BAD NEWS.
Passing through Kingslough _en route_ from India to Woodbrook, Mr. John
Riley was so fortunate as to obtain a good view of the vagabond
procession that accompanied Mr. Brady’s effigy to its resting-place; and
perhaps that gentleman had never felt so little proud of his countrymen
as when—his driver compelled to draw the horse on one side and halt, in
order to allow the rabble to pass—he beheld a crowd composed of the very
scum of the population marching in irregular fashion to the noise made
by several cows’-horns, a fife, a drum, and a fiddle, the latter musical
instrument being played by a blind man seated in a rickety cart, to
which, with sundry broken leathern straps and stronger pieces of rope, a
half-starved donkey was harnessed.
There they came, the lowest of the low, accompanied by women who looked
as though they had lost every attribute of their sex, and were indeed
only human because of their utter abject misery. On they came, most of
them women, ragged, bonnetless, shoeless, and stockingless, clad in dirt
as in a garment; their masses of unkempt, uncared-for hair, twisted into
loose untidy coils at the back of their heads; a terrible sight to one
who had almost forgotten such a sight was to be seen. Nor were the men
one whit better, shambling along in old shoes never made for them, with
torn coats or jackets, with trousers from which every trace of the
original cloth had vanished, with hats and caps of every conceivable
form, battered, rimless, napless, or ragged, with tufts of hair in some
instances shooting like rank grass through holes in the crown, with
faces always wild, reckless, haggard, now lit up with an almost demoniac
excitement. On they came, cheering, cursing, singing, shouting, followed
pell-mell by all the rosy-cheeked, fair-haired, bare-legged,
bare-footed, dirty-faced children in the town, who danced after the
procession right merrily. Some there were better clothed than those
composing the mass of the crowd: men with sedate faces and unmended
coats and sound shoes, who looked as though they gave their presence as
a solemn duty, but who were careful to keep on the sidepaths, and allow
the unwashed multitude in the roadway as wide a berth as possible.
In the middle of the people, borne on the shoulders of four stalwart
ruffians, was the so-called corpse; a door torn from its hinges serving
the purpose of a bier, and a piece of sacking answering for a pall.
A hideous spectacle altogether; but then as now there was no particular
reason why the innocent diversions of the masses should be interfered
with.
“What are they doing—what does it mean—what is it all about?” asked Mr.
Riley of his driver.
“Don’t keep your face turned their way,” answered the man in a hurried
whisper. “If they even[1] who you are they’ll be wantin’ to chair you.
It’s burying Brady’s effigy all this is about. Come, now, keep your
distance all of you,” he continued, addressing some irrepressible
beggars, who, seeing a stranger, at once appealed to him for help, and
with scant ceremony he began using his whip to right and left, and so
kept the most importunate at bay till the procession had passed.
Footnote 1:
Guess.
“What has Mr. Brady been doing now?” asked Mr. Riley with some
curiosity, as they drove on once more.
“Nothin’ much fresh, yer honour; but they’ve taken a hathred to him, and
wanted to hang him, but the magistrates wouldn’t let them put up a
gallows, so now they’re goin’ to bury him on the seashore. He’s away to
Dublin to get all the law money can buy against Amos Scott, and that has
stirred them up a bit.”
Meantime the crowd surged on to the beach, which the receding tide had
left bare, and across the shore still wet and glistening, through pools
of water, over slippery bunches of seaweed, the bearers went, stumbling
and staggering, whilst the band playing more lugubrious airs than ever
led the way, and the men and the women and the children followed
hooting, laughing, screaming.
Arrived at the extremest distance from high-water mark it was possible
to reach, a hole was dug and the body tossed in. The most voluble member
of the assemblage then mounted the donkey-cart, and with a sheet wrapped
round him to imitate a surplice, proceeded to deliver a travesty of the
Burial Service over the grave. In language as deficient of ordinary
decency as it was full of horrible profanity, he recounted the history
of Daniel Brady from his cradle to his grave, and narrated to an
admiring audience the way of life chosen by this man whose loss they had
to deplore. A few there were among the bystanders possessed of courage
enough to cry “Shame!” at passages more than usually ribald and impious,
but their voices were drowned by shrieks of laughter, by cheers and
exclamations of appreciation.
