CONTAINING A SONG BY CHARLES RAVENSHOE, AND ALSO FATHER TIERNAY'S
OPINION ABOUT THE FAMILY.
Charles and the good-natured Father Tiernay wandered out across the old
court-yard, towards the stables--a pile of buildings in the same style
as the house, which lay back towards the hill. The moon was full,
although obscured by clouds, and the whole court-yard was bathed in a
soft mellow light. They both paused for a moment to look at the fine old
building, standing silent for a time; and then Charles startled the
contemplative priest by breaking into a harsh scornful laugh, as unlike
his own cheery Ha! Ha! as it was possible to be.
"What are you disturbing a gentleman's meditations in that way for?"
said the Father. "Is them your Oxford manners? Give me ye'r cigar-case,
ye haythen, if ye can't appreciate the beauties of nature and art
combined--laughing like that at the cradle of your ancestors too."
Charles gave him the cigar-case, and trolled out in a rich bass voice--
"The old falcon's nest
Was built up on the crest
Of the cliff that hangs over the sea;
And the jackdaws and crows,
As every one knows,
Were confounded respectful to he, to he--e--e."
"Howld yer impudence, ye young heretic doggrel-writer; can't I see what
ye are driving at?"
"But the falcon grew old,
And the nest it grew cold,
And the carrion birds they grew bolder;
So the jackdaws and crows,
Underneath his own nose,
Gave both the young falcons cold shoulder."
"Bedad," said the good-natured Irishman, "some one got hot shoulder
to-day. Aren't ye ashamed of yourself, singing such ribaldry, and all
the servants hearing ye?"
"Capital song, Father; only one verse more.
"The elder was quelled,
But the younger rebelled;
So he spread his white wings and fled over the sea.
Said the jackdaws and crows,
'He'll be hanged I suppose,
But what in the deuce does that matter to we?'"
There was something in the wild, bitter tone in which he sang the last
verse that made Father Tiernay smoke his cigar in silence as they
sauntered across the yard, till Charles began again.
"Not a word of applause for my poor impromptu song? Hang it, I'd have
applauded anything you sang."
"Don't be so reckless and bitter, Mr. Ravenshoe," said Tiernay, laying
his hand on his shoulder. "I can feel for you, though there is so little
in common between us. You might lead a happy peaceful life if you were
to come over to us; which you will do, if I know anything of my trade,
in the same day that the sun turns pea-green. _Allons_, as we used to
say over the water; let us continue our travels."
"Reckless! I am not reckless. The jolly old world is very wide, and I am
young and strong. There will be a wrench when the tooth comes out; but
it will soon be over, and the toothache will be cured."
Tiernay remained silent a moment, and then in an absent manner sang this
line, in a sweet low voice--
"For the girl of my heart that I'll never see more."
"She must cast in her lot with me," said Charles. "Ay, and she will do
it, too. She will follow me to the world's end, sir. Are you a judge of
horses? What a question to ask of an Irishman! Here are the stables."
The lads were bedding down, and all the great building was alive with
the clattering of busy feet and the neighing of horses. The great
Ravenshoe Stud was being tucked up for the night; and over that two
thousand pounds' worth of horse-flesh at least six thousand pounds'
worth of fuss was being made, under the superintendence of the stud
groom, Mr. Dickson.
The physical appearance of Mr. Dickson was as though you had taken an
aged Newmarket jockey, and put a barrel of oysters, barrel and all,
inside his waistcoat. His face was thin; his thighs were hollow; calves
to his legs he had none. He was all stomach. Many years had elapsed
since he had been brought to the verge of dissolution by severe
training; and since then all that he had eaten, or drunk, or done, had
flown to his stomach, producing a tympanitic action in that organ,
astounding to behold. In speech he was, towards his superiors, courteous
and polite; towards his equals, dictatorial; towards his subordinates,
abusive, not to say blasphemous. To this gentleman Charles addressed
himself, inquiring if he had seen William: and he, with a lofty, though
courteous, sense of injury, inquired, in a loud tone of voice, of the
stablemen generally, if any one had seen Mr. Charles's pad-groom.
In a dead silence which ensued, one of the lads was ill-advised enough
to say that he didn't exactly know where he was; which caused Mr.
Dickson to remark that, if that was all he had to say, he had better go
on with his work, and not make a fool of himself--which the man did,
growling out something about always putting his foot in it.
"Your groom comes and goes pretty much as he likes, sir," said Mr.
Dickson. "I don't consider him as under my orders. Had he been so, I
should have felt it my duty to make complaint on more than one occasion;
he is a little too much of the gentleman for _my_ stable, sir."
