countess, as if she were
pronouncing sentence. I strode forward toward her, but Mary wrenched
her wrist free, slipped past me, and dropped at the feet of Father
Donovan, who had risen as she came in.
"Your blessing on me, dear Father," she cried, bowing her head, "and
pray on my behalf that there may be no more turbulence in my life."
The old father crossed his hands on her shapely head, and for a moment
or two it seemed as if he could not command his voice, and I saw the
tears fill his eyes. At last he said simply and solemnly:--
"May God bless you and yours, my dear daughter."
* * * * *
We were married by Father Donovan with pomp and ceremony in the chapel
of the old house, and in the same house I now pen the last words of
these memoirs, which I began at the request of Lady Mary herself, and
continued for the pleasure she expressed as they went on. If this
recital is disjointed in parts, it must be remembered I was always
more used to the sword than to the pen, and that it is difficult to
write with Patrick and little Mary and Terence and Kathleen and
Michael and Bridget and Donovan playing about me and asking questions,
but I would not have the darlings sent from the room for all the
writings there is in the world.
* * * * *
End of Project Gutenberg's The O'Ruddy, by Stephen Crane and Robert Barr