When the merriment had reached its height, however, a man came picking
his steps over the shore, and making his way a little into the crowd,
shouted, “Silence!” in a tone that rang high above the clamour, and
seemed to wander out like the dying sound of a clarion’s note over the
quiet sea.
“We can’t have any more of this,” he said. “Robert Sweeney take off that
rag and get out of the cart. McIlwrath, I am astonished to see a
respectable man like you countenancing such disgraceful proceedings. Be
off home all of you. I shall not allow you to stay here another minute.”
“You’ll let us cover the poor fellow up snug, or the tide ’ll be taking
him a dance?” entreated one man with a squint and short of an arm.
“Be quick about it then,” was the answer, and the sand was shovelled in,
and then trodden down by heavy boots, each bystander who wore such
articles giving the grave a hearty kick, even the women left the prints
of their feet on the surface; and then Mr. Sweeney having laconically
disposed of both body and soul in a sentence it is unnecessary to
transcribe, but which restored thorough good humour amongst the cowed
and sullen assemblage,—the people straggled off, leaving the
constabulary officer alone.
“It was better to let them finish their work,” he said to himself as he
paced slowly by the water’s edge, looking after the retreating rabble,
“or we should have had the thing tossing in and out with every tide.
After all, Mr. Brady,” he went on, “if straws do show how the wind
blows, I should not particularly care to stand in your shoes to-day.”
Of the scene which greeted his arrival in Kingslough, Mr. Riley wrote a
vivid description to his old friend Mrs. Hartley; nothing could have
pleased that lady better. She felt delighted that his first letter from
Woodbrook should be one she could show Miss Moffat.
Handing it over to that young lady, she said, “Here is an Irish sketch
drawn by a native. It is certainly not complimentary to your favourites.
Read the letter, it will amuse you.”
But as Grace read, her face betokened anything rather than amusement;
and when she finished, she folded it up and remarked,—
“I think Mr. Riley’s taste in writing that letter open to question.”
“You should try and excuse his want of appreciation, Grace; remember he
has laboured under the disadvantage of living many years in another
country and amongst other people.”
“It is of very little consequence whether I excuse him or not, I
imagine,” replied Miss Moffat. She had not yet seen this man returned
from foreign parts. Mrs. Hartley had been visited by him in London, and
reported that he was much changed in every respect.
In what way this change exhibited itself, Grace did not care to inquire.
That he had not come home to be at her beck and call, she perfectly
understood from Mrs. Hartley’s manner of saying,—
“He begged me to give his kind regards to Miss Moffat if she had not
quite forgotten an old acquaintance.”
From that day it was a noticeable thing, Miss Moffat never spoke of him
as John.
The old familiar name, retained almost unconsciously through years, was
laid aside and Mr. Riley took its place. Of course, he could know
nothing of what she had done for him and his. How she had offered her
money to save Woodbrook. How she had looked forward to seeing him once
again with a mingled feeling of pleasure and pain, and it was right,
quite right, he should look upon and think of her almost as a stranger.
“A lover never can be a friend,” she thought a little bitterly. “He
never is able to forget having been refused,” which is not perhaps so
unnatural as Grace seemed inclined to imagine.
And now came this letter; ah! the John she remembered never would have
written such an one—never could, she might have conceded.
His proclivities had always of course been towards Toryism, but he was
not hard against the people; he knew their faults, but he loved their
virtues; and now the first day he returned he could write an account of
what he saw, and turn the very sins of the Irish into ridicule.
Further, he never once mentioned Nettie, although it was her husband’s
effigy he beheld borne along by the populace, and he said little about
Woodbrook and the state in which he found affairs; of Lucy’s marriage
the only mention he made was a remark to the effect that, following the
traditions of the family, she having no fortune had cast her lot with a
husband who had no fortune either.
Altogether Grace felt far from satisfied. Mr. Riley recently returned
from India, and John—dear old John of the happy days at Bayview—were two
very different persons. On the whole Miss Moffat felt grateful to Lord
Ardmorne for arranging the Woodbrook mortgage without any great amount
of help from her.
“It might have made it very awkward,” she considered. “He might have
fancied it necessary to be civil to me in consequence.”
And this as matters stood, Mr. John Riley evidently did not imagine
necessary.