"Of course, my good Dickson," interrupted Charles, "the fact of his
being my favourite makes you madly jealous of him; that is not the
question now. If you don't know where he is, be so good as to hold your
tongue."
Charles was only now and then insolent and abrupt with servants, and
they liked him the better for it. It was one of Cuthbert's rules to be
coldly, evenly polite, and, as he thought, considerate to the whole
household; and yet they did not like him half so well as Charles, who
would sometimes, when anything went wrong, "kick up," what an
intelligent young Irish footman used to call "the divvle's own shindy."
Cuthbert, they knew, had no sympathy for them, but treated them, as he
treated himself, as mere machines; while Charles had that infinite
capacity of goodwill which none are more quick to recognise than
servants and labouring people. And on this occasion, though Mr. Dickson
might have sworn a little more than usual after Charles's departure, yet
his feeling, on the whole, was that he was sorry for having vexed the
young gentleman by sneering at his favourite.
But Charles, having rescued the enraptured Father Tiernay from the
stable, and having listened somewhat inattentively to a long description
of the Curragh of Kildare, led the worthy priest round the back of the
stables, up a short path through the wood, and knocked at the door of a
long, low keeper's lodge, which stood within a stone's throw of the
other buildings, in an open, grassy glade, through which flowed a
musical, slender stream of water. In one instant, night was hideous with
rattling chains and barking dogs, who made as though they would tear the
intruders to pieces; all except one foolish pointer pup, who was loose,
and who, instead of doing his duty by barking, came feebly up, and cast
himself on his back at their feet, as though they were the car of
Juggernaut, and he was a candidate for paradise. Finding that he was not
destroyed, he made a humiliating feint of being glad to see them, and
nearly overthrew the priest by getting between his legs. But Charles,
finding that his second summons was unanswered, lifted the latch, and
went into the house.
The room they entered was dark, or nearly so, and at the first moment
appeared empty; but, at the second glance, they made out that a figure
was kneeling before the dying embers of the fire, and trying to kindle a
match by blowing on the coals.
"Hullo!" said Charles.
"William, my boy," said a voice which made the priest start, "where have
you been, lad?"
At the same moment a match was lit, and then a candle; as the light
blazed up, it fell on the features of a grey-headed old man, who was
peering through the darkness at them, and the priest cried, "Good God!
Mr. Ravenshoe!"
The likeness for one moment was very extraordinary; but, as the eye grew
accustomed to the light, one saw that the face was the face of a taller
man than Densil, and one, too, who wore the dress of a gamekeeper.
Charles laughed at the priest, and said--
"You were struck, as many have been, by the likeness. He has been so
long with my father that he has the very trick of his voice, and the
look of the eye. Where have you been to-night, James?" he added,
affectionately. "Why do you go out so late alone? If any of those mining
rascals were to be round poaching, you might be killed."
"I can take care of myself yet, Master Charles," said the old man,
laughing; and, to do him justice, he certainly looked as if he could.
"Where is Norah?"
"Gone down to young James Holby's wife; she is lying-in."
"Pretty early, too. Where's Ellen?"
"Gone up to the house."
"See, Father, I shall be disappointed in showing you the belle of
Ravenshoe; and now you will go back to Ireland, fancying you can compete
with us."
Father Tiernay was beginning a story about five Miss Moriartys, who were
supposed to rival in charms and accomplishments any five young ladies in
the world, when his eye was attracted by a stuffed hare in a glass case,
of unusual size and very dark colour.
"That, sir," said James, the keeper, in a bland, polite, explanatory
tone of voice, coming and leaning over him, "is old Mrs. Jewel, that
lived in the last cottage on the right-hand side, under the cliff. I
always thought that it had been Mrs. Simpson, but it was not. I shot
this hare on the Monday, not three hundred yards from Mrs. Jewel's
house; and on the Wednesday the neighbours noticed the shutters hadn't
been down for two days, and broke the door open; and there she was, sure
enough, dead in her bed. I had shot her as she was coming home from some
of her devilries. A quiet old soul she was, though. No, I never thought
it had been she."
It would be totally impossible to describe the changes through which the
broad, sunny face of Father Tiernay went during the above astounding
narration; horror, astonishment, inquiry, and humour were so strangely
blended. He looked in the face of the old gamekeeper, and met the
expression of a man who had mentioned an interesting fact, and had
contributed to the scientific experience of the listener. He looked at
Charles, and met no expression whatever; but the latter said--
"Our witches in these parts, Father, take the form of some inferior
animal when attending their Sabbath or general meetings, which I believe
are presided over by an undoubted gentleman, who is not generally named
in polite society. In this case, the old woman was caught sneaking home
under the form of a hare, and promptly rolled over by James; and here
she is."
Father Tiernay said, "Oh, indeed!" but looked as if he thought the more.
