In the meantime Mr. Blair had heard from Mr. Plunkett an account of the
children's behavior, and at dinner that evening he spoke about it to
Nessa.
"Mr. Plunkett does not know how to manage people," she said, after she
had explained the story from the children's point of view. "It is a
pity."
"Ah!" said her uncle, amused at the quaint gravity with which she
announced her opinion.
"I do not like him," she continued. "He is hard. He is bad for the
children."
"What! have you been thinking about it?" said her uncle. "You astonish
me. I thought he was wonderfully good for the children."
"No," said Nessa, "because he does not understand them, and he does
not like them. He makes them angry. I do not think it would be very
difficult for these children to be good. Mr. Plunkett thinks that all
they do is wrong; other people think that all is right. It is very bad
for them to be so much scolded, and it is bad for them to be so much
flattered."
"So Plunkett thinks all is wrong, does he?" asked Mr. Blair.
"Yes," said Nessa; "he does not see anything but the wrong, and he
scolds the children. He makes them proud and angry; and then I think
they _like_ to do what he does not want."
"But, my dear child, they always like to do what I don't want," said
her uncle. "Why do they always bang the doors? Why do they shout under
my windows? Why do they get up at six o'clock and clatter up and down
the passage when I am enjoying my soundest sleep? Answer me all these
questions, little advocate."
"They bang the doors because they are always in a hurry," said Nessa,
smiling. "They shout because they are happy. They get up early--well,
the birds get up early, too."
"Well, well," replied her uncle, laughing, "have it your own way. But
you must learn to appreciate Plunkett's other qualities. He saves me
more trouble than twenty other men would do in his place."
"Perhaps he is very useful," said Nessa, "but he is not interesting."
"He is most interesting to me," returned Mr. Blair. "I have twenty
pounds now for every ten I used to have, and he has succeeded in making
the cottagers keep roofs on their houses, and conform to a few other
customs of civilization. He has done it at the risk of his life, too,"
he continued, in a more serious tone. "More than one of the men about
here would think it a praiseworthy action to shoot him some dark night.
Plunkett knows it, and after all, your martyrs of the middle ages did
not do so very much more than persevere in their duty when they knew it
might cost them their life."
"Yes, that is brave," said Nessa, looking up.
Her uncle's words made Mr. Plunkett's character appear to her in a new
light, but they gave her an unpleasant creeping sensation. She was
beginning to think that Ireland was a very unsafe place to live in.
"Well," said her uncle, as they rose to leave the dining-room, "are you
convinced now of Plunkett's excellent qualities?"
"Yes," replied Nessa, "but--"
"But what?"
"I do not think I could like him; he is not kind."
"Ah, you true woman!" replied Mr. Blair. "You won't acknowledge
yourself beaten; but ask his little daughter Marion if he is not kind."
Instead of going to the drawing-room Nessa went straight to the
schoolroom, but she found it empty. Soon the door of the schoolroom
slowly opened, and Winnie entered singing, followed by Murtagh, who was
playing the violin and singing too.
They did not see Nessa, who had withdrawn into the shadow of the
curtain, but stood still together in a broad strip of moonlight near
the table singing as though their whole souls were in a song. Winnie's
head was thrown back, her face looked white, her eyes unnaturally large
and dark in the strange light. Murtagh had bent his head to one side
over the violin, and his face was in shadow.
Nessa stood entranced, watching the weird little figures. But as their
voices rose to a strange sweet wail that formed the refrain, Murtagh's
hand slipped. A sudden shriek of wrong notes was the result; both the
children stopped singing, and he impatiently flung the violin on the
table, exclaiming, "That's always the way when I'm just getting it
best."
"There's a string gone, and that'll be sixpence to save up before we
can have another singing night," remarked Winnie, ruefully, as a slight
snap from the violin announced the mischief that had been done.
Nessa advanced from the window, and suggested that perhaps the string
would be long enough to be used again.
"Are you there?" exclaimed Winnie, taking up the violin. "No; it's the
same string that broke last time. Myrrh, I do wish you wouldn't pitch
the violin about so; couldn't you remember to give it to me every time
instead of throwing it down?"
"Especially," remarked Rosie, who had come in with Bobbo, "when it's
all your fault. If you practised every day the way you promised mamma,
you'd never make those horrid squeaks."
"Shut up!" said Murtagh, flinging himself down on the hearth-rug.
Winnie hovered about, watching Nessa's useless endeavors to make a
short string long enough, and finally settled down upon the hearth-rug;
while Rosie remarked that she was going to bed, and went away.
"You'll be throwing it in the river by mistake some of these nights,
Murtagh," said Bobbo, "and that'll be an awful nuisance."
"Don't bother him!" said Winnie. "We are so tired."
"I'm sick and tired of everything," exclaimed Murtagh, presently.
"Everything's wrong, whatever you do; I think I'd like to be nice and
quietly dead, then things wouldn't be all so puzzling."
"I'm so tired now," said Winnie, wearily laying her head on a
footstool, "that I think I'd like to be dead or anything where you
don't feel."
"Poor children!" said Nessa, "you are tired out."
"It isn't being tired I mind," said Murtagh, "but it's so dreadfully
difficult all about what's right and what's wrong. I cannot understand,
and I wish--yes, I really do wish I was dead."
"But that is not brave," said Nessa, gently. "I do not think we need
be afraid of our lives, because there is always so much good that we
don't know of. I felt afraid when I had to come here, and now I am very
happy after all."
"Yes, but," said Murtagh, "it isn't like that; only it does puzzle me
so about the wrong sides of things. We were so wretched all the week
trying to keep Theresa, and we couldn't laugh at anything, and when we
woke up in the morning we thought about her the first thing. But then
we thought we ought to keep her; we thought Rosie was talking nonsense.
Well, afterwards, all of a sudden, we find out we were all wrong
somehow!"
"Oh, no," said Nessa, "you were not all wrong. How can you say that
when you were so kind and so brave?"
Murtagh's face brightened for a moment, but then he said: "Yes; but
Winnie and I have been thinking, and it came right in the end because
you helped us; but we didn't bring it right. We only made Mrs. Daly
miserable, and Theresa miserable, and ourselves miserable. We wouldn't
desert her because we always thought it was mean deserting people, and
all the time Rosie was right; and it is very funny, being brave is
worse than being cowardly."
"Ah," said Nessa, "but you are mistaking the part that was wrong. If
you had been older, you would not have hidden Theresa in the island at
all, because you would have known all the trouble it would bring; you
would have come at once to Uncle Blair. But then you couldn't help not
being older, and when you had hidden her there, much the best thing you
could do was to be brave. If you had taken her back at first, you would
never have got the money."
The explanation satisfied Murtagh for a moment, but then he said: "It
wasn't our keeping her that got the money. If you hadn't been here, we
could never have got it. And supposing it had done what Mr. Plunkett
said; supposing it had killed Mrs. Daly?"
"I don't know how to explain," she said, "but I know I love you for
doing as you did."
Bobbo sitting nearest her gave her hand a fervent squeeze. It was new
and pleasant to them to be loved.
"And wait one moment," she continued; "I think now I can explain a
little, too. You know we are not perfect, and the thing we have to do
is to try and be as good as we can. We are quite sure to make mistakes,
but I think we ought to be brave enough to go on trying, and then God
_is_ kind; he will let us have done most good by the time we have to
stop. Don't you think so?"
"I think if you were always here, we should always do most good," said
Murtagh, warmly.
And Nessa, changing her manner, laughed and kissed his forehead,
saying: "Ah, you mad fellow, if I were always with you, I would not let
you do so many foolish things, and you would wish me very far away."