At the end of his letter, he begged to send his kind regards to Miss
Moffat. That was all. No sentence about Bayview, no reference to the
places both of them knew so well. To Miss Moffat it was rather a new
feeling that of being left out in the cold, and she did not like it.
Mr. Riley’s letter, however, supplied her with food for reflection
besides that enumerated.
Hitherto Grace had merely known vaguely that Mr. Brady was an
undesirable acquaintance, a man fond of driving hard bargains, of
overreaching his neighbours if he could; a man of whom his wife stood in
dread, of whom the world had nothing to tell which redounded to his
credit, but now all these sins and shortcomings were italicized in her
mind, and a dread of some great evil befalling Nettie in consequence of
the information she had given began to haunt her night and day.
She was totally in the power of this man whom the people vilified; whose
effigy they had carried through the streets, and buried with every act
of contumely they could devise. She was, though in her own country,
friendless, penniless, helpless.
She had dared much in order to save those who, though her own relatives,
formerly discarded her; and this very courage and forgetfulness of
wrongs in a great extremity helped to recommend Nettie more tenderly
than ever to her old friend.
What could she do to make matters better for her? Even in the solitude
of her own chamber, Grace blushed and winced to think all she could
offer any one was money; but still believing the day might come when
Nettie would need it, she sat down and wrote her a long touching letter,
saying how hurt she felt to hear of some recent events just come to her
knowledge; how she dreaded lest evil might arise out of past
circumstances, to which she need not refer more particularly; how she
begged and implored her if evil did arise to come at once to England and
the writer. In a postscript Grace added that, lest she should at any
time want money on a sudden emergency, she enclosed sufficient to meet
whatever exigency might arise.
This letter she enclosed in one to Mr. Hanlon, begging him to give it
into the hands of the person to whom it was addressed.
As she did so, Grace could not help smiling, and yet sighing at the
memory of her Pharisaism when first Nettie devised this mode of
communication.
“Ah! I did not know so much then as I do now,” thought Miss Moffat,
speaking mentally, as is the habit of young ladies of small experience
and limited worldly knowledge, as if she were about seventy years of
age.
To this letter, after some delay, came an answer.
Nettie returned the money. She dared not keep it, she said, or she would
have done so. She should never have a moment’s peace were it in the
house, lest it might be discovered. Earnestly, though in few words, she
thanked Grace for all her kindness; but “do not write to me again,” she
added, “it is too great a risk to run. If ever you are able to help me,
I will let you know. I never can doubt you or forget the pleasant days
that may come again no more for ever. If I never see you in this world
again, remember Gracie I love you far, far, more at last than I did at
the first. I did not think I could cry, no matter what came or went; and
yet still as I write good-bye, the words are blotted with tears.”
The days went on, and Mrs. Hartley and Grace were planning an autumn
tour, with a half-formed intention of lengthening their foreign travel
by going on to Rome and wintering in the Eternal City.
To Grace the idea was very pleasant. To Mrs. Hartley the prospect, much
as she valued English luxuries and prized home comforts, not
disagreeable.
“I should not go unless you were with me,” she said, however, to her
visitor; and Grace pressed her hand in reply.
The two women were exactly suited to each other. Mrs. Hartley’s
unvarying cheerfulness; her sound common sense; her abundant worldly
knowledge; her stores of information;—these things were very good for a
young woman like Grace, who was naturally somewhat dreamy and
imaginative, and whose experiences of society, of men and women, and
manners and morals, were, notwithstanding her feeling that she had been
living and learning through centuries, had hitherto been limited to an
extremely small circle.
On the other hand, Grace was the very person with whom to live happily.
There were no wills and musts in her nature; she had no ways of her own
that she insisted upon other people travelling; she was amiable,
generous, frank, and gentle-mannered, and, to crown all her other
excellences, she was, as Mrs. Hartley said, as good as a picture to look
at.
To women whose day, if they ever had one, is over, who have ceased to
compete for those prizes of love and admiration which all women are
anxious to secure, even though they may not put themselves forward in
the struggle, there is something extremely pleasant in the contemplation
of a pretty face, and Grace’s face was grateful to Mrs. Hartley’s
critical eyes.
“I wonder what John would think of her now,” she often asked herself.