"And there's another of them out now, sir," said the keeper; "and,
Master Charles, dear, if you're going to take the greyhounds out
to-morrow, do have a turn at that big black hare under Birch Tor----"
"A black hare!" said Father Tiernay, aghast.
"Nearly coal-black, your reverence," said James. "She's a witch, your
reverence, and who she is the blessed saints only know. I have seen her
three or four times. If the master was on terms with Squire Humby to
Hele, we might have the harriers over and run her down. But that can't
be, in course. If you take Blue-ruin and Lightning out to-morrow, Master
Charles, and turn her out of the brambles under the rocks, and leave the
Master and Miss Mary against the corner of the stone wall to turn her
down the gully, you must have her."
The look of astonishment had gradually faded from Father Tiernay's face.
It is said that one of the great elements of power in the Roman Catholic
priesthood is that they can lend themselves to any little bit of--well,
of mild deception--which happens to be going. Father Tiernay was up to
the situation. He looked from the keeper to Charles with a bland and
stolid expression of face, and said--
"If she is a witch, mark my words, the dogs will never touch her. The
way would be to bite up a crooked sixpence and fire at her with that. I
shall be there to see the sport. I never hunted a witch yet."
"Has your reverence ever seen a white polecat?" said the keeper.
"No, never," said the priest; "I have heard of them though. My friend,
Mr. Moriarty, of Castledown (not Mountdown Castle, ye understand; that
is the sate of my Lord Mountdown, whose blessed mother was a Moriarty,
the heavens be her bed), claimed to have seen one; but, bedad, no one
else ever saw it, and he said it turned brown again as the season came
round. May the--may the saints have my sowl if I believe a word of it."
"_I_ have one, your reverence; and it is a rarity, I allow. Stoats turn
white often in hard winters, but polecats rarely. If your reverence and
your honour will excuse me a moment, I will fetch it. It was shot by my
Lord Welter when he was staying here last winter. A fine shot is my
lord, your reverence, for so young a man."
He left the room, and the priest and Charles were left alone together.
"Does he believe all this rubbish about witches?" said Father Tiernay.
"As firmly as you do the liquefaction of the blood of----"
"There, there; we don't want all that. Do you believe in it?"
"Of course I don't," said Charles; "but why should I tell him so?"
"Why do you lend yourself to such humbug?"
"Why do you?"
"Begorra, I don't know. I am always lending. I lent a low-browed,
hang-jawed spalpeen of a Belgian priest two pound the other day, and
sorra a halfpenny of it will me mother's son ever see again. Hark!"
There were voices approaching the lodge--the voices of two uneducated
persons quarrelling; one that of a man, and the other of a woman. They
both made so much out in a moment. Charles recognised the voices, and
would have distracted the priest's attention, and given those without
warning that there were strangers within; but, in his anxiety to catch
what was said, he was not ready enough, and they both heard this.
The man's voice said fiercely, "You did."
The woman's voice said, after a wild sob, "I did not."
"You did. I saw you. You are a liar as well as----"
"I swear I didn't. Strike me dead, Bill, if there's been anything
wrong."
"No. If I thought there had, I'd cut his throat first and yours after."
"If it had been _him_, Bill, you wouldn't have used me like this."
"Never you mind that."
"You want to drive me mad. You do. You hate me. Master Charles hates me.
Oh, I wish I was mad."
"I'd sooner see you chained by the waist in the straw than see what I
saw to-night." Then followed an oath.
The door was rudely opened, and there entered first of all our old
friend, Charles's groom, William, who seemed beside himself with
passion, and after him a figure which struck the good Irishman dumb with
amazement and admiration--a girl as beautiful as the summer morning,
with her bright brown hair tangled over her forehead, and an expression
of wild terror and wrath on her face, such as one may conceive the old
sculptor wished to express when he tried, and failed, to carve the face
of the Gorgon.
She glared on them both in her magnificent beauty only one moment. Yet
that look, as of a lost soul of another world, mad, hopeless, defiant,
has never past from the memory of either of them.
She was gone in an instant into an inner room, and William was standing
looking savagely at the priest. In another moment his eyes had wandered
to Charles, and then his face grew smooth and quiet, and he said--
"We've been quarrelling, sir; don't you and this good gentleman say
anything about it. Master Charles, dear, she drives me mad sometimes.
Things are not going right with her."
Charles and the priest walked thoughtfully home together.
"Allow me to say, Ravenshoe," said the priest, "that, as an Irishman, I
consider myself a judge of remarkable establishments. I must say
honestly that I have seldom or never met with a great house with so many
queer elements about it as yours. You are all remarkable people. And, on
my honour, I think that our friend Mackworth is the most remarkable man
of the lot."