“Would he fear to make a second attempt to win her, or dare I hope all
may come right in the end. She is the wife for him, he is the husband
for her, if they both can only be induced to think so. I must contrive
to get him to join us somehow abroad,” which was indeed the secret
reason for Mrs. Hartley’s advocacy of the foreign tour and her
hesitation on the subject of Rome.
“Rome is a long way off,” she argued, “but we shall see what we shall
see; time enough to settle about where we shall winter when the autumn
comes.”
Things as regards Grace were in this tranquil state, when one afternoon,
while Mrs. Hartley was out on a visiting expedition, from which her
guest had begged to be excused, Miss Moffat, seated in a low chair by
the window of her own especial sanctum, a small morning room which had
been fitted up for and appropriated to her use, took the ‘Times’ that
chanced to be lying close to her hand.
It was a warm day, one of those glorious summer afternoons so frequent
in England, which are trying nevertheless to those born and bred in a
colder climate, and Grace, tired and languid, let her eyes wander over
the sheet, reading nothing in particular, but culling a paragraph here
and another there with a sort of lazy and unexcited interest.
Suddenly, however, something met her sight which riveted her attention;
she grasped the paper more firmly, she sat upright instead of leaning
back; she pushed her hair away from her face as though it oppressed her,
and then read the passage which had caught her notice once again more
carefully. This was what it contained,—
“A shocking murder is reported as having taken place in the north of
Ireland, hitherto comparatively free from the charge of agrarian
outrage. The victim is a Mr. Brady, a gentleman of some property, and
connected by marriage with several families of ancient lineage and high
standing. The unfortunate gentleman was discovered about a mile from his
own house quite dead, though still warm. A dispute about some land is
supposed to have urged on his murderer. A man named Scott has been taken
into custody; a stick with which the fatal blow was dealt, and known to
have belonged to Scott, having been found near the spot. The unfortunate
gentleman had not yet reached the prime of life. He leaves a widow and
several children to deplore his untimely fate.”
There are truths so terrible that the mind at first absolutely refuses
to accept them, and like one in a dream with a stunned surprise, Grace
Moffat read and re-read the paragraph, unable to realize its meaning.
Then suddenly the full horror of its statement broke upon her. It had
come, then, this trouble, the prevision of which she now understood she
had felt that morning when she and Mr. Hanlon walked over to the Castle
Farm. It had come at a moment when she was least prepared for it, when
her thoughts were far distant from Ireland; when, much as she loved her
own country, she was becoming reconciled to the ways and manners of
another country; when she was learning to like English people, and
beginning, as the young always can do, to find an interest in the hopes,
fears, and projects of those with whom she was thrown.
How the next half-hour was passed Grace never precisely knew. The
servants, glad in that orderly household of an excitement of any kind,
prepared and retailed many versions of how Marrables—Mrs. Hartley’s
highly respectable butler, who had a presence like a bishop and a face
solemn and important as that of a parish clerk—hearing the bell ring
violently hurried to the morning room, where he found Miss Moffat
standing in the middle of the apartment looking like death itself; how
surprised out of his dignified deportment for once, he said before he
was spoken to,—
“Gracious! Miss, what has happened, and what is the matter?”
To which she replied,—“Get me something; I have had a great shock.” He
fetched her wine and the housemaid water, and the lady’s maid
smelling-salts and eau-de-cologne and a fan; whilst the butler suggested
the propriety of sending at once for a doctor.
“No,” said Miss Moffat authoritatively, “I shall be better soon;” and
she sat down and leaned back and shut her eyes, the trio regarding her
with interest, not unmixed with awe the while.
Then almost directly she opened her eyes, and looking at them one after
the other, remarked,—
“It is not true, is it?”
“No, Miss,” answered Marrables promptly; his acquaintance with illness
was slight, but he had always heard sick people ought to be humoured.
“Ah! I forgot,” said Miss Moffat wearily. “Pour me out some wine and
water, Marrables, I will take it now; and Taylor,” turning to Mrs.
Hartley’s maid, “I wish you would pack up some dresses and linen for me;
I must go to Ireland to-night.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“And directly Mrs. Hartley returns let me know.”
“Mrs. Hartley is here now,” exclaimed Marrables, and went out to meet
his mistress, followed reluctantly by his fellow-servants.
Into the room came Mrs. Hartley dressed in all her bravery, with a face
expressive of the utmost anxiety.
“What is all this, Grace, that Marrables has been frightening me with?
Why, child, what has happened? You look as if you had seen a ghost.”
For answer, Grace picked up the ‘Times’ and handed it to her friend,
pointing out the paragraph she wished her to read. Marrables saw her do
it, and it was not long before he had read the passage also.
“What are you thinking of doing?” asked Mrs. Hartley, drawing her out
into the open air, and holding a parasol over her.
“I shall go to Ireland to-night,” Grace answered.
“For what purpose?”
“Chiefly to be with Nettie, partly to see if anything can be done for
Amos.”
“You think he is guilty.”
“I do not see that there can be any doubt of that. He must have been
mad; but I suppose whether mad or not he will have to suffer for it all
the same.”
Mrs. Hartley paused. She took in the position at once; she knew Grace’s
temperament, and she felt certain she would never rest content to remain
inactive at such a juncture.
“Money can do a great deal,” she remarked at last, “and influence more;
and in any case I know it will be a comfort hereafter for you to think
both were brought to bear on this case. Yes, my love, I will not say a
word to dissuade you from your intention; I would offer to go with you
myself if I thought I could be of any real assistance. Marrables shall
accompany you as far as Dublin—there Mr. Nicholson can see to you. And,
Grace, do not fret about the matter more than you can possibly avoid. A
loophole may be found for Scott to creep through, and as for Nettie, I
fancy she will be far happier as a widow than ever she was as a wife.”
“Oh! do not say that,” Grace entreated. “It was almost the first idea
which occurred to me, and I hated myself for it.”
“Well, we will not say anything about it then,” agreed Mrs. Hartley,
“although if he has left her comfortably off—” but here Miss Moffat
stopped her ears and refused to listen. She was recovering from the
first effect of the blow, but she could not bear to hear the tragedy
discussed in this matter-of-fact, cool, business-like style.
Young people are occasionally somewhat unreasonable. It jarred against
Grace’s sensibilities to hear some two hours later the dinner-bell ring
just as though Mr. Brady were not lying at Maryville stiff and cold, and
Amos Scott not in Kilcurragh Gaol charged with his murder. Perhaps Mrs.
Hartley guessed something of this, for she said,—
“Now, Grace, unless you eat I shall not allow you to go. Fasting may be
all very well in its way, and I dare say it is, but it is not well when
a young lady has a long journey before her, and the prospect of a
considerable amount of work to follow.”
Hearing which remark Mr. Marrables, who waited upon the ladies with his
accustomed dignity, took especial care to fortify his system with a
thorough good meal, and to provide against any casualties in the way of
starvation by packing up a goodly supply of edibles, and laying the
cellar likewise under contribution to a moderate though judicious
extent.
After all, if the English are unimpulsive, they are useful; if they are
undemonstrative, they are not heartless. Grace was forced to admit both
these facts when she discovered everything she could possibly require
packed up without a question being asked on the subject; when she found
her travelling-dress laid out for her to don before dinner that she
might not be obliged to hurry from table; when she saw the carriage
brought round to a second, and beheld Marrables, after he had shut her
and Mrs. Hartley within, mount on the box beside the coachman with no
more fuss than if he were merely going to attend his mistress to the
station; when she heard Mrs. Hartley, who, as a rule, did not like
shortening her meals, remark,—
“Now, my dear, I think it is time we were putting on our bonnets,” and
go off to prepare for a twelve miles’ drive as if it were in the
ordinary course of things for an elderly lady to consider her own ease
so little.
These things all impressed Grace sensibly, as did one other little
trifle. At the last moment it was discovered that by some oversight Miss
Moffat’s warm shawl had been left behind.
“Fetch my cloak out of the brougham,” said Mrs. Hartley immediately,
and, spite of her guest’s remonstrances, she insisted on Grace taking it
with her.
“Such magnificence!” exclaimed Miss Moffat, looking at the fur lining
and the satin outside.
“Nonsense; it is old and worn, and shabby, but it will keep you warm.
Good-bye now, my child—come back to me safe and sound—God bless you!”
And the train was off.